¹ Spe Salvi no.2

² For a particularly perspicacious treatment of this theme see Endean, Philip, Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Rahner, Karl, “The Ignatian Mysticism of Joy in the World,” vol. 3, Theological Investigations, trans. Karl-H, and Kruger, Boniface (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1967) 277Google Scholar.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid. 281.

⁶ Ibid. 282, quoting DIdache 10.

⁷ Ibid. 282, quoting the General Examen in the Jesuit Constitutions.

⁸ Ibid. 283.

⁹ Ibid. 285.

¹⁰ Ibid. 286.

¹¹ Ibid. 289.

¹² Ibid. 291.

¹³ Ibid. 290.

¹⁴ The neo-Scholastics defined grace primarily as the supernatural gift of God to reasoning beings, for the purposes of salvation. There are, therefore, two kinds of grace: actual grace and sanctifying grace. Actual grace as a gratia illuminationis or gratia inspirationis in terms of the mind and will, or as a gratia praeveniens and gratia cooperans in terms of will alone, is the grace of salutary acts. Actual grace is ascribed to right action. Cf. Karl Rahner, “Nature and Grace,” vol. 4, Theological Investigations, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966), 180. The underlying anthropological point for the development of this concept was that “pure nature” cannot reliably act morally, unassisted by grace, because it is incapacitated by concupiscence, which makes free will deficient. Actual grace, therefore, heals the deficient free will and permits the person to act rightly. It is necessary for right action (against the Pelagians), gratuitous (against the Molinists) and universal (against the Jansenists).

Sanctifying grace was attributed to justification. Thus it describes the habitual state of holiness. Cf. Ott, Ludwig, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, Ill.: Tan, 1974), 230–232, 255Google Scholar. The neo-Scholastics (particularly Cajetan, Savonarola, Sylvester of Ferrara, Cano, Suarez and Gardeil) conceived of sanctifying grave as created grace (i.e. abiding virtue) as opposed to uncreated grace (i.e. the Holy Spirit). It is, therefore, the gift of the divine indwelling that makes the soul holy via efficient causality and not the divine indwelling itself. Cf. Rahner, , “Concerning the Relationship Between Nature and Grace,” vol.1, Theological Investigations, trans. Ernst, Cornelius (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961), 298–99.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Rahner, Karl, “Concerning the Relationship Between Nature and Grace,” vol. 1, Theological Investigations, trans. Ernst, Cornelius (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961), 298–99Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Rahner, “Nature and Grace,” 166. See also Rahner, “Concerning Nature and Grace,” 298f.

¹⁷ Rahner, “Nature and Grace,” 168.

¹⁸ Ibid., 177. In this Rahner follows Peter Lombard (Sent. I d. 17) who also equated sanctifying grace with gratia increata. This interpretation is contrary to Thomas, who in ST II-II, q. 23, a. 2 rejects this reading, though he still posits gratia habitualis as a participation in the divine life.

¹⁹ Rahner, “Human Question of Meaning,” 101.

²⁰ Rahner, “Nature and Grace,” 176.

²¹ Ibid., 173.

²² Rahner articulates this in terms of the Scotistic option, the unconditional predestination of the incarnation. Since for Scotus, the primary reason for the incarnation is not redemption, in terms of freedom from sin, but salvation, in terms of the completion of the cosmic order, Christ would have been incarnate whether or not there was a Fall. Of course, this position was not held only by Scotus. Dominant proponents of this position include Athanasius, Rupert of Dentz and Albert the Great. See Rahner, “Nature and Grace,” 176.

²³ Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 613–615, 741, 746, 751–753, 766, 771Google Scholar.

²⁴ Rahner, Karl, “Theology of Worship,” vol.19, Theological Investigations, trans. Quinn, Edward (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 143Google Scholar.

