Practical Applications of Rahner's Foundations of Christian Faith
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Chapter I: "The Hearer
of the Message"
The Survivor of Parochial School
Chapter I, Part 3: Man as Transcendent Being
Mary is a middle-aged woman who comes to her pastor because her
twelve-year-old daughter wants to be baptized. Mary herself was
baptized as a child and attended Catholic schools through high
school. But during her college years she fell away from the Church.
Although she married her husband (himself a baptized Catholic)
sixteen years ago in a Catholic ceremony, neither one attends Mass.
Last year, Mary and her daughter met the pastor for the first
time. Mary is a piano teacher, and her daughter, Sylvia, plays the
clarinet. The parish needed a pianist to accompany the annual
Christmas pageant, and Mary agreed to play. Sylvia joined the small
orchestra with her clarinet. During that Christmas season, Sylvia was
attracted to the Church. Eventually she told Mary that she wanted to
be baptized. Now Mary is approaching the pastor on Sylvia's behalf.
In her conversation with the pastor, Mary tells the story of her
relationship to the Church. After high school, she stopped attending
Mass. Mary's sister married immediately after high school. She and
her husband soon began a family, and they now have six grown
children. Raising the family kept the sister from going to college.
Mary feels that her sister was "betrayed" by her obedience to the
Church into having children early, and so was never able to pursue
college studies.
Mary herself says that she vowed never to make that mistake. She
earned not only a bachelor's degree but a master's in piano
performance. She has also published three books for teenagers, a
novel and two books about famous people in music. She says that it
was not only her daughter's wish for baptism, but her own reading,
that has opened her mind to the Church. She has read many novels,
such as Mary Gordon's The Company of Women, J. F. Powers' Morte
D'Urban, and Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. They have
revealed to her different dimensions of the Church, and she now
questions whether her early resentments against the Church are as
well-founded as she thought.
Her three published books have not earned her very much money. So
she has begun to take classes to earn a high school teaching
credential. One of her classes is in diversity training. She had to
do some diversity case studies, and so she visited three churches:
the Assembly of God, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Evangelical
Free Church. After her visits (she tells the pastor), the dignity and
beauty of the Catholic Church seemed more attractive.
Although Mary does not ask to be reconciled to the Catholic Church
in a formal way, the pastor interprets her words as a step toward an
informal reconciliation. He sees that Mary has begun to question her
assumptions about the Church. She has begun to acknowledge her own
limits. Her daughter's interest in the Church has kept Mary from
simply putting Sylvia's questions aside. She has begun to assume
responsibility for Sylvia's religious development, simply because she
loves her.
In the eyes of the Church, Mary is a lapsed Catholic. She has not
gone to Mass regularly. She has not confessed her sins annually. She
has not received Holy Communion. Given Rahner's analysis of the
person as a transcendent being, how should the pastor understand
Mary's situation?
Chapter II: "Man in the Presence of Absolute
Mystery"
Second Grade Preaching
Chapter II, Part 1: Meditation on the Word "God
You have been asked to preach to second grade children who are
just learning how to read. Your text is John 1: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In your
homily, explain how we use human words to describe God, just as we
use human words to describe how we love our parents and other family
members.
The Youth Retreat
Chapter II, Part 2: Transcendental Knowledge of God as Experience
of Mystery"
You are at a youth retreat. After a day of hiking and swimming and
a big dinner, you are asked to give a talk. You start by singing the
song, You Are Near. You focus on the text:
You know my heart and its ways,
You who formed me before I was born
In the secret of darkness, before I saw the sun
In my mother's womb (Ps. 139:12-13).
In your talk, you connect for them three ideas: first, their
knowledge of themselves, profound yet incomplete; second, the
transcendental knowledge that they are more than they now know or
imagine; and third, their belief that there is a God who knows them
and offers them infinite possibilities for their lives.
The Mother's Teenage Daughter
Chapter II, Part 4: Radical Dependence on God and Genuine Autonomy
A mother comes to you. She is upset over her teenage daughter, who
is experimenting with drugs. The mother blames herself for not
keeping the daughter drug-free, for not being a better mother, and so
on. You have (1) to comfort the mother and urge her to trust in God,
(2) to tell the mother to recognize the daughter's freedom, and (3)
to see her own present crisis as a situation which God allows in
order for mother and daughter to act responsibly.
AIDS as a Punishment?
Chapter II, Part 5: God's Activity in and through Secondary Causes
You are called to the bedside of a gay man dying from AIDS. He
confesses his sins to you and expresses the belief that God is
punishing him for his gay sexual activity by sending him AIDS. You
have to explain that (1) all things are related to God; but that (2)
AIDS is not a punishment for gay sex, because people who are chaste
may also get AIDS from a transfusion of tainted blood; and that (3)
what the gay man is experiencing (i.e., remorse for his irresponsible
behavior) is an invitation from God to take responsibility for his
life and to commend himself to God's truth and mercy.
