Religion: The Answer Is the Question

We should have questions on everything, about everything.

— Bernard J.F. Lonergan

CANADIAN Jesuit Bernard J.F. Lonergan is considered by many intellectuals to be the finest philosophic thinker of the 20th century. This month, 77 of the best minds in Europe and the Americas — critics and admirers, Protestants, Roman Catholics and agnostics — gathered to examine Lonergan's profoundly challenging work at rural St. Leo College near Tampa, Fla.

Many of the names were celebrated: English Philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, smoking her trademark cigar, Radical Poet Kenneth Rexroth, Expatriate Catholic Theologian Charles Davis, Biblical Scholar...