Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan in Relation to the Attitude of Inclusivity Within the Roman Catholic Church

Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan in Relation to the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Regis College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology awarded by Regis College and the University of Toronto

Heejung Adele Cho August 30, 2011 Regis College

395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada

Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-82881 -6 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-82881-6

NOTICE: AVIS:

The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciaies ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.

The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondares ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis.

•+l Canada Introduction .2

I. Distinctive Epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan 7 a) Rahner's Epistemology from Implicit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge 9 b) Lonergan's Dynamic Process of the Human Knowledge 16

II. Inclusive Theologies of Rahner and Lonergan 28 a) Rahner's Theory of Anonymous Christians 30 (1) Rahner's Inclusive Christology through His Epistemology 32 (2) Further Concerns Inherent in Rahner's Theory of "Anonymous Christians" 36

b) Lonergan's Theory of "Universal Mission of the Holy Spirit 42 (1) Lonergan's Distinction between Faith and Belief as a Starting Point of His Trinitarian Theology 44 (2) Lonergan's Pneumatology with a Reversed Order of the Trinity 49 a) Frederick E. Crowe's Approach to the Order of the Missions of the Trinity 50 b) Jung Young Lee's Approach to the Order of the Missions of the Trinity 54

c) Conclusion 58

III. The Continuity in the Theologies of Rahner and Lonergan and Their Influence on the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church....61 a) Rahner's Theory of "Anonymous Christians" and the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church 63 b) Lonergan's Pneumatology and the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church 71 c) The Position of the Roman Catholic Church on the Universal Mission of the Holy Spirit 77

Conclusion 83

Bibliography 87

1 Introduction

Historically and traditionally, the axiom "outside the Church, no salvation" had been widely believed up until the time of the Second Vatican Council (1961-1965). However, the climate of a post Vatican II Church subsequently became the starting point for many contemporary theologians to contribute to the shift from a position of exclusivity to a position of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church. Through their writing, theologians invited believers to broaden the concept of Christianity to embrace all humanity throughout the world.

This led to a further development through shifting the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church from exclusive to inclusive, stretching the thinking beyond Christianity towards a "new horizon" of world religions. Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan were among the theologians whose contribution in this area remains significant for us today.

Rahner and Lonergan attempt to bring about the shift in the position of the Roman

Catholic Church from an exclusive position to an inclusive position by acknowledging the presence of the grace of God in the world. Their acknowledgement of the universality of God's grace suggests a different view from that of traditional Thomism, although the theories of Rahner and Lonergan are based on Thomistic philosophy. Rahner and Lonergan focus on God's grace in humanity beyond Christianity while traditional Thomism emphasizes God's grace through the

Incarnation and its setting in the history of salvation. This movement presents a new interpretation of Thomism in acknowledging some basic weaknesses of traditional Thomism, which Joseph Donceel defines as insufficient emphasis on subjectivity (human as a subject, as I), inter-subjectivity (the "others", you or thee), and development (growth, evolution and history).1

Donceel designates the movement that responds to these weaknesses of traditional Thomism as

"Transcendental Thomism"; this expression has been widely used to indicate the theories of

Joseph Donceel, "Philosophy in the Catholic University," America 115 (1966): 331

2 Joseph Marechal, Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan and other scholars in the same vein. For instance, Richard Hinners et. al. discuss the transcendental method of Marechal, Rahner and

Lonergan in "The Transcendental Method1'.3 Leslie Dewart also attempts to group Rahner and

Lonergan together in his article "On Transcendental Thomism". In the same way, the similarities of the theologies of "Transcendental Thomists" including Rahner and Lonergan have been emphasized by Eric Mascall, Gerald McCool, and Frederick Wilhelmsen.5 However, this designation of "Transcendental Thomism" emphasizes the similarities between the theologies of

Rahner and Lonergan together with Marechal without paying sufficient attention to the differences in their theories.6 The theologians who focus on the similarities within the transcendental Thomism agree that both Rahner and Lonergan have been influenced by Thomas

Aquinas, who believed that faith and reason originate in God. Thus, both Rahner and Lonergan approach their theologies from anthropological perspective, defending the legitimacy of human reasoning. They acknowledge the latent a priori view of the totality which is innate to our humanity. Rahner and Lonergan hold that the human mind is key to learning about God since human reason can help illuminate and explain Christian faith; faith may go beyond reason, without having to contradict reason.

2 Joseph Donceel introduced the term "Transcendental Thomism" in his article "Philosophy in the Catholic University," America 115 (1966), 330-331; See also his "Thomism: How Much to Keep?" America 116 (1967), 580- 582; "On Transcendental Thomism," Continuum 7 (1969), 164-168; and "Transcendental Thomism," Monist 58 (1974), 67-85.

3 Richard Hinners, et al., "The Transcendental Method," Continuum 6 (1968), 221-245.

4 Leslie Dewart, "On Transcendental Thomism," Continuum 6 (1968), 389-401.

Eric Mascall, "Transcendental Thomism," in The Openness of Being. (London: Darton, 1971), 59-90; Gerald McCool, "The Philosophical Theology of Rahner and Lonergan," in God Knowable and Unknowable, ed. Robert Roth (New York: Fordham University, 1973), 123-157; Frederick Wilhelmsen, "The Priorityof Judgment over Question: Reflections on Transcendental Thomism," International Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1974) 475-493, respectively.

In this thesis, 1 will focus on the theories of Rahner and Lonergan in order to discuss their distinctive epistemologies which are influenced by the epistemology of Joseph Marechal.

3 Although the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan are similar in many ways, 1 believe that there is a subtle but significant difference between the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan. This subtle difference between their theologies should not be underestimated because of the fact that they stem from the same foundation in Thomistic philosophy; their difference is substantially influential in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The difference between the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan originates from their different epistemological methods which have been acknowledged by scholars including Lonergan himself.7 Michael Vertin also seems to be suspicious of the designation of Rahner and Lonergan as "Transcendental Thomists"; he acknowledges the subtle but crucial differences in the epistemologies of Marechal, Rahner and

Lonergan.8 According to Vertin, Marechal and Rahner emphasize the implicit knowledge that is already constituted before objectification whereas Lonergan focuses on the constitutive and cognitional process of human knowing. This epistemological difference allows Rahner and

Lonergan to develop distinctive theologies. Rahner asserts that the implicit knowledge of Christ is available to non-Christians without objectification of their knowledge of Christ; therefore they are saved by the anonymous mission of Christ and may be called "Anonymous Christians". On the other hand, Lonergan suggests that non-Christians do not have knowledge of Christ since knowledge is a cognitional compound activity of experience, understanding, and judgment, and therefore there can be no such thing as implicit knowledge of Christ. Thus, instead of suggesting the anonymous mission of Christ towards non-Christians, he proposes that the universal mission of the Holy Spirit is available for non-Christians. Rahner and Lonergan seem to have different

Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), 13-14. n. 4.; See also his "Metaphysics as Horizon," in Collection: Papers by Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick Crowe (New York: Herder & Herder, 1967), 202-220.

Michael Vertin, "Marechal, Lonergan and the Phenomenology of Knowing" in Creativity and Method: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan, ed. M. Lamb (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1981), 411-422.

4 theological understandings of the missions of the three persons of the Trinity. The difference

between the Trinitarian theologies of Rahner and Lonergan is significant because it shows their

distinctive understanding of non-Christians. Here I argue that the Lonergan's approach with an

emphasis on the mission of the Holy Spirit opens up new horizons for inter-religious dialogue by

claiming the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in world religions. In other words, Lonergan's

approach calls for a significant shift in attitude on the part of the Roman Catholic Church by

acknowledging and respecting God's grace through the Holy Spirit in world religions in various

forms. 1 believe that this approach of Lonergan could be considered to be a potential extension of

Rahner's inclusive theology; Lonergan's approach acknowledges not only the particular presence

of Jesus Christ in Christianity but also the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in world

religions and thus moves beyond Rahner's attempt to search for the anonymous mission of Christ

in world religions. For all of these reasons, I present the argument that there is a definite

distinction between the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan and that this distinction should not be

overlooked.

In this thesis, I will support my claim that the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan are

distinctive on the issues that are potentially influential to the teachings of the Roman Catholic

Church by comparing and contrasting some of the distinctive points in the theologies of Rahner

and Lonergan. My first objective is to show that Rahner and Lonergan take a different approach

to the same goal of inclusive theology. My second objective is to propose that Rahner and

Lonergan are not fundamentally opposed to each other in their inclusive theologies, but

Lonergan's contribution refines and extends Rahner's contribution. In order to elaborate on

these, I will discuss the inclusive theologies of Rahner and Lonergan in three stages: their

underlying epistemologies, their inclusive theologies shown in their Trinitarian theologies, and

5 the implications of their theologies for the attitude of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic

Church. The three stages will show an organizational flow from underlying theories to theological points and finally to implications of their theologies. I will attempt to present the coherency of each theologian's argument in the three stages by discussing recurrent themes.

Finally, I will demonstrate that a small difference in the underlying epistemologies can lead to different theological points, and eventually to significant differences in the implications of their theologies within the Roman Catholic Church.

6 Chapter 1. Distinctive Epistemology: What is knowledge for Rahner and Lonergan?

Two outstanding theologians of the twentieth century, Karl Rahner and Bernard

Lonergan, have provided us with two different theologies. Understanding their epistemologies is critical and fundamental to discovering the similarities and differences in the theologies which

Rahner and Lonergan have provided for us. In this chapter, I would like to focus on the specific differences and similarities in their epistemologies and explain how they differ from each other. I will propose that it is the differences in the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan that has led them to distinctive approaches in their "inclusive" theologies, which is beyond the traditional boundary of "exclusive" theology.91 will also support the claim that Lonergan's epistemology seems to recognize the characteristics of human cognition more accurately than does Rahner's epistemology, by acknowledging the significance of reflective insight in the constitution of knowledge.

I would like to elaborate on the similarities in their epistemologies before I move on to the differences between the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan. The substantial point of agreement for the epistemology of Marechal, Rahner and Lonergan lies in the statement that knowledge is "discursive", and not "intuitive".1 This means that the process of coming to know is not a matter of taking a look with the eye, but rather is a matter of asking questions and trying to reach a satisfactory answer. Marechal writes, "the mind is not only a collection of associated images, nor is it only the inert and receptive metaphysical substratum of these images, it is an

'active potentiality,' a force polarized towards something after which it aspires; the 'true' is for it

9 For different positions within the Roman Catholic Church, see Peter J. Schineller S.J., "Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views." Theological Studies 37 (1976), 545-566.

10 Michael Vertin, "The Finality of Human Spirit: From Marechal to Lonergan." Lonergan Workshop 19 (2006), 268-269.

7 not only an ornament, but still more strictly a 'motive force'."11 Rahner and Lonergan agree with

Marechal on the point that human life and the world are very closely related and it is through this relationship that one becomes consciously aware of human knowledge. In other words, knowledge is grasped through a relationship between the knower and the known, and never through disinterested "observation" of objects "out there". Through this relationship we become conscious of the real world and the real self; this mutual interrelationship is the way in which human knowledge is constituted in the world. Thus, according to Marechal, Rahner and

Lonergan, human life is never lived at a distance by observers or spectators of a world "outside" one's self, but begins with humanity that is already within this world as part of this world.

Despite the point of agreement between Rahner and Lonergan, the fundamental difference between the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan manifests itself in their epistemologies. They agree that human knowledge is constituted through the relationship between the knower and the known; however, they disagree on the point as to the exact moment of when knowledge is being constituted. According to Rahner, human knowledge is constituted in an a priori fashion, and the process of knowing is to make explicit what is already constituted as implicit knowledge. This process is a movement from implicit knowledge, which is merely lived, performed, and non-conceptual, to become explicit knowledge which is objectified, articulated, and conceptual. On the other hand, Lonergan suggests that knowledge is constituted through the dynamic process of knowing.1 This epistemology of Lonergan does not agree with

Joseph Marechal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, tr. A Thorold (London: Burns, Oaters & Washbourne, 1927), 86.

Joseph Donceel presents a summary of the similarities among the Transcendental Thomists in his article "On Transcendental Thomism." Continuum 7 (1969): 164-68.

13 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, tr. William V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1978), 14-23.

14 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 6-13.

8 Rahner's stance since Lonergan asserts that there is no such thing as "implicit knowledge". For

Lonergan, knowledge is constituted through a process compounding the cognitional activities of experience, understanding, and judgment; thus, for him, human knowledge is explicit in its very nature, and can never remain "implicit".15 According to Lonergan, what is present in an a priori fashion is mere intention for knowledge which is not yet constituted as knowledge. Thus, the process of knowing is not a mere action of unveiling what is already constituted as knowledge; rather, it is a constitutive process of human knowledge. I will further elaborate on these points on the differences between the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan.

a) Rahner's Epistemology from Implicit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge

The starting point of Rahner's theology is the Thomistic presupposition in which fundamental theology is focused on human reasoning which helps to illuminate and explain

Christian faith. Rahner focuses on the latent a priori view of the totality within humanity and claims that the very content of Christian dogma can be believed with intellectual honesty.16 In the article, "Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views," J. Peter Schineller states that the doctrine of the "Anonymous Christian" has gained widespread familiarity and acceptance from the time of Vatican II until the present.17 Rahner's stance has contributed to a shift in the position of the

Roman Catholic Church to be more open towards world religions by acknowledging valid human reasoning within humanity outside of visible Christian membership.

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 6-13.

Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 2.

17 J. Peter Schineller, "Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views." Theological Studies 37 (1976), 545.

9 Rahner's contribution to the shift towards openness within the Church is one of the significant milestones in the progress of the Roman Catholic Church. In his theory of

"Anonymous Christians", Rahner holds that an offer of salvation through the gracious self- offering of God is implicitly given to all through the anonymous mission of Christ. By acknowledging the implicit knowledge of Christ present in all of humanity, Rahner opens up the possibility of salvation outside of visible Church membership. As a result, Rahner's theory of

"Anonymous Christians" brought a shift towards an inclusive position to the Roman Catholic

Church by calling all people of God into harmony through openness and interactive dialogue.

The basis for Rahner's inclusive stance in theology arises from his epistemology which was influenced by Thomas Aquinas, Martin Heidegger, and Joseph Marechal. Marechal believed in the possibility of valid implicit knowledge. According to Marechal, every image has some echo in the emotional sphere because it is possible that the various intensities of

"affective tone" are implicitly attached to every representation which arises in the consciousness.21 Similarly for Rahner, one already possesses the knowledge of Christ in an implicit form, and that which is being discovered becomes the knowledge of Christianity in an explicit form. Implicit knowledge of Christ, however, is merely lived, performed, and non- conceptual without having to be objectified. But when the implicit knowledge is objectified, articulated and conceptualized, it is no longer implicit, but explicit. Thus, according to Rahner, the process of human knowledge is the movement from implicit knowledge to explicit

Karl Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations Vol. 6 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1969), 390- 98.

19 Joseph Donceel, "A Thomistic Apprehension?," Thought 32 (1957), 189-98.

20 Joseph Donceel, ed., A Marechal Reader (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 218-31.

Marechal, Studies in the Psychology of the Mystics, 87.

10 knowledge through the process of objectification, articulation and conceptualization. The original knowledge and its objectification in concepts and words are a two-fold movement of the reality which is from implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge. For Rahner, new concepts are

not ontologically new to us at the time when we are introduced to them; rather, they express and

objectify what was already present and known in human existence.

The significance of Rahner's position is that human nature is included in the totality of

ultimate knowledge. He states, "for a Christian, his [her] Christian existence is ultimately the

totality of his [her] existence."23 According to Rahner, ultimate knowledge is not completely

from outside human consciousness; part of ultimate knowledge is available within human

consciousness in an implicit form. In this way, knowledge is not something to be attained from

without, but rather something to be discovered and expressed through paying careful attention to

human consciousness. Thus, Rahner proposes that implicit knowledge of Christ is given in the

first place as part of our human nature. This means that, as part of the totality of ultimate

knowledge, human consciousness bears authentic knowledge of Christ, though implicitly. Thus,

this implicit knowledge of Christ genuinely manifests something real and true, although not yet

objectified or articulated.

Rahner further applies this epistemology to an understanding of salvation and suggests

that human consciousness bears an implicit knowledge of salvation.24 He holds that salvation is

not something coming from outside; it is neither "befallen" unto a person unexpectedly nor

"bestowed" on the person on the basis of a moral judgment.25 This is because the possibility of

22 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 19-20.

23 Ibid., 2.

24 Tbid., 38-41.

25 Ibid., 39.

11 salvation is dependent on the true understanding of human nature including self-understanding and self-realization. In other words, the original starting point for an understanding of salvation is the human subject, rooted in the very nature of human freedom. Thus, Rahner does not attempt to find salvation from outside; rather, he finds salvation from within human nature insisting that self-understanding and self-realization are valid human activities needed for salvation.