Chapter III:
"Man as a Being Threatened
Radically by Guilt"
"I Did Not Sin"
Chapter III, Part 1: The Topic and Its Difficulties
At the bedside of a man dying with AIDS, you hear him say, "I
admit that I made mistakes. I knew that unprotected sex was dangerous
to me. Now I have to pay the price of this mistake with my life. But
although I made a mistake, I never wronged anyone. So do not tell me
that I have sinned, for I have not."
Keep in mind Rahner's main ideas: God is inviting this man to hear
God's Word, God has given him the insight that he made a "mistake,"
God is motivating the man to tell you his story. What do you say to
the man?
The Estranged Brothers
Chapter III, Part 2: Man's Freedom and Responsibility
An older man comes to you with a family problem. He and his
brother have been estranged for more than ten years. But the recent
funeral of their mother brought them into renewed contact. They
decided that together they would purchase a headstone for the
mother's grave. The man tells you that his brother now has chosen a
style of headstone that he despises. He threatens to again break off
communication with his brother.
Rahner says that our sins are never wholly private, that we cannot
be reconciled by ourselves, and that reconciliation is never achieved
by ignoring the past or by retreating into an ideal world. It comes
about by responding to God's invitation to make a free and
responsible decision.
The Incarnation of Satan?
Chapter III, Part 3: The Possibility of a Decision Against God
You meet a drug addict in a rehabilitation center. The addict , in
the pain of withdrawal, tells you she is an incarnation of Satan. She
says that she was not only a heavy user of drugs, but she willingly
enticed others into experimenting so that they might become addicted
as well. She despairs of ever being able to forgive herself or be
forgiven. In the course of her story, she says that she never
injected another with dirty needles, because she did not want them to
get a communicable disease.
Rahner would say that this addict (1) does have a relationship
with God, (2) did choose to use clean needles out of concern for
another, and (3) cannot know whether she is utterly evil in God's
eyes.
The Original Sexual Sin
Chapter III, Part 4: Original Sin
A parishioner has heard a fundamentalist preaching that Adam and
Eve's first sin was a sexual sin, that the consequences of their sin
have been passed on through all human generations by sex, and that
baptism washes away the sin and totally frees the person from the
effects of original sin. The parishioner says that sex is only
permitted to the married to propagate children. Sexual acts apart
from those aimed at procreation are gravely wrong.
You want to get across Rahner's main ideas: (1) that original sin
is not a "mark of Cain" passed on by sex but the universal guilt to
which all are heir; (2) that the effects of original sin cannot be
traced to this or that personal sin, as if one was "made to sin" by
the tendency inherited from Adam and Eve; and (3) that original sin
is not what Adam and Eve did but rather the general condition of
human beings in which one person's evil actions influence the actions
of others.
Chapter IV:
"Man as the Event of God's Free and
Forgiving Self-Communication"
The Divine Hunger
Chapter IV, Part 1: "Preliminary Remarks"
Alex is a teenaged member of a youth group. He expresses a lot of
resentment toward Christian teaching. He looks bored when there is
any explicit catechesis, he yawns when the leader speaks about the
Scriptures, and he makes a point of not participating when the group
prays. You approach Alex and ask him how he is doing. He replies that
the leader and the others are talking about God and Jesus as if they
were topics in a religion class. He says that he has had enough
religious education. He is not really interested in learning more
things about what the Church teaches or about what the Bible says. He
has heard it all before.
When you speak to Alex, you want to apply Rahner's point of view.
You tell him that, when we say that God is revealed to us, we do not
mean that God is revealing facts about God. Instead, God gives the
divine self as a hunger which only God can satisfy. You say that,
although the Church preaches God present in creation and revelation,
nevertheless Church preaching exists to invite a response (Rahner
would say a "transcendental" response). It is a response, not just to
"doctrines" and "dogmas," but to the reality of our lives.
Not a Slave, But a Friend
Chapter IV, Part 2: "What Does the 'Self-Communication of God'
Mean?"
Alex challenges you: "Do you mean that I do not have to believe
what the Church believes? Do you mean that I can respond freely, even
if that response does not fit the Church's mold?" In your reply to
Alex, you draw upon good Rahnerian principles. You tell him that God
does not just tell you what to do; no, God wants to enter into a
relationship with you. And when there is a friendship, no one can
predict what form that friendship will take.
Alex continues to push. He says that he has always been told that
there is only one way to be a Christian: that is obeying the
commandments and obeying the laws of the Church. "The Church tells me
to obey," says Alex, "but I want to be free." You tell Alex that his
very desire to be free is a desire to respond to God, and that God
has given him that desire. "All you have to do, Alex, is respond to
that call in your own way--God does not want a slave, blindly obeying
commands, but a friend."
Desire for Evil?
Chapter IV, Part 3: "The Offer of Self-Communication as
'Supernatural Existential'"
"How do I know," Alex asks, "that my desire for freedom is really
from God? What if it is just a desire to be a rebel, an outlaw, an
individualist?" The answer, you tell him, is in himself, just as it
is in every human being. Every person wants to be free, free to
develop in his or her own way. Every person has a wish to become what
his or her own gifts allow that person to be. And when you respond to
that wish, you are responding to God.
