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FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON
AN ANALYSIS OF THE
THEOLOGICAL METHOD
OF KARL RAHNER AND EDWARD SCHILLEBEECKX
IN THE CASE OF CHRIST AND AN EXPLANATION OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM
Jptl
Lời để
chuyển ý, được ý hãy quên lời.
If you get the meaning, forget the word.
(Trang Tử)
Bè để qua sông, qua sông hãy bỏ bè.
Đừng vác bè mà đi.
After the boat carries
you across the river, leave it behind. Don’t carry the boat on your shoulder.
(Trang Tử)
“This is like a man pointing
a finger at the moon to show it to others who should follow the direction of
the finger to look at the moon. If they look at the finger and mistake it for
the moon, the lose (sight of) both the moon and the finger.”
(The Surangama Sutra).
I.
CHRIST: THE UNSURPASSABLE OF REVELATION (Karl Rahner)
a.
Transcendental anthropology
Unthematic
and categorical knowledge of God
b.
Grace as self-communication of God
c.
Jesus Christ as the absolute savior
Experiences of God through symbols
c.
Other religions willed by God
3.
Rahner’s Theological Method
II.
EXTRA MUNDUM NULLA SALUS (Ed. Schillebeeckx)
Section
I. Schillebeeckx’s Early Theology
1.
Incarnation as starting point of Christology
2.
Church as constitutive element of salvation
Section
II. Later Schillebeeckx’s Theology
1.
God’s Salvation Experienced In The World
a.
Salvation experienced in worldly reality
b.
No revelation without experience
2.
Religions- Concrete Context of Talk about God
a.
Religions- sacraments of salvation
b.
Pluralism- matter of principle
3.
Jesus- God’s Universal Love to Human Beings
a.
Jesus- God’s universal love for human beings
Theological
hermeneutics of history
III.
FINGERS POINTING TO THE MOON
c.
Religions as “fingers pointing to the moon”
2.
Fingers Compared (Rahner and Schillebeeck)
a.
The significance of different audiences
Different
transcendental conditions
b.
The significance of different methods
Transcendental
versus correlative
Christocentric
versus theocentric
3.
Theologies-- Fingers Pointing to God
a.
Audiences of various mentalities entail different theologies
Karl Rahner was born on 5th
March 1904 at Freiburg im Breisgau, West Germany. From 1922 to 1924 he did his
noviciate of the Society of Jesus in Feldkirch/Voralberg, Austria.
From 1924 to 1927 he pursued his philosophical studies at Feldkirch and Pullach
(near Munich).
From 1927 to 1929 he did his regency in teaching.
From 1929 to 1933 he studied theology at the Jesuit theologates in Valkenberg,
Holland.
On July 26th, 1932, he was ordained a priest. After his theology, he
did his tertianship.
From 1934 he began his doctoral
studies in philosophy at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where under
the direction of Martin Honecker, he wrote and defended his thesis, Geist
in Welt, in 1936. His thesis was rejected as not being a true
interpretation of Thomas.
He continued doctoral studies in
theology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. In December of 1936, received
the degree of Doctor of Theology from the University of Innsbruck. After that
he did his teaching career as lecturer in dogmatic theology at the University
of Innsbruck.
From 1939 to 1944, he lectured in
Vienna.
From 1945 to 1948, he was professor of dogmatic theology at the Jesuit
theologate in Pullach.
In 1949, he became professor of dogma and the history of dogma.
In 1964, he moved to the University of Munich to become professor of Christian
Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. In 1967, he became professor of
dogma and the history of dogma on the Faculty of Catholic theology at the
University of Münster/Westalen.
In 1969, he became a member of the Papal Theological Commission.
He died on 30th March
1984, in Innsbruck[1].
Rahner was a well-known theologian
in the second half of twentieth century. He wrote many books and articles. Most
of these articles are printed in Theological Investigations. With
his book Foundations of Christian Faith, his theological thought
is systematized.
The full name of Schillebeeckx is
Edward Cornelis Florentius Alfons Schillebeeckx. He was born in Antwerp,
Belgium, on 12 November 1914, the sixth of fourteen children. His family had
moved there from Kortenbeek because of the outbreak of the war. After the war
they returned to their home.
In 1934, he entered the Flemish
Province of the Dominican Order at Ghent. He studied philosophy and theology at
the Dominican house in Louvain, and was ordained a priest in 1941. After
completing theological study in Louvain in 1943, Schillebeeckx was assigned
immediately to teach theology in the Dominical House of Studies.
At the end of the war, he went to
Le Saulchoir, the Dominican faculty in Paris, to pursue doctoral work. He
returned to his teaching in Louvain in 1947 and began preparing his doctoral
dissertation. He had hoped to write on the relation of religion and the world
(his first published articles are on this theme), but he was going to lecture
on the sacraments, so he chose sacraments as the theme of his dissertation. He
completed his doctorate under the guidance of Chenu in 1951.
