Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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early distinguish himself as a student. He found
schoolwork "boring." Influenced by his reading of a
Kempis and the example of an older brother, Hugo (a
renowned theologian in his own right), Rahner entered the
Jesuit Order three weeks after leaving preparatory
school. His superiors directed him to a study of
philosophy and theology. Then followed a lifetime of
church statemanship, teaching (at universities at
Innsbruck, Munich, and Munster), writing (including
twenty volumes of Theological Investigations), and
editing (a lexicon and theological encyclopedia).
Rahner's theology builds on the foundational premise
that God is active everywhere in human history. God has
communicated himself to all persons, '5 and is in the
process of bringing them into his transcendent being.
Not all persons are consciously aware of God's
presence. Many, in their God-given freedom, have
apparently rejected his influence. This rejection of
God's self-communication, according to Rahner,
constitutes sin.' God, however, continues to work in
sinners' lives, drawing them toward himself and
self-realization.
All human beings, whether they are aware of it
or are quite unable to tell it to themselves,
possess an innermost ultimate dynamism of their
spiritual existence. . . . Human beings, when
they act, when they love, when they think
correctly, when they search, when they inquire,
when they act freely and responsibly, are
ultimately intending the ineffable,
unfathomable mystery that we call God.e
Human existence is integrally related to the divine.