In his argument for salvation, Rahner emphasizes the innate possibility for salvation that is implicitly given to all in human nature; however, Rahner does not hold that the implicit knowledge is solely needed for salvation; he claims that human activities of self-understanding and self-realization are also involved in the notion of salvation.26 In other words, salvation requires not only the implicit knowledge that is present a priori, but also explicit knowledge that comes through objectification of what is given a priori. This means that the objectification of implicit knowledge of salvation is as significant as implicit knowledge. Thus, Rahner claims that both implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge are needed for salvation. The validity of one's implicit knowledge as well as the process of one's self-understanding and self-realization is final and definitive. 7

However, despite the fact that Rahner suggests both implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge are equally important for salvation, he seems to place more weight on the significance of implicit knowledge by emphasizing the ''fullness" in the original knowledge before the process of objectification. Rahner seems to suggest that the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge is defined by whether or not the content of knowledge is objectified to us, while the content of implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge remain the

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 38-41.

27 Ibid., 16.

12 same. That is to say that the content of original knowledge and the objectification of it remain the same since the original knowledge is already constituted and known implicitly, and the experience of actually living it does not add a new element to the original knowledge. In this way,

Rahner's understanding of the process of explicit knowledge through objectification seems to be

an ephemeral event which does not advance the original knowledge. For Rahner, the subject

already bears valid implicit knowledge that is genuine; thus, the process for implicit knowledge

to become explicit is a matter of expressing what is already constituted as implicit knowledge.

In addition, Rahner seems to suggest that human subjectivity and self-realization take place

immediately at the time of expressing the original knowledge. Rahner appears to believe that

the objectification of the original knowledge does not go through a process of constitution by

adding a new element to the original knowledge since the original knowledge is already full and

genuine. Thus, Rahner implies that the transient event of objectification is not as significant as

the original knowledge which is implicit.

Rahner's position in his epistemology is well encapsulated in the introduction to

Foundations of Christian Faith, as he suggests, "what is meant and the experience of what is

meant are still one. (In German text: Gemeinte und die Erfahrung des Gemeinten noch eins

"3 1

sind.)" This position of Rahner, at first, appears to overlook the complexity of the process of

objectification. However, the complexity of the process of knowledge is captured in the original

German word "Erfahrung" which Rahner chose for "experience". Rahner's choice of the word 28 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 19-20.

29 Ibid., 14-23.

Karl Rahner, "The Experience of God Today." in Theological Investigations, vol. 11. (New York: Seabury, 1974), 157.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17; For German Translation See Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens Citation (Freiburg: Herder, 1976), 28.

13 "Erfahrung" seems deliberate because this word already implies the complexity within the process of experience. In the text, Rahner did not use the word "Erlebnis (experience)", but deliberately chose "Erfahrung (experience and knowledge)" for experience. There are several words in the German language that can be translated in English as "experience", but the subtle nuance within each word might possibly be lost in translation. This subtle distinction in the

German words for experience is elaborated upon by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his Truth and

Method. According to him, "Erlebnis" primarily means 'to be alive when something happens',

and usually refers to the content of what is experienced as a starting point for interpretation and

material for working. However, Rahner chooses the word "Erfahen/Erfahrung" in the places for

"Erlebnis". The word "Erfahren" means 'to learn' which implies the involvement of intellectual

activities in experience. This deliberate choice of the word "Erfahrung" for experience shows

that what Rahner means by "experience" includes the complex activities within the process of

experience beyond mere consciousness.33

The distinction in the German words is a subtle but significant point to show what Rahner

meant by "experience", which might be considerably different from what Lonergan meant by

"experience". The concept of "Erlebnis" seems to correspond with what Lonergan means by

experience, which is mere consciousness in empirical data as a starting point for the whole

process of human knowledge which is experience, understanding, judgment and evaluation.34

But for Rahner, the concept of experience (Erfahrung) goes beyond the presence in empirical

data (Erlebnis). According to him, "Erfahrung (experience)" means the whole process of coming

32 Hans-George Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975), 55.

One example of this stance of Rahner is found in his article "The Experience of God Today." in Theological Investigations, vol. 11. (New York: Seabury, 1974), 152.

4 Bernard Lonergan, "Prolegomena to the Study of the Emerging Religious Consciousness of Our Time" in A Third Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 55.

14 to know through making explicit what is implicitly constituted as knowledge. Rahner's broad concept of experience embraces the complex intellectual activities within the process of knowledge, and thus allows experience to become "transcendental" (Die transzendentale

Erfahrung). Rahner claims that transcendental experience is not "merely an experience of pure knowledge, but also of the will and of freedom."35 In the transcendental experience, Rahner suggests that one experiences the inalienable structures of the knowing subject as well as the ultimate structure of every conceivable object of knowledge. It is from this point that Rahner claims "what is meant and the experience of what is meant are still one. (In German text:

Gemeinte und die Erfahrung des Gemeinten noch eins sind.)" The transcendental experience of the original knowledge becomes one with the original knowledge itself.

Although Rahner's understanding of the process of knowledge is complex, Rahner still places more emphasis on the "fullness" of original knowledge than on the significance of objectification and thus fails to acknowledge the constitution of knowledge during the cognitive process of human knowledge. For Rahner knowledge is already constituted in an implicit form, and an explicit form of knowledge is an exposure of the implicit knowledge without constituting knowledge. This position of Rahner might possibly refer to a practical concern as it does not seem to encourage people to attempt to make an effort for explicit knowledge, since implicit knowledge is already a constituted and valid form of knowledge. This epistemology provides a foundation for his theory of "Anonymous Christians" by suggesting that a person can have valid implicit knowledge of Christ as part of human nature, and therefore can belong to a Christian

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 20.

Ibid., 17; Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens, 28.

Ibid., 14-23.

15 community anonymously. At this point, one might question the significance of being a

Christian of explicit faith if "Anonymous Christians" would have the implicit availability to access ultimate knowledge. Rahner claims that being an explicit Christian is preferable for

Christians to become closer to God through a more significant relationship as a member of a

•JQ

Christian community, but he also indicates that anonymous faith is sufficient for salvation.

Thus, Rahner's understanding of salvation does not seem to suggest that explicit faith through baptism is necessary for salvation. This might present some confusion and possibly

underestimate the importance of explicit faith through baptism.

Rahner makes a significant contribution in shifting the position of the Roman Catholic

Church from an exclusive position to an inclusive position with regard to salvation. But Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" calls for some careful consideration of further concerns.

Rahner's theory may possibly be understood as having overlooked the significance of the

commitment to become a member of a Christian community. This concern is based on his

epistemology, especially on the point where he holds that implicit knowledge already bears

"fullness" of the truth regardless of the matter of objecfification. Rahner's epistemology may

underestimate the process of knowing and overlook the significance of our human effort for self-

realization and self-appropriation.

b) Lonergan 's Dynamic Process of Human Knowledge

While Rahner focuses on the importance of what is given a priori, Lonergan emphasizes

the significance of the cognitional process of human knowledge. Lonergan's epistemology

Karl Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations Vol.6 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1969), 390- 398.

39 Ibid., 396.

16 begins by asking some fundamental questions such as: "What am I doing when I am knowing?

Why is doing that knowing? What do 1 know when I do it?" For Lonergan, attempting to answer these questions provides a cognitional theory, an epistemology, and a metaphysics, respectively.40 Lonergan holds that these fundamental questions are helpful to clarify how religious claims may be counted as "knowledge". According to him, human knowledge is advanced by one's effort to answer these questions through experiencing, understanding, and

affirming the normative patterns of related and recurrent operations.41 The fundamental questions

also help us to recognize ideological bias through reflective understanding, which turns us from

the outer realms of common sense and theory to the appropriation of our own interiority and

subjectivity. This appropriation, Lonergan claims, is "a heightening of intentional consciousness,

an attending not merely to objects but also to the intending subject and his [her] acts. And ... this

heightened consciousness constitutes the evidence for one's account of knowledge..." This

means that the cognitional reflective understanding, through pondering on the fundamental

questions, heightens human consciousness and therefore constitutes knowledge by advancing the

capacity of human consciousness for knowledge.

Although Lonergan's starting point for his epistemology does not appear to be the same

as that of Rahner, Lonergan appears to agree with Rahner that knowledge is not a matter of

observation of objects "out there", but rather, the human spirit as a knower is within the totality

of the universe. As discussed earlier, for both Rahner and Lonergan, knowledge is "discursive",

and not "intuitive" and therefore, the awareness in the human consciousness as knowledge is

40 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 25, 83,261,316.

41 Ibid., 13-20.

42 Ibid., 83

43 Bernard Lonergan, Insight. A Study of Human Understanding (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 514-520.

17 realized through the intimate relationship between human life (the knower) and the world (the known). Lonergan explains that the human capacity to know is possible because a human being is a spiritual being that is part of the totality of the universe. He states that as spiritual beings "we are orientated towards the universe of being, know ourselves as parts within that universe, and guide our living by that knowledge."44 This shows that Lonergan is opposed to a narrow view of knowledge that it is grasped through a disinterested "observation" of objects "out there".

Lonergan, however, moves beyond the epistemology of Rahner and proposes that the

orientation of the human spirit toward "the universe of being" manifests itself in "the primordial

drive" to know. He explains that this primordial drive "is prior to any insights, any concepts, any

words, for insights, concepts, words have to do with answers; and before we look for answers,

we want them; such wanting is the pure question."45 Thus, according to Lonergan, what is

present a priori before any cognitional activities is the primordial drive, which is a mere

intention and not yet knowledge.46 This is a deliberate and yet significant point where

Lonergan's epistemology departs from that of Rahner, showing that what is present a priori is

different in the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan; implicit knowledge is present a priori

with respect to Rahner's epistemology, while the primordial drive is present a priori with respect

to Lonergan's epistemology.47 This difference also indicates each theologian's distinctive point

as to the exact moment when knowledge is being constituted. Rahner suggests that full

knowledge is already constituted implicitly prior to the objectification, whereas Lonergan

suggests that knowledge does not come into being until it is constituted during the process of

44 Lonergan, Insight, 516.

45 Ibid., 9; See also 74, 331, 348.

46 Ibid., 521-522, 638.

William V. Dych, S.J. "Method in Theology According to Karl Rahner" in Theology and Discovery: Essays in Honor of Karl Rahner, ed. William J. Kelly, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), 42-43.

18 objedification and self-appropriation. Thus, for Lonergan, the process of knowledge is significant in actually constituting knowledge by adding radically new elements to what is given a priori which is a mere intention.

According to Lonergan, the primordial drive of "pure question" takes place in the process of accumulating knowledge as the human spirit transcends itself. The fruit of the pure questions

is grasped in four different moments in the process of knowing: experience, understanding, judgment, and evaluation. Firstly, experience provides the data through which knowledge advances. This experiential data is gathered in "empirical consciousness" which is undifferentiated awareness of experience. The data includes sensations of "outer experience" as well as "inner experience" which is a pre-conceptual awareness of oneself as sensing and perceiving.5 This empirical consciousness is the first condition within the process of knowledge;

however, it is not yet knowledge. Experience provides the data for posing questions at higher

levels of consciousness; it is not itself knowledge but a starting point since knowledge is a

compound activity of experience, understanding and judging.

When data is provided by experience, questions such as "Why? How? and What for?"

arise. By attempting to answer these questions, the data is acknowledged and the various

relationships are considered, which is relationship among the data as well as relationship

between the data and the human subject.51 Lonergan holds that, through this intellectual attempt

to understand the experiential data, the process of human knowing "moves to accumulations of

related insights which are expressed or formulated in concepts, suppositions, definitions,

48 Lonergan, Insight, 516.

49 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 13-20.

50 Ibid., 322; see also 274; A Third Collection 57.

51 Lonergan, Insight, 252, 272-278.

19 postulates, hypothesis, theories..." For Lonergan, the accumulated insights characterize

"intelligent consciousness" which is the consciousness that is differentiated through the attempt to answer the questions of "Why? How? and What for?"

The "intelligent consciousness", however, does not fully satisfy the drive of "the pure question." The process of human knowledge advances to a higher level where the questions of reflection are asked about the data and the understanding of it. This level of question asks "Is it

so?" and can be answered simply by saying, "yes" or "no". But this question is not a simple one

and requires one's considerable reflection on the data and understanding of the data, and most

importantly, it requires one's judgment. Lonergan explains, "the enunciation of every law can be

followed by the question for reflection that asks whether the law is verified, and the definition of

every term can be followed by the question for reflection whether the defined exists." Thus, to

attempt to answer this question for reflection, one needs to exercise one's own judgment about

the experiential data that is understood by intelligent consciousness. This is to say that this judgment occurs only when the experiential data is gathered and the answers of intelligence are

fulfilled. According to Lonergan, a judgment is a grasping of the "virtually unconditioned." As

Lonergan himself writes,

The function of reflective understanding is to meet the question for reflection by transforming the prospective judgment from the status of a conditioned to the status of a virtually unconditioned; and reflective understanding effects this transformation by grasping the conditions of the conditioned and their fulfillment.55

Lonergan, Insight, 252.

Ibid., 83.

Ibid., 280.

Ibid.

20 Here, Lonergan suggests that the data is differentiated in intelligent consciousness, and

determines the conditions for judgment. Lonergan explains the conditions for judgment with an

illustration of the form of deductive inference. According to him, where A and B stand for

proposition, the deductive form is:

If A, then B. But A. Therefore B.

For Lonergan, this pattern is grasped through reflective insight and judgment is followed by

rational compulsion. Thus, the conditions for judgment depend upon the data to be judged in

linking the conditions with their fulfillment. It is only by this linking relationship between the

conditions of the data and their fulfillment that knowledge is attained through the exercise of

sound judgment on the experiential data and intellectual reflections. It is from this particular

point that Lonergan rejects a view that considers knowledge as the consequence of "taking a

look". For him, knowledge cannot be attained by "taking a look" at what is already "out there";

knowledge arrives as the result of a compound process of experience (gathering data),

understanding (pursuing intellectual knowledge), and judgment (linking the data and

knowledge).57 Thus, the relationship between the knower and the known plays a significant role

in Lonergan's theory of knowledge.

Lonergan's emphasis on the relationship between the knower and the known suggests

that the process of knowing is a dynamic process which involves cognitional human activities of

experience, understanding and judgment. In this way, the process of knowing is constitutive

within the process itself; thus what can be known is not predetermined. Therefore, Lonergan's

theory of knowledge rejects unqualified determinism, "for the concrete includes a non-systematic

56 Lonergan, Insight, 280.

57 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 13-20.

21 component, and so the concrete cannot be deduced in the full determinacy from any set of systematic premises."58 Lonergan seems to suggest that the questions such as "What am I doing when 1 am knowing? Why is doing that knowing? What do I know when I do it?" remain open and are only determined by attempting to answer them through the process of knowing. Thus, it

seems clear that, for Lonergan, knowledge does not come into being until it is constituted through the dynamic process of knowing which involves experience, understanding and judgment.

Lonergan also rejects the view that considers authentic knowledge as inaccessible

because of limitations on the part of human beings; for him, authentic knowledge can be reached

through the compound cognitional activities of experience, understanding and judgment.

Lonergan argues that knowledge through three-fold compound activities is always real on the

part of human beings, because the concrete human experience manifests something true and real.

However, experience alone only provides sensible perceptions which are the preliminary stage of

the process of coming to know. Thus, Lonergan places an emphasis on the inseparable

relationship among experiencing, understanding and judging. According to Lonergan, a person

who has completed the process of experience and understanding can make true judgments. In

this way, Lonergan rejects "idealism", which holds human knowledge as ideal rather than real,

and thus unattainable through human cognition; he also rejects "empiricism" which only accepts

statements that are verifiable by sense perception.59 Lonergan pushes further and describes his

theory of knowledge as a "critical realism.. .that human knowledge consists not in experiencing

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 99.

59 Bernard Lonergan, "Unity and Plurality: The Coherence of Christian Truth" in A Third Collection, ed. Frederick E. Crowe (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 240.

22 alone but in the three-fold compound that embraces experiencing, understanding, and judging."

According to Lonergan, "critical realism" suggests a balanced relationship between the knower

(subject) and the known (object), because knowledge is neither a matter of achieving the data

"out there" nor a matter of merely "taking a look" at the data; genuine knowledge can be attained in reality through the three-fold compound cognitional activities of experience, understanding and judgment. Here, Lonergan's epistemology appears to disagree with Rahner's epistemology which insists that what is meant and the experience [erfahrung] of what is meant remain as one.

As discussed earlier, Rahner places an emphasis on the "fullness" of the original knowledge, which remains as "one" with objectified knowledge, although he uses the word "erfahrung" in order to capture the complex process of knowing. It seems that Rahner's epistemology suggests experience does not add a new element to what is meant in the original knowledge. From the perspective of Rahner, it seems that knowledge is already predetermined regardless of the human cognitional process of knowing while Lonergan precisely argues that what can be known is not predetermined because knowledge is the outcome of the process of knowing.

The different epistemological points of Rahner and Lonergan are well expressed in their understanding of the universality of God's grace which precedes human comprehension of it.

Prior to any kind of human comprehension of God through objectification, Rahner argues that

humanity already has implicit knowledge of God through the grace of God. Rahner calls this

implicit knowledge as "unthemetic" knowledge of God, because this implicit knowledge is

before themetizing the knowledge as explicit knowledge.62 Lonergan also presents a similar

concept by acknowledging the "undifferentiated" consciousness in God before any kind of

60 Lonergan, "Unity and Plurality" in A Third Collection, 240; see also his Method in Theology, 76.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

62 Ibid., 21-23.

23 human comprehension that differentiates the empirical data to become intellectual

consciousness.6 This "undifferentiated" consciousness reveals itself in the primordial drive for knowledge that is "the immanent source of transcendence in man [woman] is his [her] detached,

disinterested, unrestricted desire to know."64 Here, it seems that Rahner's "unthemetic

knowledge" and Lonergan's "undifferentiated consciousness" might appear to be a similar

concept; however, these concepts are not congruent with each other for a few reasons upon

which I will elaborate below.

