HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES
FINGERS
POINTING TO THE MOON
FINGER1 FINGER2
FINGER3
FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON
AN ANALYSIS OF THE
THEOLOGICAL METHOD
OF KARL RAHNER AND EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX
IN THE CASE OF CHRIST AND AN EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
Liem Pham, S.J.
Lời để chuyển ý, được ý hãy quên
lời.
If you get the meaning, forget the word.
(Trang Tử)
Bè để
qua sông, qua sông hãy bỏ bè. Đừng vác bè mà đi.
After the boat carries you across the river, leave it behind. Don’t
carry the boat on your shoulder.
(Trang Tử)
“This is like a man pointing a finger at the moon to show it to others
who should follow the direction of the finger to look at the moon. If they look
at the finger and mistake it for the moon, the lose (sight of) both the moon
and the finger.”
(The Surangama Sutra).
I. CHRIST: THE UNSURPASSABLE OF REVELATION (Karl Rahner)
a. Transcendental anthropology
Unthematic and categorical knowledge of God
b. Grace as self-communication of God
c. Jesus Christ as the absolute savior
Experiences of God through symbols
c. Other religions willed by God
3. Rahner’s Theological Method
II. EXTRA MUNDUM NULLA SALUS (Ed. Schillebeeckx)
Karl Rahner was born on 5th March 1904 at Freiburg im
Breisgau, West Germany. From 1922 to 1924 he did his noviciate of the Society
of Jesus in Feldkirch/Voralberg, Austria.
From 1924 to 1927 he pursued his philosophical studies at Feldkirch and Pullach
(near Munich).
From 1927 to 1929 he did his regency in teaching.
From 1929 to 1933 he studied theology at the Jesuit theologates in Valkenberg,
Holland.
On July 26th, 1932, he was ordained a priest. After his theology, he
did his tertianship.
From 1934 he began his doctoral studies in philosophy at the University
of Freiburg im Breisgau, where under the direction of Martin Honecker, he wrote
and defended his thesis, Geist in Welt, in 1936. His thesis was
rejected as not being a true interpretation of Thomas.
He continued doctoral studies in theology at the University of
Innsbruck, Austria. In December of 1936, received the degree of Doctor of
Theology from the University of Innsbruck. After that he did his teaching
career as lecturer in dogmatic theology at the University of Innsbruck.
From 1939 to 1944, he lectured in Vienna.
From 1945 to 1948, he was professor of dogmatic theology at the Jesuit
theologate in Pullach.
In 1949, he became professor of dogma and the history of dogma.
In 1964, he moved to the University of Munich to become professor of Christian
Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. In 1967, he became professor of
dogma and the history of dogma on the Faculty of Catholic theology at the
University of Münster/Westalen.
In 1969, he became a member of the Papal Theological Commission.
He died on 30th March 1984, in Innsbruck[1].
Rahner was a well-known theologian in the second half of twentieth
century. He wrote many books and articles. Most of these articles are printed
in Theological Investigations. With his book Foundations of
Christian Faith, his theological thought is systematized.
The full name of Schillebeeckx is Edward Cornelis Florentius Alfons
Schillebeeckx. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium, on 12 November 1914, the sixth
of fourteen children. His family had moved there from Kortenbeek because of the
outbreak of the war. After the war they returned to their home.
In 1934, he entered the Flemish Province of the Dominican Order at
Ghent. He studied philosophy and theology at the Dominican house in Louvain,
and was ordained a priest in 1941. After completing theological study in
Louvain in 1943, Schillebeeckx was assigned immediately to teach theology in the
Dominical House of Studies.
At the end of the war, he went to Le Saulchoir, the Dominican faculty in
Paris, to pursue doctoral work. He returned to his teaching in Louvain in 1947
and began preparing his doctoral dissertation. He had hoped to write on the
relation of religion and the world (his first published articles are on this
theme), but he was going to lecture on the sacraments, so he chose sacraments
as the theme of his dissertation. He completed his doctorate under the guidance
of Chenu in 1951.
He continued to teach dogmatic theology in the Dominican House of
Studies until 1958. In this time, he also served as Master of the Dominican
students, which meant that he was responsible for their spiritual formation. In
1956 he was appointed professor in the Institute of Higher Religious Studies in
Louvain, but a year later he was called to the Chair of Dogmatics and the
History of Theology at the Catholic University of Nijimegen in the Netherlands.
He took up the post in 1958 and was to remain in that position until his
retirement in 1983.
Schillebeeckx went to the Council as an advisor to the Dutch bishops.
Although he was never to become an official peritus, or expert, to the
Council, he lectured to large gatherings of bishops. He wrote many books and
articles, among which are Jesus in 1974, Christ in
English in 1977, Interim Report in 1978, and Church
in 1990. In 1982, he announced his retirement from his professorship. He gave
his farewell lecture in February 1983.
He was examined by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in
1968, in 1976, and in 1982.[2]
God is the infinite reality that human beings look for. However, some
deny God’s existence, some doubt that knowledge of God is possible. On the
other hand, some persons in history, mystics for instance, affirmed that they
had encountered God as ineffable Reality. These persons talked about God from
their own experiences. Others talked about the Absolute whom they recognized
through natural or historical signs.
Theology consists in words about God.[3]
Before Christianity, there had been religions which had developed theologies,
for example, Hinduism, Judaism, others among the Ancient Greeks, etc. Human
beings’ words about God do not identify God who is infinite and ineffable, but
point to God, express God analogically or symbolicly. Theologies and their
methods are, in all religions, symbolic fingers[4]
pointing to the “moon,” which represents the Truth or the Absolute.
In the Roman Catholic Church of our time, two well-known theologians,
Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx, whose theologies are broad and deep,
strongly have exercized a great deal of influence in the second half of the
twentieth century. These two theologians show similarities but also significant
differences in their theologies. We will examine them in this thesis.
