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

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flows out of and then leads back into encounters with the saving, silent presenceof the mystery of God’s love for us in the crucified and risen Christ, and does sowithout dissolving theology’s necessarily critical and rational function 13 [italics inoriginal text].Rahner himself regarded his devotional works ‘not as a secondary by-product of theologythat is sort of art for art’s sake, but as least as important as my specifically theologicalworks’14 .Encounters with Silence is not merely a convenient title plucked from obscurity, amarginal, occasional devotional afterthought. It is a chronological and conceptual classic,a historical treasury of the spiritual and conceptual essence of the person and theology ofKarl Rahner.Encounters with silence: nature, literary structure and impressionsTypical of Rahner, when the ten meditations published as Encounters made their firstappearance as a series within a journal devoted to the spiritual formation of priests, hisstyle is neither directive nor instructive but implicitly—and silently—invitational. Rahnerdoes not address the reader directly; he addresses God, and draws his readers into theunfolding drama of the conversation. The first-person conversational genre of Encountershas a quality that brings to mind Pannenburg’s summation of Rahner’s influence: ‘Hemakes the Christian element become transparent to humanity generally, and people feltthat their questions were part of Rahner’s experience’ 15 . Rahner’s style also brings tomind the methodology of Ignatius: the offering of personal spiritual experiences as astarting point for others to enter a similar, yet distinct and uniquely personal, journey.It is likely that readers are attracted to Encounters for the same reason that so many findcomfort and hope in the biblical psalms. Indeed, Encounters is very psalm-like in its styleand structure. In each of the ten meditations, Rahner raises difficult issues of faith andexistence honestly without pious pretence.13 H. Egan, Karl Rahner – mystic of everyday life, (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 81.14 Cited in ibid, 93.15 As cited in Vorgrimler, Understanding Karl Rahner, 23.57
Lord, to pray my whole life long without hearing an answer, isn’t that too much toask? You see how I run away from You time and time again, to speak with…[people] who give me an answer…You see how much I need to be answered. Andyet, my prayers never receive a word of reply 16 .Like the majority of the psalms, the questions raised by Rahner in Encounters find theirresolution in applying theological reasoning to faith .Why are You so silent? Why do you enjoin me to speak with You, when Youdon’t pay any attention to me? Isn’t Your silence a sure sign that You’re notlistening? Or do You really listen quite attentively, do You perhaps listen mywhole life long, until I have told You everything, until I have spoken out myentire self to You? 17Characteristic of each of the meditations is the pattern of honest questioning, complaintand wondering that leads ultimately to a resolution emerging from a creative logicalreflection on the nature and character of divinity—and not to a pat religious answer.A significant component of the capacity of Encounters to draw in readers/listeners is thevivid, artistic imagery Rahner uses to describe the human condition. The followingnotable example, using the metaphor of a goods warehouse to describe the unceasingaccumulation of the trivial data of everyday life, is found in ‘God of my daily routine’.Many years ago, when I was a schoolboy distinguished by the name‘philosopher,’ I learned that the soul is somehow everything. O God, how themeaning of that lofty-sounding phrase has changed! How different it sounds to menow, when my soul has become a huge warehouse where day after day the trucksunload their crates without any plan or discrimination, to be piled helter-skelter inevery available corner and cranny, until it is crammed full from top to bottomwith the trite, the commonplace, the insignificant, the routine 18 .Carefully constructed, descriptive phrases permeate the meditations, enablingreaders/listeners to discern that their most familiar experiences have been penetrated,mirrored and framed within the author’s prayer.16 K. Rahner, Encounters with silence, 19-20.17 Ibid, 20.18 Ibid, 46.58
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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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Page 55 and 56: Endean argues that Rahner is interp
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knowledge. For we are not saved by
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silent experience of God—is able
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the immanent life of God’ 120 . T
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Investigations much like the biblic
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abandonment to the eternal life in
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Theology of mystery as dynamic chal
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ecause the phonetic sound of the wo
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alone that enables individuals to f
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Chapter 5: Word and sacrament—exp
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The centrality of scripture, and it
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What makes the words of scripture d
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silence. He felt that the movement
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with humanity—his ‘economic’
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Having discerned their revelatory c
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fulfilment in following the absolut
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Rahner’s transcendental perspecti
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toward which it points. God’s wor
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sacramental: a sign in which God’
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In light of the implications of Rah
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who, like mystics, experience such
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The juxtaposition of two articles
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These two interpretations of Rahner
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Rahner advocates that all believers
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The sacrament of the wordIn reflect
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‘theological aesthetics’. With
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Many things in life act as signs th
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Rahner’s dual commitment to recei
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living human being, and each indivi
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The church is sacramental in the se
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spiritual rhythms that trace direct
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the missionary tasks of the Church;
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unhelpful assumptions that diminish
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expressions of mystagogical 142 ini
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Does this lead Rahner into compromi
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) ) an ongoing contemporary influen
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Hosek shifts the soteriological foc
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Is this vision of silent spirituali
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Being in silence as a way of creati
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word of life and hope within them.
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Level 1:PremoralStage 2:Instrumenta
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These new monastics see the local c
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eliefs that have been tried and tes
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of mature theological reflection co
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ecognised in his Christological ass
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inability or unwillingness of the e
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Kanyini—an Australian Aboriginal
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The film Kanyini demonstrates the c
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estless and always in a hurry to ge
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considered the sole and ultimate au
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We define spirituality as a conscio
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supportive conversation with expres
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A glance at table 4 75 (above), Hug
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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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