"But what if I desire to do something evil?" Alex wonders. "Is
that what God is inviting me to do?" You answer that, if God is
really extending the invitation, then Alex will be able to tell. The
human being is able to reflect on the many choices which lie before
him or her. If the human being chooses something good, he or she is
responding to God; if the human chooses evil, he or she knows it.
Knowing the difference between good and evil is a basic ability given
by God to all human beings.
History No Substitute for Conscience
Chapter IV, Part 4: "Towards an Understanding of the Doctrine of
the Trinity"
Alex is still not satisfied. "You speak as if you know God," he
says. "But how do you know that you are not just imagining God,
creating a fantasy in your mind?" You draw upon sound Rahnerian
principles in your answer. You say that you know God by listening to
the testimony about God in history, the Scriptures, and the Church,
as well as by listening to your heart. "I know God in the beauty of
creation," you tell Alex. "I know God in the example of the life of
Jesus," you say, "and in the way good people are attracted to the
Church and commit themselves to it." History does not take the place
of God, you say, but it helps me to know the God whose voice I hear
in my conscience.
Chapter V:
"The History of Salvation and
Revelation"
Luz and Felipe
Chapter V, Parts 1-2: "Preliminary Reflections" and
"The Historical Mediation of Transcendentality and Transcendence"
Felipe is a parishioner in his early forties who was widowed four
years ago. Since then he has been dating, and he fell in love with
Luz, a divorced woman with two small children. Luz is not a Catholic.
After she started dating Felipe, she began to attend the Catholic
Church, and enrolled as an "inquirer" in the RCIA. When she and
Felipe approached the pastor to get married, he said that Luz's first
marriage would have to be annulled. Luz was reluctant to do this for
a variety of reasons. First, she did not believe that no marriage
existed; rather, she believed that her first marriage was a
"mistake."
Second, she resented the idea that a tribunal at the chancery
office would be deciding her fate and her ability to remarry. Third,
she was afraid that the annullment inquiry might upset her first
husband, bringing to light unpleasant memories of the first marriage,
and disturb the peaceful relations which now enable her to share with
him joint custody of their children. Felipe seems to have been
persuaded by Luz. "Why should we have to jump through the
bureaucratic hoops of the Catholic Church to decide what is a private
matter between us and God?" So Felipe and Luz have tentatively
decided to get married in another non-Catholic Church where the
minister is a friend of Felipe and of his deceased wife.
When they approach you for pastoral advice, you want to counsel
them wisely and help them to understand the relation between the
Catholic Church and the transcendent will of God. Drawing upon
Rahnerian principles, you acknowledge that the Catholic Church's
teaching is different from the will of God. But you insist that the
Church "mediates" the divine will. Yes, you believe that whatever
Felipe and Luz decide in conscience is worthy of your respect.
But at the same time, you want to affirm the role of the Church's
teaching on marriage and annullment: first, that its teaching about
monogamy and the sacredness of marriage does express God's will;
second, that the existence or non-existence of a marriage is not
simply a matter of private decision, but that each individual's
interpretation of experience needs to be objectively validated; and
third, that the decision to annul the first marriage and remarry is a
decision which will forever change their lives, and deserves to be
considered with the greatest care.
The Anger of Joshua
Chapter V, Parts 3-4:
"The History of Salvation and Revelation as Coextensive with the
Whole of World History" and
"On the Relationship Between the History of Universal
Transcendental Revelation and the Special, Categorical Revelation."
Joshua, a Protestant friend, and you are discussing the relation
between tradition and Scripture. Joshua takes the view that the
Protestant reliance upon Scripture as a norm of faith is a way to
safeguard Christianity from "innovations" and "false doctrine."
Although he does not spell it out, you know he means the
infallibility of the papacy, the cult of the saints, and reverence
for Mary, the Mother of God. Drawing upon the teachings of the
Council of Trent, you state that you rely upon the one revelation of
God in Jesus Christ, namely, the gospel. This gospel, you say, is
transmitted through Scripture and tradition.
In the conversation, you begin to understand Joshua's main point:
he wants to hang on to something reliable in an uncertain world, and
the Scriptures for him are that reliable anchor. But at the same
time, you sense that he is putting the "law" of Scripture before the
"spirit" of the gospel. Using Rahner's concepts, you argue that
revelation is more than the "facts" of salvation history as expressed
in the Bible. Revelation is also the appropriation and interpretation
of those facts by the believing community. "In all of life," you say,
"God is inviting us to make choices, and in those choices, God is
communicating--indeed, revealing--the divine self to us."
Joshua remains unsatisfied. Angrily he says, "You are making your
own private experience of God equal to the revealed Word." Further,
he says, "If revelation is 'continuing,' then anything can be added
to revelation, and the fixed and firm Word of God may become
something monstrous or perverted."