The problem and
anticipated conclusion
Rahner and Schillebeeckx are not saying the same thing about fundamental
topics. In his theology, Rahner affirms that Jesus is the “unsurpassable climax
of revelation.”[5] Therefore,
Jesus is necessary for salvation. Now that Jesus as God incarnate has come, all
religions except Christianity must disappear in principle. In reverse,
Schillebeeckx states, “As a Christian, one must never forget that Christianity,
and even the person Jesus, is not absolute or absolutely unique. Only the God
of Jesus, the Creator, the God of all people, is absolute. In Jesus, according
to Christian belief, the Absolute-- that is, God-- is reflected in historical
form and, thereby, in that which is historically relative. For Christians,
Jesus is a relative, personal manifestation of a basic idea that is,
nevertheless, absolute.”[6]
Thus, according to Schillebeeckx, Jesus reveals God but at the same time
conceals God. Therefore, religions are necessary as a matter of principle,
because many religions reflect God better than only one religion. Thus, in the
case of Christ and religious pluralism, Rahner and Schillebeeckx reach
different conclusions. For Rahner, because Jesus is the unsurpassable climax of
revelation, he is the absolute saviour, and he and the Church are necessary for
salvation. For Schillebeeckx, world religions are willed by God in principle,
and are thus legal institutions; Jesus is one among others who are at the
center of their respective religions.
My thesis will address two interrelated questions. Why do the
conclusions of these two theologians differ? How can different conclusions
coexist in one Church? I will show that they have different audiences and
therefore different theological methods. The authors’ theological methods are
formed by their own global views and are influenced by their audiences. This
makes their theologies varied and rich.
Theology consists in words about God for an audience. Audience is a very
important element which influences theological method. Given various audiences
in the Church, appropriate theologies are needed for each. Moreover, theology
consists in words about God, but God is infinite. Theology is finite as human
beings are finite, so theology reflects merely some aspects of God; it cannot
completely identify God. In her mission, the Church should talk about God to
all peoples in their own ways of thinking and in their own ideologies.
Therefore, pluralism in theology is necessary to accomplish this task.
Theological method includes starting points of theology and ways of
doing theology; therefore it is necessary for understanding content. Knowing an
author’s method, one can understand more easily and correctly the author’s
thought.[7]
Moreover, internalizing an author’s method, starting point, and theological
logic enables one to understand the author and to draw the same conclusions
that he has.
Method and projected
process
In this thesis, I will explain Rahner’s and
Schillebeeckx’s theological methods through their own writings, by retrieving
the fundamental ideas of each author, by noting their logical and theological
conclusions in the case of Christ and religious pluralism, and then by highlighting
the methods which come from their inventive imaginations.
In the chapter on Rahner’s theology, I will present Christ as the
unsurpassable of revelation by describing God’s self-communication first, then
Rahner’s theological ideas on religions, and finally his theological method.
God creates human beings by making himself the innermost constitutive element
of man. God’s self-communication is realized through revelation in history.
Finally, the pinacle of God’s self-communication is Jesus Christ. From his
position, Rahner considers other religions inferior to Christianity, because
Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. Moreover, now that the climax of
revelation has come, other religions must disappear on principle.
In the chapter on Schillebeeckx’s theology, I will present his later
theology by describing God’s salvation experienced in the world first, then
religions as the concrete contexts of talk about God, then Jesus as God’s
universal love to human beings, and finally his method. Christianity is
considered in the global view of religions; and Jesus is reflected on in this
total view. From this theocentric view, Schillebeeckx recognizes the necessary
status of world religions as a matter of principle.
Rahner’s and Schillebeeckx’s theologies depend on their choice of
audience, the starting points of their theologies, and their systematic unity.
Rahner’s audience is Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form, so he
can use Christological dogma and transcendental anthropology as starting points
of his theology. Schillebeeckx’s audience is marginal Christians who are
embedded in the scientific spirit, believers of other confessions, and
faithfull of other religions. Therefore, Schillebeeckx takes the experience of
people of yesterday in Scripture and of people today as the starting point of
his theology, thus his theology is a hermeneutics of experience.
I will choose some special texts which reflect the authors’ ideas and methods, and, by analyzing the theological imagination reflected in them, I will show how and why differences in theology are to be expected in the same Church. I will highlight the different audiences, methods, and conclusions. It is for varied audiences of different mentalities that a pluralism of theologies is necessary, today more than ever before.
This thesis will be divided into three chapters. The first chapter
treats Rahner’s theology and method, the second chapter focuses on
Schillebeeckx’s theology and method, and the third chapter considers theologies
as “fingers pointing to the moon”.
In this first chapter, I will treat the principal idea of Rahner’s
theology, draw his conclusion on non-Christian religions, and then highlight
his theological method.
Self-communication means, “God in his own most proper reality makes
himself the innermost constitutive element of man.”[8]
In a certain sense, the idea ‘Self-Communication of God’ touches all of
Rahner’s theology.
The only really
absolute mysteries are the Self-Communication of God in the depths of
existence, called grace, and in history, called Jesus Christ, and this already
includes the mystery of the Trinity in the economy of salvation and of the
immanent Trinity. And this one mystery can be brought close to man if he
understands himself as oriented towards the mystery which we call God.[9]
On this topic, I will present Rahner’s transcendental anthropology, then
God’s self-communication, and finally Jesus as absolute savior.
For Rahner, a theology implies a philosophical anthropology, because
both are rooted in concrete life. Human beings are subjects and persons who
experience transcendental knowledge of God and possess categorical knowledge of
God.
Human beings possess knowledge and are responsible for themselves. In
other words, they are subjects and persons. “Man experiences himself precisely
as subject and person insofar as he becomes conscious of himself as the product
of what is radically foreign to him.”[10]
Human beings possess knowledge. Human beings have knowledge of the world
and of themselves as objects; therefore human beings are subjects. Human beings
have themselves as objects, and, in the same moment, they know that they are
subjects. They are also subjects of this consciousness. “Being a person, then,
means the self-possession of a subject as such in a conscious and free
relationship to the totality of itself.”[11]
A subject, as person, possesses herself as one and whole.
Human beings recognize themselves as subjects and persons who are unique
beings, who cannot be divided or derived even though they are composed by many
material elements.
To say that man is
person and subject, therefore, means first of all that man is someone who cannot
be derived, who cannot be produced completely from other elements at our
disposal. When he explains himself, analyses himself, reduces himself back to
the plurality of his origins, he is affirming himself as the subject who is
doing this, and in so doing he experiences himself as something necessarily
prior to and more original than this plurality.[12]
Human beings have transcendental experience from which transcendental
knowledge comes.
Human beings experience themselves as limited beings. Through
transcendental experience they recognize themselves as free and responsible for
themselves. They are limited because they want to do many great things but
cannot; they are limited by the freedom of others; they want to be alive in
eternity but they will die on a certain day.
