Why Rahner Continues to Captivate Attention

Rahner's Legacy: A Source of Controversy and Appreciation in the Church

Since the Second Vatican Council, Rahner has continued to have many followers and considerable influence, particularly in ecclesiastical circles that view themselves as continuing the progress promoted by the Council.

Certainly, Rahner made a notable contribution to developing the Council's new doctrines. However, he propagated them with a modernist interpretation. Such was his fame and prestige as a Council expert that, when he embarked on this misguided endeavor in the post-conciliar years, very few noticed the danger or dared to oppose him, for fear of appearing as enemies of the Council.

Thus, Rahner encountered not only success but also opposition, not only from those who resist the Council's novelties but also from the Catholic sector sincerely committed to fidelity to Scripture and Tradition, in full communion with the Pope, and to professing the integrity of Catholic doctrine with the intent to spread it, practice it, and defend it from errors.

Rahnerism has never been explicitly condemned by the Church, except in those errors that Rahner rehashed from past centuries. However, it has neither been recommended nor upheld as an exemplary theology, unlike the continuous recognition of Aquinas by the Church, despite the occasional acceptable reference to Rahner's vast theological production.

It is undoubted that Rahner's followers, undeterred and convinced of their eventual triumph due to their significant success, have consistently pressured the Popes in these post-conciliar years to present Rahner, rather than Saint Thomas, as a model theologian. However, they have encountered that the same Council recommends Saint Thomas, and although post-conciliar Popes have chosen not to explicitly condemn Rahner, they have certainly refrained from praising him. As everyone knows, the current Pontiff last year once again presented Saint Thomas as a model theologian, continuing a tradition spanning eight centuries.

A benevolent interpretation of Rahner's thought is widespread, certainly with some good basis but also indicative of a certain naivety or thinly veiled academic or career interests. This is understandable, as Rahner openly reveals his errors in some places while cleverly hiding them under apparent orthodoxy or outright denial in others, though this is not a retraction but a circumstantial maneuver according to the moment's conveniences. While casual readers may overlook these nuances, those of us who have spent 50 years studying Rahner's thought can easily identify them."

The Enduring Impact of Rahner's Theological Errors

First, we note Rahner's conception of liturgy, where the specific role of the priest as the minister of the Eucharist and confessor is denied, replaced by a sociological or humanitarian role where sacraments are conceived not as producers of grace but as signs of grace already received. The celebration, under the guise of the Spirit's inspiration and environmental adaptation, often becomes an opportunity for the celebrant's self-promotion, as many have long noted. What attracts people is not the Mass itself, but the Mass of a particular individual. The interest is not in the Mass but in the celebrant.

How can this not lead to the disastrous and scandalous profanation and secularization of the liturgy, where the sacred is lowered to the profane and the profane becomes sacred? How can these ideas in practice not provoke, as they indeed do, the deformation or disenchantment with the liturgy that is continuously growing today? If certain priests model the Mass on television shows, they fail to realize that people prefer TV to their so-called "Mass."

The fact is, unfortunately, that in Rahner's vision, as he declared, the priest is reduced to a mere representative of the liturgical assembly of a "Mass" that is no longer a renewal of Christ's expiatory, satisfactory, reparative, and redemptive sacrifice (a horrific masochistic vision!) but only an edifying memory of the martyr's testimony, the "man-for-others" drama of a God emptied and alienated from himself, a God the Son rejected by God the Father, who, rising from death, becomes Spirit [1]. Can a Mass ever be celebrated based on this Hegelian conception of God?

Thus, Rahner has given space to a figure of Christ, now widespread, inspired by Teilhard de Chardin, the so-called "cosmic Christ," who emerges from the earth, passes through the man who transcends himself to rise to God, who in turn becomes man to become the world and return to the earth.

Regarding the Promotion of Theological Progress, can we say that theology has made real progress under the influence and example of Rahner? Have the eternal truths been deepened, or has what was definitively acquired, conquered, and established as the basis of human coexistence and civilization by human reason over the centuries and millennia been questioned?

With Rahner, have we gained a better understanding of the mystery of Christ, or have we become entangled again in the web of heresies that preceded the clarifications obtained by the Christological Councils? Do we know how to distinguish and unite the soul and body in the human person and nature, as medieval conciliar dogmatics taught us, or have we fallen back into the conflict between Plato's dualistic idealism and Epicurus' materialistic hedonism?