²⁵ Recall that the tradition holds that human beings were created via efficient causality, in which what is produced is different from and lesser than the producer (the formal cause) [Cf. Rahner, Karl, “Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace,” vol,1, Theological Investigations, trans. Quinn, Edward (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 143]Google Scholar. But if what is produced is the producer, then the mechanism must be one of formal causality [Cf. Ibid., 329]. That is, if God creates the human person and (in a separate but coextensive act) graces her with an indwelling of the Holy Spirit (as connatural, but not natural, to human being), then human beings must be created by something akin to formal causality [Cf. Ibid., 325]. And yet, human beings are not God. By virtue of grace human beings are transcendent, but a finite transcendence, while God is absolute transcendence. To preserve God's ultimate transcendence and to underscore the analogous nature of causal language used to describe God and God's actions, Rahner introduces his category of quasi-formal causality [Cf. Ibid. 330].

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Rahner, “The Unity of Spirit and Matter in the Christian Understanding of Faith,” 154. This conception is found throughout the tradition, most notably in a resistance to gnostic dualism and to Platonic interpretations that too easily reduce the Incarnation and Resurrection to purely spiritual realities. This has been asserted in patristic theology most notably by Irenaeus in the Adversus Haereses, by Justin Martyr in On the Ressurection, by Tertullian in Adversus Marcionem and Adversus Valentinianos, and by Gregory of Nyssa in the De Vita Mosis. In medieval theology, the unity of the body and the soul is affirmed quite fruitfully by Augistine Book XIX of the Civitatis Dei, by Thomas in ST I-I, q.76, by Bonaventure in the Itinerarium, and by Scotus in Book I of the Ordinatio. Anthropological unity was reaffirmed by the Thomists in the Tridentine period, and by the neothomists and transcendental Thomists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including in the thought of Rousselot, Marechal, Mariatian and Gilson (L'Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas; Le point de départ de la métaphysique, Cahiers V; Integral Humanism; and The Unity of Philosophical experience, respectively). Anthropological unity has also been affirmed more recently as the basis of female dignity and full flourishing in the thought of Elizabeth A. Johnson, as the basis of political liberation in Metz and Guttierez, and as the basis of the dignity of human sexuality in the theology of the late Pope John Paul II.

²⁸ Ibid., 156.

²⁹ This connection grounds the structure of Pope John Paul II's Fides et Ratio.

³⁰ Though Rahner posits this unthematic experience on epistemological grounds, his theological anthropology further necessitates the concept.

³¹ Rahner, Karl, “Experience of Self and Experience of God,” vol. 13, Theological Investigations, trans. Bourke, David (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975) 123Google Scholar. Here I would note that for Rahner this unthematic experience is, therefore, a “transcendental necessity” in both the philosophical and theological sense. He posits the necessity of unthematic experience as an epistemological postulate that results from his conception of knowledge. But he also asserts its necessity as an anthropological postulate that results from his conception of grace.

³² Ibid. 19.

³³ HW 18–19.

³⁴ ST 1–2, q. 95, a. 1.

³⁵ ST 1–2, q. 62, a. 1.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ ST 1–2, q. 62, a. 3.

³⁸ ST 1–2, q. 65, a. 4.

³⁹ Or, as Thomas puts it an imperfection and its corresponding perfection cannot coexist. Cf. ST 1–2, q. 67, a. 4.

⁴⁰ Pieper, Josef, “On Hope,” Faith, Hope, Love, trans. Sister McCarthy, Mary Frances S.N.D., (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 91Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Ibid. 91.

⁴² Ibid. 92.

⁴³ Ibid. 93.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Ibid. 94.

⁴⁷ Ibid. 97.

⁴⁸ Ibid. 100.

⁴⁹ Ibid. 112.

⁵⁰ Rahner, Karl, “Utopia and Reality: The Shape of Christian Existence Caught Between the Ideal and the Real,” vol. 22, Theological Investigations, trans. Donceel, Joseph (New York: Crossroad, 1991) 27Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Rahner, Karl, “Anxiety and Christian Trust in Theological Perspective,” vol, 23, Theological Investigations, trans. Riley, Hugh M. (New York: Crossroad, 1992) 7Google Scholar.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Rahner, “Utopia and Reality,” 30.

