Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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more specifically, its preaching, do experience change
caused by the statements of its leaders.
On this question of adaptability, it is also
important to note that Rahner saw preaching as only a
secondary means of grace (behind God's universal
self-communication and the Eucharist). Thus preaching
serves more to explain these other channels of grace and
to specify the response God requires. This secondary
position Rahner allocated to preaching allows it further
flexibility. The experience of 'salvation' may remain
constant across time and location differentials, but the
analogical and symbolic description of the event requires
modification as human circumstances change,
Paul Tillich, like the others, struggled with the
tension between the eternal and the contemporary.
"Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the
eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal
situation ['the totality of man's creative selfinterpretation
in a special period'] in which the eternal
truth must be received." 1 ' Following the pattern set
by the first five theologians, Tillich valued the
historic Christian message. But its value is not an
objective value; in itself, the Christian religion does
not convey 'eternal truth'. Its value comes in that
Christianity's ancient symbolic portrayal of God and
existence still communicates 'the New Being' of renewed
life. Should the conditions of human life radically
change, a new set of symbols might serve much better.