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AUDIENCE AND METHOD WHICH DIFFER

Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.

Table of contents:

 Table of contents: 1

I. Rahner’s theological thought 2

A. Foundation of Rahner’s theological thought 2

1. Transcendental anthropology. 3

2. Christian dogmas. 5

B. Christ and world religions. 6

II. Schillebeeckx’s early theology. 7

1. Incarnation as starting point of Christology. 7

2. Church as constitutive element of salvation. 9

III. Schillebeeckx’s later theology. 11

A. Foundation. 11

1. Experiences of this secular world as data of theological reflection. 11

2. Theology as science. 13

Relation between dogmatic meaning and forms of expression. 15

Reinterpretation of dogmas. 16

B. Theology. 17

1. Creation and eschatology. 18

2. Jesus Christ- universal love for human beings. 20

3. World religions. 21

Conclusion. 23

Bibliography. 25

 

Both Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx are famous theologians of the twentieth century. Each of them has his own particularity in his theology, and has his own definitive contribution to theology. Each of them is an expert in the Second Vatican Council. However, their theologies are different from each other in a certain view. One may question what makes their theologies so different from each other. By my opinion it is the audience and thereby the starting points and methods, which make their theologies different.

To justify my opinion I will give an overview of the theological thought of Karl Rahner and of Edward Schillebeeckx. I will then determine the foundations of their systematical thoughts. Afterward through an examination of their theological imaginations, I will detect those ideas which make the theologies differ.

I. Rahner’s theological thought

Rahner’s systematical theology is founded on the philosophical thoughts that can be found in his books Spirit in the World and the Hearer of Word and most recently in the Foundations of Christian Faith.

A. Foundation of Rahner’s theological thought

Epistemology is the foundation of intellectual work. There have been many theories of knowledge, for example, Plato’s theories of reminiscence of the human soul. Rahner’s epistemology is the same as Aristotle’s and Saint Thomas Aquinas’, which defended the argument that human beings obtain knowledge through the contact of the human senses with material things.

1. Transcendental anthropology

In the present state, human knowledge is gained when the senses come into contact with material objects. Human beings can know not only material things but also spiritual realities. This theory is related to Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas’ theories on knowledge. It is against Plato’s theory of knowledge by reminiscence.

The human being is both body and spirit. Human beings know via their senses. Human beings know the rules or laws that generate the universe or material things. With this knowledge there are sciences, for example, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Moreover, human beings know the transcendental reality, which is beyond the senses. This knowledge is acquired by transcendental experiences.

The transcendental experience is not a thematic or categorical knowledge. It is unthematic knowledge. It is free and existential for everyone. Human beings recognize themselves as finite beings, then they experience “something” that is infinite and envelops all. From transcendental experience the human being has transcendental, categorical and thematic knowledge. Hence the human being does not demonstrate the existence of God, but recognizes the existence of God through a transcendental experience and expresses it through a categorical knowledge. For this reason, it is comprehensible when someone does not accept the existence of God, because nobody can demonstrate a reality that is beyond himself and his or her capacity. What the human being can demonstrate belongs to the same ontological level with the human being, but God is beyond the human being. This idea is similar to a famous Chinese thinker:

“The Way that can be described is not the eternal Way. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name.”[1]

Once human beings accept transcendental knowledge, they can talk about God as thematical knowledge. There is a correlation between the transcendental and categorical knowledge. Here we can remember what Emmanuel Kant called the noumena and the phenomena, and that, according to Kant, the human being should accept three transcendental realities: immortality of soul, freedom of the human being, and existence of God. These three realities are not demonstrated, so the human being must postulate them.

Transcendental condition is supposed to recognize or understand the Christian reality, for example,

“An act of hope in one’s own resurrection is something which takes place in every person by transcendental necessity either in the mode of free acceptance or of free rejection. For every person wants to survive in some final and definitive sense, and experiences this claim in his acts of freedom and responsibility, whether he is able to make this implication of the exercise of his freedom thematic or not, and whether he accepts it in faith or rejects it in despair.”[2]

In Christian language, the human being is a “person who is to be hearer of the Christian message.”[3] The human being is a person and a subject who can transcend the finite things, and is responsible for his or her acts of freedom. From finite things the human being recognizes the infinite being. From intelligent reality the human being recognizes the absolute intellect. From the love of person the human being recognizes God as a person who loves. The transcendental method is supposed in theology.

