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Rahner and Hartshorne on Death and Eternal Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Abstract

While the writings of Rahner and Hartshorne are based upon very different metaphysical foundations, the purpose of this article is to bring to light some of the important similarities (and to clarify some of the significant differences) with respect to their understandings of death and eternal life. We seek to contribute some new insights to the important ongoing dialogue between process theists and theologians rooted in the Thomistic tradition.

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Articles
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Copyright © The College Theology Society 1988

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References

1 For an analysis of the similarities and differences between Rahner and Hartshorne on the question of divine immutability, see King, J. Norman and Whitney, Barry L., “Rahner and Hartshorne on Divine Immutability,” International Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1982), 195209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Please note that since writing that article, we have become sensitive to the issue of inclusive language. In the present article, references to God avoid exclusively male language. Since, however, most of the writings of Rahner and Hartshorne were published prior to the general awareness of this issue, we simply have retained their exact wording in quoted material. For his part, Hartshorne's current writings have responded to this issue; Rahner's death in 1984 precluded any similar response.

2 See Whitney, Barry L., “Divine Immutability in Process Philosophy and Contemporary Thomism,” Horizons 7/1 (Spring 1980), 4968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Hartshorne, Charles, “Philosophy After Fifty Years” in Bertocci, Peter A., ed., Mid-Twentieth Century American Philosophy: Personal Statements (New York: Humanities Press, 1974), p. 147.Google Scholar

4 Hartshorne, Charles, Reality as Social Process: Studies in Metaphysics and Religion (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press; Boston: Beacon, 1953), p. 211.Google Scholar

5 Hartshorne, , “Beyond Enlightened Self-interest: A Metaphysics of Becoming,” Ethics 84 (1974), 206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Hartshorne, , Reality as Social Process, p. 211.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., pp. 211, 41.

8 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), p. 123.Google Scholar

9 Hartshorne, Charles, The Logic of Perfection and Other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1962), p. 259.Google Scholar Hartshorne's essay, “Time, Death, and Eternal Life” (Logic of Perfection, Chapter 10), is probably his most systematic and detailed statement on the issue of death and immortality, although references to this issue are scattered widely throughout his many publications. See also Whitney, Barry L., Evil and the Process God (New York and Toronto: Edwin Mellen, 1985), pp. 157–67Google Scholar, where the issue is discussed in direct relationship to the question of theodicy.

10 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” p. 151.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 150.

12 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 261.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., It is a fundamental tenet of process thought that aesthetic value is primary. This is a particularly complex issue; yet, for an overview see Whitney, , Evil and the Process God, pp. 215–18;Google Scholar see also Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, pp. 107–08Google Scholar, and Hartshorne, Charles, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (London: SCM and LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1970), pp. 303–21.Google Scholar

14 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 261.Google Scholar

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17 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, pp. 251–52.Google Scholar

18 Hartshorne, , “Significance of Man,” p. 49.Google Scholar

19 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 252.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. 253.

21 “Without the immortality of experiences,” Hartshorne points out, “any heaven would present the same problem of the transience of experience” (Reality as Social Process, p. 211).

22 Hartshorne, Charles, “A Philosopher's Assessment of Christianity” in Leibrecht, Walter, ed., Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich (New York: Harper, 1959), pp. 177–78;Google ScholarHartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, pp. 108–09.Google Scholar

23 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 254.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., p. 253.

25 Ibid., see also Hartshorne, , “Significance of Man,” p. 40.Google Scholar

26 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, pp. 108–09.Google Scholar

27 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 40.Google Scholar

28 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” p. 149.Google Scholar

29 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 106.Google Scholar

30 “He who says that belief in the divine enjoyment of a richer life than ours, to which our own can contribute, and which in turn will contribute to the lives of fellow creatures yet to come, can be no consolation to us for the trials of existence, is simply denying that we can genuinely love either God or man” (Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 105).

31 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, pp. 259–60.Google Scholar

32 Hartshorne, , “Religion in Process Philosophy” in Feaver, J. Clayton and Horosz, William, eds., Religion in Philosophical Perspective (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1967), p. 265.Google Scholar

33 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” p. 145.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.; and Hartshorne, , “Religion in Process Philosophy,” pp. 266–67.Google Scholar

35 Hartshorne, , “A Philosopher's Assessment of Christianity,” p. 176.Google Scholar

36 Ibid.

37 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection., p. 254.Google Scholar

38 Hartshorne, , “Religion in Process Philosophy,” p. 264.Google Scholar In a recent book, Hartshorne refers to the reward-punishment scheme as “the moral argument against heaven and hell” (see his Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes [Albany: State University of New York, 1985], pp. 9798Google Scholar).