He continued to teach dogmatic
theology in the Dominican House of Studies until 1958. In this time, he also
served as Master of the Dominican students, which meant that he was responsible
for their spiritual formation. In 1956 he was appointed professor in the
Institute of Higher Religious Studies in Louvain, but a year later he was
called to the Chair of Dogmatics and the History of Theology at the Catholic
University of Nijimegen in the Netherlands. He took up the post in 1958 and was
to remain in that position until his retirement in 1983.
Schillebeeckx went to the Council
as an advisor to the Dutch bishops. Although he was never to become an official
peritus, or expert, to the Council, he lectured to large gatherings of
bishops. He wrote many books and articles, among which are Jesus
in 1974, Christ in English in 1977, Interim Report
in 1978, and Church in 1990. In 1982, he announced his retirement
from his professorship. He gave his farewell lecture in February 1983.
He was examined by the
Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in 1968, in 1976, and in 1982.[2]
God is the infinite reality
that human beings look for. However, some deny God’s existence, some doubt that
knowledge of God is possible. On the other hand, some persons in history,
mystics for instance, affirmed that they had encountered God as ineffable
Reality. These persons talked about God from their own experiences. Others
talked about the Absolute whom they recognized through natural or historical
signs.
Theology consists in words
about God.[3]
Before Christianity, there had been religions which had developed theologies,
for example, Hinduism, Judaism, others among the Ancient Greeks, etc. Human
beings’ words about God do not identify God who is infinite and ineffable, but
point to God, express God analogically or symbolicly. Theologies and their
methods are, in all religions, symbolic fingers[4]
pointing to the “moon,” which represents the Truth or the Absolute.
In the Roman Catholic Church
of our time, two well-known theologians, Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx,
whose theologies are broad and deep, strongly have exercized a great deal of
influence in the second half of the twentieth century. These two theologians
show similarities but also significant differences in their theologies. We will
examine them in this thesis.
The problem and anticipated conclusion
Rahner and Schillebeeckx are
not saying the same thing about fundamental topics. In his theology, Rahner
affirms that Jesus is the “unsurpassable climax of revelation.”[5]
Therefore, Jesus is necessary for salvation. Now that Jesus as God incarnate
has come, all religions except Christianity must disappear in principle. In
reverse, Schillebeeckx states, “As a Christian, one must never forget that
Christianity, and even the person Jesus, is not absolute or absolutely unique.
Only the God of Jesus, the Creator, the God of all people, is absolute. In
Jesus, according to Christian belief, the Absolute-- that is, God-- is
reflected in historical form and, thereby, in that which is historically
relative. For Christians, Jesus is a relative, personal manifestation of a
basic idea that is, nevertheless, absolute.”[6]
Thus, according to Schillebeeckx, Jesus reveals God but at the same time
conceals God. Therefore, religions are necessary as a matter of principle,
because many religions reflect God better than only one religion. Thus, in the
case of Christ and religious pluralism, Rahner and Schillebeeckx reach
different conclusions. For Rahner, because Jesus is the unsurpassable climax of
revelation, he is the absolute saviour, and he and the Church are necessary for
salvation. For Schillebeeckx, world religions are willed by God in principle,
and are thus legal institutions; Jesus is one among others who are at the
center of their respective religions.
My thesis will address two
interrelated questions. Why do the conclusions of these two theologians differ?
How can different conclusions coexist in one Church? I will show that they have
different audiences and therefore different theological methods. The authors’
theological methods are formed by their own global views and are influenced by
their audiences. This makes their theologies varied and rich.
Theology consists in words
about God for an audience. Audience is a very important element which
influences theological method. Given various audiences in the Church,
appropriate theologies are needed for each. Moreover, theology consists in
words about God, but God is infinite. Theology is finite as human beings are
finite, so theology reflects merely some aspects of God; it cannot completely identify
God. In her mission, the Church should talk about God to all peoples in their
own ways of thinking and in their own ideologies. Therefore, pluralism in
theology is necessary to accomplish this task.
Theological method includes
starting points of theology and ways of doing theology; therefore it is
necessary for understanding content. Knowing an author’s method, one can
understand more easily and correctly the author’s thought.[7]
Moreover, internalizing an author’s method, starting point, and theological
logic enables one to understand the author and to draw the same conclusions
that he has.
Method and projected process
In this thesis, I will
explain Rahner’s and Schillebeeckx’s theological methods through their own
writings, by retrieving the fundamental ideas of each author, by noting their
logical and theological conclusions in the case of Christ and religious
pluralism, and then by highlighting the methods which come from their inventive
imaginations.
In the chapter on Rahner’s
theology, I will present Christ as the unsurpassable of revelation by
describing God’s self-communication first, then Rahner’s theological ideas on
religions, and finally his theological method. God creates human beings by
making himself the innermost constitutive element of man. God’s
self-communication is realized through revelation in history. Finally, the
pinacle of God’s self-communication is Jesus Christ. From his position, Rahner
considers other religions inferior to Christianity, because Jesus Christ is the
head of the Church. Moreover, now that the climax of revelation has come, other
religions must disappear on principle.