Does the "apriori, thematic, preconceptual, transcendental experience of the self, of being, and of God," which Rahner speaks of, exist? Is it true that everyone, at least anonymously and unconsciously, but transcendently and not conceptually, believes in God and is saved, even if they profess atheism?

For Rahner, the Catholic faith is spread not by reasoning about signs of credibility and testimonies of charity and announcing truths previously unknown to the evangelized, but by bringing to thematic and categorical awareness in the evangelized the original ineffable experience of God already present in their unconscious. It is not clear whether, for Rahner, the missionary should aim to increase the number of Catholics or if it is enough for him to allow the evangelized to express in the categories of their religion the universal, decisive, and sufficient content for the salvation of the transcendental experience. Is Pachamama the Amazonian version of Mariology? Can Pachamama replace Aristotle in explaining Scripture?

Moreover, Rahner proposes a conception of man not as a rational animal, a living substance, or a person composed of body and immortal soul created in the image and likeness of God, but, in Heidegger's manner, he affirms that "the essence of man is the absolute openness to being in general" [2] and elsewhere specifies by saying that

"man is the being of transcendence towards the holy and absolutely real mystery." "Man exists as such through the horizon and the origin of transcendence." This origin and horizon of man's transcendence, which "constitutes his original being as subject and person, is this holy, absolutely existing mystery,"[3] that is, God Himself.

We see how Rahner defines man not in categorical terms, as substance or nature, but in terms of being, in metaphysical terms, as if man were a category or mode of being or a predicate of being. That man is an entity or a being is beyond doubt. But is it sufficient to stop here without specifying what kind of being? Does his animality or corporeality count for nothing? Being can be material or spiritual. Man is not simply a being but a material entity animated by a spiritual soul.

We note that openness to being could also apply to prime matter. To designate the spirit, it would be necessary to specify that this openness belongs to the intellect or thought and not simply in a vague way to being.

The true openness to the divine being can only be proper to a spirit. But at the same time, an act like an opening supposes a faculty in a subject and cannot be itself a subject. Unless it is about God, where being coincides with acting. In short, Rahner's concept of God is a nest of contradictions that favors pantheism (Bold Mine, Ed.).

It should also be noted that Rahner's conception of humanity is closely linked to his view of discovering God's existence. For Rahner, this discovery does not happen when reason contemplates the origin of the world and finds the need to admit a first cause and the ultimate end of all things. Instead, for him, humanity is essentially openness, tendency, orientation, or relationship to God, so that through transcendental experience, a person discovers both themselves and God as the pinnacle of the transcendence of one's self.

According to Rahner, it is not that a person discovers their dignity by questioning its origin and recognizing themselves as a creature of God, created in His image and likeness. No. For Rahner, when I become aware of my being, I realize that my essence is inherently related to God.

In essence, Rahner suggests that God and I are not two distinct persons—I as a created being and He as the creator—but rather the terms of a single movement or becoming of being, where I elevate to Him and He descends to me. We are not two distinct entities, persons, or substances: my being and His being are one. The difference lies in the fact that I am being insofar as I am open to Him, whereas He is being insofar as He reveals Himself to me.

Therefore, for Rahner, speaking about God, or even conceiving Him as a substance, first being, and first cause, is not the foundation for lovingly contemplating Him in mystical experience. Instead, it is a remnant of the old Aristotelian metaphysics, long surpassed by modern philosophy, which spans from Descartes through Kant and Hegel to Bultmann and Heidegger.

For Rahner, the divine essence is not the object of the intellect in such a way that we can know who God is and define the attributes of the divine nature. For Rahner, it is meaningless to differentiate between the predicates of divine nature and those of human nature because they are interchangeable. With the Incarnation, God changes, suffers, and empties Himself of His essence (this is how Rahner interprets the Pauline kenosis in Phil 2:7), while the human being, whose essence is thought and infinite openness, reaches the horizon of transcendence, which is God Himself.

For this reason, according to Rahner, theology is not a discourse about God that concludes in mystical silence motivated by the awareness of the divine essence's incomprehensibility and ineffability, which nonetheless remains intelligible, nameable, and conceptualizable, and therefore not at all unintelligible, but rather the supreme object of the intellect, directly seen though limitedly, in the beatific vision.

On the contrary, for Rahner, theology is the conceptual and verbal expression of the original, transcendental, thematic, and silent experience, where the concept is not a representation of reality but a contingent and changeable interpretative model, subject to historical becoming and diversified according to the diversity of cultures. Therefore, the truth and false about God are not determined by universal and immutable knowledge but concerning the truth criteria of the cultures according to which a given statement about God is made.