In reply, you do two things. First, you distinguish between God's
Word, as spoken in our hearts, and the Scriptures, which must be
accepted by the believer in order to become the Word of God. "Jesus
Christ himself," you say, "is the criterion for interpreting what
truly belongs to the Word of God and what does not." Second, you
explain why the Scriptures are so important: they help us to
recognize and express the Word that God is speaking in our hearts.
"We would not be able to recognize what God is speaking to us," you
say, "if the Scriptures had not first alerted us to God's voice."
A Scientist Looks at Genesis
Chapter V, Parts 5-6:
"On the Structure of the Actual History of Revelation" and
"A Summary of the Notion of Revelation"
Emily Jones is a parishioner who works as a scientist at Amgen.
She is a "Renaissance Woman" who is both a molecular biologist and
also very accomplished on the organ, which she plays at Mass. The
week after Easter, she approaches you and wants to talk about the
primeval history in Genesis. She has read enough theology to know
that the stories of Adam and Eve are "etiological myths," that is,
stories which help explain the fundamental relationships between
human beings and God. But what, she asks, is their status as
history--not natural history but the history of our religion?
In your answer, you draw upon Rahner's doctrine that many OT
stories are, from the viewpoint of transcendental theology,
"inferences." We infer, from our own experience of sin, that there
must have been a first sin. It was the moment at which human beings
first recognized that they could have done good, but instead chose to
do wrong. Our experience is akin to theirs. The story of Adam and Eve
is an inference from that common experience.
Emily then asks about other historical religions. They too have
their myths, she says. Are those myths "revelation"? Drawing upon
Rahner's doctrine, you admit that they may well be. We do not know
much about the history of religion outside the last three or four
thousand years of human history. Before that time, you assert, God
communicated with human beings. "They may have misunderstood or even
perverted God's Word," you say, "but God must have presented them
with choices between good and evil, and so presented them with a
sense of their own capacity for choosing God."
"Then what is the point," Emily asks, "of believing in the God as
revealed in Jesus Christ?" If God communicates with all human beings,
then why is one approach to God better or worse than any other? In
your answer, you concede that there are indeed many approaches to
God. But you also insist that there are important differences. In
other religions, God reveals something about who God is. In
Christianity, God not only reveals the divine self, but communicates
it to us as a gift which can transform us. God invites us to respond
as Jesus of Nazareth did, and to take on God's life as our own.
Chapter VI: "Jesus Christ," Parts
1-3
The Happy Death
Chapter VI, Part 1: "Christology Within an Evolutionary View of
the World"
You are called to the hospital bedside of an elderly woman.
Although she is struggling with cancer, she radiates a certain
calmness and confidence. She tells you that she has had a long life,
and that God has been good to her. She was married, and she and her
husband raised five children, all of whom are now married. Although
her husband is now deceased, she feels close to him, and they have
fourteen grandchildren.
You ask her to share with you her faith. She expresses joy that
God has blessed her, and she tells you an interesting story. In her
early life, she says, she was preoccupied with material things:
having enough money, sending their children to parochial schools,
being able to buy a car and to go on vacations. In fact, she and her
husband used to argue a lot about money.
But as time went on and the children matured, she came to realize
that those material things did not matter so much. What mattered, she
tells you, was that she had been loyal: loyal to her husband, loyal
to the children, loyal to the Church. She now realizes, she
concludes, that God has given her many great gifts, gifts of family
and children, and that she has willingly accepted them as a
responsibility. She has helped her children to see, she says that
they are children of God. In this she takes the greatest pride.
After you leave the hospital, you meet some of your friends. You
try to explain the spiritual truth of the lady's life story in
Rahner's terms. You say that she is an example of true evolution and
of active self-transcendence. She evolved by opening herself to God's
Word, and by recognizing that her life was the means by which she
transcended a merely material view of the world. She heard God's
Word, and came to see herself as a caretaker of her children, not
just of their material well-being, but of their very spirits. She
helped them see that they too are called by God.
The Two Sophomores
Chapter VI, Part 2: "On the Phenomenology of Our Relationship to
Jesus Christ"
Viet and Hung are two college sophomores studying computer
science. Both of them were raised Catholics, but have reached a
critical point in their development. They have dropped out of the
Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth group and have developed a certain
skepticism about the Church's teachings. In the course of a
conversation, you hear them express a critical approach.
"My ancestors did not worship Jesus Christ," said Viet. "They were
Buddhists, they honored their forbears, they each had many wives. But
they were also upright individuals, loyal to their families, and
faithful in their own ways. We hear the Christian preachers on campus
saying that, unless you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour,
you cannot be saved. But I do not believe that my ancestors were
damned."
Hung agrees with his friend. "The preachers say we have to have a
'relationship' with Jesus," he says. "I guess they mean what we were
taught in the Eucharistic Youth group, namely, that we have to
believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. I
admire Jesus' life, and I believe in the Kingdom of God he
proclaimed. But when I look at my friends in the group, I see that
they are no more spiritual or moral than I am. One can be spiritual
without receiving the Eucharist, and one can be moral without
participating in the group's activities."