⁵⁵ Rahner, “Anxiety and Christian Trust,” 9.

⁵⁶ It is precisely this notion of trust vis a vis contingency that is so troublesome to our postmodern times. Gianni Vattimo has highlighted just this discomfiture with contingency as the central problem of secularism. Vattimo notes that “the utopian idea has always shared with metaphysics an unchallenged preference for the idea of oneness” and for this reason he finds all utopian projects suspect. And yet he holds out hope for a critical retrieval of a concept of utopia precisely because “the world itself… is given to us only to the extent that we are geworfene Entwürfe, projects brought into being despite ourselves.” And so Vattimo conceives of hope purely in a secularist sense of retrieving cultural survival narratives to combat the inescapable contingency of human existence. Cf. Gianni Vattimo, “Utopia Dispersed,” Diogenes 53 (Summer 2006), 20.

⁵⁷ Rahner, “Utopia and Reality,” 28.

⁵⁸ Ibid., 30.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 32.

⁶¹ Cf. Rahner, “Christian Pessimism.” Rahner actually seems to be laboring under a misunderstanding of the pericope, though this does not invalidate his insights in this article. Paul says in 2 Cor 1:8 that he despairs of his life because people wish to kill him, and in 2 Cor 4:8 he resists despairing of God. Rahner conflates the two passages and then mistakenly maintains that Paul is perplexed by both life and God.

⁶² Karl Rahner, “Christian Pessimism,” vol. 22, Theological Investigations, 157.

⁶³ Ibid.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Ibid. 158.

⁶⁶ Ibid. 160

⁶⁷ Ibid. 161.

⁶⁸ Thiel, John, “For What May We Hope?Thoughts on the Eschatological Imagination,” Theological Studies 67 (Summer 2006) 519CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ Pieper, “On Hope,” 97.

⁷⁰ Cf. Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 102.

⁷¹ Metz, Johannes Baptist. Faith in History and Society, trans. Smith, D. (New York: Seabury, 1980) 60Google Scholar.

⁷² Metz, Johannes Baptist, Theology of the World, trans. Doepel, W. Glen (New York:Seabury, 1973) 17Google Scholar.

⁷³ Columbo, Joseph, An Essay on Theology and History: Studies in Pannenburg, Metz and the Frankfurt School (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 61Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Metz, Theology of the World, 146–147. Cite also Guardini's End of the Modern World.

⁷⁵ Columbo, An Essay, 158.

⁷⁶ Ibid., 84.

⁷⁷ Ibid., 163.

⁷⁸ This reflects Mary Maher's delineation of Metz's thought. See Maher, , “Rahner on the Human Experience of God: Idealist Tautology or Christian Theology?” Philosophy and Theology 7 (1992), 142CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 137.

⁸⁰ Johns, Roger Dick, Man in the World: The Theology of Johannes Batist Metz (Montana: Scholars Press, 1976) 44Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Metz, Theology of the World, 64.

⁸² Metz, Faith in History, 158.

⁸³ Ibid., 163.

⁸⁴ Maher, “Rahner on the Human Experience,” 142.

⁸⁵ McKenzie, John L., “Aspects of Old Testament Thought,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary,ed. Brown, Raymond, Fitzmyer, Joseph, Murphy, Roland (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) 1300–1301Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Metz, Faith in History, 162.

⁸⁷ Note, for example, the concept of obediential potency in Rahner's anthropology. There are always operative two types of possibility: God's and humanity's. One waits for a “possible” word, a “possible” gift of self-communicative love from the God who gives himself gratuitously. In turn, human beings, through freedom, may choose to accept God's grace. But this acceptance remains a “possibility” open to human beings, requiring the right exercise of freedom for its actualization. Cf. HW.

⁸⁸ Furthermore, it betrays a contradiction within his own theology. Metz emphasizes the biblical notion of promise, and yet proclaims a future that is absolutely new. There is, therefore, little continuity in Metz theology between promise and its eschatological fulfillment.

⁸⁹ Rahner, “Ignatian Mysticism,” 293.