Karl Rahners Contribution for Christology - Term Paper Example

? Karl Rahner Karl Rahnar was born in Freiburg Germany on March 1904. He is considered as the most influential catholic theologians of the 20th century. He has been a member of Society of Jesus since 1922. As a Prolific author he is well known for various books. Rahner’s contribution for Christology Rahner has contributed towards the Christian believes and theory modifications by means of provocative essays and systematic treatises. His contribution were regarded by the Second Vatican council and served as the breakthrough for the development of the modern understanding of Catholism. A Brief view of his chronology is given as; Educational Background of Karl Rahner: Education Place 1922-25 Jesuit formation in Ignatian spirituality and philosophy in Austria and Germany 1929-33 Theologies studies in Holland 1934-36 Graduation studies in philosophy at Freiburg & Martin Heideggar’s seminar 1936 Completion of doctoral and postdoctoral studies of theology at Innusbruck Works of Karl Rahner Karl Rahner was in fact a Christian catholic theologist who worked for the development of the faiths and principles of Christian religion. He wrote for the faiths of Christianity by the end of his life. Foundations of Christianity Faith These written faiths are the most important and significant among his works. These foundations describe as “summa” of catholic theology. According to Rahner himself he wrote in the preface of this book that he wrote this book for the educated readers and he regard it as a basic saving of knowledge for everyone rather than only for the sake of theology students. In this book Rahner called the existing idea of Christianity as a formal introduction. He book basically intends to support christens and anyone to adapt Christianity by basically emphasizing the existence of Christianity. The general methodology that has been adapted is the union of theology and philosophy. The roots of this dogma presented were in the beliefs of Christ. In the works of Rahner the traditional beliefs of the catholic have been indeed worked out again with a significant importance. A part of this Rahner’s work is a combination of the deep insight of the dogmatic and metaphysical tradition along with Kerygmatic concern. The theology actually related to Peculiar theology. Concluding aspects of the faith of Christianity Generally Ranher has suggested that the basis of Christianity is reliable. Along with this it has also been concluded that he spiritual knowledge exists, although it is imperfect and limited but still it is the true form of all the existing knowledge. Evolutionary concepts of Karl Rahner At the initial stages the catholic response to the evolutionary theories of the scientist Darwin was very reluctant but later on with the passage of time a linear evolutionary research was permitted to some level. The work of the two Theologists is very important in this aspect which has been emerged as the most influential work in catholic reconciliation with the theory of evolution. One of them is a well known Paleontologist and Jesuit Priest Pierre Theilhard de Chardin, the decisive works of whom have been very much useful for Catholic thinkers. The next one is Karl Rahner who in the decade of 1950 participated actively in the conferences and seminars thus striving for the correlation b/w sciences and Catholic perspectives. In the concepts presented by Karl Rahner the two core topics are modern evolutionary biology and named as emergence and the continuation of the evolutionary process. According to Karl Evolution is the process that continues with the survival of life and it is the process through which something new keeps on evolving without compromising the catholic concepts. Materialistic concepts for the evolution of the human life from an inanimate matter are quite controversial for catholic studies. With respect to the central thoughts in the Karl reconciliation concepts with evolutionary biology, the phenomenon of the active self-transcendence is the process by which evolution is taking place. In 1976 Rahner related that the differences as well the similarities which actually show clearly that the organisms are from one single origin. According to the main concept man is not only a combination of the spirit and matter; in fact it is the logical and factual differences that are basically responsible for the human beings existence. Rahner introduces the concept of the absolute being to relate the idea of active self-transcendence that the universal material existence does not come is controversy to the causality principles of universe. He considers man to be a product of natural science as well to the product of metaphysics and Christianity concept. Spiritualism Rahner is also among the early spiritualists who believe that all planets consists of their spirit world and spheres. From these spheres the universe relates the interplanetary world as well as interstellar spheres (Lawton, 1932). Rahner was like of other Spiritualist has given his views and descriptions of the spiritual world. Rahner has proposed about the unique relationship of everyman with the Holy Spirit. He explains that the purpose of the creation of Holy Spirit in a person is the justification of his creation. The Holy Spirit makes the person realize that the human heart is not merely just a creation but is the result of the self of God thus reshaping in the form of human heart. Thus the human should be truly an alternative form of the Holy Spirit. Rahner has followed the argument of the Aquinas, that the final creation of the human