We shall call transcendental
experience the subjective, unthematic, necessary and unfailing
consciousness of the knowing subject that is co-present in every spiritual act
of knowledge, and the subject’s openness to the unlimited expanse of all
possible reality. It is an experience because this knowledge, unthematic
but ever-present, is a moment within and a condition of possibility for every
concrete experience of any and every object. This experience is called transcendental
experience because it belongs to the necessary and inalienable structure of the
knowing subject itself, and because it consists precisely in the transcendence
beyond any particular group of possible objects or of categories. Transcendental
experience is the experience of transcendence, in which experience the
structure of the subject and therefore also the ultimate structure of every
conceivable object of knowledge are present together and in identity. This
transcendental experience, of course, is not merely an experience of pure
knowledge, but also of the will and of freedom. The same character of
transcendentality belongs to them, so that basically one can ask about the
source and the destiny of the subject as a knowing being and as a free being
together.[13]
Human beings experience their limitedness but also a reality which
invites them to accept themselves as created, given, and finite. When they open
themselves to the reality of which they cannot have proofs, they transcend
themselves and become truly spirit.
In the fact that he
experiences his finiteness radically, he reaches beyond this finiteness and
experiences himself as a transcendent being, as spirit. The infinite horizon of
human questioning is experienced as an horizon which recedes further and
further the more answers man can discover.[14]
Questioning and opening themselves to the unlimited horizons of such
questioning, is an act of transcending. Human beings are transcendental beings
insofar as they are grounded in the infinity of reality. They experience
themselves as limited, created, and given, but free to receive or to say no to
this experience. Human being is free to make choices in their daily lives; this
makes them to be themselves, to be similar to or different from others.
Similarly, acts of saying no or yes to transcendental experiences make human
beings really free, and responsible for themselves.
Insofar as man is a
transcendent being, he is confronted by himself, is responsible for himself,
and hence is person and subject. For it is only in the presence of the infinity
of being, as both revealed and concealed, that an existent is in a position and
has a standpoint from out of which he can assume responsibility for himself.[15]
Categorical knowledge of God which human beings often talk of, needs to
point to transcendental experience. Without transcendental experience,
categorical knowledge has no foundation and no meanings.
Knowledge of God and especially the existence of God are always problems for humankind. Human beings experience God through transcendental experience. This foundational knowledge of God is unthematic.
We shall be concerned
later with showing that there is present in this transcendental experience an
unthematic and anonymous, as it were, knowledge of God. Hence the original
knowledge is not the kind of knowledge in which one grasps an object which
happens to present itself directly or indirectly from outside.[16]
Rahner distinguishes between transcendental knowledge of God and
categorical knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is a posteriori knowledge. It is
not innate knowledge, as if someone who is just been born already has an idea
of God, as Plato’s and Descartes’ theories supposed. But this knowledge of God
is unthematic and transcendental. This is different than categorical knowledge
of God, which is a conceptual and clausal interpretation about God.
What we commonly call
‘knowledge of God’ is therefore not simply the knowledge of God, but
already the objectified conceptual and propositional interpretation of what we
constantly know of God subjectively and apart from reflection. Knowledge of God
is certainly a posteriori to the extent, on the one hand, that even the
subjective act-- which by virtue of its transcendental nature always knows
about God-- is historically contingent; in order to be itself this subjective
act always requires an ‘objective’ object, without which it cannot exist at
all, but which it experiences a posteriori. Besides this, knowledge of
God is also a posteriori in so far as the conceptual and propositional
objectification of the transcendental experience first needs a vehicle to pass
among the a posteriori given objects of knowledge of the world, in the
way expounded in detail in the classical ‘proofs of the existence of God’.[17]
Human beings know God through a transcendental experience, but
transcendental experience exists only through the mediation of concrete reality
in our world. What we usually speak of as knowledge of God is a reflection upon
man’s transcendental orientation towards mystery. It becomes expressed as
explicit, conceptual, and thematic knowledge of God.[18]
The doctrines of religions belong to this category. These doctrines are
intelligible only when the words used point to the unthematic experience of the
ineffable mystery.[19]
In sum, transcendental experience is a foundational experience that
founds the affirmation of God’s existence. This transcendental experience is
also a foundation of Rahner’s anthropology. Human beings, through their
transcendental experience, recognize themselves as creatures.
Let Rahner explain the meaning of “God's self-communication” for
himself:
God's
self-communication means that what is communicated is really God in his own
being, and in this way it is a communication for the sake of knowing and
possessing God in immediate vision and love.[20]
The term “self-communication of God” should not be understood in the sense of God saying something about himself in revelation, nor in an objectivistic sense of God giving some objectified knowledge of things to human beings, but in the sense of God, as personal and absolute mystery, communicating himself to human beings as a transcendent, spiritual, and personal being.
God communicates to human beings that which is appropriate to them,
namely knowledge and freedom. Moreover, God the “giver in his own being is the
gift, that in and through his own being the giver gives himself to creatures as
their own fulfillment.”[21]
With this understanding we can say, “man is the event of God’s absolute
self-communication,”[22]
because man is a special creature to whom God gives or communicates himself.
God is really an intrinsic, constitutive principle of man existing in the
situation of salvation and fulfillment.[23]
This divine self-communication, in which God makes himself a
constitutive principle of the created existent without thereby losing his
absolute, ontological independence, has “divinizing” effects in the finite
existent in whom this self-communication takes place. As determinations of the
finite existent itself, these effects must be understood as finite and created,
but the important thing about this divine self-communication is the
relationship between God and a finite existent.[24]
This kind of
self-communication by God to a creature must necessarily be understood as an
act of God’s highest personal freedom, as an act of opening himself in ultimate
intimacy and in free and absolute love…Consequently, God's self-communication
as a triumph over the sinful rejection of creatures must not only be understood
as forgiving grace, but even prior to this it is the gratuitous miracle of
God’s free love which God himself makes the intrinsic principle and the
‘object’ of the actualization of human existence.[25]
God is the best gift to human beings. God’s grace includes not only the
gift offered but also that which makes human beings ready to receive the gift
of grace. All is grace for human beings.
God's
self-communication is given not only as gift, but also as the necessary
condition which makes possible an acceptance of the gift which can allow the
gift really to be God, and can prevent the gift in its acceptance from being
changed from God into a finite and created gift which only represents God, but
is not God himself.[26]
Even though human beings only possess conditional freedom, they experience themselves at the same time as subjects who experience the event of God’s absolute self-communication, who have already responded in freedom with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this event, and who can never completely bring the concrete and real mode of their response to the level of reflection.
Christology is the most important part of Rahner’s theology. I will
first treat Jesus’ resurrection, then Jesus as the final prophet, and finally
Jesus as the absolute savior.