2. Christian dogmas

Rahner’s audience is Christians, so he started his theology with Christian dogmas. He did his Christology from below and from above. In other words, Rahner began his theology with the Christian belief “Jesus is God incarnate” as a dogmatic theologian.

“In connection with this I would call attention right away to the following: 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.”[4]

Rahner is a dogmatic theologian, so even though he talked of fundamental theology, which is the foundation of theology, it is understood that it is written to Christians who have already the same transcendental suppositions.

B. Christ and world religions

Peter Schineller classified theologies in four categories based on their positions in regard to Christ and Church. The first one regards Jesus Christ and Church as constitutive and exclusive way of salvation. The second one considers Jesus and Church as constitutive but not exclusive way of salvation. The third views Jesus and Church as normative but not constitutive way of salvation. The fourth one holds that Jesus Christ is one of many ways of salvation.[5] For an inclusivist theologian as Rahner, the problem “Jesus Christ in Non-Christian Religions” is important. By a non-Christian view, Christ is not absolute, is not God incarnate, and is not Christ for them.

For Rahner, Jesus is “the unsurpassable climax of all revelation”:

“Insofar as this revelation has a history because of the historicity of reflection upon God’s self-gift to man in grace- and indeed this history is differentiated within universal history- the history of revelation has its absolute climax when God’s self-communication reaches its unsurpassable high point through the hypostatic union and in the incarnation of God in the created, spiritual reality of Jesus for his own sake, and hence for the sake of all of us. But this takes place in the incarnation of the Logos because here what is expressed and communicated, namely, God himself, and, secondly, the mode of expression, that is, the human reality of Christ in his life and in his final state, and, thirdly, the recipient Jesus in grace and in the vision of God, all three have become absolutely one.”[6]

Jesus Christ is also present in non-Christian religions, but when affirming this Rahner must stand on dogmatic theology.[7] Nobody can affirm the Absoluteness of Jesus Christ without Christian faith; otherwise there would be no other religions.

For Rahner, world religions exist as a fact, but it is better for them to disappear before Christianity; more precisely, they can be a means God uses to save their respective believers, but they all are saved by Jesus Christ.

In summary, Rahner’s theology supposes transcendental anthropology and Christian dogmas. His theology is addressed to Christians. Rahner’s theology is suitable to Christians, but not non-Christian believers.

II. Schillebeeckx’s early theology

Edward Schillebeeckx in the beginning of his life adopted the Christological dogma of Chalcedon as the starting point of his theology.

1. Incarnation as starting point of Christology

In early time of his life, Schillebeeckx’s Christology is based upon the incarnation mystery expressed in the Chalcedon council. Schillebeeckx’s theology supposes a fundamental idea:

“We are able to reach God only by way of creatures, this desire is by its nature powerless.”[8] “Personal communion with God is possible only in and through God’s own generous initiative in coming to meet us in grace.”[9]

Salvation possesses a sacramental characteristic that includes religion as “by way of creatures”. Religion is above all a saving dialogue between man and the living God. It is therefore essentially a personal relation of man to God, a personal encounter or a personal communing with God.[10] Grace never comes just interiorly. To separate religion from Church is ultimately to destroy the life of religion. If one is to serve God, to be religious, one must also live by Church and sacrament.[11]

Schillebeeckx’s Christology started with the dogmatic definition of Chalcedon “one person in two natures”.

“The incarnation is the whole life of Christ, from his conception in the womb, through all his further life of action, completed finally in his death, resurrection and being established as Lord and sender of the Paraclete; it is prolonged everlastingly in his uninterrupted sending of the Holy Spirit.”[12]

From this incarnation view, Schillebeeckx built his Christology. Jesus is God incarnate, so acts of Jesus are acts of God. Jesus expresses the love of God Father to human beings.[13] Jesus’ death became the means of redemption.[14] Christ is the sacrament by which human beings encounter God. The Church, established by Christ as His presence in the world, is the sacrament by which human beings encounter God as well.