In your conversation with Viet and Hung, you want to build upon
the faith they have already expressed. This is the faith of Viet in
the uprightness of his ancestors, and that of Hung in Jesus of
Nazareth as a man for us. You draw on Rahner's phenomenology of the
relationship with Jesus Christ. You state that there are many
possible kinds of encounters with Jesus Christ, whom you define as
God's own Word. One does not have to be a Christian to encounter
God's Word, you say, for that Word is a relationship between human
beings and God. Indeed, it might be better to call such a
relationship an "encounter" between human beings and God's offer of
salvation, forgiveness, and divine life.
Finally, you challenge Viet and Hung to grow in their knowledge of
Jesus. You tell them to put aside the pious images of Jesus that no
longer seem appropriate. You ask them to consider ho Jesus is, first
of all, a pathfinder. He accomplished something in his complete union
with God that no one else has accomplished. And you say that Jesus is
also a sign of hope. He gives us the hope that we, in our individual
struggles to respond to God's Word, may be affirmed as Jesus was.
What did Jesus accomplish? What kind of affirmation may we hope for?
The Rediscovered Brother
Chapter VI, Part 3: "Transcendental Christology"
Carol is a woman in her sixties. She is dying of lung cancer, and
has said her goodbyes to her husband and all three of her grown
children. Yet she lingers, refusing to die, longer than any of the
nurses expected. One of the nurses, experienced in death, asks Carol
and the family if there is something Carol needs to say or do in
order to die in peace.
Carol indicates that there is. Although short of breath and very
weak, she tells the children that they have a half-brother. The
half-brother was born before Carol was married. Although she tells
the children that her parents knew, and although she had told the
children's father, nevertheless she has kept the existence of the
half brother a secret for forty years. One of the daughters promises
to find their half brother. After this revelation and promise, Carol
dies.
In your graveside reflection for Carol's family, you try to
explain her death in Rahner's terms of transcendental Christology.
You say that Carol had carried the burden of her secret for forty
years. During that time, she felt guilt, a longing to reveal her
secret, and a desire to be reconciled with the infant son whom she
gave up for adoption. At the moment of death, you say, she heard and
accepted God's invitation to tell the truth. And in her death, she
surrendered to the God before whom she felt guilt, surrendering to
God's mercy. In that way she transcended what she had unreflectively
believed to be the possibilities which God had given her. She
transcended the belief that she had to keep her first son a secret
and was able to speak the truth.
Chapter VI: "Jesus Christ," Part 4
The Conservative and the
Rahnerian
Chapter VI, Part 4: "What Does It Mean to Say: 'God Became Man'?"
Two seminarians are having an argument. One is proud to call
himself a "conservative." He argues that he personally experienced
what he calls the "confusion" and "obfuscation" of much of
post-Vatican II theology. He distrusts it. So whenever he has to make
a homiletic or catechetical presentation of Church doctrine, he
always begins with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The
Catechism presents a Christology which can most properly be called a
"descending" Christology. The divine Word emptied himself, descended
to earth, and took on the form of a slave. Although the Catechism
affirms the doctrine of the two natures, nevertheless it subordinates
the humanity of Jesus to his divinity. "The human will of Jesus
submitted to the divine will," the seminarian says, quoting the
Catechism (no. 475), and that is how we should present Christology."
The other seminarian is a self-proclaimed "Rahnerian." He argues
that an "ascending" Christology is more persuasive to modern human
beings, and that the descending Christology of Christian tradition is
only a starting point. What the Church teaches when it states that
God took on a human nature, says this other seminarian, can be
expressed in a better way. It is better, he says, to explain that God
"became" the human nature which God had prepared to enter from the
creation of humanity. Why? So that human beings might grow closer to
God, starting with the human being who was wholly united with God,
Jesus of Nazareth. Rather than saying that God "came down," would it
not be better to say that human beings find their divine goal in the
Word of God, and that the divinized human nature of Christ expresses
God's intention for us?
The two seminarians have decidedly different starting points. How
would you mediate their disagreement? What would you affirm in the
traditional viewpoint of the first seminarian? What would you affirm
in the human-centered viewpoint of the second?
Chapter VI: "Jesus Christ"
Part 5, "On the Theological Understanding of the History
Of the Life and Death of Jesus of Nazareth"
The Panelist
Chapter VI, Part 5, Subdivision A: "Preliminary Remarks"
In the course of your duties as a Newman Club chaplain, you are
asked to serve on a panel discussion of "The significance of Jesus
for today." One of the panelists, you discover, is a scientist and a
militant atheist. He makes a strong argument against the significance
of Jesus as being anything but an exceptional moral teacher and an
upright man. In short, he believes that Christianity has mythologized
the life of Jesus, proclaiming him "Lord" and "Christ" on the basis
of inconsistent testimonies to a supposed resurrection. The atheist
stridently proclaims that one should commit oneself to nothing unless
one can know it scientifically.