person is the participation of God’s life with God. It is the fact that God has been the infinite form and man has been created in the finite form. God and Relation of God with the World Karl actually emphasizes that the personal belief about the God and the world in fact really does matter. Nearly all human beings should understand that who God is and how it acts, and this belief actually reshapes our religious beliefs and our living as human being in this spiritual world. Karl Rahner describes what actually Christians mean by the word “God” in their believes; According to him God is not something that can be integrated like other things in their homogeneous mixture system of beliefs. By God it is meant the whole, not the individual systems. God is in fact a silent mystery of this universe, an absolute and incomprehensible eternity. A true God is the sacred and absolute mystery of this universe. At another place in his writings Karl continues his belief with God as; The God and this world has no more any abyss b/w them. God is the master of all things and is in the root of all the things of this world since its beginning, we cannot leave the belief of God. He explains further that God is with us in the form of light of the day and in everything that we feel, we see and we think. God is in fact the secret seal of this whole universe and the heart of this world. According to him the Christians should be of the belief that God is the greatest of all our thoughts and definitions and all our imaginations. There are some theologians that think and emphasize the otherness of the God, and these are those which believe in the difference of the world and God and they are the opponents of the Rahner’s thought. Self-giving Love as God’s Identity and Belief According to Karl, there is no existence of any distance b/w world and God and thus both are alternate for one another. The acts of one of them like the world and God, impacts on one another and these activities keep on affecting one another. According to him it is Our God who gives himself for the sake of the whole world and humanity. And the self-giving of divine is something that is always with us and we cannot impose or lose it (Karl Rahner, 1970). The ultimate scope of the world is God which exists everywhere in this world. This is in fact the ultimate nature of God that he is self giving for the whole of the ongoing world. God as Creator Karl has enhanced the Christians belief that God is the creator of the world. He is only creator of this universe and the whole cosmos and the total existence in this world. Karl states God as both creator and creative. He has developed the universe with variety. Thus variety is the only essence of his creation. Rahner expresses the creator God as; The world is the result of the self-giving communication of God. This self-giving has caused the world to transform from nothingness to a form that by which it can lavish on. The world is the form of the God’s love thus makes the world to entrust on the God’s love and divine help (Rahner, 1968). God as Redeemer Rahner writes about the God as Redeemer; The life of the God dwells in this world and he has surrounded this world by means of his death and resurrection. There is only one path that leads to both the infinity God and the infinity world. The self-giving love of the God is the identity and the activity of God that makes the life of God forever. Finally the God’s Redeeming activity reveals God’s fundamental identity and self-giving love for the world. God as sustainer Let’s now talk about the Christians beliefs about God as sustainer. It is the ultimate belief of the Christians that the self-giving love of the God continues on the world and human beings to continuously sustains us throughout our lives. According to this belief Rahner explains that; In this world thousand of things happen daily silently thus sustain the whole of the human world and community thus showing that something silent is happen that is preventing the disastrous loss of the world. This sustain is occurring everywhere in different forms though we cannot point this to a single event or incident but this is assured that this mystery can occur anywhere because it is all about the self giving of the God and love. This can only be understood when believes on the self-giving of God, as responsible for creating, redeeming and sustaining our lives and the existence of this whole universe. Conclusions All these explanation by Karl led us to understand the role of God in this world according to the faiths and beliefs of Christians and modified by the theology of Karl. The God is the ultimate essence of this world and this entity cannot be separated from the existence of the world and thus the life of the world without self-giving love of God is impossible. Cosmos and creation of the world by Karl Rahner According to the explanations by Karl Rahner; Hell would be the centre of this universe. He explains the hell as the primitive presentation of higher authority rather than a place for punishment in his book “The Christian and Death”. The church teachings related that the Jesus Christ was actually descended into hell after death, but Rahner emphasize that like everyone the Christ also got re-inserted into life of revolving cosmos after death. This re-insertion into cosmos in fact re-enriched the whole universe with the energy and thus resultantly the life of the people who are still living in this world. According to his own words as translated; The spiritual form of Christ was created opened itself by the death to the entire universe in the form of cosmos