39 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 255.Google Scholar

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., p. 257.

42 Hartshorne, , “Significance of Man,” p. 43.Google Scholar

43 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 107.Google Scholar

44 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 262.Google Scholar

45 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” pp. 150–51.Google Scholar Hartshorne's point here is that while we do not live on consciously in an afterlife, God will make use of our lives in ever new ways, endlessly. Whatever good we accomplished in our earthly lives will be used by God in an endless variety of new perspectives. As such, our lives, while consciously completed, contribute everlastingly to God. The endless variations God makes of our lives will not be experiences by us, of course, “save in principle and in advance through our devoted imagination, our love of God” (Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 262Google Scholar).

46 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” p. 149.Google Scholar

47 Ibid.

48 Death, for example, is not merely a phenomenon of the body as opposed to the soul, but affects the total person; eschatological statements are not a report from the future, but an expression of present hope rooted in the present experience of grace; eternity is not an infinitely long mode of time, but the achieved final validity of human existence grown to maturity in freedom.

49 Rahner, , Foundations of Christian Thought (New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 436.Google Scholar

50 Foundations, pp. 85-86. For more detail, see Theology and Anthropology,” Theological Investigations 9 (New York: Crossroad, 1973): 2845;Google ScholarReflections on Methodology in Theology,” Theological Investigations 11 (New York: Crossroad, 1974): 68114;Google Scholar and Foundations, pp. 24-71, 116-37. To date twenty volumes of Rahner's Theological Investigations have appeared in English. They are currently being issued by Crossroad, New York. Henceforth we shall refer to any of these volumes as Investigations, followed by the volume number.

51 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 116.Google Scholar

52 Rahner, Karl, “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:181.Google Scholar

53 Rahner, , “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13: 180, 182.Google Scholar

54 Rahner, Karl, “The Experiment with Man,” Investigations, 9:223.Google Scholar

55 Rahner, , On the Theology of Death (Freiberg: Herder; Montreal: Palm, 1961), pp. 8488;Google ScholarThe Scandal of Death,” Investigations, 7:140–44;Google ScholarOn Christian Dying,” Investigations, 7:285–93.Google Scholar

56 Rahner, Karl, Christian at the Crossroads (New York: Seabury, 1975), p. 23.Google Scholar See also Ideas fora Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:184Google Scholar, where Rahner states: “Man finds his strength neither in despair nor in the illusion of self-sufficiency, but rather when, believing and loving in hope, he commits himself to the incomprehensible Mystery which comes to him and takes effect upon him in death. We call this mystery the God of hope.”

57 Rahner, , “The Foundation of Belief,” Investigations, 16:1314.Google Scholar For a fuller discussion of the experience of God, see The Experience of God Today,” Investigations, 11:149–65;Google ScholarExperience of Self and Experience of God,” Investigations, 13:112–32;Google ScholarThe Human Question of Meaning in Face of the Absolute Mystery of God,” Investigations, 18:89104;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 51-71. See also Bacik, James J., Apologetics and Eclipse of Mystery (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980)Google Scholar, and King, J. Norman, Experiencing God All Ways and Every Day (Minneapolis: Winston, 1982).Google Scholar

58 Rahner, , “Eternity From Time,” Investigations, 17:172–75.Google Scholar

59 Rahner, , “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:185–86.Google Scholar See also Theology of Freedom,” Investigations, 6:178–96;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 53-39, 65-66, 94-108; Grace in Freedom (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), pp. 203–64.Google Scholar

60 Rahner, Karl, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” Investigations, 8:33.Google Scholar

61 Rahner, Karl, “Reflections on the Gradual Ascent to Christian Perfection,” Investigations, 3:110.Google Scholar

62 Rahner, Karl, “The Life of the Dead,” Investigations, 4:347–48;Google ScholarChristianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:140–43;Google ScholarOn Christian Dying,” Investigations, 7:286–89.Google Scholar

63 Rahner, , “The Life of the Dead,” Investigations, 4:348–49;Google ScholarTheological Considerations Concerning the Moment of Death,” Investigations, 11:314–15.Google Scholar

64 Rahner, , Foundations, pp. 268–69.Google Scholar See also On the Theology of Hope,” Investigations, 10:242–59.Google Scholar

65 “Wherever a free and lonely act of decision has taken place in absolute obedience to a higher law or in radical affirmation of love for another person, something eternal has taken place and man is experienced immediately as transcending the indifference of time in its mere temporal duration” (Rahner, , Foundations, p. 439Google Scholar).