In your reply, you take the modest position of Rahner. You
concede, first of all, that belief in Christ is subjective. It is
disclosed only to those with faith, you say, and is an example of the
hermeneutical circle. Second, you argue that faith in Jesus does have
objective grounds. Those grounds are contained in the New Testament
and in the faith of believing Christians.
Finally, you get to the heart of your argument. You say that
although the Church's testimony to Jesus can only be verified in a
relative sense, nevertheless it is worthy of our commitment. It is
worthy because the human being is essentially one who makes absolute
commitments based on contingent knowledge.
The Protestant Friend
Chapter VI, Part 5, Subdivision B:
"Observations from Hermeneutics and Fundamental Theology
on the Problemof Historical Knowledge of the Pre-Resurrection
Jesus"
In a conversation with a Protestant friend, you admit that some
things in the Bible are historically more secure than others. Your
friend asks you to explain. You tell him that the stories of Jesus'
virginal conception and the infancy narratives are less secure than
other stories, such as the miracle stories and the resurrection.
Your friend finds this very disturbing. He tells you that, if
Christians begin to distinguish between what is more or less reliable
in the NT, they set themselves up as judges over the Bible. They
should instead submit to the Bible, your friend says, because it is
God's saving word.
You reply in a couple of ways drawn from Rahner's teaching. In the
first instance, you note that an object of faith (something in which
we believe without ample historical testimony) need not be a ground
of faith (something to which the NT books frequently attest). Belief
in the resurrection, you say, is not only an object of faith, but a
ground of faith as well. There is more historical testimony to the
resurrection than to the virginal conception.
Secondly, you argue that it is legitimate for Christians to
distinguish between objects and grounds of faith. The distinction,
you say, strengthens the faith of believers and enables them to
transmit it more readily. It strengthens faith by enabling Christians
to focus on what is historically more secure. It enables believers to
transmit the faith more effectively by focusing on those objects of
faith which more directly reveal the grounds of faith.
Brother James' Class
Chapter VI, Part 5, Subdivisions C and D:
"The Empirical Concrete Structure of the Life of Jesus"
"On the Basic Self-Understanding of the Pre-Resurrection Jesus"
Brother James, a high school religion teacher, has invited you to
give a talk to the seniors about Jesus of Nazareth. He explains to
you that he wants you to emphasize the humanity of Jesus. Far too
many of the seniors have what he calls "magical" and "superstitious"
notions about Jesus Christ. They wear gold crosses and hang rosaries
in their cars, he says, almost as amulets to ward off evil. They
speak of Jesus as a compassionate and divine judge, quick to forgive
their sins, but they hardly ever speak of him as a model of upright
behavior and faithfulness.
In your talk, you decide to present Jesus in his humanity, taking
the viewpoint of Rahner. You start with Jesus' understanding of
himself before his death and resurrection, focusing on "The
Connection Between the Message and the Person of Jesus" (Rahner, p.
251). You dwell on what we know about the earthly Jesus, i.e. his
proclamation of the kingdom, his critical attitude toward the Jewish
law, his acceptance of his death (Rahner, p. 247). Your goal is to
show the seniors that Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as one with
his heavenly Father.
After your presentation, some of the seniors approach you. They
accuse you of presenting Jesus as a mere man. They say that you are
putting Jesus on the same level as them. In your reply, you want to
tell the seniors that Jesus' way of being--his radical orientation
toward God--can become their way of being as well. They too can be
grasped by God, just as Jesus was, and realize the possibilities that
God is offering them.
The Pious Parishioners
Chapter VI, Part 5, Subdivision F:
"Miracles in the Life of Jesus and Their Weight in Fundamental
Theology"
There are some extremely pious people in your parish whose faith
is rooted in supernatural phenomena. They follow the revelations from
the Virgin Mary to the former nurse, Nancy Fowler, in Conyers,
Georgia. They pray before photos of the weeping and bleeding statue
of Jesus taken in Cochabamba, Bolivia. They strongly believe in the
Third Secret of Fatima revealed to Lucy dos Santos (later Sister
Lucia of the Carmelites) and entrusted to Pope Pius XII in 1957.
Their faith, in short, is grounded in what they believe to be
manifestations of supernatural phenomena and interruptions in the
laws of nature.
Your pastor invites you to give an evening of recollection during
Advent on the topic of miracles. He encourages you to treat the topic
from a "solidly Catholic" point of view. You decide that you will
follow Rahner's teaching about miracles in Jesus' life.
You start with the Church's teaching that the miracles of Jesus
offer a historical justification of Jesus' claim to be the saviour.
But you quickly move to an analysis of the nature of miracles. First,
you say that they should not be understood as interruptions in the
laws of nature. God does not need to break the laws, you argue, which
stem from God's own creation. There is a union, you say, between the
realms of the physical and the spiritual. Miracles, you conclude, are
phenomena that we experience as a manifestation of God precisely
because we are open to God's Word.
