Now, what Ong refers to as the world-as-view sense of life involves closed-systems thinking -- as does what Lonergan refers to as the classicist worldview.
What Ong refers to as the opening of closed systems of thinking involves what Lonergan refers to as historical-mindedness -- as exemplified in Greenblatt's book The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.
In my estimate, the American Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray (1904-1967; doctorate in Catholic theology, Gregorian University in Rome, 1937) assimilated Lonergan's terminology about the classicist worldview and historical-mindedness with astonishing alacrity. Murray had been instrumental in the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the Roman Catholic Church. He drafted the Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom. Subsequently, Murray discussed it in his article "The Declaration on Religious Freedom: Its Deeper Significance" in the Jesuit-sponsored magazine America, volume 114 (April 23, 1966): pages 592-593. In his article, Murray uses Lonergan's terminology. For example, Murray says, "It was the transition from the classical mentality to historical consciousness. . . . The whole document is permeated by historical consciousness" (page 592).
Later in his article, Murray says, "A work of differentiation between the sacral and the secular has been effected in history. But differentiation is not the highest stage in human growth. The movement toward a new synthesis, within which the differentiation will at once subsist, integral and unconfused, and also be transcended in a higher unity" (page 593).
No doubt Murray's frame of reference here is the Roman Catholic Church, and no doubt the new syntheses worked out by Ong and Lonergan could contribute to the Church's growth toward the highest stage envisioned by Murray. Nevertheless, in my estimate, Greenblatt's book The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve may fairly be described as a contribution to the secular side's growth toward the highest stage envisioned by Murray for the Church. I don't mean that his book is beyond criticism. It can be criticized.
For pointed criticism of Greenblatt's book, see Marilynne Robinson's incisive review of it in the New York Times Book Review dated October 8, 2017, page 18. To whatever extent Greenblatt's book may be uninformed, as Robinson claims it is in certain respects, those are shortcomings that Greenblatt can perhaps correct in subsequent publications -- or perhaps others can correct them, as Robinson herself does by quoting a pertinent statement made by John Calvin (1509-1564) about Adam and Eve.
Nevertheless, Robinson's criticisms to the contrary notwithstanding, and my own criticism of Greenblatt for not discussing Ong's account of Milton's closure of existence notwithstanding, Greenblatt's book is a valuable contribution -- a step in the right direction. To use a characterization that is popular is certain circles, it is "good enough." It is not only a "good enough" step in the direction of the highest stage of growth envisioned by Murray, but also a step in the direction of Ong's sweeping account of Western cultural history in his mature work from the early 1950s onward.
Now, because Ong and Lonergan and Murray were Jesuits, I should point out here that the short book known as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuits, includes a subsection titled "Principle and Foundation" (standardized numbered subsection 23.1-7). Basically, it is a statement of overall purpose roughly parallel to Milton's statement of overall purpose. St. Ignatius Loyola's statement of overall purpose establishes a logical structure for his instructions about how to proceed to engaged in guided imagistic meditations and reflections about one's own life.
I am borrowing Havelock's terminology about imagistic thinking -- in his 1963 book Preface to Plato, mentioned above. I would argue that imagistic thinking is relevant to Greenblatt's repeated discussions of images portrayed in various works of art.
As part of their Jesuit training, Ong and Lonergan and Murray, like all Jesuits, twice made a 30-day retreat in silence (except for daily conferences with the retreat director) following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. One of his frequently repeated instructions calls for the application of the senses to the imagistic biblical scene that the retreatant is meditating on. In Greenblatt's terminology, the application of the senses to each imagistic biblical scene would help make it real to the retreatant.
As far as I know, the biblical scene of Adam and Eve in the garden is not included in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. However, the culminating exercise is titled Contemplation to Attain Love (meaning the love of God; standardized numbered subsections 230 to 237). The split focus is on oneself, on the one hand, and, on the other, all of God's creation. (I have no idea why neither account of creation in Genesis is not explicitly used in this exercise. But I am sure that St. Ignatius Loyola just recorded spiritual exercises that he himself had found helpful -- under the guidance of one spiritual director or another.)
Making such a 30-day retreat involves an inward turn of one's consciousness -- while one is wide awake. Jesuit spirituality involves an inward turn of one's consciousness -- while one is wide awake.
For a Freudian psychoanalytic discussion of the feminine dimension of St. Ignatius Loyola's psyche and his mystical experiences, see the American Jesuit psychiatrist W. W. Meissner's book The Psychology of a Saint: Ignatius of Loyola (Yale University Press, 1992).
Now, in The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, Greenblatt describes the blind Milton's experience of writing (dictating to scribes) Paradise Lost -- when he was wide awake, but after he had been visited during his sleep by a feminine figure that he regarded as his inner Muse. The Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961), would refer to Milton's Muse as an anima figure in his psyche.
Greenblatt says, "Each night in the early hours of the morning, if we can believe him [Milton], he had in this inner world of his [in his psyche] a female visitor. Milton called his nightly visitor Urania. The name was pagan, the ancient Muse of astronomy, but in Latin its literal meaning is 'heavenly one,' and she was for Milton the mysterious force within him that was enabling him at long last to write the great epic poem that he had dreamed all his life that he was destined to write. . . . I think we must take Milton's claim of celestial visitation, however strange it sounds, seriously. The Muse would come to him, as he put it, 'unimplored'" (page 201).
I agree with Greenblatt that we should take Milton's claim seriously, because I agree with Jung that we have inner resources in our psyches that we need to learn how to access and draw on in our lives -- perhaps even in our sleep. Had Jung been aware of Milton's claim, I am sure that he would have been interested in it, because Jung was fascinated with H. Rider Haggard's book She (1886) -- as involving the inner feminine forces in the human psyche. In Greenblatt's book, he repeatedly discusses misogyny (pages 6, 121-123, 125-127, 129-133, 136-137, 211, 220, and 342).
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