Firstly, Rahner argues that we have "knowledge" of God while Lonergan proposes that

we have "consciousness" in God. Rahner asserts that the fullness of knowledge of God is already

given to all before it is grasped, while Lonergan claims that the starting point of the knowledge

of God, consciousness, is available initially. This is to say that Rahner asserts that the

knowledge of God is already authentically constituted as "knowledge" implicitly before grasping,

but Lonergan argues that knowledge is reached through the compound three-fold activities of

experience, understanding and judgment. For Lonergan, the stage of knowledge through

experience is only a starting point of the complex process of knowledge; thus it cannot be

knowledge itself. Rahner's notion of implicit knowledge is not possible for Lonergan since he

believes that, "just as operations by their intentionality make objects present to the subject, so

also by consciousness they make the operating subject present to himself [herself]."66 Therefore,

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 14.

64 Lonergan, Insight, 672.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 21-23; Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection: Papers by Bernard Lonergan, 2nd edition. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 208-211.

56 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 8.

24 the grace of God before the human comprehension cannot be explained as implicit "knowledge" of God but as mere "consciousness" in God.

Secondly, Rahner's unthemetic knowledge remains as "holy mystery" while Lonergan's

undifferentiated consciousness is an awareness of inner and outer experience. Rahner asserts that

God is characterized as "holy mystery" because unthemetic knowledge of God cannot be

encompassed by a pre-apprehension and thus cannot be defined. 7 The unthemetic knowledge of

God becomes themetic knowledge when the implicit knowledge is made explicit through

objectification.68 This is to say that the unthemetic knowledge of God is not fully grasped by

one's cognitional activities although it is given to all in the first place. In contrast, Lonergan's

undifferentiated consciousness, which is experience as data for understanding and reflection, is

derived from conscious experience at all times. For Lonergan, knowledge comes into being only

after human comprehension. He argues that even the denial of one's conscious experience still is

a conscious experience since "not wanting an insight has the opposite effect of repressing from

consciousness a scheme that would suggest insight."

Thirdly, the significance of the third level of judgment through reflective insight seems to

have been omitted in Rahner's epistemology. According to Rahner's point, explicit knowledge

"70

can be reduced to a mere manifestation of what is already constituted in implicit knowledge. In

this way, the process of knowing does not involve going through a process of constitution

through reflective insight on the part of human subject. In contrast to Rahner's position,

Lonergan argues that knowledge is actually constituted in the process of knowing through the

6 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 65.

68 Ibid., 22.

69 Lonergan, Insight, 192; See also 199-206, 477.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

25 primordial drive of pure questions such as "What is it?", "Is it so?", and "Ought it be so?" The fruit of careful consideration of such questions is "reflective insight" which is constitutive of knowledge.71 According to Lonergan, this reflective insight is neither the mere uncovering of what is already known, nor the creating of new knowledge out of nothing; it is a constitutive insight which occurs when the premises are correctly put together.7 A radical reflective insight is often discovered in an "Ah-ha!" moment. An example may be found in a moment of discovery such as finding an answer to a math problem. When one is trying to solve a math problem, one has a fully conscious awareness of the question, but one does not yet have an answer. But when one puts the correct premises together, an insight may occur and one might have an answer; it is only after that moment one finally says that one "knows" the answer. Thus, it is significant that one goes through the cognitional process of knowledge which is experience, understanding, judgment and evaluation, in order to have fullness of knowledge.

In summary then, I would like to say that I have elaborated on the similarities and differences between the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan. Their epistemologies agree to the extent that knowledge does not come through "taking a look" but through a relationship between "the knower" and "the known". For both of them, knowledge is discursive and not intuitive. However, their epistemologies have different points of emphasis. Rahner places more emphasis on the fullness of implicit knowledge that is already constituted prior to objectification while Lonergan places more emphasis on the process of knowledge during which knowledge

itself is being constituted. This difference also indicates that what is present a priori is different

in the epistemologies of Rahner and Lonergan. Rahner asserts that the fullness of original knowledge is present a priori as implicit knowledge, and thus the process of explicit knowledge

Lonergan, "Theology and Understanding" in Collection, 114-32.

72 Lonergan, Insight, 280.

26 is simply a matter of expressing what is already constituted. Therefore, according to Rahner, the process of explicit knowledge through objectification may be reduced to simply uncovering the original knowledge without adding a new element to it. Moreover, Rahner's epistemology allows the possibility for the original knowledge to be "known" to us but not yet "objectified" for us and therefore remains a mystery. For Lonergan, however, what is present a priori is the primordial drive of pure questioning, which is mere intention but not yet knowledge. For Lonergan, knowledge is being constituted during the dynamic process of knowledge. In order for the process of knowledge to move from experience, to understanding, and to judgment, a reflective grasp of cognitional activity must be added. Therefore, the process of knowledge is a combination of conscious activities which can possibly add radically new elements to the original intention. I agree with Lonergan on the point that it is fairly accurate to say that one is keenly aware of one's own cognitional activities which constitutes one's knowledge in making the attempt to know. However, the constitutive features of one's cognitional life seem to have been overlooked by Rahner. For these reasons, my evaluative conclusion is that the epistemology

of Lonergan views the features of one's cognitional life more accurately than does the

epistemology of Rahner.

27 Chapter 2. Inclusive theologies of Rahner and Lonergan

The subtle points of difference in the epistemology of Rahner and Lonergan give rise to different theological points in their theory. Based on his epistemology, Rahner argues that non-

Christians have a right to be called "Anonymous Christians" because they have implicit knowledge of Christ that is true and genuine.73 Rahner develops a Christological theology and holds that the universal offer of salvation is given to non-Christians through the anonymous mission of Christ. However, Lonergan develops a Pneumatological theology and proposes that

God's grace for non-Christians comes through the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. Here, I

argue that Lonergan develops an inclusive theology that goes beyond Rahner's view. In the

application of his epistemology to his theology, Lonergan supports Rahner's theory in his

attempt to embrace humanity within the scope of Christianity. However, Lonergan moves far

beyond Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" by acknowledging the significance of the

universal mission of the Holy Spirit in the world. Since all human beings have the capacity for

the primordial drive of pure questions, Lonergan proposes the possibility of all human beings to

be in love with God in an unrestricted fashion.75 Lonergan's theology further implies that there is

the possibility of deeper unity within humanity, which is accomplished through the gift of God's

love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.76 In the theology of Lonergan, he does

not appear to agree with the theology of Rahner that both implicit faith and explicit belief are

reached through the work of Christ; rather, Lonergan argues that implicit faith comes through the

Karl Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations Vol. 6 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1969), 390- 398.

74 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 105.

"ibid., 104.

76 Ibid., 107.

28 universal mission of the Holy Spirit while explicit belief is established through the mission of the

Son.

Lonergan's Pneumatological theology leads to a well-balanced understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Regarding a well-balanced understanding of the Trinity, Jacques Dupuis suggests that a theological account of the relationship between Christology and Pnematology must acknowledge a 'relationship of order' which comprehends one divine economy of salvation without implying subordination of one to the other.77 A relationship of order is unveiled in the tension among the missions of the economic Trinity, which is revealed in our salvation history: the Christ is at the center of the historical unfolding of the divine economy throughout time and

space in the work of the Holy Spirit. The missions of the Son and the Spirit must remain distinct, but these distinctive missions do not establish a dichotomy of two distinctive economies of

salvation. Dupuis states that 'there is total complementarity in one divine economy of salvation:

only the Son became human, but the fruit of his redemptive incarnation is the outpouring of the

-jo

Spirit symbolized at Pentecost.' Dupuis refers to Irenaeus's analogy of the three persons of the

Trinity, which sees the two missions of the Son and the Spirit as the two hands of God. He notes

that 'God's saving economy is and remains one, of which the Christ-event is at once the

culminating point in history and the universal sacrament; but the God who acts in "three", each

being personally distinct and remaining distinctly active. God saves with "two hands.'"79 Thus,

for Dupuis, there is one economy of salvation in God with the two distinctive but complementary

missions of the Son and the Spirit.

Jacques Dupuis, The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology, (Leuven: University Press, 2000), 89.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid., 92.

29 Therefore, although Rahner and Lonergan share similarities in their theologies that humanity, including non-Christians, is offered salvation through the universal power of God, the

difference between the Trinitarian theologies of Rahner and Lonergan is shown in their different

approaches to the understanding of Christians and non-Christians. In this chapter, I argue that

Lonergan's Pneumatological theology eventually leads to a well-balanced Trinitarian theology

by emphasizing the important mission of the Holy Spirit, which has often been overlooked in the

history of Roman Catholic theology.

a) Rahner's Theory of "Anonymous Christians"

As discussed in Chapter 1, Rahner places more emphasis on the "fullness" of original

knowledge. Rahner holds that "what is meant and the experience of what is meant are still

one." This means that what is already constituted as implicit knowledge is full and genuine. In

this way, the process of explicit knowledge remains as uncovering of what is already constituted

without adding a new element to the implicit knowledge. Rahner's emphasis on the "fullness" of

what is already constituted as implicit knowledge continues in his theological stance. His theory

of "Anonymous Christians" places an emphasis on the "fullness" of the implicit knowledge of

Christ in humanity.81 Thus, Rahner suggests that all of humanity have original knowledge of

Christ implicitly; Christians have objectified this implicit knowledge of Christ.

It seems apparent that the focus of Rahner's theology remains in the realm of Christology.

Rahner seems to suggest that the essence of both implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge are

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

30 Christ. For Rahner, implicit knowledge of Christ is already full and genuine knowledge of

Christ. When this implicit knowledge is expressed and objectified, it becomes the explicit knowledge of Christ, but the process of explication does not change or add a new element to the implicit knowledge of Christ.83 Thus, according to Rahner, implicit knowledge of Christ and explicit knowledge of Christ are of "the same kind" of knowledge of Christ with different degrees of objectification.84 Based on this epistemology, Rahner develops an inclusive and powerful Christology. For him, the mission of Christ is a broad concept which can work both

implicitly and explicitly. Through his inclusive Christology, Rahner attempts to broaden the mission of Christ to humanity outside Christianity. It is from this perspective that Rahner argues that, even if one has not consciously objectified Christianity to oneself, one has a right to be

called an "Anonymous Christian" by freely accepting faith, hope and love from God. Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" indicates that Rahner's starting point for inclusive theology is

to acknowledge the implicit knowledge of Christ which is present to all through the anonymous

mission of Christ. Rahner's attempt to embrace humanity within the scope of Christianity

through the anonymous mission of Christ brings his focus on Christology to light. In the

following, I will elaborate on (1) Rahner's inclusive Christology through his epistemology, and

(2) further concerns inherent in Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians".

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 285-293.

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

ibid., 393.

Ibid., 395.

31 (1) Rahner's Inclusive Christology through His Epistemology

For Rahner, both Christians and non-Christians have implicit knowledge of Christ, and the establishment of Christianity is the explication and objectification of the implicit and original knowledge of Christ. That is to say that God's offer of salvation was given to humanity through

Jesus Christ before the Christian Church was established.86 Rahner's stance is based on his epistemology where he recognizes the fullness of the implicit knowledge of Christ in humanity.

Rahner's epistemological basis for his theology is well expressed when he writes as follows:

The express revelation of the word in Christ is not something which comes to us from without as entirely strange, but only the explication of what we already are by grace and what we experience at least incoherently in the limitlessness of our transcendence. The expressly Christian revelation becomes the explicit statement of the revelation of grace which man [woman] always experiences implicitly in the depths of his [her] being.

In the original text in German, Rahner is deliberately using the word "efahrung (experience and knowledge)" and not "enrbis (experience)" for experience, which shows that Rahner acknowledges the complex process of experience. However, Rahner seems to argue that what we already are and what we experience remain as one.88 Moreover, Rahner asserts that the implicit experience of Christ in the depth of one's being precedes the explication of that experience through the membership within the Christian Church. Therefore, his point corresponds with the historical order of the event; the event of Jesus Christ, through which all humanity is saved, precedes the establishment of the Church. This point of Rahner appears to place more emphasis on the universal event of the coming of Jesus Christ, rather than the particular event of the establishment of the membership in the Church. The logical conclusion of Rahner's theory seems

86 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 326.

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Studies vol. 6, 394.

88 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

89 Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Studies vol. 6, 396.

32 to be that God's grace had already fulfilled humanity through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church is the explication and objedification of this fulfillment through Christ.90 Rahner suggests that humanity is saved because of the risen Christ who was before membership in the Church was established. For Rahner, God's grace has already been fulfilled by the incarnation of Jesus Christ before the visible Church membership was established; thus, the Church is the visible form of Christ.

Rahner recognizes the fulfillment of God's grace through the incarnation of Jesus Christ before the establishment of visible Church. His recognition of God's grace outside the visible

Church community calls for openness towards world religions in the attitude of the Roman

Catholic Church. Rahner claims that "Christianity does not simply confront the member of an extra-Christian religion as a mere non-Christian but as someone who can and must be regarded in this or that respect as an anonymous Christian" as all religions are lawful and grace-filled.

Rahner's inclusive understanding towards world religions is because he believes that people can learn about God and become true Christians by focusing on their humanity. He writes: "In the acceptance of himself [herself], man [woman] is accepting Christ as the absolute perfection..."

By this line, Rahner means that one is anonymously accepting Christ by accepting finite human limitation and the infinite horizon beyond. It is possible for one to have a glimpse of the grace of

God by accepting oneself as a person, even if one does not hold membership in the Church through baptism. Rahner significantly broadens the understanding of God's grace by presenting

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Studies vol. 6, 394.

Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 121, 131, 357.

Ibid., 394.

33 the possibility of the grace of God through the anonymous mission of Christ outside of the

visible Roman Catholic Church.

According to Rahner, God's grace through the anonymous mission of Christ is a

powerful gift that is given to people in an a priori fashion which is at work for the people of faith,

even without their recognition being conceptualized.9" Rahner suggests that 'the acceptance of

this belief [of an "Anonymous Christian"] is again not an act of man [woman] alone but the work

of God's grace which is the grace of Christ.'94 The anonymous acceptance of God's grace means

a person's living each day faithfully and devotionally with good conscience without having to

have an explicit understanding of the teachings of the Church. For Rahner, all human beings are

capable of becoming members of the visible or invisible Church. The basis of this inclusive

stance is his belief in the universality of Christ's redemption.

As Rahner finds the basis of his stance in his belief of the universality of Christ's

redemption, he develops an inclusive Christology. He claims that creation exists because God

wants to give Godself in love to all, and the coming of Christ is the consummation of God's love

for all. Rahner develops his Christology from the starting point of the implicit human

anticipation for Christ which was made explicit in the climax of God's grace through the

historical event of Jesus Christ's coming. In contrast to the traditional understanding of

Christology, Rahner does not begin his Christology with a revelation from God from above. He

places an emphasis on the humanity of Jesus Christ and his tangible human experience, which is

the highest form of the revelation of God's grace in the world.96 Furthermore, Rahner argues that

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

94 Ibid.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 116.

96 Ibid., 201.

34 by studying our human nature, we can actually learn about God. That is to say that we can obtain the knowledge of God's grace by studying what has happened to us in our salvation history. In this way, Rahner claims that human experiences are transcendental. For this reason,

Rahner asserts that humanity is the recipient of a free, unmerited and forgiving grace and absolute self-communication of God; thus all human beings are invited to God's love through

Christ." Rahner argues that in our human history of longing for Christ, Jesus Christ was anticipated and at the same time our yearning was deliberately intended by God. From the time of Jesus Christ, human anticipation (a priori) is mixed with an explicit affirmation in history (a posteriori) and therefore it manifests that the transcendental human yearning and the grace of

God in history are intertwined deeply in our salvation history.

According to Rahner, all humanity is saved through Christ both explicitly within Church membership and anonymously within the universal work of Christ. In other words, God's grace

is available both "within and without" visible Church membership through baptism. Rahner

insists that it is impossible for a human being to be outside of God's loving grace. For him, every

human being belongs to Christ both explicitly and anonymously. With this positive

understanding of God's universal salvific power for humanity, Christians have shifted their position in dialogue from an exclusive position to an inclusive position. People of various

religions other than Christian are not lost; therefore they should not be considered as objects for

conversion to Christianity and baptism within visible Church membership. Rather, Rahner

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 182.

Ibid., 20-21.

Ibid. 201

3 Ibid., 319-20.

35 suggests that Christians, through dialogue, should help people of different religions to have a closer relationship with God in every possible way that is available to them. It is precisely through this stance that Rahner significantly broadens the understanding of Christ and the

Church.

