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

These anecdotes testify that Rahner laboured as a priest of God, utilising the resources ofhis intellect and training—as well as everything else at his disposal—to serve hisconstituency in the spirit and compassion of Jesus, the good shepherd. He was trained asa philosopher and theologian; he was a professor and lecturer. However, his essentialmotivation derived from his vocational identity as a Jesuit priest with a common ministrytowards all: ‘[my prayers]…express the concerns and anxieties of the scholar. But it is thesorrow and joy shared by all Christians that impels me to write’ 53 .In a late biographical interview, Rahner sums up his perspective on the influence of hispastoral vocation on his theological work:ultimately my theological work was really not motivated by scholarship anderudition as such, but by my pastoral concerns. This likewise explains why a largepart of my published work is filled with immediately religious, spiritual andpastoral concerns 54 .We now have arrived at something approaching a holistic grasp of the combination ofinfluences which contributed to Rahner’s theological work and his reforming influenceon 20 th century Catholic thought. We have before us a portrait of a profoundly mysticalperson; a lover of God; a loyal son of the church with an intense interest in historicalChristian revelation. In dynamic tension with these aspects of his make-up is the KarlRahner who is a student of modernist philosophy, pastorally motivated by his concern forthe spiritual wellbeing of contemporary women and men. As a loyal son, Rahner insistedthat his beloved church re-examine its self-understanding and the expression of itsministry in the light of reflections on the interface between church tradition andcontemporary existential thinking.Having established the significant contextual factors to Rahner’s theologising, I nowmove to a brief discussion of some notable aspects of his theological content and style.53 Karl Rahner cited in R.E. Murphy, ‘The theological legacy of Karl Rahner’, Books and Reviews 10(Winter 1989): 12.54 I remember, 22.16