The reports of Jesus’ appearances cannot at first glance be harmonized
completely; hence, they are to be explained as secondary literary devices and
dramatic embellishments of the original experience, rather than as descriptions
of the experience itself in its real and original nature. [27]
The original experiences of the apostles are expressed by “he is alive”
or “he is risen”. The story of the appearances is a way to speak about the
original experience “he is alive.” Jesus’ resurrection does not mean that Jesus
received back again his former life, but rather final and definitive salvation.[28]
The resurrection is understandable for someone who wants to have eternal
life after this life. In other words, hope one’s own resurrection is the
transcendental horizon needed to recognize and accept the resurrection of
Jesus.[29]
If someone leads a morally bad life, consistently dedicated to doing evil
works, and does not want to survive beyond this life, it will be very difficult
for him or her to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus was a prophet. A
prophet brings God’s words to concrete historical existence and calls one to a
decision.
There is present with him a new and unsurpassable closeness of God which
on its part will prevail victoriously and is inseparable from him. He calls
this closeness the coming and the arrival of God’s kingdom, which forces a
person to decide explicitly whether or not he accepts this God who has come so
close.[30]
A genuine prophet must allow God in His unlimited possibilities to be greater. The prophet speaks God’s word to a definite situation that presently exists, but then gives way to God who expresses His will to human beings of every age through the mediation of other prophets in new and different situations.
Rahner holds that
Jesus’ word is final and unsurpassable. He is a prophet who surpasses and
subsumes the essence of a prophet. His word can be understood to be definitive,
not because God now ceases arbitrarily to say anything further, although he
could say more, but because the final word of God is present in Jesus; there is
nothing to say beyond what Jesus already revealed. God has really and in a
strict sense offered himself in Jesus. Accordingly, Jesus is the final prophet.
Karl Rahner uses the
term “absolute savior” to identify Jesus. “Absolute savior” has to be
understood in its historical context.
Jesus, then, is the historical presence of this final and unsurpassable
word of God’s self-disclosure: this is his claim and he is vindicated in this
claim by the resurrection. He is of eternal validity and he is experienced in
this eternal validity. In this sense in any case he is the ‘absolute saviour.’[31]
The coming of the
absolute saviour is, first of all, an historical moment in God’s salvific
activity in the world. Moreover, it makes irreversible the history of freedom
as the self-communication of God which succeeds. Jesus is part of the history
of the cosmos itself. He cannot simply be God acting in the world, but must be
part of the cosmos; his coming must be a moment within history, and indeed its
climax.[32] By
the resurrection, then, what Jesus taught and performed in his lifetime has
been vindicated, particularly his claim of being the absolute saviour.
The absolute saviour is
a man who receives in his spiritual, human, and finite subjectivity the
self-communication of God in grace as the climax of the development in which
the world comes to itself and to the immediacy of God absolutely.
Jesus has absolutely everything that belongs to a man, including a
finite subjectivity which becomes conscious of the world as historically
conditioned being, and including a subjectivity that has a radical immediacy to
God.[33]
This human reality which belongs absolutely to God is precisely what we call
hypostatic union:
If therefore, the
reality of Jesus, in whom as offer and as acceptance God’s absolute self-communication
to the whole human race ‘is present’ for us, is really to be the unsurpassable
and definitive offer and acceptance, then we have to say: it is not only
established by God, but it is God himself. But if this offer is itself a human
reality as graced in an absolute way, and if this is really and absolutely to
be the offer of God himself, then here a human reality belongs absolutely to
God, and this is precisely what we call hypostatic union when it is understood
correctly.[34]
Jesus is a man who belongs absolutely to God, so much so that he has the
hypostatic union with God, he is the absolute saviour, he is of God, and he is
God. From this understanding, Christians can talk about the second person of
God who became incarnate.
The God-Man is the initial beginning and the
definitive triumph of the movement of the world’s self-transcendence into
absolute closeness to the mystery of God. In the first instance this hypostatic
union may not be seen so much as something which distinguishes Jesus from us, but
as something which must occur once and only once when the world begins to enter
upon its final phase, which does not necessarily mean its shortest phase. In
this phase it is to realize its definitive concentration, its definitive climax
and its radical closeness to the absolute mystery which call God. From this
perspective the Incarnation appears as the necessary and permanent beginning of
the divinization of the world as a whole.[35]
The incarnation is not God drawing close to human beings for a certain
time in order to save them, but, according to the true teaching of
Christianity, it is God laying hold of matter. Jesus is truly man and
everything which this implies: finiteness, materiality, being in the world and
participating in the history of the cosmos in the dimension of spirit and of
freedom, and belonging to the history which leads through the narrow passageway
of death. Through incarnation, Christians understand the union between God and
human beings.
I have described Rahner’s theology of transcendental anthropology, God’s self-communication, and Jesus as absolute savior. God creates human beings so that God can communicate and offer himself to them, particularly in Jesus as absolute savior. In and through Jesus God no longer has any new and precious to offer to human beings because Jesus as God’s self-gift is the climax of all revelations. With this theological view, Rahner draws conclusions about non-Christian religions.
In Rahner’s book Foundations of Christian Faith, the subtopic
“Jesus Christ in Non-Christian Religions” is located in the part on Jesus
Christ[36].
This means that Rahner treats the problem from a dogmatic point of view.
Rahner makes two presuppositions in order to found a theology of “Jesus
Christ in Non- Christian Religions”. The first one is the universal and
supernatural salvific will of God truly operative in the world[37].
The second one is as follows: “when a non-Christian attains salvation through
faith, hope and love, non-Christian religions cannot be understood in such a
way that they do not play a role, or play only a negative role in the
attainment of justification and salvation.”[38]
Rahner knows that Catholic theologies have discussed this problem in the
past. Even though salvation was bestowed on the gentiles in Acts 10, and the
universality of salvation was affirmed in saint Paul’s first letter to Timothy
(1Tm.2, 4), the second Vatican Council needed to affirm again the possibility
of salvation for non-Christians in the constitution “Lumen Gentium.”
God’s will is to save everyone. Human beings are saved by faith, hope
and love, not by laws or religion. However, religions are means to help
humankind to encounter God.
In his dissertation for his doctorate in philosophy, Spirit in the
World, Rahner studies the following thesis of St. Thomas: “It is
impossible for our intellect in the present state of life, in which it is
united with receptive corporeality, to know anything actually without turning
to the phantasms.”[39]
That means, human beings get knowledge through symbols as material signs.
