Introductory notes for readers of this thesis - Theses - Flinders ...

Though Kilby is certainly not the first to criticise the ambiguous and irreconcilableconcepts within Rahner’s broader corpus 51 , her criticism is not a dismissal of Rahner’santhropological/theological project. Rather, she seeks to free Rahner’s theology from therestriction of a foundationalist reading. In Kilby’s view, it is better to understandRahner’s transcendental theology as one way of speaking about the ahistorical characterof an element of human experience. Kilby’s understanding of Rahner enables readers toretain the content of the theology (the aspect of a universal experience that Christiantheologians may justifiably identify as a spiritual intuition or orientation) without feelingbound to a particular way (a philosophical method with its roots in a particularcultural/historical worldview) of explaining this reality. This releases readers to engagewith what Kilby refers to as Rahner’s ‘mature theology’ in a more ‘tentative…modest,and perhaps, indeed, more usable’ way 52 .Francis Schüssler Fiorenza is also a non-foundationalist reader of Rahner who offersadditional helpful ideas on framing Rahner’s transcendental anthropological projectwithin his total theological discourse. For Schüssler Fiorenza, Rahner’s early worksestablish an epistemology for communicating an essential theological idea in anintellectually credible way. In his view, Rahner is thinking theologically withinphilosophical frameworks rather than using a philosophical view as a primary source ofhis theological ideas 53 . Having established his philosophical epistemology as a methodfor communicating and questioning, Schüssler Fiorenza notes that Rahner moves on toaddress a wide variety of topical, concrete pastoral issues in a variety of ways and genres;he does not use only academic speculative philosophical language 54 . Schüssler Fiorenzaobserves that in his later writings, Rahner also moves beyond a purely a-historicanthropological epistemology, emphasising the experience of grace in salvation history,the Christological centre of the experience of grace, the importance of pastoral praxis for51 See for example Grenz & Olson, 20 th -Century theology, 238-254.52 Kilby, 2002, 140.53 ‘Method in theology’, in The Cambridge companion to Karl Rahner, 71.54 Ibid, 68.93