At the end of the evening of recollection, a group of the pious
parishioners approaches you. They thank you for your talk, but it is
clear that they are troubled. Finally, one of them asks, "What do you
think of the apparitions and miracles that are happening in our own
time?"
Chapter VI: "Jesus Christ"
Part 6, "The Theology of the Death and Resurrection of
Jesus"
Life After Death
Chapter VI, Part 6, Subdivision B:
"Intellectual Presuppositions for Discussing the Resurrection"
In your junior high school religion class, you ask the students to
tell you what they hope for themselves and their families after
death. Some of the students are silly and humorous. They say that
they hope that life after death will include "Channel 5, Magic
Mountain, and Disneyland." Others are more serious. They express the
hope that they and their families will be reunited after death. But
whether silly or serious, they all seem to assume that life after
death will be in some way a continuation of the life they are living
today.
Because you want to draw them to a more mature reflection, you
invite them to read the gospel in which the Sadducees confront Jesus
on the nature of the resurrection. In order to discredit belief in
the resurrection, the Sadducees pose to Jesus the question about the
seven brothers (Lk. 20.27ff.). If seven brothers in turn marry the
same woman, leaving no offspring, to which of the brothers will the
woman be married in the resurrection? In your answer, you reflect
"the meaning of the resurrection" as Rahner presents it. You tell
them that Jesus' reply to the Sadducees (i.e., that in the
resurrection people do not marry, but are children of God) means that
life after death will not be a continuation of the life we live
today.
Life after death is neither "the resuscitation of a physical body"
nor "a rescue from physical death," you tell the young people, but is
salvation, "the full acceptance of the person by God." They are not
satisfied with this. One girl asks, "How is 'full acceptance of the
person by God' the same as 'resurrection,' 'salvation,' and 'eternal
life'?"
The Disturbing Funeral
Chapter VI, Part 6, Subdivision C:
"Transcendental Hope in the Resurrection as the Horizon for
Experiencing the Resurrection of Jesus"
You have been called upon to preside at a deeply disturbing
funeral. The deceased are a couple in their eighties. They had been
married for more than fifty years. Some years ago, the wife developed
Alzheimer's Disease, and has slowly lost her memory. Her husband, who
had Parkinson's Disease, cared for her as well as he could. Facing
his own diminished ability to care for his wife, he wrote a letter to
his children, explaining his sorrow about how disease was robbing
them of their life. Then he shot her to death and killed himself. One
of their children is a member of your parish. Although the deceased
couple had fallen away from the Church, their child has asked you to
perform the funeral.
In the eulogy, you try to put their actions in the best possible
light. You say that, in their choices, they made use of the freedom
God gave them, and made what they believed to be loving and
responsible choices. "We wish that they had exercised their freedom
otherwise than they did," you say, "but we honor what we believe to
be their good intentions."
After the eulogy, some members of the parish approach you. They
are confused, they say, about whether you were condoning the murder
and suicide. In your reply, you touch on the principles laid out by
Rahner in his treatment of Christ's resurrection. Christians believe
that God gives all people hope for transcendence in this life, you
say, and the elderly couple seem to have lost that hope. Christians
believe that God gives ultimate meaning to life, but the husband may
have tried to find, not the meaning God gives, but his own meaning.
Everybody has the freedom to make responsible decisions, you
conclude, but this couple's freedom was brought to an abrupt end.
"But isn't it a mortal sin," one person asks, "to commit suicide?"
The Ministerial Association
Chapter VI, Part 6, Subdivisions D, E, and F:
"On Understanding the Resurrection of Jesus," "The Resurrection
Experience
of the First Disciples," and "The Original Theology of the
Resurrection of Jesus
as the Starting Point of All Christology"
You attend the breakfasts of the local ministerial association,
where once a month a member of the clergy is asked to give a talk on
a theological subject. You have been asked to talk about the
resurrection of Jesus. You want to explain your view of the
resurrection in relation to well-known intellectual currents. So you
start with the most prominent German Protestant Biblical scholar of
the twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann. In his Theology of the New
Testament (1951), Bultmann stated that the historical veracity of
accounts about the life of Jesus (including accounts of the
resurrection) is of secondary importance. Bultmann taught that
Christian theology begins with the proclamation of the church,
established after the death of Jesus. In relation to the church's
proclamation, Bultmann said, the facts of Jesus' life are merely
presuppositions. This is the view, you argue, that you will contest.
You quote Karl Rahner (p. 238): whoever denies that "the
historical event [of Jesus Christ] makes faith legitimate" today, no
longer has "the Christian faith as Christianity has understood it in
all ages." Then you explain what you mean by resurrection. It is, you
say, the salvation of Jesus of Nazareth, understood as his full
acceptance and validation by God (p. 266). This full acceptance was a
unique event (p. 274), for there never has nor will be another
resurrection to Lordship. But despite its uniqueness, it gives
Christians hope that we too will experience "resurrection" as
salvation, acceptance, and validation (p. 276).