2. Church as constitutive element of salvation

For young Schillebeeckx the Church is constitutive of all human salvation. Jesus Christ is the one person in two natures. He is God in a human way, and He is man in a divine way. Everything he does as man is an act of the Son of God. His love for human beings is God’s love for humankind. Jesus Christ is the sacrament by which God wants to save human beings.

The Church is the People of God. Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection, becomes the head of the People of God. The earthly Church is the visible realization of this saving reality in history. It is a visible communion in grace, and is the visible expression of Christ’s grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society that is a sign.

“The Church therefore is not merely a means of salvation. It is Christ’ salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this word. Thus it is, by a kind of identity, the body of the Lord.”[15]

“What Christ is doing invisibly in this world through his Spirit, he is at the same time doing visibly through the mission of his apostles and of the members of the Church community.”[16]

“The earthly body of the Lord, the Church, is at the same time the Lord’s pleroma; being filled with Christ, it in turn fills the faithful.”[17]

The Church realizes the redemptive work of Christ by celebrating the sevenfold ecclesial realization that is seven sacraments.

Therefore, nobody, even those outside of the Church, can be saved without Jesus Christ who is the Son of God incarnate. Nobody can be saved without belonging to the Church, which implies a personal relationship between man and God.[18]

“If one is to serve God, to be religious, one must also live by Church and sacrament.”[19]

The Church is constitutive means that God uses it to save all human beings.

Religions and churches are the sacrament of salvation in the world. Thus, in his early life Schillebeeckx wrote that the Church is “a visible communion in grace,”[20] and it is Jesus’ redemptive community, established by God, having its head as Jesus Christ, assembled in his death, the Church is “the visible expression of Christ’s grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society which is a sign (societas signum).”[21] The Church therefore is not merely a means of salvation, but also “Christ’s salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this world. Thus it is, by a kind of identity, the body of the Lord.”[22]

For young Schillebeeckx, the audience of his writings is Christians. Therefore, we recognize the similarity between Rahner and Schillebeeckx.

III. Schillebeeckx’s later theology

There is a shift of audience for Schillebeeckx’s writings, so there is a change of starting point. The audience of early Schillebeeckx is Christians of the “perennis” mentality, but the audience of later Schillebeeckx is Christians of the post-modern mentality, in his own language, “marginal” Christians of the Church. Because people today are informed by a scientific mentality, Schillebeeckx used the secular world as data.

A. Foundation

Experiences of this secular world and theology as science are foundational to Schillebeeckx’s theology. Human beings today are understanding realities in their own way through their experiences. Moreover, revelation occurs through their experiences.

1. Experiences of this secular world as data of theological reflection

For Schillebeeckx, there can be no revelation without experience.[23] By experiences in daily life, human beings discover the world around them. Revelation supposes experiences of the world and relations between human beings. Through revelation, human beings have faith in the ultimate Reality. Christian revelation includes the experiences of Abraham, Moses, God’s people during the Exodus, the history of Israel, and the experiences of the apostles and the early disciples of Jesus. Therefore, Christianity is a religion of revelation in history and is based on experiences.

Revelation includes experiences about reality. These experiences which are described in first person in language come from witnesses. The experiences of witnesses become testimonies for believers who heard and answered by faith. Someone can receive revelation as experiences of another, but the believer himself has to live that experience. “Faith comes from hearing, but it is completed and mediated only in a personal experience”[24].

The negative experiences that culminate in human histories of suffering cause us to revise previous insights on the basis of the resistance of reality, and create opportunities to understand or accept revelation.

“The great moments of the revelation of reality lie here in and through the finite experiences of human beings… The deepest experiences that dislocate and bear along our lives are thus also conversion experiences, cross- experiences that force us to a change of meaning, action and being. Such experiences destroy and fragment us, but only for the sake of leading to a new integration.” [25]

Secularization in the view that God works continually in the world is a positive phenomenon through that human beings can experience God. Thus, the world that is created is the work of God from the first time on. The world belongs to God, depends upon God, but is not identified with God. Human beings rely on the laws of nature, for example of physics, of psychology and etc., but human beings are free and responsible beings. Today human beings take reason as the most precious standard of judgment; consequently for some people Christian beliefs are not of the same value as they were in former time. All is created by God and therefore is always the prestige of God. Thus Christians can talk about God to human beings through the creatures of the secularized world. That human beings live according to their reason is also a sign of human beings’ development. We have to believe in God and in human beings, even in the secularized world.