Similarly human beings receive the grace of knowledge, of revelation and of
spiritual gifts through symbols or words.
A human being is corporeal and spiritual. Human knowledge has its
starting point in material objects known through the senses.
Plato’s theory of knowledge presupposes that human souls remember what
is known in the world of ideas. Aristotle countered this view. If someone is
color blind, he cannot know the color that his eyes cannot see. Aristotle did
not look for answers in another world but in this world. For Aristotle, and
later Thomas Aquinas, the idea is formed by the human intellect when human
senses contact material things. In this life no one can know without the
senses.
We started from the
fact that human knowledge is receptive. This is a basic view of the Thomist
metaphysics of knowledge which it shares with Aristotle: Anima tabula rasa.
All our ideas derive from a contact with the world of sense. Thomas not only
rejects inborn ideas, but also another kind of objective apriorism in
knowledge, namely, the intuition of the ideas in the Augustinian sense.[40]
In the area of knowledge of God’s existence and other attributes, the
human person has to transcend creatures to recognize God and his attributes. By
human love, human beings recognize God’s love; by human generosity, human
beings recognize God’s generosity, etc.
In human life, signs and symbols occupy an important place. As a being
at once body and spirit, the human person perceives and expresses spiritual
realities through physical signs and symbols. As a social being, we need to
communicate with others through signs and symbols like language, gestures, and
actions. The same holds true for our relationship with God.
At any rate, we have
reached the following conclusion: human beings are spirits in such a way that,
in order to become spirit, we enter and we have ontically always already
entered into otherness, into matter, and so into the world.[41]
A human being is spirit incarnate. That is, in transcending material
objects a human being becomes spirit. In this state of life it is impossible to
separate body and spirit.
We
have seen that to be a human knower, whose knowledge is essentially receptive,
is thus to be a being in matter. On account of the intrinsic nature of our
knowledge, our being is that of matter. In this sense, we are material beings.
We must now use this deeper insight into the nature of matter to reach a
metaphysical concept of human nature. To be a human is to be one among many. We
are essentially in space and in time. Insofar as our quiddity is, by itself,
the quiddity of matter, it is a reality that may, in principle, be identically
reproduced. An individual human is, in principle, one of a kind.[42]
Human beings understand through visible signs or symbols. Therefore, if
God reveals to human beings, God must use symbols or words. The material
cosmos, trees, mountains, fire, light, darkness, and the beauty of creatures,
all reflect and speak of God to human beings.
Human history can be regarded as a series of signs revealing the presence of God. In fact, Christian faith recognizes that God intervened in history to save Israel, escorting them to Egypt, delivering them from Egypt through Moses, saving them from various people in the time of the judges, leading them through Saul, David and other kings, guiding them from slavery in Babylon. Israel’s history was the arena in which God expressed his love to them through election, intervention, love, and grace. God’s love and grace to Israel have been expressed in Israel’s history.
If God wants to reveal God’s self to human beings, then God must enable
human beings to receive God.[43]
A human being is spirit incarnate. This means that through material objects he
understands and becomes spirit. Thus God must reveal God’s self through
material objects through which human beings can transcend the world and meet
God as transcendence. So, through creatures human beings transcend the world
and recognize God as Creator. Throughout
Israel’s history, human beings recognized God’s intervening to realize
His saving plan for human beings. And in Jesus’ death and resurrection, human
beings recognized him as God incarnate.
A symbol is something that mediates something other than itself. A sign
designates something other than itself but it has no intrinsic connection with
its referent, for example, a red traffic light. A symbol has an intrinsic
connection with what it refers to; for example, the figure of a heart is a
symbol of love, because when someone loves his heart is affected under the
emotion of love. One can distinguish between concrete and conceptual symbols. A
concrete symbol is a material thing that mediates a real presence within itself
of something other than itself. A conceptual symbol is a concept, word,
metaphor, or parable that reveals something else and makes it present to the
imagination and mind.
Creatures are symbols of God; through them God is present to human
beings who receive grace to recognize Him. Moreover, prophets are God’s chosen
persons who are representatives of God and speak in the name of God. Jesus is
symbol of God and God’s grace to human beings.
Grace is love concretized. In the human- divine relation, grace is God’s
love expressed in a concrete way, for example, in material and invisible gifts.
Grace may be considered God’s own self as personal gift to us. When a human
being loves someone, she gives him some gift, but at the height of her love,
she gives herself. God loves human beings, and symbols are necessary if He is
to communicate this love. Symbols are necessary for human beings to recognize
God and God’s grace, because human intellects need material objects in the
process of percepting and knowing. As a result, these symbols become sacraments
or religious symbols.
The structure of human beings is body-spirit, so human understanding and
behavior is expressed through sensible things. Therefore, religions express the
human response to the Absolute.
Yet the nature of man as a historical and
social being was such that a way of salvation of this kind could not be
followed in the concrete altogether in emancipation from the social and
historical context of human life. Man will not work out his salvation simply by
acts of religion which are purely interior. He can only do so through the sort
of religion which must, of its very nature, find concrete expression in the
social and institutional life of the community.[44]
Because human beings are social, they express their beliefs in words and
their attitude toward the Absolute in rites. Rites differ according to
religions and regions. Religions are human and social facts.
The Christian Church is the historical continuation of Christ.
The historical
continuation of Christ in and through the community of those who believe in
him, and who recognize him explicitly as the mediator of salvation in a
profession of faith, is what we call church.[45]
According to the hierarchy of truths in Christian doctrine, the Church
is not the basis and the foundation of Christianity, Jesus is.
Vatican II says in its
Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio, (art.11) that there is an
ordered structure or a “hierarchy of truths” in Catholic doctrine. If we reflect
upon this, surely ecclesiology and the ecclesial consciousness even of an
orthodox and unambiguously Catholic Christian are not the basis and the
foundation of his Christianity. Jesus Christ, faith and love, entrusting
oneself to the darkness of existence and into the incomprehensibility of God in
trust and in the company of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one, these
are the central realities for a Christians.[46]
Before Christianity appeared, some other religions already existed, but
Christianity still has the special position, because Jesus Christ is the
foundation of Christianity.
Rahner distinguishes the time before and after the coming of Christ to
evaluate the salvific value of religions. Before Christ, world religions were
means God used to save human beings in their respective cultures.
