Date of Award
4-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Publisher
Santa Clara : Santa Clara University, 2024
Degree Name
Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL)
Director
Monica Marcelli-Chu
Abstract
While exercising ministry in my home country, Cameroon, I have lived the negative effects of the internal confusion that can sometimes bedevil human life and the external chaos that can envelop society because of war. The case in point which I consider throughout this thesis is that of James Fonyuy, who experienced the death of his parents and family members. The savage hostility in my country and many other African countries has clearly revealed to me the troubling dichotomy between faith professed and faith lived. For this reason, this thesis attempts at eliminating this perceived wedge and replacing it instead with a bridge that links confession to praxis. Aquinas' conception of Happiness has been considered in relation to Bernard Lonergan's dialectics of history as an integrated approach in reconstructing happiness towards flourishing for the African continent. The methodological foundation for my inquiry is James Bretzke's hybrid method of Scriptures, Tradition, Rational Reflection on the Normatively Human and Human Experiences. This groundwork is complexified by Lonergan's dialectics of history in a way that historical consciousness permeates the investigation.
The outcome of this thesis is the realization that Africans are deeply wounded by the consequences of colonialism and post-colonialism. These wounds are glaring in systemic and individual aspects of corruption, poverty, traumas, wars, and ethnic conflicts. Even with such wounds, there is inherent goodness in Africans including the ethics of community living, care for creation, and care for the other. These values are to be retrieved in a "Renewed Africanness." This Renewed Africanness, I propose could start in Small Christian Communities.
Recommended Citation
Berneri, Chrisanttus Nakanda, "Happiness in Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan's Tripolar Dialectics of History: Towards Africa's Flourishing" (2024). Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations. 133.
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/jst_dissertations/133