(2) Further Concerns Inherent in Rahner's Theory of "Anonymous Christians"

Through his theory of "Anonymous Christians", Rahner makes a significant contribution in shifting the position of the Roman Catholic Church from an exclusive position to an inclusive position with regard to salvation. But Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" calls for some careful consideration with regard to further concerns. Rahner's theory of "Anonymous

Christians" emphasizes the importance of the mission of Christ, but his theory does not seem to imply that the three persons of the Trinity are working together. Rahner places an emphasis on the significance of the mission of Christ without referring to the mission of the Holy Spirit. This is to say that his understanding of the mission of Christ implies that both anonymous and explicit mission of Christ is at work in the history of salvation without working together with the mission of the Holy Spirit. Rahner's Christocentric approach is evidently shown when he discusses the mission of the Son in the history of salvation and revelation. This Christocentric approach of

Rahner is best expressed when he claims that the offer of salvation is given to all, including

"Anonymous Christians", through the anonymous mission of Christ, the second person of the

Trinity. The basis for Rahner's Christocentric approach is in his epistemology, when he suggests

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 323.

Ibid., 138-177.

36 "what is meant and the experience of what is meant are still one". For Rahner, the process of knowing does not add any new element to original knowledge of Christ, thus the objectification

of Christ remains the same as the implicit knowledge of Christ. Therefore, it seems a logical

conclusion for Rahner to argue that both implicit faith and explicit belief are actually one and the

same in their essence; both faith and belief come through the implicit knowledge of Christ. In

this way, the mission of Christ is understood as a very powerful mission, since both themetic and

unthemetic knowledge of God comes through the mission of Christ.104 But one could question,

whether or not the mission of the Holy Spirit seems to have been lost in Rahner's theory of

"Anonymous Christians". Rahner's approach seems to suggest that salvation comes through the

Second Person of the Trinity. Here, Rahner seems to emphasize the oneness of God while

overlooking the threeness of the Triune God. In other words, Rahner does not seem to

understand that the three persons of the Trinity work together as three; rather, the mission of the

Son seems to be broadened and expanded, and possibly overlapping with the mission of the Holy

Spirit. This stance of Rahner seems to correspond with Modalism, which believes that God is

truly one person but reveals Godself in three forms or modes.105 The possibly Modalistic

approach of Rahner shows not only in his account of the divine missions in the world, but also in

his account of the Trinity itself. When Rahner discusses his account of the Trinity, he proposes

that the three persons within the Trinity are in fact three distinct manners of subsisting of one

divine consciousness. This specific point of Rahner may be interpreted as though there are

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

104 Ibid., 21-23.

Jurgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), 144-147.

106 Karl Rahner, The Trinity (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 107.

37 three ways of being within one God, as Modalism suggests. This inclination for the oneness of

God in three beings is opposed to the traditional stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of the Trinity which emphasizes the threeness of God who works together as three persons, and therefore rejects Modalism which claims the oneness of God in three forms.

From the traditional Roman Catholic perspective, God is not one in three modes as Modalism suggests, because if God is one in Godself, the three persons of the Trinity can only be experienced in our salvation history one by one, and not all together as three. Here, Rahner seems to agree with the position of Modalism and is thus opposed to the traditional stance of the

Roman Catholic Church, when he seems to imply that God's saving action is played by the second person of the Trinity, both implicitly and explicitly, and not together as the three persons of the Trinity.

In contrast to Rahner, Lonergan holds a more balanced stance towards Trinitarian theology by attempting to make a clear distinction among the missions of the three persons of the

Trinity. Lonergan suggests that the a priori intention for the knowledge of Christ comes through the mission of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, whereas the knowledge of Jesus

Christ comes in the process of knowledge through the mission of the Christ, the second person of the Trinity. Thus, Lonergan's stance acknowledges the threeness of God working together in our salvation history, and thus does not correspond with a Modalistic approach.

Another concern that is inherent in Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", is that

Rahner's theory may possibly be understood as having overlooked the significance of the

commitment to become a member of a Christian community. This concern is based on his

Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 134-137.

' Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

38 epistemology, especially on the point where he places an emphasis on the "fullness" of implicit knowledge at the cost of the significance of the process of knowing. As discussed in Chapter 1,

Rahner emphasizes the "fullness" of the implicit knowledge of Christ in all humankind, and says that the explication and objectification of that implicit knowledge does not add any new element to the original knowledge. In this way, Rahner's epistemology views the process of explicit knowledge of Christ in Christianity as an ephemeral and transient event, without adding anything to the original knowledge, and therefore is less significant than the universal presence of implicit knowledge of Christ. In other words, since humanity already has implicit knowledge of Christ which is original and full in itself, the objectification of implicit knowledge in the establishment of Christianity remains as a mere act of expressing and uncovering what is already there as true.110 Thus, for Rahner, it seems that the establishment of the Church is a valid expression of

God's grace, but not an essential part of our receiving God's grace. This specific point in

Rahner's theory questions the nature of the Church as well as the significance of one's commitment to become a visible member of a Christian community. According to Rahner, the human effort to be close to God by establishing Christianity and making a commitment to become a member of a Christian community does not seem to add anything to the implicit knowledge of Christ, and remains a revelation of the implicit knowledge of Christ.1

Rahner emphasizes the omnipotence of the grace of God that works both implicitly and explicitly; however, the significance of the human efforts through cognitional activities such as judgment seem to have been overlooked in Rahner's theory. For Rahner, even the human

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

39 yearning for God is intentionally awakened and matured in the grace of God. He suggests that

"the unlimited transcendence of man [woman], itself directed of necessity towards God, is raised up consciously by grace."112 Thus, for Rahner, even implicit knowledge of Christ is a response to

God's initiative, not a fruit of human effort. According to Rahner, Jesus Christ is a concrete and explicit evidence of the grace of God offered to humanity as an answer for their finite yearning for Christ.113 This is to say that the historical event of the coming of Jesus Christ indicates that it was God's intention that human beings yearn for the coming of Christ. The coming of Christ reveals the dynamic between transcendent and historical revelation. Rahner says that

"transcendent and historical revelation have a mutual reference: the former acquires historical

form and shape in the latter, just as in other cases the transcendent being of man [woman] is

mediated to itself through history.""4 In this sense, the human yearning acquired historical form

of the person of Jesus Christ through whom the transcendence was mediated to humanity. In this

way, Rahner placed an emphasis on the fullness of God's grace that is at work both in

transcendental revelation and historical revelation. Rahner's point here corresponds with his

epistemology where he emphasizes the fullness of implicit knowledge regardless of one's effort

for objectification of that implicit knowledge.115 Here, by emphasizing the fullness of God's

grace, Rahner's point seems to underestimate the significance of the human response to God's

grace through cognitional activities such as one's own experience, understanding and judgment.

Thus, Rahner appears to have overlooked an important role of the process of explicit knowing on

Karl Rahner, "Anonymous and Explicit Faith" in Theological Investigations, vol. 16. (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), 55.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 319-320.

114 Rahner, "Anonymous and Explicit Faith" in Theological Investigations, vol. 16, 58.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 14-23.

40 the part of human beings as well as the significance of the establishment of the Church and one's

commitment to become a member of the visible Church community.

In contrast to Rahner's position, Lonergan places more emphasis on the process of

knowing and thus upholds the significance of the establishment of Christianity and one's

commitment to become a visible member of the Christian Church.116 This is because, Lonergan

argues, that the knowledge of Christ is actually being constituted through the process of

knowledge, adding radically new elements to the original intention for the knowledge of

Christ.117 Thus, for Lonergan, the process of knowing Christ through the establishment of

Christianity actually constitutes knowledge of Christ through the process of human effort to be

close to God. For Lonergan, this is a point of departure from Rahner's stance. Lonergan places

more emphasis on the process of knowing which is constitutive of knowledge of Christ while

Rahner seems to emphasize the fullness of original knowledge, possibly overlooking the

significance of the process of knowing and thus the establishment of Christianity.

Despite the concerns of the theory of "Anonymous Christians", Rahner has significantly

broadened the understanding of Christ and the Church by saying that all humanity is saved

through Christ both explicitly within Church membership and implicitly within the anonymous

mission of Christ. The scope of the invisible Church is broad enough to embrace our entire

humanity both explicitly and anonymously. With this inclusive understanding of God's universal

salvific power for humanity, Christians may be able to shift their position towards an inclusive

position through inter-religious dialogue. Non-Christians are not lost, and therefore have a right

1,6 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 244.

117 Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection, 206-208.

41 to be called "Anonymous Christians."118 However, there are further critical concerns inherent in

Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", that his Christological approach might possibly

imply Modalism, and that his epistemology might overlook the significance of the commitment

to become a Christian.

b) Lonergan 's Theory of "the Universal Mission of the Holy Spirit"

While Rahner focuses on the original knowledge of Christ which is fully constituted

implicitly, Lonergan emphasizes the process of knowledge which is constitutive of

knowledge."9 This difference in their epistemologies results in a significant difference in their

theologies. Rahner holds that "what is meant and the experience of what is meant are still one"

the contents of implicit knowledge of Christ and the explication of original knowledge through

Christianity are of "the same kind", which is the full knowledge of Christ. Thus, for him, both

implicit knowledge of Christ and explicit knowledge of Christianity come through the mission of

Christ. Based on this epistemology, Rahner develops an inclusive Christology which finds its

starting point in the implicit knowledge of Christ through the anonymous mission of Christ.

Rahner's stance might possibly appear to be exclusively Christocentric by implying that truth is

attainable through the mission of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, and not through all

three persons of the Trinity. However, Lonergan takes a deliberately different approach from

Rahner. For Lonergan, the a priori intention is mere consciousness, and the process of

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Foundations of Christian Faith, 395.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 14-23; Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection, 205-221.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

42 knowledge through reflective insight constitutes knowledge itself. According to Lonergan, the process of knowledge adds new elements to the original intention; thus, the content of what is

meant and what is experienced are not one, and they can be radically different. In other words, the starting point of knowledge and the knowledge itself are not necessarily the same for

Lonergan. This distinction is precisely because that the process of knowledge itself constitutes

knowledge. This distinction between starting point and final product within the process of

knowledge leads Lonergan to distinguish between faith and belief; faith is not the same as a

differentiated belief system.1 2 Based on this, Lonergan argues that faith and belief are of "a

different kind" and therefore they come through a different divine mission of the person of the

Trinity; faith is a response to the mission of the Holy Spirit while belief is a response to the

mission of the Son. Here, Lonergan attempts to emphasize the universal mission of the Holy

Spirit who is present to all people including non-Christians.123 Lonergan attempts to develop an

inclusive theology as does Rahner, but he takes a Pneumatological approach. Lonergan's

Pneumatology seems to challenge the classical understanding of the Holy Spirit by recognizing

the Holy Spirit as the first gift of God's love; thus, Lonergan's Pneumatology suggests a reversed

order of the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit within the three persons of the Trinity.

Following the approach of Lonergan, Frederick E. Crowe continues to develop his Pneumatology

with a reversed order of the missions of the Trinity. Although Lonergan and Crowe's stance

seems to challenge the classical understanding of the Trinity, their theory corresponds with the

position of the Roman Catholic tradition, especially with the threeness of the Trinity, by claiming

that the three persons of the Trinity work together. In the following, I will focus on (1)

121 Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection, 211-212

122 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 115-119.

123 Ibid., 326-330.

43 Lonergan's distinction between faith and belief as a starting point for his Trinitarian theology, and (2) Lonergan's Pneutnatology with a reversed order of the missions of the Trinity.

(1) Lonergan's Distinction between Faith and Belief as a Starting Point for His

Trinitarian Theology

According to Lonergan's method, theology is divided into two phases of mediating and mediated.124 The mediating phase confronts the past and challenges one to a decision and a

conversion, and the mediated phase encounters the present with a decision that is made through a

conversion experience. Lonergan suggests a universal structure of all religions in mediating

theology (research, interpretation, history, and dialectic). However, due to the diversity of

religious utterances, the gift of God's love may be expressed differently in mediated theology

(foundations, doctrines, systematic, and communications) from what is first given in mediating

theology.125 The basis of this division of mediating theology and mediated theology flows from

Lonergan's epistemology, in which he distinguishes between original intention and process of

knowledge.126 He insists that knowledge is outcome of the process of knowing; thus, the

consciousness is not identical to knowledge. In other words, for Lonergan, due to the

significance of the constitutive role of reflective insight, the process itself continuously

constitutes knowledge. It is from this perspective that Lonergan suggests division in mediating

theology and mediated theology, because the theology is being constituted in the process of

mediation; therefore mediating theology and mediated theology are not one and the same.

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 135.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 114. Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection, 211-212.

44 Here I argue that Lonergan distinguishes faith and belief in a way that is similar to the distinction between mediating theology and mediated theology. He insists that faith comes before the process of mediation while belief comes after the process of mediation. This is to say that faith is knowledge born of the gift of God's love before mediation (religious expression) and belief is a religious structure of the mediation (religious expression) of the gift of God's love; thus, faith and belief are substantially different. For Lonergan, faith is the knowledge born of religious love on which the structure of belief rests.128 The distinction between faith and belief

is also based on the epistemology of Lonergan where he acknowledges differences between the

starting point and the final product of the process of knowing. The process of knowing itself plays a significant role by constituting knowledge during the process; differentiated and an

objectified belief system cannot be identical with faith. This stance of Lonergan is a point of

departure from Rahner. According to Lonergan, faith and belief are different and thus it cannot

be explained that both of them are from the mission of Christ as Rahner suggests. Lonergan

clearly indicates that the gift of God's love (faith) comes through the Holy Spirit and is present

in all people. He writes as follows:

The Spirit is given to many, and the many form a community. The community endures over generations, spreads over different nations, adapts to cultural changes. It acquires a history of its origins, its development, its successes and failures, its happy strokes and its mistakes... Though God's grace is given to all, still the experience of resting in God ordinarily needs a religious tradition for it to be encouraged, fostered, interpreted, guided, and developed.129

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 115-119.

128 Ibid., 115, 118.

129 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, "Theology and Man's Future," in A Second Collection, ed. William F.J. Ryan S.J., and Bernard J. Tyrell S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 146.

45 Lonergan claims there is unity among various religions through the universal presence of the

Holy Spirit. This is a point of inclusivity through which Lonergan recognizes the possibility for

unity among diverse religions, despite various religious expressions within world religions, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

In contrast to Rahner's stance, which focuses on the mission of Christ almost exclusively,

Lonergan emphasizes the balance between the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy

Spirit in salvation history.130 Lonergan's explanation that faith comes through the mission of the

Holy Spirit while belief comes through the mission of the Son corresponds with the traditional

Roman Catholic Trinitarian theology in understanding the threeness of the Trinity. Moreover,

Lonergan places more emphasis on the significance of the mission of the Holy Spirit. He

introduces the Holy Spirit as the gift of God's love who unites all of humanity, and thus enables

all of us to proper appropriation. In discussing the gift of God's love, Lonergan makes reference

to Rom. 5:5, 'God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been

1 O 1

given to us.' Lonergan emphasizes the mission of the Holy Spirit explaining that the

possibility of a deeper unity of faith beyond different forms of belief is accomplished through the

gift of God's love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.132 The gift of God's love

pertains to a world not mediated by meaning, therefore, all religions share a foundation in

religious experience through the Holy Spirit in the realm of interiority, although expressed

differently in different traditions. Lonergan pushes the notion of unity further by suggesting the

possibility of salvation for non-Christians through the universal mission of the Holy Spirit.133

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

131 Ibid., 327.

132 Ibid., 119.

133 Ibid., 123.

46 However, Lonergan does not compromise the significance of the particular expression of God's love (Jesus Christ) at the expense of a universal interiority of the gift of God's love (the Holy

Spirit).134 Lonergan claims that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are working together in our salvation history. He claims that the gift of God's love dwells in a world not mediated by meaning, and this love receives an outward verbal expression through an historically conditioned medium.135 He insists that 'the word of religious expression is not just the objectification of the gift of God's love; in a privileged area it also is specific in meaning, the Word of God himself.'136 This means that the three persons of the Trinity are different persons; and one person of the Trinity is not a mere objectification of another person of the Trinity.

Lonergan presents a well-balanced understanding of the three persons of the Trinity, emphasizing that the three persons of the Trinity are working together in our salvation history.

He not only makes a distinction between the two missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, but

also claims that the Son and the Spirit have a specific relationship to their unique operation in the world. The Son performs works proper to his human nature (i.e. birth, death, and resurrection); the Holy Spirit performs works proper to her divine nature (i.e. the universal presence in all as an

entry point to the way to God). Despite the fact that Lonergan suggests the unique operation in the world of the three persons of God, Lonergan's understanding of the Trinity affirms that the

mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit are ordered to the same goal of one

economy of salvation. In this way, the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit

134 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

135 Ibid., 112.

136 Ibid., 119.

137 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, The Triune God: Systematics, ed. Robert M. Doran, and H. Daniel Monsour, trans. Michael G. Shields (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 485.

47 remain intimately related and inseparable, working together as the mission of the Trinity.

Lonergan's view on the three persons of the Trinity is well expressed in the following when he explains the unique relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Without the visible mission of the Word, the gift of the Spirit is a being-in-love without a proper object; it remains simply an orientation to mystery that awaits its interpretation. Without the invisible mission of the Spirit, the Word enters into his own, but his own 1 ^R receive him not.

