Although Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism characteristically view each other only at great distance, the present article finds evidence of methodological similarity between leading figures of each tradition. The similarities between Karl Rahner and Edward John Carnell may be traced not to mutual influence, but rather to a common desire to overcome the epistemological weaknesses of Kant by means of beliefs and categories expressive of the Christian tradition which nonetheless appreciate the subjective beginning point of the modern period. In particular, this article explores the significance of Jesus within a theological approach broadly construed as transcendentalism It asks what role is played by an incarnate God in a theology whose distinctive mark is that all moral and cognitive progress is possible only on the presupposition of the existence of God, thus seemingly making an incarnation of God redundant. Through different perspectives, both Rahner and Carnell show on the contrary that it is only because God's character is to transcend Himself that the phenomenon and the question of human transcendence arise as possibilities at all. A summary critique suggests that Carnell's emphasis on cross is not as successful in making this point as is Rahner's on cross and resurrection.