“In searching for the elements of secular experience which could point toward mystery, theological analysis should begin with man’s basic pre-reflexive trust in life and his self-commitment to the goodness and meaningfulness of human existence.”[26]

Distinguishing the phenomenon of secularization and its interpretation, and believing that God works always in his creatures at any time, the Christian will be an optimist to talk about God in any situation.

2. Theology as science

Critical theory with its rational, empirical and practical characteristics influenced Schillebeeckx’s theology. Thus, for Schillebeeckx, there are two theological views. One is classical and one is new.

“The new theology can be positively defined as a science which is based on a rational, empirically deduced theory which can only be formulated after the results of religious sociology and psychology have been fully assimilated and worked out.”[27]

Schillebeeckx’s theology is rational. Similarly, critical theory is to be found in the critical movement of the enlightenment, trying to bring the church’s tradition to be understood by means of hermeneutics.[28] In other words, “this theology is a rational and empirically deduced theory.”[29]

Schillebeeckx’s theology has also empirical characteristic by means of the secularized world with negative experiences of contrast as data.

“Insofar as they are empirical data, religion, Christianity and the church all belong to those social forms the structure and function of which merit specific analysis.”[30] If theology is not conscious of this need and has not assimilated critical theory into its own design, it may well become an unscientific ideology.[31]

Praxis is another characteristic of his theology.

“The relationship between theory and praxis as worked out by Habermas especially is, of course, of great importance to us if we want to understand correctly the hermeneutic process of this actualising theology… Critical theory’s understanding of itself as the self-consciousness of a critical praxis is also undoubtedly correct.”[32]

“Theology is the critical self-consciousness of Christian praxis in the world and the church.”[33]

Schillebeeckx wants to build his theology as a science: secularized world with negative experiences of contrast as data, his theology as postulate proposed and being verified by praxis.

Relation between dogmatic meaning and forms of expression

In the course of history the dogmatic meaning rests unchanged but the forms of its expression are possible to be changed. The word dogma had various meanings, for example, the divine edict in Hellenistic Judaism, every truth directly revealed either explicitly or implicitly by God at the time of the Renaissance, only those truths of faith called dogmas in canon law of 1917, only truths revealed by God and as such defined by the Church’s extraordinary teaching authority in a stricter sense. So dogmas are the Church’s authentic expressions of a reality of revelation.[34]

With Catholic faith, all dogmas that express the Catholic belief are true. However, with time the human understanding of human beings changes, therefore, some dogmas do not express exactly what they did in times past, so the Church needs to reinterpret dogmas. The reinterpretation of dogma can therefore have both an orthodox and an unorthodox significance.

Theologians need to distinguish between truth in itself and truth as a spiritual possession of man as some modernists did.[35] There are some various thoughts about concepts, for example, in idealism human thought produces its contents and therefore truth. With “representational realism” the content of our concepts is an exact reflection of reality without any reference to a human act which confers meaning. In modern phenomenologists the objective signification of a reality can be found only in the meaning that this reality has in relation to man. In “philosophia perennis” implicit in the relative meanings given by man, there is an absolute meaning in reality.[36]

All formulation has its limit. So the movement towards the reality of salvation by means of dogma has to be satisfied with imperfect concepts.[37]

Reinterpretation of dogmas

Reinterpretation of formulae of faith is important work. It helps people today to better understand God and his revelation. Thus, the development of doctrine is the Church’s effort to express correctly God or truths revealed through dogmas and authoritative teachings. This work is also the goal of hermeneutics in protestant theology.[38]

For Schillebeeckx, reinterpretation of the dogmas is very important, otherwise Christians could not understand correctly what is revealed and could be unfaithful to revelation:

“It will become clear why living orthodoxy can be attained only within a reinterpretative present-day understanding of faith which is faithful to the biblical interpretation of faith. We can, after all, never dispense with interpretation of a previously given (and originally, a biblical) interpretation, which becomes authentically understood precisely in the reinterpretation.”[39]