Bearing this proviso in mind it can be said
that if we begin by viewing the non-Christian religions before the coming of
Christ then certainly we can recognize the possibility that “in themselves” and
in principle they were positively willed by God as legitimate ways of
salvation.[47]
“In principle they were positively willed by God as legitimate ways of
salvation.” Religions are means of salvation that God willed. Because God wills
to save all human beings; human beings must have had some positive means of
salvation available to them, giving them the possibility of possessing true
supernatural salvation; yet human beings are social beings, therefore they
express their religious acts in the social and institutional life of the
community that are religions.
Now that Jesus Christ has appeared, Christianity is the only one willed
by God, and so “in principle and in themselves” other religions are overtaken
and rendered obsolete.
It can and must be said that these
non-Christian religions are in principle, and in themselves, overtaken and
rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ and by his death and resurrection.
This is because in fact all of them, even in those elements of truth and
goodness which they possess, were only provisional manifestations, destined to
be replaced, of that divine self-bestowal which is present in the innermost
depths of the history of mankind and its religion, sustaining it, actively
influencing the forms which it assumes, and finally coming to its full and
definitive manifestation in Jesus Christ.[48]
In principle, when the main person appears the preparation has to be ended. Therefore when Jesus Christ appears, all religions must disappear because they were provisional manifestations destined to be replaced. That is in the logical field. In reality, other religions still exist. Nobody knows whether they will disappear or not.
In any case even today,
and after the coming of Christ, it is still perfectly conceivable that a
non-Christian religion still exercises a positively saving function for the
individual. Indeed the Second Vatican Council explicitly states that God does
not refuse salvation to a man who, through no fault of his own, has still not
attained to any explicit acknowledgment of God, who, in other words, so far as
the level of his conscious awareness is concerned, must be called an “atheist”.[49]
Why do other religions still exist if they in principle have to
disappear? Not until an individual, on any occasion, recognizes Jesus as
absolute saviour, does he puts away his old religion. Only when the last person
converts to the Gospel of Jesus, will religions disappear. Nobody knows when it
will happen or whether it will happen. In that day there will no longer be anonymous
Christians.
There is one other question. If other religions still exist now that
Jesus has appeared, and if non-Christian religions have positive roles as
salvific means,[50] then “how
is Jesus Christ present and operative in the faith of the individual
non-Christian?”[51]. The answer
is: “with the presuppositions and within the limits set above, Christ is
present and operative in non-Christian believers and hence in non-Christian
religions in and through his Spirit.”[52]
I have expounded Rahner’s ideas on God's self-communication and
non-Christian religions, I will now reflect on his theological method.
Theology consists in words about God by and for human beings. Therefore
it depends upon human beings, with their various cultures, as the audience to
whom theologians talk about God. First I examine Rahner’s audience, then
Rahner’s theological method.
The audience of Karl Rahner in Foundations of Christian Faith
is readers who are educated and not afraid to wrestle with an idea. In this
book, Rahner wrote:
For whom has this book
been written? That is not an easy question to answer even for the author…The
author would like to address himself to readers who are educated to some extent
and who are not afraid to “wrestle with an idea,” and he simply has to hope
that he will find readers for whom the book is neither too advanced nor too
primitive.[53]
Moreover, his readers were supposed to be Christians sharing the same
Christian faith as Rahner:
We are supposing here
the existence of our own personal Christian faith in its normal ecclesial form,
and we are trying, thirdly, to reach an idea of this.[54]
When treating the Christ in world religions, Rahner treats Him from the
dogmatic point of view, because in the non-dogmatic point of view, all
religions are equal, and Christ has no priority over other religions.
The first thing to be emphasized is that we
are dealing here with an inquiry in dogmatic theology, and not in the history
of religion or in the phenomenology of religion.[55]
Rahner’s audience is made up of Christians who share the same Christian
faith with him, even when he treats the problem raised by religions.
Even for Rahner himself, it is difficult to talk about his theological
method. He said in ”Reflections on Methodology in Theology” in 1969 that
“the only book which I have published with a systematic overall plan is that
entitled Hearer of the Word, and consists of a small
outline of a philosophy of religion written more than thirty years ago.”[56]
In 1976 Rahner published Foundations of Christian Faith, and in
it we can find his idea of systematic theology. Rahner asked himself:
Have I, in fact, any
theological method which is in some sense peculiar to my theology, or is
my theological method simply that which any Catholic theologian conditioned by
tradition applies, and that too without any further or more far- reaching
reflection upon it?[57]
Of first importance in Rahner’s theology is transcendental anthropology and the tradition, especially regarding the ideas found in Christian dogma. Christology assumes an important place in Rahner’s theology. In Christ, Christians find answers to other theological problems. For example, because Jesus is the climax of all revelation, other religions are in principle taken over and rendered obsolete.
Rahner thinks that theology and anthropology interlock with each other.
Transcendental anthropology reflects on the invariant and universal structure
underlying all the ideas that human beings have of themselves, all their
beliefs and social relations. Rahner’s anthropology thus starts with
epistemology.
Rahner’s anthropology is grounded by the “evident” truth that human
beings are subjects and persons. They are subjects because they possess
knowledge; they are persons because they are free and responsible for
themselves and for what they do.
Human beings obtain knowledge from sensible experiences, and knowledge
of transcendence from sensible symbols through transcendental experience.
Consequently, by transcendental knowledge human beings are transcendent beings,
spirits incarnate; by transcendental experience, and thereby transcendent
knowledge, knowledge of God is no longer a supposition or logical reality, but
a reality experienced.
There is some similiarity between the personhood of human beings and the
personhood of God , but there is more difference than similarity. In any case,
Rahner’s transcendental anthropology is incorporated into his transcendental
theology. In this sense, we can say that Rahner’s transcendental theology is
foundational, because it started with human beings and with truths about human
beings which everyone can agree upon.
Rahner teaches and writes theology for Christians. Even Foundations
of Christian Faith, as “foundation,” is for educated Christians. Dogma
is a constitutive presuppositional element in Rahner’s theology: “Up to this
point we have taken as our starting point the explicit teaching of Christian
faith.”[58]
In the case of Christology, Rahner’s starting point is not only
ascending, but also descending, even though he sees the importance of the
historical Jesus:
In giving a
justification for our faith in Christ, the basic and decisive point of
departure, of course, lies in an encounter with the historical Jesus of
Nazareth, and hence in an “ascending Christology.” To this extent the terms
“incarnation of God” and “incarnation of the eternal Logos” are the end and not
the starting point of all Christological reflection. Nevertheless, we need not
exaggerate the one-directional nature of such an ascending Christology. If
Jesus as the Christ has ever actually encountered someone, the idea of a
God-Man, of God coming into our history, and hence a descending Christology,
also has its own significance and power. If in what follows, then, ascending
Christology and descending Christology appear somewhat intermingled, this is to
be admitted without hesitation at the outset. It need not be a disadvantage,
but rather it can serve as a mutual clarification of both of these aspects and
both of these methods.[59]
Rahner’s statement, “giving a justification for our faith in Christ,”
reveals that Christians can justify for themselves why they believe in Christ.
