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

But in fact, this ‘swift upward glance of the soul’ is at one and the same time a downwardglance into the depths of the human spirit, largely ignored in the normal rush and tyrannyof the humdrum. In the process of becoming more present to the depths of their innerbeing, individuals become present to the God of all glory and grace who is always presentin grace, and ‘closer to them than they are to themselves’ 80 . Humans must enter into theirown sense of nothingness, and there discover, in their embrace of powerlessness, thepower and life of God which becomes their life. ‘Deep cries unto deep: the depth of ournothingness unto the depth of the power and majesty and wisdom of God’ 81 . The‘splendid paradox’ of entering more deeply into the self is that in ceasing to be oneself—in the sense of living a life characterised by control and preoccupation with that which ismanageable, concrete, material—individuals become more entirely at one withthemselvesbecause God is more the true centre of our being than we are ourselves. The sheerimmensity of God urges us to realise our being to its fullest through transcendingthe limitations impose by choosing to remain our own centre…In this newfreedom from thraldom to self, every word and act becomes a lived prayer,because the presence of God suffuses the whole pattern of living82 .The way down is paradoxically, the way up! This is highlighted in the followingcomments which articulate more clearly what Rahner means by the proximity of the holymystery and the human ontic capacity for participation in the divine life.Deep in our buried heart, we find this seed of the Divine, this restless reaching outtowards something infinitely beyond the things of this world; and we find strengthto pray 83 .These glimpses of strange infinities within us are pointers to a thirst for Infinity,for God, which has been placed by our Creator in the very depths of our nature.We must not seize on these infinities—these ‘magic casements opening’ into therecesses of our being—as idols to be enthroned in our lives. Their verymultiplicity would only increase that modern disease we have called Angst andwhich is a vague dread accompanying the apprehension of freedom and limitless80 An Augustinian phrase that Rahner repeatedly makes use of in this text.81 Ibid, 15.82 Ibid, 16.83 Ibid, 19.101