This is why, for Rahner, God is "the Nameless Mystery.[4]” We might then ask why God revealed His name to Moses (Ex 3:15) and what the divine commandment not to take God's name in vain means. Furthermore, I would point out that the "name" in Scripture is the essence of the thing or person named. If God has no name, then He also has no essence. Can anything exist that does not have or is not an essence?

So, when Benedict XII dogmatically defined in 1336 that heavenly beatitude consists in the immediate vision of the divine essence, did he tell us a falsehood?

For Rahner, God is not a transcendent Person with specific attributes who, having created us, dictates the norms of our conduct to which we will one day have to account to Him for our behavior. Instead, God is a mental repository in which Rahner has put a heap of things he likes, without telling us what they are, using the pretext of divine incomprehensibility and ineffability. From this repository, he selectively picks and chooses what suits his immediate needs, thus adeptly maneuvering through all situations.

We must ask ourselves: Is it true that if the Church in the past expressed the truth of faith with Aristotelian categories, today, to be understood by modern people, it must express itself with the categories of German idealism?

Furthermore, we must ask if Rahner has helped us understand better the distinction between the various sciences, the various forms, and degrees of knowledge in their union in truth, or should we believe him when he tells us that cosmology is anthropology, anthropology is Christology, and Christology is theology? Or when he assures us that there is no dogmatic theology distinct from pastoral theology and that all theology is pastoral theology, or that grace does not add to nature but is the fulfillment of nature, or that humanity is essentially openness to God, so everyone, as human beings, is saved?

Have we also understood the mystery of the Catholic Church better with Rahner, based on one faith, or have we, under the guise of pluralism and inclusivity, turned it into a discordant chorus of mutual insults?

Does the Church today fulfill its mandate to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth? Does it attract souls in search of truth, justice, and peace? Does it reconcile adversaries, set an example of a fraternal community, identify the causes of wars and remove them, discern between right and wrong in conflicts, and act as an impartial and credible mediator in the millennial conflict between East and West? Or does it limit itself to pious appeals for peace and generic, predictable condemnations of war? Does it provide concrete advice on resolving conflicts while seeming like a battlefield where some, false defenders of tradition, insult and curse the Pope, while others, false promoters of progress, flatter and instrumentalize him, only to attack him mercilessly if he does not meet their Rahnerian expectations?

Based on these facts, we must ask if the Church today can inspire separated brethren to reject their errors and desire full communion with her, overcoming obstacles to full unity. Or does it limit itself to apologizing for pluralism, diversity, equality, collaboration, and reciprocity? Can it show who the one Shepherd is around whom all sheep must gather, or does it appear as a mere particular Christian community on par with others, lacking any universality and obligation to guide and be a mother in Christ to them?

We must then ask if ecumenism today is understood as the commitment of Catholics to lead separated brethren to full communion with the Roman Church, or is it an eternal procrastination and playing on ambiguity, where in the end it is not the separated brethren who convert to Catholicism but Catholics who become Protestants while maintaining the Catholic label. Is this really what the decree Unitatis redintegratio wants? Let's try to reread it. Perhaps we have misunderstood it [5].

Is the ecumenical problem one of reassembling a shattered Church or rather the return of those who have separated from it? Should the model be the homecoming of the prodigal son or the cheerful reunion of friends having a nice meal together? And isn't Rahner involved in this?

Is it surprising that the continuous praise of Protestants by Kasperians confirms Protestants in their errors, so that emboldened by flattery, they feel like the censors of Catholics, still trapped in the abstract schemes of scholasticism? Is it any wonder if they are responsible for leading them from St. Augustine and St. Thomas to Luther or Kant or Hegel or Heidegger? And isn't Rahner involved in this dirty operation?

Are all religions equally sufficient paths to salvation? Is there none that is obligatory for all, above all others, and true? Among the various religions, is there not one that is better than another? Is the true religion the result of the sum of religions like a parliament is the assembly of all parties, as Freemasonry claims, or is it an emerging religion among all, free of errors and possessing the fullness of truth alone?

Does the Catholic Church manage to present itself, as taught by the Second Vatican Council, as the only community of salvation in possession of the fullness of truth, while respecting the truths present in other religions? Does the Church today know how to say that Jews, Protestants, and Orthodox are saved only by belonging at least implicitly to the Catholic Church?