66 Rahner, , “The Life of the Dead,” Investigations, 4:348–51;Google ScholarExperiencing Easter,” Investigations, 7:162–64;Google ScholarEternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:172–75;Google ScholarFoundations, p. 438.

67 Rahner, , “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:182.Google Scholar

68 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 438.Google Scholar

69 Rahner, Karl, “The Comfort of Time,” Investigations, 3:145.Google Scholar In Experiencing Easter,” Investigations, 7:163Google Scholar, Rahner writes: “The process of becoming ceases when the state of being begins.”

70 Rahner, , “The Life of the Dead,” Investigations, 4:347–48;Google ScholarIdeas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:173–76;Google ScholarEternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:170–72;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 436-41.

71 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 437.Google Scholar See also Theological Observations on the Concept of Time,” Investigations, 11:288308.Google Scholar

72 Rahner, , “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:175.Google Scholar

73 Rahner, , “Ideas for a Theology of Death,” Investigations, 13:175.Google Scholar

74 Rahner, , “Eternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:176.Google Scholar See also Beatific Vision,” in Rahner, Karl, ed., Encyclopedia of Theology (New York: Seabury, 1975), pp. 7880.Google Scholar

75 Rahner, Karl, “Beatific Vision” in Rahner, Karl and Vorgrimler, Herbert, eds., Dictionary of Theology, new rev. ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 42.Google Scholar

76 Ibid.

77 “How all this can be experienced in the concreteness of a state beyond time, what is the meaning of transfigured corporality, eternal fellowship with the redeemed, and so on: this is something we cannot concretely imagine or picture to ourselves here and now” (Rahner, , “Eternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:176Google Scholar).

78 Rahner, , “Christianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:135–53;Google ScholarImmanent and Transcendent Consummation of the World,” Investigations, 10:273–89;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 444-48.

79 Rahner, Karl, “Reflections on the Unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love of God,” Investigations, 6:231–49;Google ScholarChristian Humanism,” Investigations, 9:187204.Google Scholar

80 Rahner, Karl, “The Experiment with Man,” Investigations, 9:205–24;Google ScholarThe Peace of God and the Peace of the World,” Investigations, 10:371–88;Google ScholarThe Question of the Future,” Investigations, 12:201;Google ScholarOn the Theology of Revolution,” Investigations, 14:314–30.Google Scholar

81 Rahner, , “Christianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:144–45;Google ScholarMarxist Utopia and the Christian Future of Man,” Investigations, 6:5968.Google Scholar

82 Rahner, , “Christianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:140–43.Google Scholar See also The Theological Problems Entailed in the Idea of the ‘New Earth,’Investigations, 10:260–72;Google ScholarThe Inexhaustible Transcendence of God and Our Concern for the Future,” Investigations, 20:173–86.Google Scholar

83 Rahner, , “Christianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:149.Google Scholar See also Immanent and Transcendent Consummation of the World,” Investigations, 10:273–89.Google Scholar

84 “The resurrection … means the final and definitive salvation of a concrete human existence by God and in the presence of God, the abiding and real validity of human history” (Foundations, p. 266). See also The Resurrection of the Body,” Investigations, 2:203–16;Google ScholarJesus' Resurrection,” Investigations, 17:1623;Google ScholarThe Body in the Order of Salvation,” Investigations, 17:7189;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 266-69, 435-36; and Rahner, Karl and Weger, Karl-Heinz, Our Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 105–23.Google Scholar

85 Rahner, , “The Body in the Order of Salvation,” Investigations, 17:89.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., 88.

