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

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aspect of their daily routines and experiences, they have been existentially gazing into aneternal backdrop beyond the temporal elements.Conscious awareness that the distinctive temporal state of human existence becomesvivid against the backdrop of its infinite horizon brings an element of hope: limited,fragmented, alienated starkness is only part of the truth of the human journey. The hopethat humans may become part of the limitless other permeates the Encounter meditations,ultimately finding its resolution in faith that blossoms in the experiential knowledge ofenduring love.Rahner’s meditations imply that the secular fixation on temporal existence as an end initself, and pious clichés designed to mask feelings of futility and frustration, are usefulonly for those who have not yet found the faith or courage to gaze into infinite space.Those who have gazed—and have a sense of being found and placed in an eternalcontext—can reflect and speak honestly into the eternal silence. They gain a newperspective: a real faith based on abandonment rather than fearful, doctrinal dogmatism.The recognition of ‘life’s little acre’ is a positive step along the way to immersion in theeternal substance of a new life without barriers.Encounters with silence: fearful instincts in the face of infinityRahner is equally honest about the darkness of God’s incomprehensibility.Why do You constrain me to walk along Your paths, if they lead only to the awfuldarkness of Your night, where only You can see?…I’m constantly tempted tocreep away from You in utter discouragement, back to the things that are morecomprehensible, to things with which my heart feels so much more at home thanit does with Your mysteriousness 37 .The problem: God the Infinite is incredibly other, living in an infinite and eternal realmthat is incomprehensible to humans. Because they have no comprehension, humanscannot see the way forward, cannot predict what will happen, and do not have theknowledge they think they need to keep themselves as safe as they are accustomed to feelwhenever they try something new. Humans baulk at the infinite vision and the eternal37 Rahner, Encounters with silence, 5-6.63
gaze; they prefer to stay safe, risk nothing, and pretend that their temporal life andreligious beliefs are all that they need. Though human beings somewhere deep insiderecognise that they are stuck in a bleak cyclic and monotonous landscape leadingultimately to a futile death, they find launching out into an infinite unknown toooverwhelming.Whenever I think of Your Infinity, I am racked with anxiety, wondering how Youare disposed toward me…When I try to take You into account in the calculationsof my life, I can only put You down as an ‘unknown’—the riddle of Your Infinity,which Itself contains everything, throws all my calculations off, and so the endresult is still an insolvable puzzle…You are thus the eternal threat in my life,frightening me out of all sense of security 38 .The Encounters meditations expose the human dilemma. A sense of infinity helpshumans to see and frame their finite existence for what it is: barren, incomplete andultimately futile. Glimpses of infinity, however, frighten and confuse humans, and causethem to wish that they had never thought outside the familiar frames of the temporal andimmediately familiar. Stuck: trapped by temporal reality, frightened and confused byinfinite possibility, humans are left wondering ‘who or what will save us?’.Encounters with silence: experiential knowledge saves, and blossoms into loveIf God were to speak to humans in his own language about the fullness of his infinity theywould be overwhelmed and swept away; humans do not have the capacity to hear thisword.No, Lord, You must speak to me in a word that does not mean everything all atonce…Don’t tell me everything that You are; don’t tell me of Your Infinity—justsay that You love me 39 .Rahner speaks of Jesus Christ as the divine word that believers have the capacity to hearbecause he speaks God’s love in human language. His heart is a human heart—but it isalso God’s heart; through him believers can learn to believe that the frighteningimmensity of the all-in-all chooses to speak ultimately about just one thing: ‘love’.38 Ibid, 15.39 Ibid, 16.64
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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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Page 27 and 28: As you see, at the top of the carto
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Page 33 and 34: Introduced by Cardinal König to a
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Page 37 and 38: We see from Rahner’s pastoral con
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Page 41 and 42: Over a period of days and weeks, th
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Page 45 and 46: Modras has pointed out that Ignatiu
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Page 51 and 52: Rahner’s often-quoted comment tha
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Page 97 and 98: The most obvious criticism of Rahne
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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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