The Maladies Afflicting the Church Today: Are They Due to the Council, as Lefebvrists Claim, or Rahner's Interpretation of It?

Today, we are confronted with pressing issues regarding the upholding of moral standards, ascetic discipline, adherence to natural law, and the pursuit of social justice. Rahner refuses to recognize a precise, universal, immutable, and determined essence of human nature governed by specific ends and laws established by God. Instead, he views it as a subject with limitless possibilities, essentially oriented towards God as its ultimate horizon of transcendence. For Rahner, the person, as a spirit in history, shapes their nature freely according to a thinking that coincides with their being.

It shouldn't be difficult to guess or imagine the effects this aberrant conception of being and human action can produce in social and ecclesial contexts. In Rahner's view, there is no objective, indisputable, universal, and immutable moral law, but absolute freedom for each individual to shape their nature according to the extra legem (extra-legal) creativity of their Cartesian conscience or self-awareness. Yet, many lament these ills without recognizing their doctrinal origin.

How, then, can we complain about moral decay, political corruption, the spread of hedonism and laxity, impiety, duplicity and opportunism, violence and war, intra-ecclesial conflict, the decline of faith and religious practice, and the dissolution of values, if we do not work to correct Rahner's errors?

Rahner is correct in saying that we must express the perennial and universal we should communicate the message of the Gospel using the categories and language of our contemporary era. To this end, he, thinking that German idealism's philosophy corresponds to modern philosophy and taking a cue from Maréchal, has disguised a Hegelian epistemology as if it were a Thomistic one. According to this view, "the essence of being is to know and be known in an original unity, which we call consciousness or transparency ('subjectivity,' 'knowledge') of the being of every entity.[6]"

To remedy the damage caused by Rahnerism, we must persuade honest and well-intentioned Rahnerians, who perceive the ills we suffer from, not to insist on proposing Rahnerian solutions. They need to understand that these ills are caused precisely by the implementation of his errors, while the values proposed by Rahner must be maintained.

In particular, we must propose the true interpretation of the Council, as evident from the Church's official documents, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the new Code of Canon Law.

How to Overcome This Situation and Restore Hope

We must advocate for models of Thomist theologians who have effectively adapted Thomism to meet the needs of our time, incorporating the values of modern thought through the lens of St. Thomas Aquinas's teachings. Among all these Thomists, the noble figure of Jacques Maritain stands out, recommended by two saintly Popes, Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II.

We must continue along this path; otherwise, the ecclesial and civil situation worldwide will further deteriorate, with increased intra- and extra-ecclesial conflict, and the risk, as signaled by many, of an apocalyptic clash between the West and the East.

Conversely, if the Church decisively, persuasively, and more clearly indicates the path proposed by the Council in its Thomistic application and not in the false Rahnerian one, the bold Rahnerians, once enlightened, will come to see they are on shaky ground, sparking a potential powder keg. Humanity can then breathe a sigh of relief, reduce its anxiety, and continue its journey towards the Kingdom of God with greater serenity and fruitfulness, despite the miseries of the present life.

P. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, June 25, 2024

Source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/perche-rahner-attira-ancora.html

Notes

[1] Rahner interprets the words of St. Paul "The Lord is the Spirit" (2 Cor 3:17) to mean that Christ, by rising from the dead, becomes the Holy Spirit.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Corso fondamentale sulla fede, Paulist Press, Rome 1978, p. 42.

[4] Esercizi spirituali per il sacerdote, Queriniana, Brescia 1974, pp. 9-15.

[5] "In past centuries, not small communities have separated from full communion with the Catholic Church. In them, many and sometimes very serious obstacles prevent full ecclesial communion. We believe that these separate churches or communities have deficiencies. They do not enjoy the unity that Jesus Christ wanted to bestow on all those He has regenerated. Only through the Catholic Church of Christ can the fullness of the means of salvation be obtained. We believe that the Lord has entrusted all the goods of the New Covenant to the apostolic college with Peter at its head to constitute the one body of Christ on earth, to which all who already belong in some way to the people of God must be fully incorporated." (n. 3). Are the leaders of ecumenism today following this path? Is this the ecumenism preached by Rahner? He believes that the Church should dispense the separated brethren from believing in those dogmas they reject, making them optional: cf. Unione delle Chiese. Possibilità reale, Morcelliana, Brescia 1986, especially pp. 42, 52, 54. Is this true ecumenism?

[6] Uditori della Parola, Edizioni Borla, Rome 1977, p.66. .