87 Ibid.

88 Rahner, , “The Life of the Dead,” Investigations, 4:351.Google Scholar

89 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 441.Google Scholar

90 Rahner, Karl, “Hell,” Encyclopedia, pp. 602–04;Google ScholarChristian Dying,” Investigations, 18:238–41.Google Scholar

91 Rahner, and Weger, , Our Christian Faith, pp. 120–21.Google Scholar

92 Rahner maintains, for example, that the apostolic witness to the resurrection of Jesus articulates and confirms our own transcendental hope. Foundations, pp. 264-69; Christian at the Crossroads (New York: Seabury, 1975), pp. 8793.Google Scholar See also The One Christ and the Universality of Salvation,” Investigations, 16:199224.Google Scholar

93 See Whitehead, Alfred North, Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan, 1926), p. 107.Google Scholar Whitehead writes: “It is generally held that a purely spiritual being is necessarily immortal. The doctrine here developed gives no warrant for such a belief. It is entirely neutral on the question of immortality or on the existence of purely spiritual beings other than God. There is no reason why such a question should not be decided on more special evidence.” Whitehead, however, made an even stronger allusion to the possibility of subjective immortality in Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1938)Google Scholar: “The everlasting nature of God, which in a sense is nontemporal and in another sense is temporal, may establish with the soul a peculiarly intense relationship of mutual immanence. Thus in some important sense the existence of the soul may be freed from its complete dependence upon the bodily organization” (p. 208).

An article by David Griffin makes this case most convincingly and in the most detail. See his The Possibility of Subjective Immortality in Whitehead's Philosophy,” Modern Schoolman 51 (1975), 3957.Google Scholar Other relevant writings on this issue include Ford, Lewis S. and Suchocki, Marjorie, “A Whiteheadian Reflection on Subjective Immortality,” Process Studies 7 (1977), 113;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSuchocki, Marjorie, “The Question of Immortality,” Journal of Religion 57/3 (1977), 288306;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Suchocki's later book, God, Christ, Church (New York: Crossroad, 1982).Google Scholar Robert Mellert also has an interesting discussion of the issue in his What Is Process Theology? (New York: Paulist Press, 1975), 125–29.Google Scholar See also Kinast's, RobertWhen a Person Dies (New York: Crossroad, 1984);Google Scholar and Bracken's, JosephThe Triune Symbol (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1985).Google Scholar

94 Hartshorne, , Reality as Social Process, p. 211.Google Scholar

95 Ibid., p. 253.

96 “It is precisely the essence of the personal being that he is ordained to personal communion with God in love (by nature) and must receive just this love as free gift.” Rahner, Karl, “Concerning the Relationship Between Nature and Grace,” Investigations, 1:305.Google Scholar See also Ideas for a Theology of Grace,” Investigations, 13:176–78;Google ScholarFoundations, pp. 122-24 and “Beatific Vision,” Encyclopedia, p. 79.

97 Rahner, Karl, “Theos in the New Testament,” Investigations, 1:8286.Google Scholar The fundamental notion of human openness to a possible divine self-communication forms the central theme of Rahner's early work, Hearers of the Word (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).Google Scholar

98 Rahner, Karl, “Beatific Vision,” Dictionary, p. 458.Google Scholar

99 See, for example, Cobb's, God and the World (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), pp. 100–02.Google Scholar See also Cobb's, Whitehead's Philosophy and a Christian Doctrine of Man,” Journal of Bible and Religion 32 (1964), 209–20.Google Scholar

100 Rahner, , Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 435–37;Google Scholar “Beatific Vision,” Dictionary, pp. 42-43.

101 Such metaphors as “being absorbed into deity,” according to Hartshorne, “merely evade alternatives that can be stated more directly. Such crude physical images are surely not the best our spiritual insight can suggest” (Logic of Perfection, p. 254).

102 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Phiiosophy, p. 107.Google Scholar

103 See, for example, Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 107.Google Scholar The entire White-headian system, he insists, “is built on the theory that individuality can include other individuality as such, literally have or prehend it. Individuality thus is opposed not to inner complexity but to lack of integration of this complexity. This is the doctrine which I have called the idea of the ‘compound individual,’ and there seems no doubt it is Whitehead's.”

104 Hartshorne, , Whitehead's Philosophy, p. 107.Google Scholar

105 “God goes out of himself, he himself, he as the self-giving fullness…. For this reason he is defined in Scripture as love” (Rahner, , Foundations, p. 232Google Scholar).

