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

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He recognised that sacrificial atonement was a recognisable, but not necessarilyexclusive, New Testament interpretation of the death of Jesus which made perfect sensein light of the biblical historical setting in which blood sacrifice was a commonlyunderstood element of the then contemporary religious/spiritual practice of the Jews.However, Rahner discerned the limitations of this view:• the meaning of blood sacrifice has no clear and natural connection to currentreligious/spiritual practice and is an abhorrence to the modern, secular mind;• sacrifice cannot be understood in its fuller biblical sense as producing achange in God—his forgiveness and love are the motivating cause of theIncarnation, not the outcome;• the primary or exclusive view of blood sacrifice as a dominant interpretationof the meaning of the Incarnation diminishes the significance and power ofthe resurrection.Rahner developed an alternative view of the salvific nature of the Incarnation as it is fullyexpressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In this he was much influenced bythe Greek fathers as the following quote from Theological Investigations shows:as the theology of the Greek Fathers comes into its own, the incarnation itself isbeing regarded as a moment of the redemption, and not merely as the act wherebysomeone is placed in a position where he can be redeemer, if he wills anddedicates himself to the task by a completely new act, so to speak. Thus theadvent of the incarnate Logos of the Father is being inevitably seen as the mostradical case of a salvific, creative word of God in general, which calls for atheology of the word of God as a soteriological entity in general 107 .What follows is a synthesis of the explanations of this alternative view using ideas fromDych, O’Donnell, O’Meara and Rahner (from his essay ‘On the theology of theincarnation’)108 .For Rahner, human history is the common history of the entire human family and in thissense the destiny of one member of this family can hold significance for the whole.It must be remembered that the history of humankind is one and single, so thatthere is an intrinsic unity between everything it contains from Abel to the last107 Theological Investigations, Vol IV, 256.108 W. Dych, Karl Rahner (London: Continuum, 1992), 60-61; J.O’Donnell, Life in the Spirit, 39-58; T.O’Meara, God in the world (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2007), 76; K. Rahner, ‘On thetheology of the Incarnation’, Theological Investigations, Vol IV, 105-120.161
living human being, and each individual has a connection with all the rest, notmerely those living at the same time or in the same place…but with all humanbeings right through the ages 109 .Jesus is fully human and therefore fully belongs to the human family. Jesus is also fullydivine and therefore is able to live his life in a unique way within and on behalf of thewhole human family.The God–man Jesus is able to express and live his humanity as the absolute fulfilment ofthe graced transcendence which is the universal human existential. He offers his life toGod in perfect loving obedience and surrender showing that true life and actualisation ofexistence is found not in selfish accumulation and self-protection but in absoluteabandonment to giving and going out from the self. Though the crucifixion of Jesus is aconsequence of the radical prophetic expression of his human graced transcendence, hedoes not baulk at the threat. Rather, he embraces death as the common aspect of thehuman journey with the same loving abandonment to—and trust in—the Father. In hisresurrection Jesus demonstrates in the most absolute and powerful way that the life ofactualisation through self-giving and loving has eternal validity and meaning. Jesusdemonstrates the true meaning of human existence: the way of love. He also proclaims theabsolute answer to the global human conundrum of death. In the resurrection, Jesusshows that life is not absurd, death is not a cruel cosmic joke or bitter irony, and that themeaning of love as a way of living and being lives on into an eternity of unspeakable joy!Rahner’s theology of salvation, as outlined above, provides the basis of the hope hespeaks of in face of death’s awful and bitter silence. Rahner is able to interpret the silenceof the dead as an eloquent message of the joyful promise of the wonderful certainty of aneternal home precisely because the life and death story of Jesus makes sense of the entirehuman journey; the awful silence of death is transformed into the beautiful silence of thedeep inner knowledge of the certainty of an eternal home, showing itself to be authenticin its differentiation from the finite by the very fact that, to human finite ears, no voicefrom the ‘silent dead’ is audible.109 K. Rahner, Theological Investigations, Vol X, 14-24, in The content of the faith, 400.162
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‘A Spirituality of silence’An i
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Chapter 4: The human experience of
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Summary of thesis:This thesis offer
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The particular angle from which thi
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somewhat superseded by more recent
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Rahner: I have nothing against that
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One brief but notable spiritual inf
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dialectic between these two, has le
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odies of knowledge, history and alt
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superiors, having decided that he w
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High School Week, Rahner began his
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Earlier in this chapter, Rahner’s
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These anecdotes testify that Rahner
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As you see, at the top of the carto
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Central to Rahner’s thinking is t
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Kilby notes that in regard to this
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Introduced by Cardinal König to a
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influence will continue to spread a
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We see from Rahner’s pastoral con
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European power 4 , and that he was
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Over a period of days and weeks, th
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The outcome of this encounter: the
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Modras has pointed out that Ignatiu
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Rahner the Ignatian spiritual direc
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facilitate this joyful and liberati
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Rahner’s often-quoted comment tha
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The master of the Exercises in no w
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Endean argues that Rahner is interp
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The Ignatian Exercises—especially
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provision of appropriate spiritual
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their existential encounter, they a
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Chapter 3: Spirituality of silence
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which the spiritual pilgrim finds t
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Lord, to pray my whole life long wi
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Encounters with silence: strictures
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a long highway filled by a column o
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gaze; they prefer to stay safe, ris
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This experience is life’s true es
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Christians can experience the full
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Rahner does not claim for himself t
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example, it would limit God to say,
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will and love of God: then the diam
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Echoes of Ignatius’ Exercises are
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Chapter 4: The human experience of
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proximity, the silence that leads e
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‘listening to the freely proffere
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approach; he is not arguing against
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must occur in history—time, space
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The most obvious criticism of Rahne
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Schleiermacher: seeking to build a
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and his meditations in Encounters w
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theological method, and the importa
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spirit dancing together in apprecia
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choosing to enter into the mystery
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may be described as a ‘mysticism
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possibilities but without a definit
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theologie) in which Rahner’s prim
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• around the concept and meaning
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knowledge. For we are not saved by
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In the worldview of contemporary Au
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It certainly seems somewhat disinge
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A good starting point for examining
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Christian contemplative-prayer trad
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Of course, a small number of the vi
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For better or for worse, and despit
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energy, intellect, prayer, love and
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Rahner, K. Karl Rahner - Prayers an
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Kelly, G.B. (ed.). Karl Rahner - th
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Van Vorst, B. ‘Kung and Rahner: d
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Harden, J.A. ‘Ignatian Spirituali
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Tyson, P. ‘Contemporary Australia
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