This justification is not made principally for non-believers, but for
believers. One more thing needs to be noted. Rahner says that, “If Jesus as the
Christ has ever actually encountered someone, the idea of a God-Man, of God
coming into our history, and hence a descending Christology, also has its own
significance and power.” This means that Rahner’s theology, and particularly
Christology, is based on the encounter of Jesus Christ with the first apostles,
which is a belief of Christians.
Rahner’s theology is dogmatic. Therefore, "foundational" in
Rahner’s theology does not mean that theology is based on a completely rational
foundation. If this were so, theology would not be theology but philosophy.
Philosophy is rational, but theology is both rational and dogmatic.
For if our intention
were to deduce the doctrine of Incarnation as a cogent inference from an
evolutionary view of the world, then we would be making an attempt at
theological rationalism, an attempt to turn faith, revelation and dogma into
philosophy, or to reduce the ultimately irreducible facticity of concrete
history into speculation and metaphysics.[60]
Rahner’s dogmatic theology is Christological. From the perspective of
his Christological dogma, Rahner has a global view and consequently draws
conclusions about all other problems.
We can recognize the following structures in Foundations of
Christian Faith: first, by transcendental anthropology and theology,
Rahner develops the foundation for, or the possibility of, a human being’s
listening to the event of Jesus Christ. Second, by historical method he
inquires into the event of Jesus Christ as historical event and the historical
encounter of Jesus Christ with human beings.
After justifying Christian faith as belief in Jesus Christ as the climax
of all revelation, as God incarnate, Rahner draws conclusions on the position
of Jesus relative to other religions.
Rahner does not begin his Christology with Chalcedon’s dogma, but with
New Testament testimonies, and with the historical Jesus.[61]
Guided by historical method when inquiring about the historical Jesus, Rahner
nevertheless proceeds by way of Christological dogma:
The method of procedure
in this section is very difficult because, precisely in view of our previous
reflections, in this topic the two moments in Christian theology reach their
closest unity and their most radical tension: first, essential,
existential-ontological, transcendental theology, which must develop in a
general ontology and anthropology an a priori doctrine of the God-Man, and in
this way try to construct the conditions which make possible a genuine capacity
to hear the historical message of Jesus Christ, and an insight into the
necessity of hearing it; and, secondly, plain historical testimony about what
happened in Jesus, in his death and resurrection, and about what in its unique,
irreducible and historical concreteness forms the basis of the existence and of
the event of salvation for a Christian. Consequently, at this point what is
most historical is what is most essential.[62]
Transcendental and historical methods are mixed in Rahner’s Christology.
Transcendental method is used to explain the possibility of listening to
revelation, while historical method is used to situate or describe the historical
concreteness of Jesus as event.
We are really asking a
transcendental question, but it has a historical concreteness in the hearer, in
the questioning subject, and we shall characterize this concreteness as the
situation of an evolutionary view of the world.[63]
The foundations of Rahner’s Christology lie in the encounter between
Jesus Christ and the apostles. Therefore, Christology is the foundation of all
his other theological conclusions.
In this first chapter, I have treated the principal idea of Rahner’s
theology: grace as self-communication of God. Human beings have God as part of
their nature: “God in his own most proper reality makes himself the innermost
constitutive element of man.”[64]
The high point of grace for human beings is Jesus Christ who is so close to God
that people can say that he is God incarnate; he is hypostaticly united with
God. In other words, Jesus Christ is the absolute savior and therefore the
unsurpassable climax of revelation. From this position, Rahner considers world
religions as inferior to Christianity. Believers in non-Christian religions
receive salvation through Christ even though they don’t know that. They are
anonymous Christians because “Christ is present and operative in non-Christian
believers and hence in non-Christian religions in and through his Spirit”. They
are saved through symbols in their religions because the symbol-grace structure
is the way God wills to bestow grace on humankind. The starting point of
Rahner’s theology is transcendental anthropology and dogma, especially
Christological dogma. Rahner is a transcendental and dogmatic theologian. His
book is entitled Foundations of Christian Faith; however, his
"foundations" is more for Christians than for non-Christians.
Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to
the Idea of Christianity. New York: Crossroad, 1995.
Rahner, Karl. “Christianity and Non-Christian Religions,” Theological
Investigations 5 (New York: Seabury, 1974).
Rahner, Karl. “Anonymous Christians,”
Theological Investigations 6 (New York: Seabury, 1969).
Rahner, Karl. “Atheism and Implicit Christianity,” Theological
Investigations 9 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972).
Rahner, Karl. “Anonymous Christianity and the Missionary Task of the
Church,” Theological Investigations 12 (New York: Seabury, 1974).
Rahner, Karl. “The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation,” Theological
Investigations 16 (New York: Seabury, 1979).
Rahner, Karl. “Reflections on Methodology in Theology.” Theological
Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1974).
Rahner, Karl. The Spirit in the World. New York: Herder
and Herder, 1968.
Rahner, Karl. Hearer of the Word. New York: Continuum,
1994.
Rahner, Karl. Do You Believe in God. New York: Newman
Press, 1969.
Rahner, Karl. The Trinity. New York: Herder and Herder,
1970.
Rahner, Karl. Grace in Freedom. New York: Herder and
Herder, 1969.
Rahner, Karl & Lehmann, Karl. Kerygma and Dogma. New
York: Herder and Herder, 1969.
Carr, Ann. The Theological Method of Karl Rahner. Montana:
The American Academy of Religion, 1977.
Schineller, J. Peter, S.J.. “Christ and Church: a Spectrum of views,” Theological
Studies 37 (1976).
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with
God. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. “Experience and Faith,” Christlicher Glaube
in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV
Schillebeeckx, Edward. “Five Questions Facing the Church Today,” The
Crucial Questions: On Problems Facing the Church Today. Ed. by Frank
Fehmers. New York: Newman Press, 1969
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Revelation and Theology. 2
Vols. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967-1968.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. World and Church. New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1971.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Understanding of Faith: Interpretation
and criticism. New York: Seabury Press, 1974.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Jesus in our Western Culture: Mysticism,
Ethics and Politics. Lonson: SCM Press Ltd, 1987.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Church with a Human Face: A New and
Expanded Theology of Ministry. New York: Crossroad, 1985.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Jesus: An Experience in Christology.
