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

spirit dancing together in appreciation of the fullness of all that it means to be human. Hisvision of a creative and free expression of the intellect in the face of mystery leads to anunderstanding of the boundless space and sustaining presence of the eternal—a visionleading towards a posture of silent listening where speculation ends and the possibility ofrevelation begins.The mystery of infinity in proximity: a near and present deityIn his idea of the ‘supernatural existential’ 58 , Rahner proposes an answer to the questionof human angst from the living tradition of Christian faith. In his concept ofanthropological transcendence he has established an intellectual basis for a view ofhumans as beings who can never actualise or fulfil their existence through the materialand empirical aspects of life alone. Rahner’s answer to the dilemma of unfulfilled andfrustrated human existence is twofold:a) the possibility of relational intimacy with the life of the infinite mysterycompletes and fulfils human existence, making humans human, and not just aspecies of ‘resourceful animals’59;b) Christianity shows people the mystery of the infinite is near, and thatparticipation in the life of this mystery can become a reality rather than beexperienced as a constant and unexpressed longing.The theological basis for the whole of Rahner’s anthropology—and of particularrelevance to the development of his idea of the supernatural existential—is that the wholepurpose of God’s creation begins and ends in love.God wishes to communicate himself, to pour forth the love of which he himself is.That is the first and last of his real plans and hence of his real world too.Everything else exists so that this one thing might be: the eternal miracle ofinfinite Love. And so God makes a creature whom he can love: he creates…[human beings]. He creates…[humans] in such a way that…[individuals] canreceive this love 60 .58 Rahner takes the term ‘existential’ from his mentor Martin Heidegger who uses it in his analysis ofhuman existence to designate those components that are constitutive of human existence as opposed to theexistence of non-human creatures, see Dych, Karl Rahner, 36.59 Rahner, Foundations, 51.60 K. Rahner, ‘The relationship between nature and grace’, in Theological investigations Vol. 1, Trans. C.Ernst (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), 310.96