106 Rahner, Karl, “On the Question of Formal Existential Ethics,” Investigations, 2:226–27.Google Scholar Elsewhere, he states emphatically: “This [beatific] union of man with God and with his fellows means no loss or absorption of individuality; rather the closer man approaches to God the more his individuality is liberated and fortified” (“Heaven,” Dictionary, p. 201).

107 Rahner, , “Beatific Vision,” Encyclopedia, pp. 7880.Google Scholar

108 The differing emphases of Rahner and Hartshorne on being and becoming also affect their understanding of God, as the divine immutability issue illustrates (see note 1).

109 On the question of personal identity, see, for example, Hartshorne, Charles, “Personal Identity From A to Z,” Process Studies 2 (1972), 209–15;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hartshorne, , “Strict and Genetic Identity: An Illustration of the Relation of Logic to Metaphysics,” Kallen, Horace M., et al., Structure, Method, and Meaning: Essays in Honor of Henry M. Sheffer (New York: Liberal Arts, 1951), pp. 242–54.Google Scholar

110 For a detailed discussion of this issue, see An Investigation of the Incomprehensibility of God in St. Thomas Aquinas,” Investigations, 16:244–54;Google ScholarThe Human Question of Meaning in the Face of the Absolute Mystery of God,” Investigations, 18:89104.Google Scholar

111 Rahner, , “Eternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:172.Google Scholar On the mutual necessity and complementarity of the historical and transcendent dimensions of existence and experience, see Foundations, pp. 138-52, and “Formal and Fundamental Theology,” Encyclopedia, pp. 524-25.

112 Rahner, Karl, On Prayer (New York: Paulist, 1968), pp. 7175;Google ScholarHominisation (Freiburg: Herder; Montreal: Palm, 1965), p. 109;Google ScholarThe Comfort of Time,” Investigations, 3:145.Google Scholar

113 Hartshorne insists that the idea of heaven as a place of conscious existence in a perfected state is “largely the result of the concept of personal ‘substance’” (“Religion in Process Philosophy,” p. 264).

114 Hartshorne, , “Beyond Enlightened Self-Interest,” p. 209.Google Scholar

115 Ibid., p. 201.

116 Hartshorne, , “Religion in Process Philosophy,” p. 264.Google Scholar

117 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 247.Google Scholar

118 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 268.Google Scholar See also the references to subjective immortality in note 93. To these we could add a recent contribution by van der Veken, Jan, “Talking Meaningfully About Immortality,” in Word and Spirit 8 (Petersham, MA: St. Bede's, 1986), pp. 95108.Google Scholar

119 Rahner, , Foundations, p. 258.Google Scholar

120 Rahner, , “Eternity From Time,” Investigations, 19:177.Google Scholar

121 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 256.Google Scholar

122 Ibid., p. 251.

123 Ibid., p. 255.

124 Hartshorne, , “A Philosopher's Assessment of Christianity,” p. 177.Google Scholar

125 Hartshorne, , Logic of Perfection, p. 255.Google Scholar

126 Hartshorne, , “Philosophy After Fifty Years,” p. 151.Google Scholar

127 Ibid., p. 148.

128 Rahner, , “Heaven,” Dictionary, pp. 204–05;Google Scholar “Beatific Vision,” Encyclopedia, p. 78.

129 Rahner, , “Hell,” Encyclopedia, pp. 602–04.Google Scholar

130 Rahner, Karl, “A Brief Theological Study of Indulgence,” Investigations, 10:153.Google Scholar For Rahner's discussion of sin and its intrinsic consequences, see King, J. Norman, The God of Forgiveness and Healing in the Theology of Karl Rahner (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982).Google Scholar

131 Rahner, Karl, “Reflections on the Unity of the Love of Neighbor and the Love of God,” Investigations, 6:247.Google Scholar

132 See, for example, Rahner, Karl, “Christianity and the ‘New Man,’Investigations, 5:135–53;Google ScholarChristian Humanism,” Investigations, 9:187204;Google Scholar and On the Theology of Revolution,” Investigations, 14:314–30.Google Scholar

133 Rahner, Karl, “Christian Humanism,” Investigations, 9:189.Google Scholar