He continued:

“Simply to repeat the earlier formulae of faith word-for-word is to misconceive the historicity of our existence as men and is therefore a grave danger to genuinely biblical orthodoxy.”[40]

Reinterpretation of dogma is to say the same thing in a different way. For Schillebeeckx,

“the road that led from the Bible to Chalcedon is no different from that which led, for example, from the original image of Christ to that of the synoptic and Paul and later to that of John.”[41]

For Schillebeeckx, principles to reinterpret of dogma are not only “the kernel and its mode of expression[42] or “what is said” (das Gesagte) and “what is intended” (das Gemeinte)[43] but also “the past in the light of the present[44] and “both the present and the past within the sphere of the promise[45] and “permanence in the present, past and future.”[46]

The Church is not the principle of hermeneutics,[47] but the Christian reality of faith is brought to light and thus brought to the world in the Church, so theology, which is an ecclesial and apostolic undertaking, must be done within the Church in the service of the world.[48]

B. Theology

For Schillebeeckx, creation, and eschatological imagination, and Jesus Christ are principal axes of theology.

1. Creation and eschatology

God willed to create the world as it is and human beings as they are.[49] Thus, dualist and emanationary views regarding the finitude of human beings come from the evil or from the concern to preserve God’s transcendence, but the correct Christian view has to recognize that the creature is made as it is. If the creation notion were truly understood the world would be respected as it must be, and human beings would find God in the creature.

“God remains in and with the contingent, the other-than-God, the world in its nature as world, and mankind in its autonomous but finite humanity.”[50]

The creature as it is, created by God, reflects God, and becomes the locus where human beings encounter God and perfect themselves. The finitude of human beings did not come from another but from God. Creation is a symbol of God’s presence to reality, because God is transcendent and immanent in the world. Therefore, through and in creature, even through and in their own finitude human beings recognize and depend upon God.

“Nature and history are authorities in which and through which God discloses himself as creator, in and through our fundamental experiences of finitude.”[51]

God creates human beings as a principle of his own human action, who will thus himself shape the world and its future and bring his plans into effect within contingent situations.

“Christian salvation is salvation of and for human beings, not simply the salvation of souls but the healings, making whole, wholeness, of the whole person, the individual and society, in a natural world which is not abused. Thus Christian salvation also comprises ecological, social and political aspects, though it is not exhausted by these.”[52]

Hence, there is not salvation outside the world (extra mundum nulla salus).

Eschatological imagination is very important in Schillebeeckx’s theology. Eschatology treats problems related to human beings such as death, resurrection, eternal life and salvation. Schillebeeckx so concerned about the people of today that it could be said that his theology has as its point of departure the secularized world.

Eschatology is related very closely to Christology. For Christians, death is presupposed by belief in the resurrection and particularly the physical resurrection of Jesus.

“For without this resurrection Jesus of Nazareth is one of the many utopias.”[53]

He continued:

“Thus belief in the physical resurrection is openness to an event, an event which is not identical with dying itself, but is rather the free event of God’s own divinity which overcomes even death.”[54]

Eschatology is related to the Church, because the Church is the present and eschatological reality. Eschatology is connected intimately to human beings and their ways of living. Schillebeeckx states that eschatology supposes:

“understanding and trusting God on the basis of Jesus’ life and death, that is, looking through Jesus to God, means coming to terms with our own incompleteness, with the character of our existence which is not justified and not reconciled. A Christian who believes in the resurrection is therefore freed from the pressure to justify himself and from the demand that God should publicly take under his protection and ratify all those who believe in him.”[55]

He continues:

“Like Jesus, the Christian dares to entrust himself and the justification for his life to God; he is prepared to receive this justification only where Jesus did: beyond death.”[56]

Creation is an event that happened in the past. No one was eyewitness to this event; eschatology is what will happen in the future that no one has yet seen. By Jesus Christ the Church guessed and foresaw creation and eschatology and therefore knows how to live in the world today.

