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

Harvey Egan theorises on the nature and structure of the Encounters meditations in aninformal and unpublished document 19 .First, there is an awareness or a naming of the reality of everyday life as Rahnerexperiences or notes it.A metaphor is introduced and a comparison (sometimes a paradox) is suggestedcontrasting…[humanity’s] reality and experience with that of God’s experienceand reality.Rahner highlights the incongruities between God’s action and human action.Rahner seeks to find God in the experience he presents, usually in the form of aquestion.Rahner wrestles with this question and in the process makes a confession, admitsa temptation and formulates a desire.Rahner then suggests a way God might resolve his question which becomes aresolution suggesting surrender to divine love.On the basis of the above analysis, Egan concludes the following:On the whole, each prayer wrestles with the way in which human finitenessencounters, experiences, and surrenders to God’s infinity, incomprehensibility andlimitlessness.Each prayer provides an assertion of how Rahner sees God drawing on…[humanity’s] finitude into God’s boundlessness (through a very small but realaperture) .The encounters with Silence occur at that liminal place where the human anddivine connect. The edge of silence is the beginning of God, and prayer bringsRahner to this very precipice 20 .Egan comments that the structure ‘makes sense’ in light of Rahner’sphilosophical/theological background; he wonders ‘if this book and the structures beneaththe prayers indicate the way in which Rahner himself prayed’. Egan’s reflectionshighlight the usefulness of the Encounters text as both a prompt and a guide: others cancopy Rahner’s way of praying into the silence.19 This document was accessed directly from the author by the means of an email attachment as part of anongoing correspondence, beginning in May 2008.20 Emphasis mine.59