For Lonergan, the interior experience of being-in-love through the Holy Spirit cannot be expressed without the mission of the Word, the Son, and the proper object of being-in-love cannot be received without the mission of the Spirit. This means that the invisible gift of the

Spirit is given through the data of consciousness in interiority while the visible gift of the Word is given through the data of experience in history. Therefore, the gift of God's love which is being objectified is the Word in the history of the incarnation in the presence of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit together. The fulfillment of love given (the Holy Spirit) and declared

(the Word) is consummated in the union with the sender of the gift of love, God, the Father.

Lonergan upholds the traditional position of the Roman Catholic Church in his Trinitarian theology by suggesting that both the inner word (of the gift of God's love through the Holy

Spirit) and the outer word (of religious tradition through Jesus Christ) are working together as both of them come from God.139

Bernard J.F. Lonergan, "Mission of the Son and Gift of the Spirit," in A Third Collection (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 32.

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

48 (2) Lonergan's Pneumatology with a Reversed Order of the Missions of the Trinity

In explaining the missions of the three persons of the Trinity, Lonergan attempts to balance the missions of the Trinity by emphasizing the significant role of the Holy Spirit; he

seems to suggest the retrieval of the mission of the Holy Spirit as the starting point for a balanced

Trinitarian theology. Regarding this matter, Robert M. Doran points out that the major challenge and opportunity in a Trinitarian framework is the retrieval of the mission of the Holy Spirit as the

starting point in systematic theology.140 Together with Doran, a number of contemporary theologians consider the Roman Catholic Church and its position on the theology of the Trinity

as being practically binitarian, which does not deny the three persons in the Trinity, but would

hold a position that the Holy Spirit is not as significant as the other two persons in the Trinity.141

However, a Trinitarian theology must hold the view that suggests a well-balanced relationship

among the three persons of the Trinity.

In order to retrieve the mission of the Holy Spirit, Lonergan seems to suggest a reversed

order of the mission of the Son and the mission of the Spirit in describing the Trinity: God, the

Holy Spirit (inner word in faith), and Jesus Christ (outer word in belief).142 For Lonergan, the

significance of inner word (faith through the Holy Spirit) precedes the outer word (belief through

the Son) indicating the reversed order of the missions of the Holy Spirit and the Son. This

reversed order of the missions is also shown in Lonergan's analogy of a man and a woman.

Robert M. Doran, "The Starting Point of Systematic Theology," Theological Studies, no. 67 (2006), 750-76.; Doran suggests that the Holy Spirit is God's first gift, and the mission of the Son is conceived in relation to the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. See his "Social Grace and the Mission of the Word." Lonergan Resource. http://www.lonerganresource.com/pdf/contributors/Doran_Social_Grace_and theMission of_the_Word.pdf (accessed July 20, 2011).

141 Frederick E. Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 331.

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

49 When a man and a woman love each other but do not avow their love, they are not yet in love. Their very silence means that their love has not reached the power of self-surrender and self-donation. It is the love that each freely and fully reveals to the other that brings about the radically new situation of being in love and that begins the unfolding of its life long implications.

Here, Lonergan suggests that the love comes first and then comes the avowal of that love. As I discussed previously, Lonergan considers the gift of God's love as the Holy Spirit being poured into our hearts. (Rom. 5:5)144 Therefore, this analogy of love and avowal further suggests that

God's falling in love with humanity through the sending of the Holy Spirit precedes God's avowal of that love through the sending of the Son.

a) Frederick E. Crowe's Approach to the Order of the Missions of the Trinity

Based on Lonergan's proposal of the reversed order of the missions of the Trinity,

Frederick E. Crowe develops his Pneumatology by suggesting a complete integration of the three persons of the Trinity through reversing the order of the missions of the Trinity. Crowe argues that a balance among the missions of three persons in the Trinity may be accomplished by

placing an equal emphasis on the Holy Spirit as that of the Son.145 The emphasis on the

significance of the mission of the Holy Spirit calls for the recognition of the universal presence

of the Holy Spirit in world religions, thereby bringing about a shift within the attitude of the

Roman Catholic Church. Thus, Crowe's Pnuematology contributes to the possibility of inter-

religious dialogue with a more open attitude on the part of the Roman Catholic Church. In the

introduction of his article "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions", Crowe attempts to

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 112-13.

144 Ibid., 327.

Frederick E. Crowe, "Son and Spirit: Tensions in the Divine Missions?" in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea., 304.

50 present an approach to world religions with a framework of the theology of the Trinity with a reversed order of the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit. He writes as follows:

Commonly we think of God first sending the Son, and of the Spirit being sent in that context, to bring to completion the work of the Son. This thesis says that on the contrary, God first sent the Spirit, and then sent the Son in the context of the Spirit's mission, to bring to completion—perhaps not precisely the work of the Spirit, but the work which God conceived as one work to be executed in the two steps of the twofold mission of first the Spirit and then the Son.146

For Crowe, God first sent the Spirit, and then sent Christ to bring to completion the mission of the Spirit. This order holds an opposite perspective from a traditional understanding which views the mission of the Son as a starting point, with the Holy Spirit arriving at an understanding of the persons of the Trinity.147 Crowe, however, upholds the reversed order of the missions of the

Trinity saying 'what is first in our eyes is not first in itself; on the contrary, what is first in our eyes is last in itself, and what is last in our eyes is first in itself.'14 Thus, Crowe defines the mission of the Holy Spirit as donum, the first and foundational gift from God, and this first gift is the gift of personal Love, the amor donabilis who is the Holy Spirit as Love sent to us.

According to Crowe, Lonergan's theology is an attempt to expand the Good news to all

God's people, including Jews, Gentile, Christians and non-Christians. Crowe claims that his thesis of the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as the first gift is 'the tacit supposition

permeating all Lonergan's later work on the Son and the Holy Spirit'.149 For Crowe, the

universal mission of the Holy Spirit, who is present to all, is a significant characteristic in

146 Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," 325

This understanding is first articulated by Augustine in his psychological analogies and reaches considerable technical clarification in Thomas Aquinas.

Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 327.

51 Lonergan's theology.150 Moreover, Crowe argues that his Pneumatology, which suggests the universal presence of the Holy Spirit, corresponds with not only the Pneumatology of Lonergan, but also with that of Augustine and Aquinas to some extent. This means that not only Lonergan but also Augustine and Aquinas provided a substantial foundation for Pneumatology; yet they did not fully develop a Pnematology within the Trinity with the reversed order of the missions of the Trinity. As evidence for Crowe's argument, Lonergan, in presenting the idea of the Holy

Spirit as God's first gift, found a basis for that idea in Aquinas who made reference to Augustine on that account.151 Regarding this lack of full development of Pneumatology in classical theology, Crowe asserts that, in the time of Augustine and Aquinas when the position of exclusivity was held prevalently, it might have been impossible for theologians to claim the first

1 S9 gift, the Holy Spirit, universally applicable throughout the world. Given the historically exclusive attitude of the Roman Catholic Church, the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as the first gift would have been in contradiction to what was officially held by the teaching of the 1 c-i Roman Catholic Church. In a post Vatican II era, however, it is possible today to come to a theology that recognizes the universal presence of the Holy Spirit among all humanity. Therefore

Crowe argues that the Holy Spirit is present from the beginning of human time and to the ends of human space. The Holy Spirit blows where she wills and 'fills the entire space-time universe' fulfilling the 'indefinite adaptability' of the historicity of humankind.154

150 Ibid., 329.

Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 329.

152 Ibid.

153 Schineller, "Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views," 551-552.

154 Frederick E. Crowe, "A Threefold Kenosis of the Son of God," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 323; Frederick E. Crowe, "Son and Spirit: Tensions in the Divine Missions?" in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 305, respectively.

52 In his Pneumatology, however, Crowe does not attempt to separate the mission of the

Holy Spirit from the mission of the Son. Crowe agrees with the traditional position of the Roman

Catholic Church on the doctrine of the Trinity, by claiming that the three missions of the Trinity are working together, and suggests the second gift, Jesus Christ, is the continuation of the first gift, the Holy Spirit. This is to say that God sent the Son in the fullness of time in unity and complementarity with the Holy Spirit.155 Crowe holds that the Holy Spirit is never in contradiction with Jesus Christ, even though the mission of the Holy Spirit appears to be different from that of Jesus Christ. For Crowe, the Spirit is always present and active in history in view of, and in relation to Jesus Christ. In attempting to present a balanced understanding of the three persons of the Trinity without violating the tradition, Crowe acknowledges the challenge and points out the dilemma of a Christian circle with only one center being Jesus

Christ. Crowe suggest an image of an ellipse with two foci of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, which leads to a complete integration of the three persons in the work of redemption. He writes as follows:

Our religion cannot be Christocentric in quite the same way it was in the past, but we are troubled by the various efforts to conceive a new center. May I suggest that we discard the image itself of a center, and think rather of an ellipse with two foci. A circle...is a special form of an ellipse, one in which the two foci coincide. Does that provide an image of our previous history in regard to Son and Spirit?...The Spirit, instead of being allowed to be himself, functioning as a focus in Christian life, was brought into coincidence with the Son and so into a measure of oblivion...In the image of an ellipse the two foci of Son and Spirit are distinct and complementary. Of course, our God is Triune, and eventually we must find a place for the Father, but at least we have a first approximation on the way to a complete integration of the three persons in the work of redemption.156

Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 329.

Crowe, "Son and Spirit: Tensions in the Divine Missions?" in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 304.

53 In his attempt to balance the tension between the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy

Spirit, Crowe insists that there is no secondary matter in the Godhead. This is to say that the three persons of the Trinity are equal; therefore one person of the Trinity cannot replace another person of the Trinity. He suggests that a well-balanced theological account of the relationship between Christology and Pneumatology must acknowledge a relationship of order which comprehends one divine economy of salvation without implying subordination of one to the other. According to Crowe, this complementary relationship of order between the mission of the

Son and the mission of the Spirit is revealed in our salvation history: Christ is in the historical unfolding of the divine economy throughout time and space in the work of the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, there cannot be a tension in the relationship among the three persons of the immanent

Trinity, because the three persons are eternal in the intrinsic mystery of the Godhead.

b) Jung Young Lee's Approach to the Order of the Missions of the Trinity

In a similar way to Crowe's understanding of the order of the missions of the Trinity, an

Asian theologian, Jung Young Lee, presents an Asian understanding of the missions of the

Trinity. Lee argues that the order of the missions of the Trinity as that of the Father, the Spirit

and the Son is distinctly Asian since it corresponds well with the Asian trinity of Heavenly

Sovereign (T'ien-huang), the Earthly Sovereign (Ti-huang) and the Human Sovereign (Jen-

huang). Lee refers to Chang Tsai's famous essay, Hsi Ming (trans: Western Inscription),

where the basic principle of the Asian Trinity is provided: Heaven (ch 'ieri) is the father of

Jung Young Lee is introduced as the first Asian theologian who delves into Taoist philosophy, especially as contained in the / Ching, which is one of the earliest books on cosmology in East Asia, in Peter C Phan's article, "Jesus the Christ with an Asian Face" Theological Studies 57 (1996), 411.

158 Jung Young Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 153.

54 humanity, Earth (k'uri) is the mother of humanity, and humanity is the product of both of the father and the mother. Lee argues that the Asian Trinity parallels the traditional western

Trinitarian theology, because the Father is symbolized by the image of heaven, the Spirit by the image of earth, and the Son by the image of humanity. He supports his argument by drawing attention to the fact that, in our Christian tradition, we often call God the heavenly Father, and the feminine aspect of God is often referred to as our mother earth.

Lee argues that the Asian typology of Heaven (the Father), Earth (the Mother), and

Humanity (the child) provides not only the manifestation of the Asian Trinity but also the most fundamental familial system based on a cosmological order. Lee writes:

If the Trinity is the archetype of the cosmos and the cosmos has been viewed in terms of heaven, earth, and humanity, the paradigm of "the father, the mother and children" is the most fundamental to understanding the basic unit of the cosmos. In other words, the family structure is the basic unit of the cosmos and a microcosm of communal life.159

Thus, Lee argues that the familial system reflects the basic unit of life that consists of the father

and the mother and the children. Lee pushes his argument further and suggests that the three

persons of the Trinity must reflect this basic unit of life of the Father, the Mother and Children.

Lee argues that the cosmic order of the missions of the Trinity as the Father, the Spirit

(Mother), the Son is "normative" from the perspective of Asian cosmology, in which the symbol

of yin-yang plays an essential role.160 Lee indicates that the reversed order of the missions of the

Trinity is related more to cosmology than to patriarchalism, and draws attention to the fact that

patriarchalism is a by-product of history, rather than of cosmology itself.161 Thus, in his

Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective, 153.

55 attempting to understand the Trinitarian theology from an Asian perspective, Lee draws on the metaphysics of the / Ching (Book of Changes), especially the concept of yin-yang

relationship.162 Yin (-§-, shadow) andyang (^f, sunshine) constitute the two primordial

components of change; the two involve mutual dependency. This is to say that yin is always a

required condition foryang and vice versa. Thus, yin andyang are distinctive concepts but can

never be separated from each other. It is from this particular point that Lee argues that reality is

not known in an "either-or" way of thinking, but in a "both-and" way of thinking. Lee writes as

follows.

"Both-and" philosophy is based on the idea of change, which produces both yin and yang. Yin is rest, yang is movement; yin is being, yang is becoming. Yin is responsiveness, yang is creativity... Thus theology of change, which characterizes the ultimate as being and becoming, is that inclusive theology to which we must return.16

In this inclusive "both-and" philosophy, Lee suggests that God is the source of both "being" and

"becoming". It is from this point of the "both-and" philosophy, which is drawn from yin-yang,

that Lee develops the Asian understanding of the relationship among the three persons of the

Trinity. According to Lee, the three persons of the Trinity cannot be understood through "one-

after-another" approach; rather, the three persons must be understood together as three persons in

one God. For him, the missions of the Trinity are distinct but can never be separated, because

they are closely related. Lee writes about this inseparable quality of the three persons of the

Trinity as follows:

For Lee's exposition of the / Ching, see his The Principle of Changes: Understanding the I Ching (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1971) and The I Ching and Modern Man: Essays on Metaphysical Implications of Change (Secaucus, N.J.: University Books, 1975). For a brief summary of the / Ching metaphysics of the yin-yang, see The Theology of Change 1-10.

Jung Young Lee, The Theology of Change: A Christian Concept of God in an Eastern Perspective. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979) 20.

56 We cannot think of the Father along in the Trinity, because he is also the Son and the Spirit. In the same manner, we cannot imagine the Son alone in the Trinity, because he is also of the Father and the Spirit. The same relationship can be applied to the Spirit as well. Because the three members of the Trinity are inseparable, their relationships are also interdependent. 4

Thus, Lee insists that the three persons of the Trinity are in an interdependent relationship, and this point corresponds with the traditional Trinitarian theology within the Roman Catholic

Church where the three persons of the Trinity are closely related and cannot be understood

separately from one another.

In presenting the cosmologica! order of the missions of the Trinity as the Father, the

Spirit and the Son, Lee argues that this cosmological order is not contrary to a biblical order of

the missions of the Trinity. He insists that the equivalence of the words "wind" or "breath" with

"spirit" was known long before the coming of the Son into history, although the existence of the

three persons of the Trinity is eternal. Lee argues that the first human, Adam, was created with

the "earth" and "breath"; thus, one can assume that the Spirit precedes humanity. Therefore, the

Spirit can be elevated to the second place within the order of the missions of the Trinity,

especially with an understanding that the Son comes to humanity as the second Adam. Lee

explains this more in depth in the following:

Thus, from our idea of time and space, the priority of spiritual presence over the coming of the Son is experienced in our life. The Spirit gave life to the world, especially the life of the first human being, Adam, in the second story of human creation. The human being was formed from the dust of the ground or from the earth, and was breathed on or out by the breath of life (Gen 2:7). It was the breath of life or the Spirit that gave life to the first human being, Adam, who was later represented by the Son (1 Cor. 15:45). If Christ as the symbol of the second Adam represents the first Adam, who was created out of the dust and breathed on or out by the Spirit of God, we can conclude that the Son comes after the Spirit. This order is then based on the cosmological paradigm, which is different from the soteriological one.

Lee, The Trinity in Asian Perspective, 177

Ibid., 154-155.

