Abstract
Karl Rahner is commonly reproached, the editors assert, for treating revelation in an excessively transcendental way. God created human beings capable of transcending what they were by hearing a divine Word, however spoken, and thus of accepting grace. Rahner’s transcendental theology, the complaint goes, neglects history and the Bible. Is this fair?
This collection of thirteen essays offers a “comprehensive picture” of Rahner’s relationship to the Bible, taking advantage of the indices in the 40-volume Sämtliche Werke edition. It recounts the influence of Ignatian gospel prayer and Rahner’s correspondence with Augustin Bea (with whom he disagreed about the inspiration of Scripture).
Contributors take aim not only at Rahner’s transcendentalism, but also at his “minimalistic” approach to the Old Testament, which he considered in terms of “promise and fulfillment.” As Georg Fischer notes, Rahner regarded Israel, not as itself intrinsically meaningful, but as a preparation for Christ (154).
Rahner wanted to show that the Bible supports (or at least does not contradict) dogma. In 1951, he put Mary’s Assumption (which many considered “unbiblical”) into the New Testament context of resurrection from the dead. The concept of dying with Christ was central to his theology of death and his understanding of the Marian dogma (224).
Critics who say that Rahner prioritized transcendental revelation (God’s address to every human heart) over historical revelation (the Bible) suggest that Rahner paid insufficient attention to Jesus Christ. His anthropological turn is not unbiblical, however, and might better be called christological. For Rahner, anthropology was a “deficient Christology,” because only Christology mediates the nearness of God (87).
Rahner specialists will welcome this publication, a product of a 2022 symposium at the University of Innsbruck. Thirteen contributions appear under four headings: first, the sources of Rahner’s understanding of the Bible (Philip Endean and Michael Pfister); second, Rahner’s use of the Bible in his lectures and publications (Ursula Schumacher, Roman A. Siebenrock, Dorothea Sattler, Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, and G. Fischer); third, Rahner and the New Testament (Ansgar Wucherpfennig and Hildegard Scherer); and fourth, Rahner in dialogue with the Bible (Karl-Heinz Neufeld, Anni Findl-Ludescher, Peter Fritz, and B. Collinet).