New York: Seabury, 1979.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord.
New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Eucharist. New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1968.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. For the Sake of the Gospel.
New York: Crossroad, 1990.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. God and Man. New York: Sheed
and Ward, 1969.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. God is New Each Moment. New
York: Seabury, 1983.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Language of Faith: Essay on Jesus,
Theology, and the Church. New York: Orbis Books, 1995.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Ministry: Leadership in the Community of
Jesus Christ. New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. God the Future of Man. New York:
Sheed & Ward, 1968
Schillebeeckx, Edward. God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed.
New York: Crossroad, 1983.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Church: The Human Story of God. New
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Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with
God. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963.
Schillebeeckx, E.. Interim Report on the books Jesus & Christ.
New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Schoof, Ted. The Schillebeeckx Case: Official Exchange of Letter
and Documents in the Investigation of Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx by the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1976-1980. New York:
Paulist Press, 1984.
The Schillebeeckx Reader. Ed. by Robert J.
Schreiter. New York: Crossroad, 1984.
Hilkert, Mary Catherine. “Hermeneutics of History: The Theological
Method of Edward Schillebeeckx,” The Thomist 51 (1987), 97-145.
Worthing, Mark William. Foundations and Functions of Theology as
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Pannenberg and Karl Rahner. New Yorl: Lang, 1996).
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and John P. Galvin. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
Crowe, Frederick E.,S.J.. Method in Theology: an Organon for our
Time. Wisconsin: Marquette University, 1980.
Mueller, J.J., S.J.. What are They Saying About Theological
Method? New York: Paulist Press, 1984.
Purcell, Michael. Mystery and Method: The Other in Rahner and
Levinas. Milwaukee: Marquette University, 1998.
Lonergan, Bernard J. F., S.J.. Method in Theology. New
York: Herder and Herder, 1972.
Rahner, Karl. “Transcendental Theology.” Sacramentum Mundi.
Ed. Karl Rahner. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970.
Muck, Otto. The Transcendental Method. New York: Crossroad,
1968.
HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES
FINGERS
POINTING TO THE MOON
FINGER1 FINGER2
FINGER3
Chúc
bạn an vui hạnh phúc.
Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.
[1] On Rahner’s biography, it is due of Michael Purcell, Mystery and Method: The Other in Rahner and Levinas (Milwaukee: Marquette University, 1998), xxvii-xxviii.
[2] Most of this paragraph relies on R. Schreiter, Edward Schillebeeckx: The Schillebeeck Reader (New York: Crossroad, 1987) 1-8.
[3] Words about God can be human words or God’s words, but today “theology refers primarily to the human study of God.” Cfr. Francis Schuessler Fiorenza, "Systematic Theology: Task and Methods," in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, 1, ed. Francis Schuessler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 5.
[4] The title of this thesis is inspired by the story in the Buddist tradition that Buddha pointed to the moon with his finger. His disciples were looking at his finger, so Buddha told them not to look at his finger but at what his finger was pointing to.
[5] Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 174.
[6] Edward Schillebeeckx, “The Uniqueness of Christ and the Interreligious Dialogue,” in Report: Catholic Academy in Munich, Bavaria, April 22 1997, 16 [Typed Copy].
[7] For example, Schillebeeckx’s theology has been examined, re-examined, and re-examined again by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith regarding his orthodoxy, but until now the Congregation has not given the final sentence. There could be something misunderstood in Schillebeeckx’s theology. In my opinion, examining Schillebeeckx’s method, which comes from his theological global view and choice of audience, could help us to understand his theology correctly and to justify his orthodoxy, because Schillebeeckx’s method shifts according to his audience.
[8] Rahner, Foundations, 116.
[9] Rahner, Foundations, 12.
[10] Rahner, Foundations, 29.
[11] Rahner, Foundations, 30.
[12] Rahner, Foundations, 31.
[13] Rahner, Foundations, 20-21.
[14] Rahner, Foundations, 32.
[15] Rahner, Foundations, 34.
[16] Rahner, Foundations, 21.
[17] Karl Rahner, "Atheism and Implicit Christianity," in Theological Investigations, IX (New York: Seabury, 1972), 154-155.
[18] Rahner, Foundations, 52.
[19] Rahner, Foundations, 53.
[20] Rahner, Foundations, 117-118.
[21] Rahner, Foundations, 120.
[22] Rahner, Foundations, 119.126.
[23] Rahner, Foundations, 121.
[24] Rahner, Foundations, 120.
[25] Rahner, Foundations, 123.
[26] Rahner, Foundations, 128.
[27] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 276.
[28] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 266.
[29] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 268.
[30] Rahner, Foundations, 279.
[31] Rahner, Foundations, 280.
[32] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 194.
[33] Rahner, Foundations, 196.
[34] Rahner, Foundations, 202.
[35] Rahner, Foundations, 181.
[36] Rahner, Foundations, 311-312.
[37] Rahner, Foundations, 313.
[38] Rahner, Foundations, 314.
[39] Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 4-5.
[40] Karl Rahner, Hearer of the Word (New York: Continuum, 1994), 113.
[41] Rahner, Hearer, 106.
[42] Rahner, Hearer, 111.
[43] Karl Rahner, Hearer, 91-98.
[44] Karl Rahner, "Church, Churches and Religions," in Theological Investigations, X (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), 46.
[45] Rahner, Foundations, 322.
[46] Rahner, Foundations, 324.
[47] Karl Rahner, "Church," 45-46.
[48] Karl Rahner, "Church," 47.
[49] Rahner, "Church," 48.
[50] Rahner, Foundations, 314.
Rahner, "Church,” 45.
[51] Rahner, Foundations, 315.
[52] Rahner, Foundations, 316.
[53] Rahner, Foundations, xi.
[54] Rahner, Foundations, 1.
[55] Rahner, Foundations, 312.
[56] Karl Rahner, "Reflections on Methodology in Theology," in Theological Investigations, XI (New York: Seabury, 1974) 69.
[57] Karl Rahner, "Reflections,” 68.
[58] Rahner, Foundations, 126. 117.
[59] Rahner, Foundations, 177.
[60] Rahner, Foundations, 179.
[61] Rahner, Foundations, 246-249.
[62] Rahner, Foundations, 176-177.
[63] Rahner, Foundations, 178.
[64] Rahner, Foundations, 116.