57 Lee attempts to develop a Trinitarian theology that can be understood from the perspective of

Asian cosmology. Lee's contribution remains significant for us today in his pioneering efforts in combining the thoughts in the philosophy of the East and the West. Lee's work is efficacious in accommodating Asian cosmology in Christian theology; however, his language of Trinitarian theology remains ambiguous for a few reasons. Lee's understanding of the Trinity seems to obliterate the border between "economic" Trinity (the Trinity as experienced in our salvation history) and "immanent" Trinity (inner persons of the Trinity) by embracing the "both-and" philosophy. Lee's understanding of the Trinity appears to focus more on the "economic" Trinity, since he attempts to explain the Trinity based on our experience from "our idea of time and space". However, when he discusses the order of the persons of the Trinity, he seems to switch to the "immanent" Trinity in explaining the inner relationship of God as the Father, the Mother and the Child. In a similar way, his understanding of "the orders of the Divine Trinity" can be confusing, because it is not very clear whether Lee is referring to the order of the Trinity as within Godself (immanent Trinity) or the order of the missions of the Trinity as experienced in our salvation history (economic Trinity). This point of ambiguity also leads us to question which

might be the fundamental realm that Lee is concerned with: doctrine of the Trinity or the

theology of the Trinity. Overall, Lee seems to fail to grasp the subtle differences between the

concepts that I mention here, possibly at the cost of adopting "both-and" philosophy. "Both-and"

philosophy appears to provide an inclusive stance where one can accommodate different

concepts simultaneously, but it does not seem to be successful in deliberating subtle differences

among distinctive concepts within the area of Trinitarian theology. However, despite these

concerns inherent in Lee's work, his work is significant in presenting a new possibility for a

58 theology from an Asian perspective. With Lee's work being a milestone combining the thoughts

from the East and the West, I believe that there is room for exploration in this area.

c) Conclusion

My evaluative conclusion in this chapter is that Rahner's inclusive approach shown in his

theory of "Anonymous Christians" may be strengthened and further developed by adopting

Lonergan's proposal for the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. In the earlier part of this

chapter, I raised concerns inherent in Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", regarding the

significance of the commitment to become a Christian which may have been overlooked, and

that the distinction between the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit may not

have been clearly established. Here, I argue that Lonergan's proposal for reflective insight and

the universal mission of the Holy Spirit is capable of providing a key answer to the concerns

inherent in Rahner's theory. Lonergan recognizes the significance of a reflective grasp of

cognitional activity; therefore, for him, one's cognitional commitment to become a member of a

Christian community is an important element in appropriating one's desire to be close to God.

Moreover, Lonergan presents a well-balanced Trinitarian theology with an emphasis on the Holy

Spirit: he suggests that faith is the first gift of God's love through the mission of the Holy Spirit,

and belief is the expression of God's love through the mission of the Son. Lonergan challenges

the classical understanding of the Holy Spirit, in which the mission of the Holy Spirit has often

been considered as less important than the mission of the Son. However, Lonergan's approach

corresponds with the traditional Roman Catholic theology in presenting a balance among the

persons of the Trinity, in which all three persons are working together in our salvation history.

Therefore, Lonergan expresses the traditional Trinitarian position of the Roman Catholic Church

59 using a different expression from the classical way of expressing theology of the Trinity. He does not present a new doctrine of the Trinity, but proposes a new interpretation of traditional and classical theology of this doctrine. Moreover, Lonergan provides a foundation for further

development in Pneumatology, from which Crowe develops his Trinitarian theology with the reversed order of the missions of the Trinity. Lonergan and Crowe's Pneumatology also

corresponds with Lee's stance on the Trinitarian theology from an Asian perspective. This focus

on Pneumatology in the work of Lonergan, Crowe and Lee seems to show that there is a way in

which Trinitarian theology can be explained without using the classical expression. Therefore,

Lonergan's attempt is significant, not only in its content, but also in showing that creativity is

available for contemporary theologians in understanding traditional theology from a different

perspective with new insight.

60 Chapter 3. The Continuity in the Theologies of Rahner and Lonergan

and Their Influence on the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church

The inclusive theologies of Rahner and Lonergan present a distinctive approach to non-

Christians. Both theologians endeavour to embrace all humanity within the scope of Christianity, but each approach is distinct. As discussed in Chapter 2, Rahner focuses on the anonymous mission of Christ and develops a Christological theology, whereas Lonergan attempts to retrieve the mission of the Holy Spirit and establishes a Pneumatological theology. Although there is a difference in approach, that is not to say that Rahner and Lonergan are opposed to one another in their theology; rather, the difference between them can be appreciated as Lonergan attempts to carry forward Rahner's theory, enhancing and expanding Rahner's point by embracing the three persons of the Trinity in his inclusive theology. In Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", he made a significant contribution to a position of openness within the Roman Catholic Church, which brought about a monumental shift within the Roman Catholic Church from an exclusive position to an inclusive position.166 Although Rahner's attempt is significant, there are some shortcomings inherent in Rahner's theory, which is mainly because of his particular focus on

Christ. The essence of Rahner's argument is that all humanity already has implicit knowledge of

Christ, and therefore has a right to be called "Anonymous Christians", regardless of whether or not they have objectified their implicit knowledge within themselves.167 According to Rahner's theory, implicit knowledge of Christ is already fully constituted, and comes through the anonymous mission of Christ. Thus, for him, it is the mission of Christ that is at work in both

Christians and non-Christians. This specific point of Rahner might imply that the salvation

166 Schineller, "Christ and Church", 545.

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 395.

61 exclusively comes through the mission of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, and not through all three persons of the Trinity together. However, this exclusive focus on the mission of

Christ in Rahner's theology can be overcome when adopting Lonergan's Pneumatology.

Lonergan also attempts to develop an inclusive theology that is capable of embracing humanity within the realm of God's love.168 According to the theology of Lonergan, he appears to agree with Rahner's theology in that all humanity are under the salvific power of God's love.

However, he does not appear to agree fully with Rahner's belief that both Christians and non-

Christians are influenced exclusively by the mission of Christ—that is without the influence of

the Holy Spirit. Lonergan moves beyond Rahner's Christological approach and develops a

Pneumatological approach, which claims that the Holy Spirit and the Son are working together in

our salvation history. The starting point of Lonergan's argument is a distinction between faith

and belief.169 He claims that faith is a response to the mission of the Holy Spirit, while belief is

established through the mission of the Son, yet the two missions are closely related. For

Lonergan, non-Christians have the "desire" to know Christ, but this desire is not the same as the

fully constituted "knowledge" of Christ as presented by Rahner.1 This primordial desire to

know, which is present in all humanity, is the first gift of God's love, the Holy Spirit. 1 argue that

Lonergan's Trinitarian theology continues the inclusive theology of Rahner by expanding

beyond the Christological approach and opens up a new horizon for an attitude of inclusivity

within the Roman Catholic Church by suggesting the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in the

world. Lonergan's claim on the universal mission of the Holy Spirit acknowledges the

underlying unity among various religious traditions while allowing Christians to learn about the

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

169 Ibid., 115-119.

170 Lonergan, "Cognitional Structure" in Collection, 211-212.

62 distinctive characteristics of other religious traditions without imposing the image of Christ upon them. Lonergan's claim also presents a well-balanced Trinitarian theology by suggesting that the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit are working together in our salvation history.

In this chapter, I will continue to discuss the significant contribution of Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" and some practical concerns inherent in that theory, and Lonergan's proposal of the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as a continuation of inclusive theology which began with Rahner's theory. 1 will present my argument that Rahner makes a great contribution in embarking upon an inclusive theology, with an open attitude to call forth new thinking on the part of the Roman Catholic Church towards world religions; Lonergan's inclusive theology continues Rahner's inclusive theology but further develops Rahner's theology with his

Pneumatological theology. I will also argue that Lonergan's approach to salvation from a

Pneumatological perspective, in which the Holy Spirit is presented as the first gift of God's love, suggests a more balanced Trinitarian theology than does Rahner's Christological approach. To support my argument, I will present the current stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as it relates to an open attitude towards world religions by acknowledging the underlying unity among various religious traditions through the mission of the Holy Spirit without imposing the image of Christ upon them.

a) Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" and the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church

Rahner's contribution to a position of openness within the Church is one of the

significant milestones within the Roman Catholic Church to be more open towards non-

63 Christians. In his theory of "Anonymous Christians", Rahner attempts to embrace all people within Christianity, by saying that "anyone who has let himself[herself] be taken hold of by this

I 71

grace [of the Father in his Son] can be called with every right an 'anonymous Christian'."

According to him, one can anonymously know God through the anonymous mission of Christ

without having a membership through baptism within a Christian community. Rahner's theory

opens up the possibility of salvation outside of a visible Church membership, and therefore

brings a shift towards an inclusive position to the Roman Catholic Church by calling all people

of God into harmony through openness and interactive dialogue. 7 The significance of Rahner's

inclusive position is that it challenged the traditional position of the Roman Catholic Church

towards world religions. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, an inclusive perspective as

suggested by Rahner was beyond the perception of the Roman Catholic Church. Taking a

backward glance at the historical attitude of Roman Catholics towards non-Catholics, from the

time of Augustine up to the Second Vatican Council, there was much concern regarding the

necessity of baptism for salvation. There was an exclusivism in the attitude of the Roman

Catholic Church and a suspicion regarding the salvation of the non-baptized, in spite of the fact

that they may have been morally just, honest and filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

However, the need for the practice of baptism was challenged by the Second Vatican Council's

adopting Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians".173 Rahner holds that the human

orientation towards Christ is constituted in the anonymous desire for God and becomes an

explicit form of faith through baptism. This point of Rahner corresponds with the position of the

171 Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 395.

172 Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 39-41.

173 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium, Article 16 http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen- gentium_en.html (November 21, 1964).

64 Second Vatican Council in claiming that salvation is possible without an encounter with the sacraments of faith, because "God showed mercy to all humankind" (Rom 11:31). We can find a point of agreement of Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" and the position of the

Second Vatican Council in the following:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation. {Lumen Gentium, 16)

This statement recognizes the manifestation of God's grace in all aspects of life. God's gift of salvation is present in the secular world and its history, where the experience of faith is lived and celebrated. Rahner holds that the human orientation towards Christ is constituted in the anonymous desire for God and becomes an explicit form of faith through baptism. He claims that anonymous faith through the universal work of Christ is sufficient for one's salvation, and explicit faith through baptism in the Church is for building a more concrete relationship with

God.175 Rahner suggests that the sacraments such as baptism are also valid activities of God's grace. He claims that Christian sacraments should still be viewed as grace-filled actions, and the living presence of God is revealed and realized at the heart of life through the sacraments.

Rahner makes it clear that baptism is not essentially required for salvation, but is essential to belong to a Christian community.

Rahner presents a considerably broader concept of Christ and the Church and includes all humanity within the scope of Christianity. Rahner's inclusive position towards non-Christians has greatly influenced the position of the Roman Catholic Church today to be more open towards

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: Lumen Gentium, Article 16 http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii vaticancouncil/documents/vat-iiconst 19641121_lumen- gentium_en.html (November 21, 1964).

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 39-41.

65 dialogue with world religions. As shown in various places in the documents of the Second

Vatican Council, especially Nostra Aetate, the Roman Catholic Church now shows openness in

its attitude towards non-Christians and "rejects nothing of what is true and holy" in world religions.176 Inclusive claims such as the above are made by the Roman Catholic Church

implying that there is a possibility for salvation outside membership in the Church brought about

through the sacrament of baptism. Although Rahner's theory made a monumental contribution to

the Roman Catholic Church in embarking on the openness in its attitude, the application of

Rahner's position of inclusivity within our Christian faith today calls for further discussion of the

following concern: Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" raises a question regarding the

meaning of baptism within the Christian community. His theory also seems to impose a Christian

understanding of world religions, and does not seem to invite Christians to be fully engaged in

genuine dialogue.

Firstly, the identity of being a member of the Christian community through the sacrament

of baptism has become somewhat ambiguous. Baptism is a significant sign of a Christian

believer to be in union with Christ. It is a cognitional and corporate act to enter into the visible

Church, sharing the consecrated priesthood within the unity and equality of the people of God. In

the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the issue of salvation has played a major role in

defining the necessity of baptism.177 According to classical understanding, baptism unites the

people of God in the destiny of Christ by making Christians not merely creatures of God, but

beloved sons and daughters of God. In other words, baptism is a unique sacrament that

intensifies and transforms the relationship of a person with God and with the Christian

176 Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, Article 2 http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii vatican_council/documents/vat-i idecl^SKOSnostra- aetateen.html (October 28, 1965)

177 Schineller, "Church and Christ," 551-552.

66 community; it has been at the heart of Christian membership. However, as Rahner suggests the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, the necessity of baptism was questioned, and even challenged. The modern concept of baptism seems to suggest that baptism is required for becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but it is not necessary for salvation. Baptism in the modern understanding prompts one to ask the significance of being a member of a

Christian community through baptism while "Anonymous Christians" have the same availability to access God's grace without being baptized.178 This question might create some confusion for the identity of Christians and non-Christians, because Rahner's theory does not provide a clear distinction between Christians and non-Christians and the significance of baptism within the

Roman Catholic Church. Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" seems to focus more on embracing non-Christians, rather than embracing faithful believers within the visible Church community.

Rahner claims that anonymous faith through the universal work of Christ is sufficient for one's salvation, and explicit faith through baptism in the Church is significant in building a more concrete relationship with God.179 Rahner's claim here is based on his epistemology when he places more emphasis on the fullness of the implicit knowledge than on the objectification of the implicit knowledge: Rahner emphasizes the "fullness" of the original knowledge of Christ which is anonymously constituted; the explication of the implicit knowledge in the sacraments is valid but not yet essential. It is based on this point that Rahner suggests that the sacraments, such as baptism, are not essentially required for salvation although they are valid activities of God's grace which are needed for a person to become a member of a Christian community. Through

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 395.

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 39-41.

180 Ibid., 14-23.

67 this specific point, Rahner challenges the significance of the sacraments by implying that

"Anonymous Christians" have the implicit knowledge of Christ that is already fully constituted as knowledge without their effort of objectification.181 This position of Rahner's might present confusion for some people and possibly underestimate the importance of explicit faith through baptism in relation to salvation.

Secondly, Rahner's "Anonymous Christians" might possibly lead to a distortion of world religions by attempting to understand various religions from the perspective of the Roman

Catholic Church. As shown above, Rahner seems to have struggled to understand world religions; however, his concern appears to remain in the realm of a Christian understanding of world religions. Rahner's attempt does not seem to go beyond the Christian perception in order to understand world religions as they truly are in their own religious expression. Rahner chooses the term "Anonymous Christians'" to refer to people of other religions, and the term "Christians" implies that he attempts to understand non-Christian religions within the context of Christianity.

This is to say that Rahner's language implies that it is a Christian understanding of people in different religious traditions. The term "Anonymous Christians" implies that Rahner is attempting to look at people of different traditions through the lens of Christianity. This might be helpful for Christians to understand people of different cultures from a Christian perspective. But this might not be as helpful for people of other traditions to understand themselves. It would be extremely difficult for a Hindu to try to imagine himself or herself as an "Anonymous Christian" or a member of any other major religious sect for that matter. Thus, Rahner's theory of

"Anonymous Christians" might not be easily understood by non-Christians. In addition, the focus of Rahner's discussion on non-Christians lies in the possibility of salvation from a

Christian perspective. This means that looking at world religions with an understanding of

1 Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

68 Christian salvation seems to suggest a Christian imposition upon various religions. The

understanding of salvation in each religion may be radically different, but the Roman Catholic

Church attempts to suggest "Catholic" salvation to the people of other religions. For instance, what Christians call "salvation" may not be of interest to devout Buddhists. Rahner suggests that

all humanity in fact belong to Christianity and that all will be saved from a Christian perspective;

but by suggesting this, he might limit the view towards world religions, and favors the view only

through the lens of Christianity. With regard to this matter, Rahner seems to admit that the

audience for his work is a Christian audience. In the beginning of his book Foundations of

Christian Faith, he says that the book is for Christians to help them "to overcome the crisis in the

situation of their faith honestly".182 With Christians being the intended audience, "Anonymous

Christians" seems to be a term which is meant to be used within the Christian community only.

This may possibly create difficulties for his work to be understood outside the Christian

community.

Thirdly, in Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", the possibility of authentic

dialogue among various religions is called into question. Rahner's position might not allow for

the possibility of Christians to be engaged in dialogue in the fullest sense of the word "dialogue".

He claims that all humanity has a capacity to become Christians even without their recognizing

it. However, a question arises here: if a conversation partner is not conscious of the dialogue,

would that conversation be a valid dialogue? Dialogue requires a cognitional activity of

exchanging information between people. It implies that one listens to the other with respect and

integrity so as to arrive at an understanding of the viewpoint of the other. An attitude of

mutuality and openness is usually inherent in the concept of dialogue. One might ask how does

this notion of dialogue apply to inter-religious dialogue with "Anonymous Christians" as we

. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 6.

69 understand it today. Dialogue requires at least two persons who are aware of their listening to one another and learning from each other. For dialogue, an open attitude is needed, which involves a willingness to shape and to be shaped in the process of being involved. Thus,

Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" does not seem to present a possibility of authentic dialogue which requires one's cognitional awareness of it.

In short, Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" brought about a milestone within the history of the Roman Catholic Church in shifting its attitude towards inclusivity by significantly broadening the understanding of Christ and the Church and attempting to embrace non-Christians. However, Rahner's theory calls for some careful consideration of the concerns inherent in his theory. Rahner suggests an inclusive understanding of God's universal salvation by saying that non-Christians are not lost, and therefore have a right to be called "Anonymous

Christians." However, a clear distinction between explicit Christians and "Anonymous

Christians" seems to remain vague, bringing confusion for the members of Christianity regarding their Christian identity. Rahner's theory also seems to impose a Christian understanding on world religions. His language and concepts, such as Christians and salvation, remain in the realm of Christianity, and thus might be difficult for non-Christians to relate to. Moreover, Rahner's theory does not seem to invite Christians to be fully engaged in genuine dialogue, by implying

Christian superiority upon other religions as a full bearer of the truth. Here, I would like to argue that these concerns inherent in Rahner's theory might be answered by Lonergan's Pneumatology with his assertion of the universal mission of the Holy Spirit, which I will be discussing later.