In the chapter on
Schillebeeckx’s theology, I will present his later theology by describing God’s
salvation experienced in the world first, then religions as the concrete
contexts of talk about God, then Jesus as God’s universal love to human beings,
and finally his method. Christianity is considered in the global view of religions;
and Jesus is reflected on in this total view. From this theocentric view,
Schillebeeckx recognizes the necessary status of world religions as a matter of
principle.
Rahner’s and Schillebeeckx’s
theologies depend on their choice of audience, the starting points of their
theologies, and their systematic unity. Rahner’s audience is Christians whose
faith is in normal ecclesial form, so he can use Christological dogma and
transcendental anthropology as starting points of his theology. Schillebeeckx’s
audience is marginal Christians who are embedded in the scientific spirit,
believers of other confessions, and faithfull of other religions. Therefore,
Schillebeeckx takes the experience of people of yesterday in Scripture and of
people today as the starting point of his theology, thus his theology is a
hermeneutics of experience.
I will choose some special texts which reflect the authors’ ideas and methods, and, by analyzing the theological imagination reflected in them, I will show how and why differences in theology are to be expected in the same Church. I will highlight the different audiences, methods, and conclusions. It is for varied audiences of different mentalities that a pluralism of theologies is necessary, today more than ever before.
This thesis will be divided
into three chapters. The first chapter treats Rahner’s theology and method, the
second chapter focuses on Schillebeeckx’s theology and method, and the third
chapter considers theologies as “fingers pointing to the moon”.
In this first chapter, I will
treat the principal idea of Rahner’s theology, draw his conclusion on
non-Christian religions, and then highlight his theological method.
Self-communication means,
“God in his own most proper reality makes himself the innermost constitutive
element of man.”[8] In a certain
sense, the idea ‘Self-Communication of God’ touches all of Rahner’s theology.
The only really absolute mysteries are the Self-Communication of God in the depths of existence, called grace, and in history, called Jesus Christ, and this already includes the mystery of the Trinity in the economy of salvation and of the immanent Trinity. And this one mystery can be brought close to man if he understands himself as oriented towards the mystery which we call God.[9]
On this topic, I will present
Rahner’s transcendental anthropology, then God’s self-communication, and
finally Jesus as absolute savior.
For Rahner, a theology implies
a philosophical anthropology, because both are rooted in concrete life. Human
beings are subjects and persons who experience transcendental knowledge of God
and possess categorical knowledge of God.
Human beings possess
knowledge and are responsible for themselves. In other words, they are subjects
and persons. “Man experiences himself precisely as subject and person insofar
as he becomes conscious of himself as the product of what is radically foreign
to him.”[10]
Human beings possess
knowledge. Human beings have knowledge of the world and of themselves as
objects; therefore human beings are subjects. Human beings have themselves as
objects, and, in the same moment, they know that they are subjects. They are
also subjects of this consciousness. “Being a person, then, means the
self-possession of a subject as such in a conscious and free relationship to
the totality of itself.”[11]
A subject, as person, possesses herself as one and whole.
Human beings recognize
themselves as subjects and persons who are unique beings, who cannot be divided
or derived even though they are composed by many material elements.
To say that man is person and subject, therefore, means first of all that man is someone who cannot be derived, who cannot be produced completely from other elements at our disposal. When he explains himself, analyses himself, reduces himself back to the plurality of his origins, he is affirming himself as the subject who is doing this, and in so doing he experiences himself as something necessarily prior to and more original than this plurality.[12]
Human beings have
transcendental experience from which transcendental knowledge comes.
Human beings experience
themselves as limited beings. Through transcendental experience they recognize
themselves as free and responsible for themselves. They are limited because
they want to do many great things but cannot; they are limited by the freedom
of others; they want to be alive in eternity but they will die on a certain
day.
We shall call transcendental experience the subjective, unthematic, necessary and unfailing consciousness of the knowing subject that is co-present in every spiritual act of knowledge, and the subject’s openness to the unlimited expanse of all possible reality. It is an experience because this knowledge, unthematic but ever-present, is a moment within and a condition of possibility for every concrete experience of any and every object. This experience is called transcendental experience because it belongs to the necessary and inalienable structure of the knowing subject itself, and because it consists precisely in the transcendence beyond any particular group of possible objects or of categories. Transcendental experience is the experience of transcendence, in which experience the structure of the subject and therefore also the ultimate structure of every conceivable object of knowledge are present together and in identity. This transcendental experience, of course, is not merely an experience of pure knowledge, but also of the will and of freedom. The same character of transcendentality belongs to them, so that basically one can ask about the source and the destiny of the subject as a knowing being and as a free being together.[13]
Human beings experience their
limitedness but also a reality which invites them to accept themselves as
created, given, and finite. When they open themselves to the reality of which
they cannot have proofs, they transcend themselves and become truly spirit.
In the fact that he experiences his finiteness radically, he reaches beyond this finiteness and experiences himself as a transcendent being, as spirit. The infinite horizon of human questioning is experienced as an horizon which recedes further and further the more answers man can discover.[14]
Questioning and opening
themselves to the unlimited horizons of such questioning, is an act of
transcending. Human beings are transcendental beings insofar as they are
grounded in the infinity of reality. They experience themselves as limited,
created, and given, but free to receive or to say no to this experience. Human
being is free to make choices in their daily lives; this makes them to be
themselves, to be similar to or different from others. Similarly, acts of
saying no or yes to transcendental experiences make human beings really free,
and responsible for themselves.