and thus formed as the permanent form of the universe in this form. Thus the descending of anyone to the hell is regarded as the most reliable and profound reality of the universe. It is the radical centre of the universe where actually an eternal form is created. Death & Salvation According to Rahner Death is regarded as the salvation for the world. It can be understood easily if the concept of the human death and spiritual reality of the Christ’s acquired a real-ontological relation towards the world is admitted. His concepts are that after death, what actually happens to the soul of a person does not depends upon actually the person was good or bad, it actually explains that life after death would be the ontological need of the evolutionist process that relates Man & God as well as the complete universe. According to him death does not make the human sole a cosmic one but rather it makes it pan cosmic. The relationship b/w the universe and the human soul is difficult to understood as the soul is ubiquitous in this universe. Rahner contribution to the Evolutionary World and Science Rahner discussed this chapter as Christology within an Evolutionary view of the world. In this chapter he illustrates that how Christology is related to the modern science in terms of its faiths and leads. Christology provides a complete and clear vision of the creation of world by God, a vision that clarifies both philosophy and revelation. According to him God is not any particular reality but in fact the sustainer of all the realities of the world is actually God. Economic and immanent terminology by Rahner’s rule The difference b/w the two terminologies come from the Greek theology. The oikonomia refers to the administration rule followed by God. Karl Rahner has explained the argument b/w Economic and immanent in his little books “The Trinity”. The History of Salvation & Revelation Rahners has explained in this regard that how Christianity is a historical as well as an absolute religion at the same time. According to the historical foundation, it is based upon the life, death and resurrection of the Jesus of Nazareth. At the same time he explains it to be absolute due to Christianity proclaims transcendental dealings of humanity with God (Mark & Fischer, 2005). He also narrates that the supernatural existence of the human enables human being to build up the salvation history of humans with God. Thus Rehnar has described the relationship b/w the human and the salvation history of human with God. Whenever there is a call from God the human history is regarded as Slavic at that moment, however every human behaves in his own way to this call thus there occurs an incident of revelation. The encounter of every human with his God is different and thus lays the basis of the individual revelation. Regarding the same topic Rahner also explains the correlation of the transcendental revelation of God and the revelation of God in history for example the history of Israel; however the Adam Eve story reveals the transcendental revelation of the God. Some of the theologist thinks that the Rahner research on revelation cannot explicit or expose the official revelation of the Church, and is not “Catholic”, whereby that is regarded an incomplete understanding of the Christianity and its faiths. Against the arguments of the Augstine & Jean Calvin, Christians hold a faith that salvation has been promised to all. There is no one that is kept for lost. Anonymous Christianity It is the theological concept that declares that the people not heard of Christ Gospel can be saved by Christ. Rahnar followed the concept of the Vatican’s council which becomes more insistent after dogmatic formulation. This idea relates that the persons who find the God with sincere heart and moved by the grace of God, and try their action for his will, they may achieve the eternal salvation at last. Conclusions for the Faiths presented by Karl Rahner For Christians there is no single sacred place where they can say that God is found God is entity in the universe by birth; God is embedded in the roots of this universe. The only possibility for the safety of the entire human is the faith that there is possibility of encountering God at any place, not just only at the sacred place. For sure Faith is the necessary component for salvation. Self-giving love is the ultimate truth of the Divine support and help during human’s transitional stages. Whenever there is one’s orientation towards God there is revelation of God to him. The Trinity is the ontological principle for Rahner’s doctrine of grace. Rahner explains that the theological awareness of the person is a gift with respect to the Holy Spirit. Grace can be regarded as the possibility of the immediate vision of life with God. References Karl Rahner. God is no scientific formulation grace, translated in freedom (1968). 191-92 Karl Rahner. The world and history as the event of God’s self communication, translated in servants of the lord (1968). Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith trans. William V. Dych (New York: Crossroad 1978), 123. Karl Rahner. A faith that loves the earth, translated in everyday faith (1968). Karl Rahner, “Divine Trinity.” Sacramentum Mundi ed. Karl Rahner (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970): 295-301, 300. Karl Rahner “Experience of the Holy Spirit.’” Theological Investigations 18 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1969): 189-210, 193. file:///H:/Karl%20Rahner/CP-spirit_world.htm Mark F. Fischer. The Foundations of karl Rahner (2005) by Crossroad Publishing (ISBN 0824523423). Read More