However, although these concerns are inherent in Rahner's theory, his contribution to the Roman

Catholic Church still remains significant in broadening the concept of Christ and the Church, and

70 thus shifting the position of the Roman Catholic Church to become more open towards world religions.

b) Lonergan's Pneumatology and the Attitude of Inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church

Lonergan carries forward Rahner's theory in his attempt to embrace humanity within the scope of the gracious love of God. In a manner that is similar to Rahner, Lonergan proposes a theology of inclusivity that allows for the possibility of all human beings to be in love with God in an unrestricted fashion, because all human beings have the capacity to have an unrestricted desire to know. However, Lonergan moves far beyond Rahner's Christological approach shown in his theory of "Anonymous Christians" by acknowledging the universal presence of the gift of

God's love through the Holy Spirit. Lonergan's theology appears to agree with that of Rahner by implying that there is the possibility of deeper unity within humanity, but Lonergan moves beyond Rahner's Christological approach and argues that this unity is accomplished through the gift of God's love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Lonergan makes a deliberate attempt to define the mission of the Holy Spirit and establish a Pneumatological theology; this retrieval of the Holy Spirit results in a well-balanced Trinitarian theology by claiming that the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit are working together in our salvation history.

Lonergan's Trinitarian theology provides a foundation for the attitude of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church while upholding the traditional Trinitarian theology. He emphasizes the possibility of a deeper unity of faith beyond different forms of belief; a deeper unity of faith is accomplished through the gift of God's love being poured into our hearts through

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

71 the Holy Spirit.184 The gift of God's love, who is the Holy Spirit, pertains to a world not mediated by meaning; therefore, all religions share a foundation in religious experience in the realm of interiority, although expressed differently in different traditions.18 Lonergan makes a deliberate attempt to establish a Pneumatological theology by retrieving the mission of the Holy

Spirit through claiming that faith is attained through the universal presence of the Holy Spirit.

However, Lonergan's Pneumatology is always in relation to his Christology. That is to say that

Lonergan does not compromise the significance of the particular expression of God's love (Jesus

Christ) at the expense of a universal interiority of the gift of God's love (the Holy Spirit).

However, Lonergan suggests a reversed order within the persons of the Trinity, which acknowledges the Holy Spirit as the first gift of God's love, and the Son as the expression of

God's love. This is because, Lonergan argues, that the gift of God's love (the Holy Spirit) dwells in the realm of interiority, and receives an outward verbal expression (Jesus Christ) through an historically conditioned medium.

The recognition of the Holy Spirit as the first gift of God's love in the Roman Catholic

Church provides a foundation for a movement towards openness for dialogue with various religions. First of all, the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in world religions suggests a concept of unity within all of humanity. Lonergan argues that the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the world of interiority, is universally present in all of humanity as the first gift of God's love. For him, the Holy Spirit belongs to the world that is not mediated by meaning, and thus she is universally present in the realm of interiority as a foundation of various expressions of her in the

184 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

185 Ibid., 107.

186 Ibid., 119.

187 Ibid., 301-302.

72 realm of exteriority. This allows for Lonergan to propose that there can be a possibility for various religions to actually appear significantly different in their religious expressions while being based on the same foundation in the realm of interiority.188 In this way, it seems that

Lonergan's approach allows for greater expanse in accepting different expression of religious experience among world religions without imposing a Christian understanding upon these various religions. This specific point of Lonergan departs from that of Rahner's theory of

"Anonymous Christians", which recognizes the anonymous mission of Christ in other religions.

For Rahner, it seems that the gift of God's love and the expression of God's love remain the same as Christ, the second person of the Trinity. However, Lonergan clearly distinguishes the gift of God's love as the Holy Spirit and the religious expression of God's love as Jesus Christ.

Instead of suggesting that Christ is present to all in a hidden way and the expression of God's

love is the mere uncovering of what has been there as fully constituted knowledge of Christ,

Lonergan argues that it is the Holy Spirit who is universally present to all in the realm of

1 SQ interiority and Jesus Christ is the expression of God's love in the realm of exteriority. For these reasons, I argue that Lonergan's proposal of the universal presence of the Holy Spirit

suggests a way of unity among various religions at a deeper level than does Rahner's proposal of

the universal presence of the anonymous Christ. Lonergan's Pneumatology provides a

fundamental unity in the world not mediated by meaning and recognizes the possibility of

different expressions of religious experience in various religions of the exterior world. Thus,

Lonergan's Pneumatology provides an opportunity for Christians to learn about different

religious expressions of the same gift of God's love through various religious expressions,

without imposing a Christian understanding of them. 188 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 326-330.

189 Ibid., 301-302.

73 Secondly, Lonergan's theory seems to respect people's commitment to become a member of a visible Christian community. The issue of Christian identity remains ambiguous in Rahner's theory by suggesting that one can be an "Anonymous Christian" without one's own recognition.190 But the notion of Christian identity seems very clear for Lonergan, since he acknowledges that "being a Christian" involves one's cognitional commitment.' ' In contrast to

Rahner's theory, Lonergan argues that one cannot become a Christian without one's cognitional grasp of Christianity. One must go through a cognitional process of knowledge of Christ, which involves one's commitment to be baptized, to come to know Christ to become a Christian. This is because non-Christians only have the "primordial drive" to know Christ, but do not yet

"know" Christ.192 Thus, one's commitment to know Christ and to become a Christian through baptism is a significant element of being a Christian in Lonergan's theory. For Lonergan, this emphasis on one's commitment is based on his epistemology. According to Lonergan's epistemology, one's cognitional decision plays a significant role in constituting one's knowledge. For him, knowledge is constituted in the process of cognitional compound activities which are experience, understanding, judgment and evaluation. Within the process of knowledge, the starting point and the final product are not one and the same in Lonergan's epistemology, because there is a reflective grasp added to the original intention during the process. Lonergan indicates this reflective grasp as reflective insight, which is a cognitional activity essential for the constitution of knowledge.194 Due to this reflective insight, the process

Rahner, "Anonymous Christians" in Theological Investigations, vol. 6, 394.

191 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 213.

192 Lonergan, Insight, 9; See also 74, 331, 348, 521-22, 638.

193 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 13-20.

194 Lonergan, Insight, 83.

74 of knowledge remains a compound of cognitional activities, which is constitutive of knowledge

itself. This is a significant point that makes Lonergan's epistemology distinctive from that of

Rahner's because Rahner's seems to overlook the significance of the constitutive role of the reflective insight. Therefore, for Lonergan, knowledge of Christ is always attained through

cognitional activities which involve the sacraments within Christianity; there cannot be

"Anonymous Christians" or an "anonymous" mission of Christ, since being a "Christian" always

involves one's cognitional activity of coming to know Christ through a process of knowledge.

Therefore, for Lonergan, one's decision to become a Christian through the sacrament of baptism

is a significant element in coming to know Christ. Here, Lonergan's proposal for reflective

insight might provide a key answer to further concerns inherent in Rahner's theory regarding the

significance of one's cognitional commitment to becoming a member of a Christian community

through the sacrament of baptism.

Lastly, Lonergan presents the possibility to be open to world religions, and at the same

time, to be in agreement with the traditional position of the Roman Catholic Church. Lonergan's

Pneumatological theology is different from Rahner's Christological theology which might appear

to correspond with Modalism, which is a view that is rejected by the traditional Roman Catholic

Church, by implying that truth is attainable through the mission of Christ, the second person of

the Trinity, and not through all three persons of the Trinity. For Rahner, what is meant and the

experience of what is meant are one; he indicates that the contents of implicit knowledge of

Christ and the explication of original knowledge through Christianity are of "the same kind",

which is the full knowledge of Christ.195 This seems to show that Rahner does not appear to

make a clear distinction between the gift of God's love and the expression of God's love; both

the gift of God's love and the expression of God's love are attributed to the mission of Christ. In

Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 17.

75 contrast to Rahner's stance, Lonergan attempts to balance the mission of the persons of the

Trinity by retrieving the mission of the Holy Spirit. In doing so, Lonergan makes a clear distinction between the gift of God's love as the Holy Spirit and the expression of God's love as the Son.196 Lonergan argues that the three persons of the Trinity are working together in our salvation history, with the Holy Spirit in the realm of interiority and the Son in the realm of exteriority. For him, the mission of the Holy Spirit and the mission of the Son are closely related and cannot be separated from each other because the interior experience of being-in-love through the Holy Spirit cannot be expressed without the mission of the Word, the Son. In other words, the proper object of being-in-love can only be received by the mission of the Holy Spirit.

Crowe, in continuing to develop his Pneumatology based on Lonergan's theory, also argues that the distinctive missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit do not establish a dichotomy of two distinct economies of salvation; the two missions are working together in relation to one another, in the coherence of one divine plan. Crowe's Pnematology is attested to by Irenaeus's analogy of the three persons of the Trinity, which sees the two missions of the Son and the Spirit as the two hands of God. Crowe notes that 'the second step [Jesus Christ] is in continuity with the first [the

Holy Spirit]. In the fullness of time God sent the Son, not in opposition but in unity, not in subordination but in complementarity.'198 Thus, for Crowe, there is one economy of salvation in

God with the two complementary missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

As above, I have supported my argument that Lonergan's proposal of the universal presence of the Holy Spirit as the first gift of God presents a well-balanced Trinitarian theology by providing a deeper unity among religions, respecting one's commitment to become a

196 Lonergan, Method in Theology, 119.

197 Ibid., 241.

Crowe, "Son of God, Holy Spirit and World Religions," in Appropriating the Lonergan Idea, 329.

76 Christian, and attempting to balance the mission of the persons of the Trinity. For all these reasons, I believe that Lonergan's theory expands beyond Rahner's inclusive theology and can provide a key answer to the concerns inherent in Rahner's theology. Lonergan's Pneumatology suggests that there is a deeper unity through the universal presence of the Holy Spirit among the religions of the world not mediated by meaning, but in history, there can be different expressions of God's love.199 This is a significantly inclusive point which provides Christians with an opportunity to learn about different religious expressions without imposing Christian understanding upon them as Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" might suggest. Rahner makes a contribution in embarking on the inclusive position of the Roman Catholic Church towards world religions; Lonergan develops from Rahner's position, enhancing the inclusivity within the position of the Church by acknowledging the possibility of different religious expressions among world religions while being in agreement with the traditional position of the

Roman Catholic Church. Lonergan's Pneumatology, with the view that acknowledges the Holy

Spirit as the first gift of God's love, corresponds with the current position of the Roman Catholic

Church. In the following, I would like to discuss the position of the Roman Catholic Church that parallels Lonergan's claim of the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as the first gift of God, which relates to an open attitude towards world religions by recognizing the underlying unity among various religions without imposing the image of Christ upon them.

c) The Position of the Roman Catholic Church on the Universal Mission of the

Holy Spirit

The Roman Catholic Church, following the Second Vatican Council, holds the position that the grace of God reaches beyond Christianity to enlighten all people of non-Christian

Lonergan, Method in Theology, 115-119.

77 religions, through the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. The documents from the Second

Vatican Council acknowledge the gift and grace of God present in non-Christian religions, when it states that the religious traditions of humankind contain the element of 'truth and grace'. The document Ad Gentes states the following:

Whatever truth and grace is already found among the nations as a sort of secret presence of God [the missionary activity] frees from evil influences and restores to Christ, their author. . . .So whatever good is found sown in the hearts and minds of human beings, or in the rites and cultures proper to various peoples, is not only saved from destruction but is also healed, ennobled and brought to perfection, for the glory of God, the confusion of the devil and the happiness of the human person, [cf. LG 17] (AG 9 ; ND 1024)

According to Ad Gentes, divine elements are sown in all religious traditions by the secret presence of God, through which God's saving power is operative.

In the documents of the Second Vatican Council, with this inclusive understanding that acknowledges the divine element in all religions, the practical attitude toward non-Christian religions is also expressed. The function of the Church's missionary activity in relation to the non-Christian religions is found in the declaration Nostra Aetate.

The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. With sincere respect she looks on those ways of conduct and life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing on many points from what she herself holds and teaches, yet not rarely reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all human beings. But she proclaims and must ever proclaim, "the way, the truth and the life" in whom human beings find the fullness of religious life, and in whom God has reconciled all things to himself [cf. 2 Cor 5:18f]. And so the Church has this exhortation for her children: prudently and lovingly, through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, and in witness to the Christian faith and life, acknowledge, preserve and promote the spiritual and moral good, as well as the socio-cultural values found among them. (NA 2) 01

200 Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church: Ad Gentes, Article 9. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651207 ad- gentes en.html. (November 21, 1964)

Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, Article 2. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra- aetate_en.html. (October 28, 1965)

78 In the above quotation, religions are expressed as 'ways of conduct and life'. The Truth in non-

Christian religions is incomplete but it is genuinely and universally present, guiding the Church's attitude of respect towards itself.

In a similar manner to that of the Second Vatican Council, the Magisterium has noted that the universal presence of the Spirit in all religious traditions. In the first Encyclical of Pope John

Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, he states that the beliefs of non-Christians are viewed as an "effect of the Spirit of truth". The Pope notes that different religions are distinct paths to a single goal.

He states:

The Fathers of the Council rightly saw in the various religions as it were, so many reflections of the one truth, "seeds of the Word' [cf. AG11 ; LG 17], attesting that though the routes taken may be different, there is but one single goal to which is directed the deepest aspiration of the human spirit as expressed in the quest for God, and also in its quest, through its tending towards God, for the full dimension of its humanity, or, in other words, for the full meaning of human life. (RH 11 ; ND 1038)202

This is a very important point to show the progress of the Roman Catholic Church in inter- religious dialogue and it articulates the broadening of the attitude of the newly found inclusivity.

A similar point was viewed in the declaration of Redemptoris Missio, with a highlight on the communal aspect of the mission of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is universally present not only in individuals but also in cultures and religions.

The Spirit's presence and activity affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions. Indeed, the Spirit is at the origin of the noble ideals and undertakings which benefit humanity on its journey through history.. . .Again, it is the spirit who sows the "seeds of the Word" present in various customs and cultures, preparing them for full maturity in Christ. {Redemptoris Misso, n. 28)203

Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john paulii/encyclicals/documents/hfjp-iienc 04031979_redemptor- hominis_en.html. (March 4, 1979)

203 Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hfjp-ii_enc_07121990 redemptoris- missio en.html. (December 7, 1990)

79 As shown above, the argument of Lonergan and Crowe that the universal mission of the Holy

Spirit precedes the particular mission of Jesus Christ corresponds with the position of the Roman

Catholic Church that is shown in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, Redemptor

Hominis, and Redemptoris Missio. The particular mission of Jesus Christ and the universal mission of the Holy Spirit are in a dynamic relationship. This indicates that there is a possibility that God's self-manifestation is present in human cultures and religious traditions outside

Christianity.

Lonergan and Crowe both attempt to balance the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit by placing an emphasis on the mission of the Holy Spirit, which has been somewhat neglected in the Roman Catholic Trinitarian theology. In order to accomplish a balanced Trinitarian theology, Lonergan and Crowe challenge the order of the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit. They claims that the first gift from God to all humanity is the

gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Second gift from God, Jesus Christ, is in continuity with the first

gift. The two missions of the Son and the Spirit are in a complementary relationship without

subordination. The universal presence of the Holy Spirit in all humanity is rooted in the Roman

Catholic Trinitarian position that is expressed in the documents of the Second Vatican Council

and the writings of Pope John Paul II. Moreover, this Pnematology seeks to embrace non-

Christian religions as mediators of God's saving grace.

In summary of this chapter, I would like to say that Rahner and Lonergan both attempt to

develop an inclusive theology that calls for an open attitude of the Roman Catholic Church

towards inter-religious dialogue by embracing humanity within God's generous offer of

salvation. This attempt of Rahner and Lonergan in shifting the position of the Roman Catholic

Church to be open to inter-religious dialogue brought about a monumental shift in the history of

80 the Roman Catholic Church, in which "Outside the Church, no Salvation" had been widely believed for centuries. While they share the same goal of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic

Church, Rahner and Lonergan approach their inclusive theology from a different perspective;

Rahner focuses on the anonymous mission of Christ while Lonergan proposes the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. Although the approach of Rahner and Lonergan appears to be distinctive, I have argued in this chapter that the difference inherent in the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan does not mean that they are opposed to one another; rather, the difference shows that Lonergan carries forward Rahner's theory and expands beyond Rahner's Christological approach to his Pneumatological approach. Taking a backward glance in the history of the

Roman Catholic Church, Rahner's attempt to embrace humanity and his recognition of non-

Christians as "Anonymous Christians" brought about a significant shift within the attitude of the

Roman Catholic Church from exclusivity to inclusivity. However, there were some shortcomings inherent in Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians", which were the result of a particular focus on Christology. By suggesting that the mission of Christ is influencing both Christians and non-Christians, Rahner's theory seems to be exclusively Christocentric. With regard to this matter, Lonergan's Pneumatological theology seems to provide a key answer to overcome the shortcomings of Rahner's theology while continuing with the spirit of inclusivity. Lonergan proposes the universal mission of the Holy Spirit as a continuation of the inclusive theology that started with Rahner's theory. From a Pneumatological perspective, Lonergan argues that the

Holy Spirit is the first gift of God's love, and suggests a well-balanced Trinitarian theology, in which the three persons of the Trinity are working together in our salvation history. In supporting my argument, I presented the current stance of the Roman Catholic Church on the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church today recognizes the universal mission

81 of the Holy Spirit. This recognition of the Roman Catholic Church indicates its open attitude towards world religions by acknowledging the underlying unity among various religious traditions through the mission of the Holy Spirit without imposing the image of Christ upon them. This shows that the attitude of the Church is moving in the direction of the openness towards other religious traditions, providing us with a glimpse of hope for a genuine inter- religious dialogue with respect for others.

