Karl Rahner: Philosopher of Religion, Theologian and Spiritual Writer Johannes Herzgsell, S .J

Karl Rahner: Philosopher of Religion, Theologian and Spiritual Writer Johannes Herzgsell, S .J .

Whoever begins to read Karl Rahner (1904-1984) may soon get the impression that he is always writing about the same thing. A closer reading can definitely confirm this impression. Although Rahner pursued many very different theological issues and problems over the years, it turns out that he was in fact always thinking about a certain fundamental approach to solving these various theological issues and problems. In the first part of this essay,I will try to elab- orate Rahner’s fundamental thinking and in the second part set out some of its most important applications in specific fields of theology.

1 . Karl Rahner’s Intellectual Approach

Rahner’s intellectual approach brings together two ways of thinking that Rahner had initially developed and maintained independently of one another for some time. One is his philosophical approach, specifically his transcendental-anthropological thinking. The other is his theology of grace. I will first introduce these two approaches as well as their connection to Rahner’s theory about elevated and divinely grace-filled human transcendence.

1.1 Rahner’s Transcendental-Anthropological Philosophical Method Karl Rahner owes his transcendental-anthropological philosophical method in great part to Joseph Maréchal (1878-1944), a Belgian Jesuit 1. Already in 1927, at 23 years old, Rahner had in his Maréchal-Exzerpt summarized and translated an important work of Maréchal on the metaphysics of knowledge 2. From here on, he developed his method in his own early philosophical writings, especially in his rejected philosophical doctoral dissertation Geist in Welt of 1936,3 in his

1 rahner himself attested that he was strongly impressed and influenced by Joseph Maréchal’s metaphysics of knowledge in an interview with Karl Lehmann . See Glaube in winterlicher Zeit: Gespräch mit Karl Rahner aus den letzten Lebensjahren, eds . Paul Imhof and Robert Biallowons (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1986), 28 . English translation: Faith in a Wintry Season: Conversations and Interviews with Karl Rahner in the Last Years of His Life, trans . and ed . Harvey D . Egan (New York: Crossroad, 1990) . For more on Rahner’s transcendental-anthropological philosophical method, see Johannes Herzgsell, Dynamik des Geistes: Ein Beitrag zum anthropologischen Transzendenzbegriff von Karl Rahner (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 2000), 15-168 . 2 Rahner, as he himself wrote in his Maréchal-Exzerpt,wanted “to give an account of the most important part of Maréchal’s epistemological system as it is developed in his five-volume work, Le point de depart de la métaphysique.’” Karl Rahner, “Die Grundlagen einer Erkenntnistheorie bei Joseph Maréchal,” Sämtliche Werke II, (Freiburg: Herder, 1996), 373-406 . Quote from 373 . 90 Johannes Herzgsell, S .J . religious-philosophical work Hörer des Wortes of 1937,4 and in the essay “Die Wahrheit bei Thomas von Aquin” of 1938 5. An excerpt from Hörer des Wortes can be taken as a key text for his approach 6. In it his thoughts revolve around what he calls Vorgriff . He had already introduced this term in Geist in Welt as an objective equivalent to what Thomas Aquinas called excessus, what we might call either excess or transcendence .7 In this section of Hörer des Wortes Rahner explains the presence of Vorgriff in separate steps of argumentation and explains more precisely its struc- ture in order to define the essence of human being with its help. The starting point of Rahner’s consideration is the self-possessed existence (Insichsel- berständigkeit) of individual humans . In dealing with the world through the judgments of knowing-thinking and freely acting, a human being both faces the world and stands out from the worldly, whereby one comes completely to one’s self and recognizes one’s self-sufficiency as a subject. Rahner asks, “Which is the a priori transcendental condition of the possibility of this self-possessed existence” that belongs to the essential human condition?8 To this end, he deals more closely with the singularity of an act of judgment . In a judgment, an individual is brought under a universal concept . The condition of the possibility for this is again abstraction: “Through abstraction, the universal is grasped in the particular, in the individual .”9 Through abstraction the quiddity (Washeit) of the individual is grasped “as a designation that extends in principle beyond just this particular individual .”10 Therefore, in the act of abstraction a human being grasps a priori (that is, from the beginning)

3 Karl Rahner, Geist in Welt: Zur Metaphysik der endlichen Erkenntnis bei Thomas von Aquin, Sämtliche Werke II, 3-300 . [Henceforth GiW [1936], with the year in brackets indicating either the date of composition or first publication date.] English translation: Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World, trans . William Dych (New York: Herder, 1968) . 4 Karl Rahner, Hörer der Wortes: Zur Grundlegung einer Religionsphilosophie, Sämtliche Werke 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), 2-278 . [=HdW [1937]] . English: Karl Rahner, Hearer of the Word: Laying the Foundation for a Philosophy of Religion, trans . Joseph Donceel, ed . Andrew Tallon (New York: Continuum, 1994) . 5 Karl Rahner, “Die Wahrheit bei Thomas von Aquin,” Sämtliche Werke II, 301-316 . English: “Thomas Aquinas on Truth,” in Theological Investigations, vol . 13, trans . David Bourke (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1983), 13-31 . [ =TI] 6 HdW [1936], 2-278; here 82-98 . Rahner explained his philosophical approach later in detail, especially in the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 of his Grundkurses des Glaubens (Freiburg: Herder, 1976) . Cf . English: Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Chris- tianity, trans . William V . Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978) . He offers a good summary of the entirety of his theory of transcendence in a section of the text (originally written as a medita- tion), “Erfahrung des Heiligen Geistes” (XIII [1976] 226-251; here 232-238); cf . English: “The Experience of the Holy Spirit,” in TI, vol . 18, translated by Edward Quinn (London: DLT, 1983), 189-210 . 7 GiW [1936], 116 . 8 HdW [1937], 86 . [Translator’s note: English quotations of Rahner’s texts are original to the translator. They have, however, been cross-referenced with existing translations and modified where deemed necessary for the sake of providing at least some consistency with anglicized Rahnerian vocabulary as it already exists .] 9 HdW [1937], 90 . 10 HdW [1937], 90 .