After your talk, one of the Protestant pastors approaches you.
"What would happen to your point of view and to your faith," he asks,
"if archaeologists discovered the tomb of Jesus and if his corpse was
there?"
The Bribe to God
Chapter VI, Part 6, Subdivision G:
"On the Theology of the Death of Jesus from the Perspective of the
Resurrection"
In your RCIA inquirers class, one of the members is a lawyer. He
approaches you after class. He tells you that he has read the 1984
book entitled Bribes by the Catholic legal scholar and judge, John T.
Noonan, Jr. He ventures the opinion that the death of Jesus was a
"bribe" to God. "Jesus' death was a propitiation of the wrath of
God," he says, "by means of a bloody sacrifice." By shedding his
blood, claims the lawyer, Jesus "bribed" God to avert the divine
anger from all humanity. He asks you to address this question in
class, and you tell him you will.
In preparing for the class, you decide to follow the lines laid
out by Rahner. You begin by expressing your belief that God has, from
all eternity, loved human beings and sought to draw them to divinity.
So the proposition that God can "change his mind" by means of
miracles and prayers, you say, is problematic (p. 255). But above
all, you want to insist upon the right interpretation of Jesus' life
and death (p. 283). In that life and death, you say, a human being
uttered God's own Word, expressing the kind of life God invites all
people to live. And in Jesus' obedience unto death, God expressed the
meaning of faithful self-sacrifice and love. That is the sense in
which, you say, Jesus' death "causes" salvation. It reveals God's
will for all human beings, namely, that they might hear God's call
and respond faithfully to it. Like a sacrament, Jesus' death "causes"
what it signifies.
After your in-class presentation, the lawyer has a final question.
"What does the Book of Revelation mean," he asks, "when it states
that 'They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb'?" (7:14).
Chapter VII:
"Christianity as Church"
Parts 1-4, "Introduction," "The Church as Founded by
Jesus Christ," "The Church in the New Testament," and "Fundamentals
of the Ecclesial Nature of Christianity."
The Reluctant Protestant
Chapter VII, Part 2: "The Church as Founded by Jesus Christ"
In an RCIA inquiry class is a Baptist who was raised in a strict
religious environment. As a young man he had drifted apart from the
religion of his youth, but now he wants to know more about Roman
Catholicism.
He was taught, he said, that the Christian Church was "re-founded"
during the Protestant Reformation. His parents believed that the
Church of Christ, for all practical purposes, did not exist in the
Middle Ages. It had been given over, they said, to the Antichrist, to
the Whore of Babylon, to Rome. Yes, they taught him, Jesus had
founded a Church, but that Church of the Apostles had disappeared
after the Donation of Constantine. From that time until the end of
the Middle Ages, they said, a so-called Christianity was the official
religion of the Roman Empire and of Europe. But European Christendom
was hopelessly corrupt, his parents taught, and it took the
Protestant Reformation to restore it.
The former Baptist wants to know the Catholic position. How can
Catholics hold that the Church of the Middle Ages, with all its
deviations from the Christianity of the Apostolic Age, deserves to be
called the Church of Christ? In your answer, you follow the outlines
of Rahner's argument. Christ intended his Word to continue, the
Church developed from the possibilities Christ granted, and later
developments of the Church (even when they diverge from earlier
epochs) still have their origins in those earlier epochs, that is,
from the indirect intentions of Christ.
"Then what," the Baptist asks, "is to prevent the Catholic Church
from sinking into heresy?"
The Imperial Catholic
Chapter VII, Part 4, "Fundamentals of the Ecclesial Nature of
Christianity"
In your parish, you encounter a man who can only be called a
"Catholic fundamentalist." He not only asserts that Christ founded
the Church, but he means by that something decidedly extreme. He
means that everything in the Catholic Church is the direct intention
of Jesus Christ. Every change, even the widely-accepted changes that
stemmed from Vatican II, are a scandal to this man. Mass in the
vernacular, the abandonment of mandatory fasting, and the presence of
women on the altar are all departures, he says, from the intentions
of Jesus Christ.
You answer him by saying that the changes in the Church were
indirectly intended by Christ, in that Christ intended a Church which
would govern itself (see Rahner, p. 331). The changes were
possibilities given by Christ, you say, and that is enough. We do not
need to trace back to the sayings of Jesus every concrete structure
in the Church.
The man responds by going to the heart of the matter. "By what
right," he asks, "does the Church of today tamper with the sacred
traditions handed down from the centuries?" In his view, the Latin
language ought to remain the language of worship, the priest should
face away from the laity because they are only indirect participants
in the sacrifice the priest performs, and women ought to be
unobtrusive in the Mass. These traditions go back to apostolic times,
the man says, and the Church should not violate them.
In your reply, you insist upon the necessarily authoritative
nature of the Church. Quoting Rahner, you reply that the
authoritative belongs to the essence of the Christian religion (p.
343). This dumbfounds the man. He asks, "How can practices that
belong to an authoritative tradition be changed in the name of a
living authority?"
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