82 Conclusion

In conclusion, the theories of Rahner and Lonergan are different from each other in their epistemologies, Trinitarian theologies, and the implications of their theologies in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In this thesis, I supported my claim that the theories of Rahner and

Lonergan are distinctive on the issues that are potentially influential to the teachings of the

Roman Catholic Church by comparing and contrasting some of the distinctive points in the theologies of Rahner and Lonergan. Rahner and Lonergan develop their Trinitarian theology with a different point of emphasis. Rahner develops a Christocentric theology by arguing that the full and genuine knowledge of Christ is available for non-Christians in an implicit way, and thus non-Christians are saved through the anonymous mission of Christ. Lonergan develops a

Pneumatology by arguing that knowledge is being constituted within the process of knowing.

Thus, Rahner and Lonergan take different approaches to their inclusive theology. Rahner suggests that God's generous offer of salvation is offered to all of humanity through the anonymous mission of Christ because the implicit knowledge of Christ, which is fully constituted, is given to all in an a priori fashion. Lonergan, in a manner similar to Rahner, proposes a theology of inclusivity that allows for the possibility for all human beings to be in love with God in an unrestricted way, since they have the capacity to have an unrestricted desire to know. While Rahner establishes his theology through his inclusive Christology, Lonergan deliberately attempts to retrieve the mission of the Holy Spirit and to provide a foundation of

Pneumatological theology which Crowe continues to develop in his theology. This difference in their approach is based on their distinctive epistemologies. Rahner and Lonergan both agree that knowledge is not a matter of "taking a look", but is reached by the relationship between the

83 knower and the known; however, Rahner places an emphasis on the fullness of the original knowledge while Lonergan highlights the significance of the process of knowing through cognitional activities such as experience, understanding and judgment. Rahner acknowledges the possibility of the fullness of implicit knowledge of Christ without objectification in Christianity.

He argues that the essence of implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge are "of the same kind" with different degrees of objectification. For Rahner, truth is attained through the mission of

Christ; therefore, he develops an inclusive Christology with a starting point of implicit knowledge of Christ through the anonymous mission of Christ. On the other hand, Lonergan believes in the constitutive role of reflective insight. For Lonergan, in the process of knowledge, the starting point and the final product are not one and the same. The process of knowledge constitutes knowledge itself due to the reflective insights that are added during the process of knowledge. Based on this epistemology, Lonergan distinguishes between faith and belief; faith is the gift of God's love, and belief is the expression of God's love. Lonergan further argues that faith comes through the mission of the Holy Spirit, and belief comes through the mission of the

Son. The starting point of Lonergan's inclusive theology is his acknowledgement of the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. Prior to cognitional activities there is the "desire" for knowledge which is not yet constituted as the knowledge of Christ. Thus, for Lonergan, non-Christians do not yet have the knowledge of Christ, but they have unlimited desire for the knowledge of Christ through the mission of the Holy Spirit. Lonergan's theory leads to a well-balanced understanding of the three persons of the Trinity, and also presents a possibility for the attitude of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church in recognizing the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.

84 My evaluative conclusion is that the theories of Rahner and Lonergan are not fundamentally opposed to each other; rather, Lonergan's contribution goes beyond Rahner's contribution in developing a more balanced Trinitarian theology with an emphasis on the mission of the Holy Spirit. This means that Lonergan supports Rahner's theory in his attempt to embrace humanity within the scope of Christianity; however, Lonergan moves far beyond Rahner's theory of "Anonymous Christians" by acknowledging the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in the world. I attempted to discuss recurrent themes in each theologian's argument, in three stages of their underlying epistemologies, their Trinitarian theologies, and implications of their theologies for the attitude of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church. In presenting the coherency of their argument, I aimed to demonstrate that a small difference in the underlying epistemologies can lead to different theological points, and eventually to significant differences in the implications of their theologies within the Roman Catholic Church.

This thesis presents implications for further studies in inter-religious dialogue, in the light of the attitude of inclusivity within the Roman Catholic Church in a global village where the issues of religious pluralism manifest themselves. Lonergan's Pneumatology provides a foundation for dialogue with religions from different cultures while upholding the traditional

Trinitarian theology. This attitude of inclusivity opens up a new horizon for dialogue with other religions in a global context by acknowledging the universal presence of the Holy Spirit in this world. Although Lonergan's Pneumatological theology suggests an open attitude in dialogue, the possibility of authenticity of the dialogue is whether the Roman Catholic Church can truly understand other religions in their own contexts. As shown above, Catholic theologians struggled to understand the grace of God for non-Christians. However, their attempts are still within the concern and language of Christianity. Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" and Lonergan's

85 "universal mission of the Holy Spirit" both refer to the missions of the Trinity in order to explain

God's grace for non-Christians. These terms show that they attempt to understand the non-

Christian religions within the context of Trinitarian theology, and thus might be difficult for non-

Christians themselves to understand. In other words, if people of other religions share their truth with us, it might be challenging for them to understand themselves as recipients of God's grace through the anonymous mission of Christ or the universal mission of the Holy Spirit. Moreover,

Catholic theologians seem to attempt to suggest "Catholic" salvation to the people of other religions, despite the fact that the understandings of salvation in religions are different.

Here, I acknowledge that all these questions cannot be answered fully but lead us to ask more questions on the topic. The questions seem to indicate that the Roman Catholic Church is still at a nascent stage for dialogue. Although the Roman Catholic Church is making efforts to be more inclusive in dialogue, there are always challenges in which one question only leads to a more complicated one. All these questions and criticisms indicate that the issues with religious pluralism are complicated, and the Roman Catholic Church needs to pay attention to them. In other words, questions and criticisms are significant not only in their content but also in their role in challenging the Roman Catholic Church, pointing out the need for the Church to be more open.

86 Bibliography

Primary Sources

Lonergan, Bernard J.F. A Second Collection. Philodelphia: Westminster, 1974.

. A Third Collection. New York: Paulist, 1985.

. Collection: Papers by Bernard Lonergan. New York: Herder & Herder, 1967.

. Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

. Insight: A Study of Human Understanding. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.

. Method in Theology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971.

. The Triune God: Doctrines, tr. Michael Shields, eds. Robert M. Doran and H. Daniel Monsour. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

. The Triune God: Systematics.tr. Michael Shields, eds. Robert M. Doran and H. Daniel Monsour. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

. Understanding and Being. ed.E.A Morelli and M.D. Morelli. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

. Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1967; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Rahner,Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith. New York: Seabury, 1986.

. Hearer of the World. New York: Continuum, 1994.

. On Prayer. New York: Paulist, 1968.

. Spirit in the World. London: Sheed and Ward, 1968.

. The Christian of the Future. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967.

. The Dynamic Element in the Church. New York: Herder and Herder, 1964.

. The Trinity. New York: Seabury, 1970.

. Theological Investigations, vols. 1-21, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1961- 1988.

87 . ed. A Concise Sacramentum Mundi. New York: Seabury Press, 1975.

. A Rahner Reader, ed. Gerald A. McCool. New York: Seabury Press, 1975.

. Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews, 1965-1982. eds. Paul Imhof, Hubert Biallowons, and Harvey D. Egan. New York: Crossroad, 1986.

. The Content of Faith: The Best of Karl Rahner's Theological Writings, tr. Harvey D. Egan, ed. Albert Raffelt. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Secondary Sources

Arndt, Stephen W. "Transcendental Method and Transcendental Arguments." International Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1987): 43-57.

Avis, Paul. The Methods of Modern Theology: The Dream of Reason. Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1986.

Bacik, James J. Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery: Mystagogy according to Karl Rahner. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980.

Batlogg, Andreas, and Melvin Michalski, eds. Encounters with Karl Rahner: Remembrances of Rahner by Those Who Knew Him. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009.

Bechtle, Regina. "Rahner's Supernatural Existential." Thought AS (1973): 61-77.

Borzara, Reynold. In Pursuit of Religion: A Framework for Understanding Today's Theology. Palm Springs: Sunday Publications, 1977. pp. 20-21, 22-23, 106-107.

Bryne, Patrick. "The Fabric of Lonergan's Thought." Lonergan Workshop 6 (1986): 1-84.

Coreth, Emerich. "Dialectic of Performance and Concept." Continuum 2 (1964): 447-54.

. "Immediacy and the Mediation of Being: An Attempt to Answer Bernard Lonergan," in Philip McShane, ed., Language Truth and Meaning. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1972, pp. 33-48.

. Metaphysics. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968.

. "The Problem and Method of Metaphysics." International Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1963): 403-18.

88 Crowe, Frederick. Appropriating the Lonergan Idea. Ed. Michael Vertin. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989; reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.

. Developing the Lonergan Legacy, Historical Theoretical and Existential Themes. Ed. Michael Vertin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

. Lonergan. London: Geoferry Chapman, 1992.

. Lonergan and the Level of Our Time. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

Dias, Darren. The Contributions of Bernard J.F. Lonergan to a Systematic Understanding or Religious Diversity. Ph.D. Thesis. Toronto: Toronto School of Theology. 2008.

De Letter, Prudentius. "The Theology of God's Self-Gift." Theological Studies 24 (1963): 402-

22.

Dewart, Leslie. "On Transcendental Thomism." Continuum 6 (1968): 389-401.

Donceel, Joseph. A Marechal Reader. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970.

. "A Thomistic Apprehension?" Thought 32 (1957): 189-98.

. "On Transcendental Thomism." Continuum 7 (1969): 164-68.

. "Philosophy in the Catholic University." America 115 (1966): 330-331

. The Philosophy of Karl Rahner. Albany: Magi Books, 1969.

. "Thomism: How Much to Keep?" America 116 (1967): 580-582.

. "Transcendental Thomism." Monist 58 (1974): 67-85. Doran, Robert M. "Addressing the Four-Point Hypothesis." Theological Studies 68 (2007):674- 682.

. "Consciousness and Grace." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 11 (1993) : 51-75.

. "Revisiting 'Consciousness and Grace'." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 13 (1995): 151-159.

. "Social Grace and the Mission of the Word." Lonergan Resource. http://www.lonerganresource.com/pdf/contributors/Doran Social_Grace_and_the_Mission_of_the_Word.pdf (accessed July 20, 2011).

. "The First Chapter of De Deo Trino, Pars Systematica: The Commentary on the First Three Sections of Chapter One." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 19 (2001): 27-48. . "The Starting Point of Systematic Theology." Theological Studies 67 (2006): 750- 776.

. "The Truth of Theological Understanding in Divinarum Personarum and De Deo Trino, Pars Systematica." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 20 (2002): 33-75.

. What is Systematic Theology? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.

Dupuis, Jacques. The Myriad Christ: Plurality and the Quest for Unity in Contemporary Christology, Leuven: University Press, 2000.

Emmett, Dorothy. "The Double Conversion of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan." Theoria to Theory Vol. 7, 2nd quarter (April, 1973), 9-16.

Fredericks, James. "The Catholic Church and the Other Religious Paths: Rejecting Nothing That Is True and Holy." Theological Studies 64/2 (June 2003): 225-254.

Gilson, Etienne. Thomist Realism and the Critique of Knowledge. San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1966.

Hefling Charles C. "On the (Economic) Trinity: An Argument in Conversation with Robert Doran." Theological Studies 68 (2007): 642-660.

Hinners Richard, et al. "The Transcendental Method." Continuum 6 (1968): 221-245.

Jung, Hyun Ah. "The Meaning of a Critical Metaphysics of Bernard Lonergan: Focusing on the Distinction between Self-consciousness and Self-knowledge" ^ML 2?-F[Chonggyo Yeongu] 41 (2005): 95-120.

Kelly, William J. ed. Theology and Discovery: Essays in Honor of Karl Rahner. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980.

Lamb, Matthew, ed. Creativity and Method: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1981.

Lee, Jung Young. Embracing Change: Postmodern Interpretations of the I Chingfrom a Christian Perspective. Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 1944.

. The Theology of Change: A Christian Concept of God in an Eastern Perspective. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979.

. The Trinity in Asian Perspective. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1996.

Lee, Kyousung. "The Acceptance Procedure of Anthropology in Karl Rahner's Christology and Its Systematic Understanding." £?'-P£ EffYeongu NondanJ (2010): 145-181.

90 Liptay, John and David Libtay, eds. The Importance of Insight. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Loewe, William P. "Revelation: Dimensions and Issues." The Living Light 16 (1979) 155-167.

McCabe, Michael A. "The Contribution of Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner to Contemporary Theology." African Christian Studies 10:4 (December, 1994): 3-13.

McCool, Gerald A. "Neo-Thomism and the Tradition of St. Thomas." Thought 62 (1987): 131- 146.

. "Rahner's Anthropology." America 123 (1970/2): 342-44.

. The Theology of Karl Rahner, Albany: Magi Books, 1969.

. "The Tradition of St. Thomas since Vatican II." Theology Digest 40 (1993): 324-35.

McShane, Philip, ed. Language, Truth and Meaning. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1972.

Mansini, Guy. "Quasi-formal Causality and 'Change in the Other': A Note on Karl Rahner's Christology" The Thomist 52 (1988) 293-306.

Mascall, Eric. "Transcendental Thomism," in The Openness of Being. London: Darton, Longman &Todd, 1971, pp. 59-90.

Meynell, Hugo. The Theology of Bernard Lonergan. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986.

Mohammed, Ovey N. "Catholicism in Dialogue with World Religions: The Value of Self- Denial." Toronto Journal of Theology 20/1 (2004): 33-50.

Moloney, Raymond. "The Mind of Christ in Transcendental Theology: Rahner, Lonergan and Crowe." The Heythrop Journal 25 (1984) 288-300.

. "The Notion of Fundamental Theology after Rahner and Lonergan." Milltown Studies 187 (Spring 1986): 65-74.

Moloney, Robert. "Seeing and Knowing: Some Reflections on Karl Rahner's Theory of Knowledge." The Heythrop Journal 18 (1977): 299-419.

Moltmann, Jurgen. The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 198.

Muck, Otto. "The Logical Structure of Transcendental Method." International Philosophical Quarterly 9 (1969): 342-362.

. The Transcendental Method, tr. W. Seidensticker. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968.

91 O'Donnell, John. "Transcendental Approaches to the Doctrine of God." Gregorianum 11 (1996): 659-76.

O'Donovan, Leo, ed. A World of Grace: An Introduction to the Themes and Foundations of Karl Rahner's Theology. New York: Seabury, 1980.

Roach, Richard F. "An Excessive Claim: Rahner's Identification of Love of God with Love of Neighbour" Studies in Religion 5 (1975-1976): 247-257, 360-372.

Roberts, Louis. The Achievement of Karl Rahner. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967.

Roper, Anita, Karl Rahner, and Klaus Riesenhuber. The Anonymous Christian. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966.

Roth, Robert J. God Know able and Unknowable. New York: Fordham University Press, 1973.

Schineller, Peter J. S.J., "Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views." Theological Studies 37 (1976): 545-566.

Stinnett, Timothy R. "Lonergan's 'Critical Realism' and Religious Pluralism." The Thomist 56 (1992)97-115.

Surlis, Paul. "Rahner and Lonergan on Method in Theology". The Irish Theological Quarterly 38 (1971), ppl87-201; 39 (1972) 23-42

Tekippe, Terry. What is Lonergan Up To In 'Insight'? Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996.

Vertin, Michael. "Acceptance and Actualization: The Two Phases of My Human Living." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 21 (2003): 67-86.

. "Affirming a Limit and Transcending It." in J. Goering, ed., Limina: Thresholds and Borders. Ottawa: Legas, 2005, 117-26.

. "Judgments of Value, for the Later Lonergan." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 13 (1995): 221-48.

. "'Knowing,' 'Objectivity,' and 'Reality': Insight and Beyond." Lonergan Workshop, 8 (1990): 249-63.

. "Lonergan on Consciousness: Is there a Firth Level?" Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 12 (1994): 1-36.

. "Lonergan's Metaphysics of Value and Love: Some Proposed Clarifications and Implications." Lonergan Worksho. 13 (1997): 189-219.

. "Lonergan's 'Three Basic Questions' and a Philosophy of Philosophies." Lonergan Workshop 8 (1990): 213-48.

92 . "Marechal, Lonergan, and the Phenomenology of Knowing." in M.Lamb, ed., Creativity and Method: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1981,411-22.

. "The Finality of Human Spirit: From Marechal to Lornergan." Lonergan Workshop 19 (2006): 267-85.

. "Transcendental Philosophy and Linguistic Philosophy." Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 19 (2001): 253-80.

Vorgrimmler, Herbert. Karl Rahner: His Life, Thought and Works. Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist, 1966.

Wilhelmsen, Frederick. "The Priority of Judgment over Question: Reflections on Transcendental Thomism," Lnternational Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1974): 475-493.