Insofar as man is a transcendent being, he is confronted by himself, is responsible for himself, and hence is person and subject. For it is only in the presence of the infinity of being, as both revealed and concealed, that an existent is in a position and has a standpoint from out of which he can assume responsibility for himself.[15]
Categorical knowledge of God
which human beings often talk of, needs to point to transcendental experience.
Without transcendental experience, categorical knowledge has no foundation and
no meanings.
Knowledge of God and especially the existence of God are always problems for humankind. Human beings experience God through transcendental experience. This foundational knowledge of God is unthematic.
We shall be concerned later with showing that there is present in this transcendental experience an unthematic and anonymous, as it were, knowledge of God. Hence the original knowledge is not the kind of knowledge in which one grasps an object which happens to present itself directly or indirectly from outside.[16]
Rahner distinguishes between
transcendental knowledge of God and categorical knowledge of God. Knowledge of
God is a posteriori knowledge. It is not innate knowledge, as if someone who is
just been born already has an idea of God, as Plato’s and Descartes’ theories
supposed. But this knowledge of God is unthematic and transcendental. This is
different than categorical knowledge of God, which is a conceptual and clausal
interpretation about God.
What we commonly call ‘knowledge of God’ is therefore not simply the knowledge of God, but already the objectified conceptual and propositional interpretation of what we constantly know of God subjectively and apart from reflection. Knowledge of God is certainly a posteriori to the extent, on the one hand, that even the subjective act-- which by virtue of its transcendental nature always knows about God-- is historically contingent; in order to be itself this subjective act always requires an ‘objective’ object, without which it cannot exist at all, but which it experiences a posteriori. Besides this, knowledge of God is also a posteriori in so far as the conceptual and propositional objectification of the transcendental experience first needs a vehicle to pass among the a posteriori given objects of knowledge of the world, in the way expounded in detail in the classical ‘proofs of the existence of God’.[17]
Human beings know God through
a transcendental experience, but transcendental experience exists only through
the mediation of concrete reality in our world. What we usually speak of as
knowledge of God is a reflection upon man’s transcendental orientation towards
mystery. It becomes expressed as explicit, conceptual, and thematic knowledge
of God.[18]
The doctrines of religions belong to this category. These doctrines are
intelligible only when the words used point to the unthematic experience of the
ineffable mystery.[19]
In sum, transcendental
experience is a foundational experience that founds the affirmation of God’s
existence. This transcendental experience is also a foundation of Rahner’s
anthropology. Human beings, through their transcendental experience, recognize
themselves as creatures.
Let Rahner explain the
meaning of “God's self-communication” for himself:
God's self-communication means that what is communicated is really God in his own being, and in this way it is a communication for the sake of knowing and possessing God in immediate vision and love.[20]
The term “self-communication of God” should not be understood in the sense of God saying something about himself in revelation, nor in an objectivistic sense of God giving some objectified knowledge of things to human beings, but in the sense of God, as personal and absolute mystery, communicating himself to human beings as a transcendent, spiritual, and personal being.
God communicates to human
beings that which is appropriate to them, namely knowledge and freedom.
Moreover, God the “giver in his own being is the gift, that in and through his
own being the giver gives himself to creatures as their own fulfillment.”[21]
With this understanding we can say, “man is the event of God’s absolute
self-communication,”[22]
because man is a special creature to whom God gives or communicates himself.
God is really an intrinsic, constitutive principle of man existing in the
situation of salvation and fulfillment.[23]
This divine
self-communication, in which God makes himself a constitutive principle of the
created existent without thereby losing his absolute, ontological independence,
has “divinizing” effects in the finite existent in whom this self-communication
takes place. As determinations of the finite existent itself, these effects
must be understood as finite and created, but the important thing about this
divine self-communication is the relationship between God and a finite
existent.[24]
This kind of self-communication by God to a creature must necessarily be understood as an act of God’s highest personal freedom, as an act of opening himself in ultimate intimacy and in free and absolute love…Consequently, God's self-communication as a triumph over the sinful rejection of creatures must not only be understood as forgiving grace, but even prior to this it is the gratuitous miracle of God’s free love which God himself makes the intrinsic principle and the ‘object’ of the actualization of human existence.[25]
God is the best gift to human
beings. God’s grace includes not only the gift offered but also that which
makes human beings ready to receive the gift of grace. All is grace for human
beings.
God's self-communication is given not only as gift, but also as the necessary condition which makes possible an acceptance of the gift which can allow the gift really to be God, and can prevent the gift in its acceptance from being changed from God into a finite and created gift which only represents God, but is not God himself.[26]
Even though human beings only possess conditional freedom, they experience themselves at the same time as subjects who experience the event of God’s absolute self-communication, who have already responded in freedom with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to this event, and who can never completely bring the concrete and real mode of their response to the level of reflection.