2. Jesus Christ- universal love for human beings

The role of Jesus Christ in the salvation of all human beings is a great theological problem for pluralist theologians. It includes problem of the salvation of people who lived before and after Jesus. If people before Jesus were saved by Jesus Christ, then all human beings are saved by Jesus Christ. The scholastic theology explained it by anticipation. God wants to save all human beings, and in the eternal design Jesus will exist. Therefore, everyone would be saved or not by choosing the good or the bad, by choosing Jesus Christ in the case he recognized him as God incarnate.

“The world and human history in which God wills to bring about salvation are the basis of the whole reality of faith; it is there that salvation is achieved in the first instance… or salvation is rejected and disaster is brought about. In this sense it is true that extra mundum nulla salus, there is no salvation outside the humanum world.”[57]

For Schillebeeckx, salvation is very concretely found in Jesus Christ.

“The universality of Christian salvation is an offer of salvation from God to all men and women…. The salvation that is founded in Christ as a promise for all becomes universal, not through the mediation of an abstract, universal idea, but by the power of its cognitive, critical and liberating character in and through a consistent praxis of the kingdom of God. So this is not a purely speculative, theoretical universality, but a universality which can be realized in the fragmentary forms of our history only through the spreading of the story of Jesus confessed by Christians as the Christ, and through Christian praxis.”[58]

Jesus is unique, and his message is universal to human beings.

“The God of all men and women shows in Jesus of Nazareth who he is, namely universal love for men and women. Jesus Christ is the historical, culturally located expression of this universal message of the gospel.”[59]

However if Jesus is not absolute,[60] he cannot be the cause of the salvation of all people.

3. World religions

Late in his life, Schillebeeckx thought that religions and churches were not salvation, but, of the order of the sign, a sacrament of salvation.[61] Belief is a constitutive element of all religions. Belief in God as the ground and source of our world and the history of human liberation in the midst of all kinds of chance, determination and indeterminacy, is not merely a belief in the existence of God.

“It is belief in God as salvation of and for human beings whom he brought to life in this world. It is a belief in God’s absolute saving presence among men and women in their history.”[62]

The world of creation is the sphere of God’s saving action in and through human mediation. “The history of the religions is only one segment of a broader history; the religions are the place where men and women become explicitly aware of God’s saving actions in history.”[63]

In Christianity, Christians experience Jesus as the supreme density of divine revelation in a whole history of experiences of revelation.[64] Christians find God above all in Jesus Christ.[65] The Holy Spirit is considered as source and foundation of all authority, including official authority, in the church, and the variety of instruments through which it works.[66]

“There are also intrinsic ecclesiological reasons for preferring a democratic exercise of ministerial authority in the church to oligarchical, monarchical or feudal forms of government.”[67]

Previous to this, Schillebeeckx had used Nicea’s dogma as a starting point for his Christology.[68] He developed his Christology with traditional formulas. Later, however, Schillebeeckx would assert, “although institutions and dogmatic positions are essential aspects of religion, they remain subordinate to religious experience.”[69]

“Doctrine merely serves to hand on and call forth experiences which have already been had. The doctrine itself is only a considered ordering and reflection upon the content of salvation, of which Christians have had an interpretative perception in the event of Jesus.”[70]

For Schillebeeckx in his late life, Jesus is one among others and the Catholic Church is one among other religions God used to save humankind.

Conclusion

Rahner and the Young Schillebeeckx have the same audience that is Catholics, and the same starting point of theology, namely, the Christological dogma of Chalcedon. Therefore, Rahner and young Schillebeeckx’s theologies are very “traditional” by the Roman Catholic view. In that time, for both Rahner and Schillebeeckx, Jesus Christ is God incarnate, so Jesus is the Absolute and constitutive salvation of all humankind. Moreover, since human beings need mediation for encountering God, the Church is the necessary means of salvation.

Late in his life Schillebeeckx wrote to “non-believers and marginal Catholics.”[71] It is the audience that makes Schillebeeckx change his methodology. Thus, non-believers and marginal Catholics, who are people in the modern world living and thinking in the way of modern sciences. First, about the starting point of theology, they don’t accept Christian belief simply on the authority of others, but accept only what they see or experience in their daily lives and can be experimented on or proved, so Schillebeeckx took the starting point of his theology that is this secularized world as data for theological reflection. For Schillebeeckx in his late life, Catholic dogmas are no longer supposed as standards to build his theology. Secondly, Schillebeeckx considered theology as science which is rational and universal to everyone, not only Christians but also non-Christian believers. Therefore, both human reason and the pragmatism are the standards to judge the validity of theologies according to Schillebeeckx.

