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

While humans can never grasp the mystery, they can be grasped by the mystery—and inthe experience of being grasped, become more fully human at the same time as becomingmore completely spiritual 90 . Rahner’s theology of mystery reflects a profound spiritualityof silence: the nature of human existence is a constant non-verbal, unconscious, yetprofoundly significant message of divine origin, destiny and presence. In this sense themystical reality of the gospel is truly incarnate: the silent word is not far from humans,speaking to each individual in the very nature and structure of the particular way in whicheach person experiences being human as a living dynamism of mystery.Rahner’s lecture series, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, provides a windowinto the concept of mystery in Catholic theology, and by implication, in Christiantheology and pastoral ministry to the whole world.The concept of mystery in Catholic theology[Modern people]…find the mystery of God so all-embracing that they cannoteasily bring themselves to accept a multitude of mysteries which look very muchlike the complications of human reasoning which has tied itself up in knots 91 .In his lecture series, Rahner reconstructs the concept of mystery in a way that remainstrue to the essence of tradition and scripture while releasing its dynamic content for akerygma (proclamation) that will achieve a mystagogic92 function. These lecturesdemonstrate that his ideas about mystery and their implications for both Church andculture are in essence both a beckoning from and towards an encounter with silence.According to Rahner, the problems associated with the traditional Catholic view ofmultiple ‘mysteries of faith’ are essentially a consequence of the church’s over-emphasison the mysteries of its multiple, dogmatic statements and its under-emphasis on the objectof God as the mystery. This imbalance has created a concept of ‘mystery as the propertyof a statement’, and has given rise to a faulty theological logic90 See Egan, The Cambridge companion to Rahner,18; O’Donnell, ‘The mystery of the faith in thetheology of Karl Rahner’, 301.91 Rahner, Theological investigations, Vol. IV, 37.92 A term Rahner uses to describe the process of helping everyday people make real connections betweentheir experience of life and of themselves and the dynamic elements of the Christian faith.105