Christology is the most
important part of Rahner’s theology. I will first treat Jesus’ resurrection,
then Jesus as the final prophet, and finally Jesus as the absolute savior.
The reports of Jesus’
appearances cannot at first glance be harmonized completely; hence, they are to
be explained as secondary literary devices and dramatic embellishments of the original
experience, rather than as descriptions of the experience itself in its real
and original nature. [27]
The original experiences of
the apostles are expressed by “he is alive” or “he is risen”. The story of the
appearances is a way to speak about the original experience “he is alive.”
Jesus’ resurrection does not mean that Jesus received back again his former
life, but rather final and definitive salvation.[28]
The resurrection is
understandable for someone who wants to have eternal life after this life. In
other words, hope one’s own resurrection is the transcendental horizon needed
to recognize and accept the resurrection of Jesus.[29]
If someone leads a morally bad life, consistently dedicated to doing evil
works, and does not want to survive beyond this life, it will be very difficult
for him or her to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus was a prophet. A prophet brings God’s words to concrete
historical existence and calls one to a decision.
There is present with him a new and unsurpassable closeness of God which on its part will prevail victoriously and is inseparable from him. He calls this closeness the coming and the arrival of God’s kingdom, which forces a person to decide explicitly whether or not he accepts this God who has come so close.[30]
A genuine prophet must allow God in His unlimited possibilities to be greater. The prophet speaks God’s word to a definite situation that presently exists, but then gives way to God who expresses His will to human beings of every age through the mediation of other prophets in new and different situations.
Rahner holds that Jesus’ word is final and unsurpassable. He is
a prophet who surpasses and subsumes the essence of a prophet. His word can be
understood to be definitive, not because God now ceases arbitrarily to say
anything further, although he could say more, but because the final word of God
is present in Jesus; there is nothing to say beyond what Jesus already
revealed. God has really and in a strict sense offered himself in Jesus.
Accordingly, Jesus is the final prophet.
Karl Rahner uses the term “absolute savior” to identify Jesus.
“Absolute savior” has to be understood in its historical context.
Jesus, then, is the historical presence of this final and unsurpassable word of God’s self-disclosure: this is his claim and he is vindicated in this claim by the resurrection. He is of eternal validity and he is experienced in this eternal validity. In this sense in any case he is the ‘absolute saviour.’[31]
The coming of the absolute saviour is, first of all, an
historical moment in God’s salvific activity in the world. Moreover, it makes
irreversible the history of freedom as the self-communication of God which
succeeds. Jesus is part of the history of the cosmos itself. He cannot simply
be God acting in the world, but must be part of the cosmos; his coming must be
a moment within history, and indeed its climax.[32] By the resurrection, then, what Jesus
taught and performed in his lifetime has been vindicated, particularly his
claim of being the absolute saviour.
The absolute saviour is a man who receives in his spiritual,
human, and finite subjectivity the self-communication of God in grace as the
climax of the development in which the world comes to itself and to the
immediacy of God absolutely.
Jesus has absolutely
everything that belongs to a man, including a finite subjectivity which becomes
conscious of the world as historically conditioned being, and including a
subjectivity that has a radical immediacy to God.[33]
This human reality which belongs absolutely to God is precisely what we call
hypostatic union:
If therefore, the reality of Jesus, in whom as offer and as acceptance God’s absolute self-communication to the whole human race ‘is present’ for us, is really to be the unsurpassable and definitive offer and acceptance, then we have to say: it is not only established by God, but it is God himself. But if this offer is itself a human reality as graced in an absolute way, and if this is really and absolutely to be the offer of God himself, then here a human reality belongs absolutely to God, and this is precisely what we call hypostatic union when it is understood correctly.[34]
Jesus is a man who belongs
absolutely to God, so much so that he has the hypostatic union with God, he is
the absolute saviour, he is of God, and he is God. From this understanding,
Christians can talk about the second person of God who became incarnate.
The God-Man is the initial beginning and the definitive triumph of the movement of the world’s self-transcendence into absolute closeness to the mystery of God. In the first instance this hypostatic union may not be seen so much as something which distinguishes Jesus from us, but as something which must occur once and only once when the world begins to enter upon its final phase, which does not necessarily mean its shortest phase. In this phase it is to realize its definitive concentration, its definitive climax and its radical closeness to the absolute mystery which call God. From this perspective the Incarnation appears as the necessary and permanent beginning of the divinization of the world as a whole.[35]
The incarnation is not God
drawing close to human beings for a certain time in order to save them, but,
according to the true teaching of Christianity, it is God laying hold of
matter. Jesus is truly man and everything which this implies: finiteness,
materiality, being in the world and participating in the history of the cosmos
in the dimension of spirit and of freedom, and belonging to the history which
leads through the narrow passageway of death. Through incarnation, Christians
understand the union between God and human beings.
I have described Rahner’s theology of transcendental anthropology, God’s self-communication, and Jesus as absolute savior. God creates human beings so that God can communicate and offer himself to them, particularly in Jesus as absolute savior. In and through Jesus God no longer has any new and precious to offer to human beings because Jesus as God’s self-gift is the climax of all revelations. With this theological view, Rahner draws conclusions about non-Christian religions.
