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

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Rahner asserts that endemic to being human is an inner feeling of something less thantotal satisfaction. Human experiences of the finite are never fully satisfying, and arecharacterised by a sense of being on the way but never having quite arrived.Consequently, humans experience life’s finite realities as a pathway, an ongoing pursuitof the infinite. In the fifth century, Christian theologian Augustine observed that ‘ourhearts are restless until they find there rest in you’ 19 .Rahner’s philosophical argument shows that the study of humanity points towards whatChristian theology reveals. Thus, the purpose of the proclamation of the Christian faith isnot the external imposition of a belief that must be uncritically accepted. Rather,Christian theology will naturally relate and connect to the paradox and inescapability ofthe human condition—and the consequent dilemma people face every day.[People] may try to evade the mysterious infinity which opens up before…[them]in…[their] questions. Out of fear of the mysterious… they] may take flight to thefamiliar and everyday. But the infinity which…[people] feel…[themselves]exposed to also permeates…[their] everyday activities. Basically…[humanity] isalways still on the way. Every goal that…[a person] can point to in knowledgeand in action is always relativised, is always a provisional step. Every answer isalways just the beginning of a new question…[Each human being] experiences…[the self] as infinite possibility because in practice and in theory…[people]necessarily place every sought-after result in question…[and therefore] it isalways situated] in a broader horizon which looms before…[humanity] in itsvastness…[A person] is the spirit who experiences…[itself] as spirit…[Humanbeings] do not experience… [themselves] as pure spirit…[Human being] is notthe unquestioning and unquestioned infinity of reality…[Being human] is thequestion that rises up before…[each person], empty, but really inescapably, andwhich can never be settled and never adequately answered by…[any humanbeing] 20 .Humans face the frightening condition of an incomprehensible infinity, which theyexperience as the continual questioning that emerges in the context of their apparentlyfinite existence. This condition they experience themselves as powerless to resolve.Rahner is arguing for an essential understanding of humans as transcendent beings.Rahner’s position is more subtle and far less alienating than a religious fundamentalist19 K. Rahner, Happiness through prayer (Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds, 1958), 33.20 K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian faith, Trans. W.V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1978), 32.83
approach; he is not arguing against empirical and material anthropologies or dismissingmodern views of the nature of human existence using an anti-intellectual appeal to asuperior ‘special revelation’. While Rahner acknowledges the right of various scientificanthropologies to define and describe humanity in terms of the empirical realities of thisworld (history, culture, genetics), he also proposes that an observable feature of humanexistence is ‘the fact that…[humanity] raises analytical questions about…[itself] andopens…[itself] to the unlimited horizons of such questioning’. This observation leadsRahner to conclude that humanity has already transcended ‘every conceivable element ofsuch an analysis or of…empirical reconstruction’ 21 . In simple terms, the nature of humanbeings as analytical questioners of their existence points towards a spiritual nature andorientation that exists at a level outside of the scope and methodology of the empiricalprocess.According to Rahner, a person who engages in this natural, observable process of selfanalyticalquestioning is acting as a spiritual being in accepting and embracing the‘inescapable situation of self responsibility’ 22 ; they are choosing to face rather than denyor repress the mystery of their existence. This spirituality is the Vorgriff, ‘an a priori 23“power” given within human nature[,]…the dynamism of the spirit as it strives towardsthe absolute range of all possible objects’ 24 . People may or may not be conscious of thefact that they are expressing or repressing their natural spirituality. When discernedthrough philosophical reflection, this process may be sensitively addressed in Christianproclamation. Therefore, everyday human existence can legitimately be recognised as aneveryday spirituality, the inescapable human condition, which isunceasingly for the absolute, in openness towards God. And this opennesstowards God is not something which may happen or not happen…once in21 Ibid, 29.22 K Rahner, The content of the faith, 228.23 A philosophical term that for Rahner distinguishes aspects of the human make-up that are a general,universal property of all human persons rather than the result of the social/spiritual/intellectualdevelopment of a particular individual through life.24 K Rahner, ‘Man as spirit’ (from Hearers of the word, chapter 5) in A Rahner reader, McCool, G. ed.(New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 16.84
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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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Page 51 and 52: Rahner’s often-quoted comment tha
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Page 69 and 70: Encounters with silence: strictures
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Page 97 and 98: The most obvious criticism of Rahne
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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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