Part I
The Rahner Project: Evangelization and Catechesis after Vatican II
chapter one
A Rahnerian Blueprint for Catechetical Renewal
Karl Rahner wanted to render mid-twentieth century theology relevant in two ways. First, he sought to make Catholic theology compatible with modern ways of thinking, speaking, and acting. Second, he desired for his systematic theology to impact pastoral ministry in the Church. Regarding the latter, Rahner denounces the thought that theology is an irrelevant and ethereal exercise, instead believing that theology should directly impact the Churchâs life and mission and âtouch downâ in the daily lives of believers. Regarding the former, in the years prior to Vatican II, Rahner saw a need reinvigorate Catholic theology. He, along with many others, believed Neo-scholasticismâs pre-modern propositional approach ossified theology. The dual motivations are in play when he says, âtheology must help the preacher preach the gospel in such a way that it can really be understood and assimilated today; [while also having] a critical function . . . in preventing the Church in its preaching or in its practice from becoming a ghetto or sect within the contemporary world.â Hence, Svein Rise concludes, âHis writings are characterized by the combination of theory and praxis.â Therefore, one could summarize Rahnerâs mission in a rather straightforward manner: Rahner intends to make both theology and pastoral praxis relevant in the face of modernity through correlation by taking postulates drawn from modern thought as his âgiven.â
In Rahnerâs view, Vatican II gave the Church permission to emerge from the ghetto. The Council gave the Church âthe courage to face the modern world.â It marked âa real movement away from a more negative, defensive attitude toward a more open and positive one.â He sees this openness as âa positive appreciation of modern culture and of modern science and technology,â with a deeper âawareness of specifically contemporary problems facing mankind today, of the Churchâs involvement in these problems, and of her responsibility in helping to find solutions.â Following Vatican II, Rahner, and his Transcendental Thomism becomes a catalyst, indeed the single greatest theological force in Catholicism for advancing this positive relationship between the Church and the modern world.
Rahnerâs positive stance toward modernity allows him, like Paul Tillich, to correlate theology and the modern context. According to Tillich, in the correlation method, âsystematic theology proceeds in the following way: it makes an analysis of the human situation out of which the existential questions arise, and it demonstrates that the symbols used in the Christian message are the answers to these questions.â Peter Harrison describes the goal of correlation theology as showing how the Christian message encounters questions implicit in a situation, in a human experience. Rahner takes up correlation as a useful tool for stirring up a stagnant theology, and describes the characteristics of his theological project as being:
â˘Pluralistic: Rather than a singular, homogenous theology for the whole Church, as there had been for nearly a century with Neo-scholasticism, Rahner calls for a plurality of theologies that express the richness, universality, and diversity of the Church.
â˘Missionary and Mystagogical: This theology must be missionary in that it serves a faith rooted in personal conviction, and mystagogical in that it brings what the Church believes (fides quae) into close unity with the personal act of faith (fides qua) so that what the tenets of the faith mean concretely for the individual and society are clear.
â˘Demythologizing: Transposing and expressing the faith in such a way that it can be assimilated by contemporary people. Rahner adds, âWe are and shall always be bound to tradition, of course, but the tradition is the beginning, not the end of theology.â
â˘Transcendental: Theology will highlight the role of the knowing subject.
In sum, Rahner attempts to bring theology to life by injecting it with the thought of modernity, and by attempting to show how theology correlates to modernity. As a result of Rahnerâs openness to modernity, John Milbank describes the main thrust of Rahnerâs theology as a movement âtoward a universal humanism, a rapprochement with the Enlightenment and an autonomous secular order,â which became, as Rowland notes, the point of departure for many of the liberation theologians of the 1970s and 1980s.
At the bottom of it, Rahnerâs modern project attempts to seriously engage the âHeideggerian problematic.â Connor Sweeney explains that Heidegger accuses metaphysics âof imposing an a priori interpretive grid over top of temporality and historicity, and thereby determining in advance the interpretation of Being in time.â âIn essence,â Sweeney says, âBeing is no longer able to reveal itself as Being in any given historical epoch because itâs [sic] meaning has already been artificially established in advance.â Sweeney points out that Heidegger and his followers accuse onto-theology of a certain numbness to the phenomenon, because in their effort to attain to the essenc...