In Rahner’s book Foundations
of Christian Faith, the subtopic “Jesus Christ in Non-Christian
Religions” is located in the part on Jesus Christ[36].
This means that Rahner treats the problem from a dogmatic point of view.
Rahner makes two
presuppositions in order to found a theology of “Jesus Christ in Non- Christian
Religions”. The first one is the universal and supernatural salvific will of
God truly operative in the world[37].
The second one is as follows: “when a non-Christian attains salvation through
faith, hope and love, non-Christian religions cannot be understood in such a
way that they do not play a role, or play only a negative role in the
attainment of justification and salvation.”[38]
Rahner knows that Catholic
theologies have discussed this problem in the past. Even though salvation was
bestowed on the gentiles in Acts 10, and the universality of salvation was
affirmed in saint Paul’s first letter to Timothy (1Tm.2, 4), the second Vatican
Council needed to affirm again the possibility of salvation for non-Christians
in the constitution “Lumen Gentium.”
God’s will is to save
everyone. Human beings are saved by faith, hope and love, not by laws or
religion. However, religions are means to help humankind to encounter God.
In his dissertation for his
doctorate in philosophy, Spirit in the World, Rahner studies the
following thesis of St. Thomas: “It is impossible for our intellect in the
present state of life, in which it is united with receptive corporeality, to
know anything actually without turning to the phantasms.”[39]
That means, human beings get knowledge through symbols as material signs.
Similarly human beings receive the grace of knowledge, of revelation and of
spiritual gifts through symbols or words.
A human being is corporeal
and spiritual. Human knowledge has its starting point in material objects known
through the senses.
Plato’s theory of knowledge
presupposes that human souls remember what is known in the world of ideas.
Aristotle countered this view. If someone is color blind, he cannot know the
color that his eyes cannot see. Aristotle did not look for answers in another
world but in this world. For Aristotle, and later Thomas Aquinas, the idea is
formed by the human intellect when human senses contact material things. In
this life no one can know without the senses.
We started from the fact that human knowledge is receptive. This is a basic view of the Thomist metaphysics of knowledge which it shares with Aristotle: Anima tabula rasa. All our ideas derive from a contact with the world of sense. Thomas not only rejects inborn ideas, but also another kind of objective apriorism in knowledge, namely, the intuition of the ideas in the Augustinian sense.[40]
In the area of knowledge of
God’s existence and other attributes, the human person has to transcend
creatures to recognize God and his attributes. By human love, human beings
recognize God’s love; by human generosity, human beings recognize God’s
generosity, etc.
In human life, signs and
symbols occupy an important place. As a being at once body and spirit, the
human person perceives and expresses spiritual realities through physical signs
and symbols. As a social being, we need to communicate with others through
signs and symbols like language, gestures, and actions. The same holds true for
our relationship with God.
At any rate, we have reached the following conclusion: human beings are spirits in such a way that, in order to become spirit, we enter and we have ontically always already entered into otherness, into matter, and so into the world.[41]
A human being is spirit
incarnate. That is, in transcending material objects a human being becomes
spirit. In this state of life it is impossible to separate body and spirit.
We have seen that to be a human knower, whose knowledge is essentially receptive, is thus to be a being in matter. On account of the intrinsic nature of our knowledge, our being is that of matter. In this sense, we are material beings. We must now use this deeper insight into the nature of matter to reach a metaphysical concept of human nature. To be a human is to be one among many. We are essentially in space and in time. Insofar as our quiddity is, by itself, the quiddity of matter, it is a reality that may, in principle, be identically reproduced. An individual human is, in principle, one of a kind.[42]
Human beings understand
through visible signs or symbols. Therefore, if God reveals to human beings,
God must use symbols or words. The material cosmos, trees, mountains, fire, light,
darkness, and the beauty of creatures, all reflect and speak of God to human
beings.
Human history can be regarded as a series of signs revealing the presence of God. In fact, Christian faith recognizes that God intervened in history to save Israel, escorting them to Egypt, delivering them from Egypt through Moses, saving them from various people in the time of the judges, leading them through Saul, David and other kings, guiding them from slavery in Babylon. Israel’s history was the arena in which God expressed his love to them through election, intervention, love, and grace. God’s love and grace to Israel have been expressed in Israel’s history.
If God wants to reveal God’s
self to human beings, then God must enable human beings to receive God.[43]
A human being is spirit incarnate. This means that through material objects he
understands and becomes spirit. Thus God must reveal God’s self through
material objects through which human beings can transcend the world and meet
God as transcendence. So, through creatures human beings transcend the world
and recognize God as Creator. Throughout
Israel’s history, human beings recognized God’s intervening to realize
His saving plan for human beings. And in Jesus’ death and resurrection, human
beings recognized him as God incarnate.
A symbol is something that
mediates something other than itself. A sign designates something other than
itself but it has no intrinsic connection with its referent, for example, a red
traffic light. A symbol has an intrinsic connection with what it refers to; for
example, the figure of a heart is a symbol of love, because when someone loves
his heart is affected under the emotion of love. One can distinguish between
concrete and conceptual symbols. A concrete symbol is a material thing that
mediates a real presence within itself of something other than itself. A
conceptual symbol is a concept, word, metaphor, or parable that reveals
something else and makes it present to the imagination and mind.