In summary, it is the audience and thereby the methodology, which make Rahner and Schillebeeckx’s theologies different. Rahner’s theology is more appropriate to Roman Catholics, and Schillebeeckx’s theology is more fitting to American Catholics and even non-Christian believers.


 

Bibliography

 

Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity. New York: Crossroad, 1995.

Rahner, Karl. Esprit dans le Monde. Mame, 1965.

Rahner, Karl. A l’ Ecoute du Verbe. Mame, 1969.

Schineller, J. Peter, S.J.. “Christ and Church: a Spectrum of views”, in Theological Studies 37 (1976).

Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963.

Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord. New York: Crossroad, 1981.

Schillebeeckx, Edward. "Experience and Faith" in Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV

Schillebeeckx, Edward. "Five Questions Facing the Church Today" in The Crucial Questions: On Problems Facing the Church Today. Ed. by Frank Fehmers. New York: Newman Press, 1969

Schillebeeckx, Edward. The Understanding of Faith: Interpretation and criticism. New York: Seabury Press, 1974

Schillebeeckx, Edward. Revelation and Theology. Translated N.D. Smith. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968

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 York: Crossroad, 1990.

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.

 

 

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Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.

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[1]  Tao Te Ching, 1

[2] K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, (New York: Crossroad, 1995)  p. 268.

[3] Karl Rahner, Op. cit., p. 24

[4] K. Rahner, Op. cit., p. 177

[5] J. Peter Schineller, S.J., “Christ and Church: a Spectrum of views”, in Theological Studies 37 (1976) pp. 545-566.

[6] K. Rahner, Op. cit., p. 174

[7] K. Rahner, Op. cit., p. 312-313

[8] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971) p. 4.

[9] Ibidem

[10] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971) p. 4.

[11] E. Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 10

[12] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971) p. 25.

[13] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971) p. 17.

[14] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971) p. 20.

[15] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 48.

[16] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 50.

[17] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 51.

[18] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 4.

[19] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 10.

[20] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p.  47.

[21] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 48.

[22] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 48.

[23] Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p.  45.

[24] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Experience and Faith," Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV, p. 3.

[25] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Experience and Faith," Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV, p. 9.

[26] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Five Questions Facing the Church Today," The Crucial Questions: On Problems Facing the Church Today, ed. by Frank Fehmers (New York: Newman Press, 1969), p. 54.

[27] E. Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith: Interpretation and criticism (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), p. 136.

[28] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 102

[29] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 112

[30] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 140

[31] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 140

[32] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 142

[33] Edward Schillebeeckx, Op. cit., p. 154

[34] E. Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology, translated N.D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), pp. 23-24.

[35] E. Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology, translated N.D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), p. 13.

[36] E. Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology, translated N.D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), p. 5-6.

[37] E. Schillebeeckx, Revelation and Theology, translated N.D. Smith (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), p. 26.

[38] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 6.

[39] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 21.

[40] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 24.

[41] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 7.

[42] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 10.

[43] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 13.

[44] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 21.

[45] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 35.

[46] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 38.

[47] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 17.

[48] Edward Schillebeeckx, God the Future of Man, (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968), p. 43.

[49] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 91.

[50] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 93.

[51] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 91.

[52] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 100.

[53] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 134.

[54] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 135.

[55] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 136.

[56] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 136.

[57] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 12.

[58] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 176.

[59] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 179.

[60] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 165-166.

[61] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 13.

[62] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 11.

[63] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 12.

[64] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 26.

[65] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 102 ff

[66] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 216 ff

[67] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 220

[68] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 13ff

[69] Edward Schillebeeckx, Interim Report on the books Jesus & Christ, (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 5.

[70] Edward Schillebeeckx, Interim Report on the books Jesus & Christ, (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 8.

[71] Edit. Ted Schoof, 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), p. 119.