Creatures are symbols of God;
through them God is present to human beings who receive grace to recognize Him.
Moreover, prophets are God’s chosen persons who are representatives of God and
speak in the name of God. Jesus is symbol of God and God’s grace to human
beings.
Grace is love concretized. In
the human- divine relation, grace is God’s love expressed in a concrete way,
for example, in material and invisible gifts. Grace may be considered God’s own
self as personal gift to us. When a human being loves someone, she gives him
some gift, but at the height of her love, she gives herself. God loves human
beings, and symbols are necessary if He is to communicate this love. Symbols
are necessary for human beings to recognize God and God’s grace, because human
intellects need material objects in the process of percepting and knowing. As a
result, these symbols become sacraments or religious symbols.
The structure of human beings
is body-spirit, so human understanding and behavior is expressed through
sensible things. Therefore, religions express the human response to the
Absolute.
Yet the nature of man as a historical and social being was such that a way of salvation of this kind could not be followed in the concrete altogether in emancipation from the social and historical context of human life. Man will not work out his salvation simply by acts of religion which are purely interior. He can only do so through the sort of religion which must, of its very nature, find concrete expression in the social and institutional life of the community.[44]
Because human beings are
social, they express their beliefs in words and their attitude toward the
Absolute in rites. Rites differ according to religions and regions. Religions
are human and social facts.
The Christian Church is the
historical continuation of Christ.
The historical continuation of Christ in and through the community of those who believe in him, and who recognize him explicitly as the mediator of salvation in a profession of faith, is what we call church.[45]
According to the hierarchy of
truths in Christian doctrine, the Church is not the basis and the foundation of
Christianity, Jesus is.
Vatican II says in its Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio, (art.11) that there is an ordered structure or a “hierarchy of truths” in Catholic doctrine. If we reflect upon this, surely ecclesiology and the ecclesial consciousness even of an orthodox and unambiguously Catholic Christian are not the basis and the foundation of his Christianity. Jesus Christ, faith and love, entrusting oneself to the darkness of existence and into the incomprehensibility of God in trust and in the company of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one, these are the central realities for a Christians.[46]
Before Christianity appeared,
some other religions already existed, but Christianity still has the special
position, because Jesus Christ is the foundation of Christianity.
Rahner distinguishes the time
before and after the coming of Christ to evaluate the salvific value of
religions. Before Christ, world religions were means God used to save human
beings in their respective cultures.
Bearing this proviso in mind it can be said that if we begin by viewing the non-Christian religions before the coming of Christ then certainly we can recognize the possibility that “in themselves” and in principle they were positively willed by God as legitimate ways of salvation.[47]
“In principle they were
positively willed by God as legitimate ways of salvation.” Religions are means
of salvation that God willed. Because God wills to save all human beings; human
beings must have had some positive means of salvation available to them, giving
them the possibility of possessing true supernatural salvation; yet human beings
are social beings, therefore they express their religious acts in the social
and institutional life of the community that are religions.
Now that Jesus Christ has
appeared, Christianity is the only one willed by God, and so “in principle and
in themselves” other religions are overtaken and rendered obsolete.
It can and must be said that these non-Christian religions are in principle, and in themselves, overtaken and rendered obsolete by the coming of Christ and by his death and resurrection. This is because in fact all of them, even in those elements of truth and goodness which they possess, were only provisional manifestations, destined to be replaced, of that divine self-bestowal which is present in the innermost depths of the history of mankind and its religion, sustaining it, actively influencing the forms which it assumes, and finally coming to its full and definitive manifestation in Jesus Christ.[48]
In principle, when the main person appears the preparation has to be ended. Therefore when Jesus Christ appears, all religions must disappear because they were provisional manifestations destined to be replaced. That is in the logical field. In reality, other religions still exist. Nobody knows whether they will disappear or not.
In any case even today, and after the coming of Christ, it is still perfectly conceivable that a non-Christian religion still exercises a positively saving function for the individual. Indeed the Second Vatican Council explicitly states that God does not refuse salvation to a man who, through no fault of his own, has still not attained to any explicit acknowledgment of God, who, in other words, so far as the level of his conscious awareness is concerned, must be called an “atheist”.[49]
Why do other religions still
exist if they in principle have to disappear? Not until an individual, on any
occasion, recognizes Jesus as absolute saviour, does he puts away his old
religion. Only when the last person converts to the Gospel of Jesus, will
religions disappear. Nobody knows when it will happen or whether it will
happen. In that day there will no longer be anonymous Christians.
There is one other question.
If other religions still exist now that Jesus has appeared, and if
non-Christian religions have positive roles as salvific means,[50]
then “how is Jesus Christ present and operative in the faith of the individual
non-Christian?”[51]. The answer
is: “with the presuppositions and within the limits set above, Christ is
present and operative in non-Christian believers and hence in non-Christian
religions in and through his Spirit.”[52]
I have expounded Rahner’s
ideas on God's self-communication and non-Christian religions, I will now
reflect on his theological method.
Theology consists in words
about God by and for human beings. Therefore it depends upon human beings, with
their various cultures, as the audience to whom theologians talk about God.
First I examine Rahner’s audience, then Rahner’s theological method.
The audience of Karl Rahner
in Foundations of Christian Faith is readers who are educated and
not afraid to wrestle with an idea. In this book, Rahner wrote:
For whom has this book been written? That is not an easy question to answer even for the author…The author would like to address himself to readers who are educated to some extent and who are not afraid to “wrestle with an idea,” and he simply has to hope that he will find readers for whom the book is neither too advanced nor too primitive.[53]
Moreover, his readers were
supposed to be Christians sharing the same Christian faith as Rahner:
We are supposing here the existence of our own personal Christian faith in its normal ecclesial form, and we are trying, thirdly, to reach an idea of this.[54]
When treating the Christ in
world religions, Rahner treats Him from the dogmatic point of view, because in
the non-dogmatic point of view, all religions are equal, and Christ has no
priority over other religions.
The first thing to be emphasized is that we are dealing here with an inquiry in dogmatic theology, and not in the history of religion or in the phenomenology of religion.[55]
Rahner’s audience is made up
of Christians who share the same Christian faith with him, even when he treats
the problem raised by religions.
Even for Rahner himself, it
is difficult to talk about his theological method. He said in ”Reflections
on Methodology in Theology” in 1969 that “the only book which I have
published with a systematic overall plan is that entitled Hearer of the Word,
and consists of a small outline of a philosophy of religion written more than
thirty years ago.”[56]
In 1976 Rahner published Foundations of Christian Faith, and in
it we can find his idea of systematic theology. Rahner asked himself:
Have I, in fact, any theological method which is in some sense peculiar to my theology, or is my theological method simply that which any Catholic theologian conditioned by tradition applies, and that too without any further or more far- reaching reflection upon it?[57]
Of first importance in Rahner’s theology is transcendental anthropology and the tradition, especially regarding the ideas found in Christian dogma. Christology assumes an important place in Rahner’s theology. In Christ, Christians find answers to other theological problems. For example, because Jesus is the climax of all revelation, other religions are in principle taken over and rendered obsolete.
Rahner thinks that theology
and anthropology interlock with each other. Transcendental anthropology
reflects on the invariant and universal structure underlying all the ideas that
human beings have of themselves, all their beliefs and social relations.
Rahner’s anthropology thus starts with epistemology.
Rahner’s anthropology is
grounded by the “evident” truth that human beings are subjects and persons.
They are subjects because they possess knowledge; they are persons because they
are free and responsible for themselves and for what they do.
Human beings obtain knowledge
from sensible experiences, and knowledge of transcendence from sensible symbols
through transcendental experience. Consequently, by transcendental knowledge
human beings are transcendent beings, spirits incarnate; by transcendental
experience, and thereby transcendent knowledge, knowledge of God is no longer a
supposition or logical reality, but a reality experienced.
There is some similiarity
between the personhood of human beings and the personhood of God , but there is
more difference than similarity. In any case, Rahner’s transcendental
anthropology is incorporated into his transcendental theology. In this sense,
we can say that Rahner’s transcendental theology is foundational, because it
started with human beings and with truths about human beings which everyone can
agree upon.
Rahner teaches and writes
theology for Christians. Even Foundations of Christian Faith, as
“foundation,” is for educated Christians. Dogma is a constitutive
presuppositional element in Rahner’s theology: “Up to this point we have taken
as our starting point the explicit teaching of Christian faith.”[58]
In the case of Christology,
Rahner’s starting point is not only ascending, but also descending, even though
he sees the importance of the historical Jesus:
In giving a justification for our faith in Christ, the basic and decisive point of departure, of course, lies in an encounter with the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and hence in an “ascending Christology.” To this extent the terms “incarnation of God” and “incarnation of the eternal Logos” are the end and not the starting point of all Christological reflection. Nevertheless, we need not exaggerate the one-directional nature of such an ascending Christology. If Jesus as the Christ has ever actually encountered someone, the idea of a God-Man, of God coming into our history, and hence a descending Christology, also has its own significance and power. If in what follows, then, ascending Christology and descending Christology appear somewhat intermingled, this is to be admitted without hesitation at the outset. It need not be a disadvantage, but rather it can serve as a mutual clarification of both of these aspects and both of these methods.[59]
Rahner’s statement, “giving a
justification for our faith in Christ,” reveals that Christians can justify for
themselves why they believe in Christ. This justification is not made
principally for non-believers, but for believers. One more thing needs to be
noted. Rahner says that, “If Jesus as the Christ has ever actually encountered
someone, the idea of a God-Man, of God coming into our history, and hence a
descending Christology, also has its own significance and power.” This means
that Rahner’s theology, and particularly Christology, is based on the encounter
of Jesus Christ with the first apostles, which is a belief of Christians.
Rahner’s theology is
dogmatic. Therefore, "foundational" in Rahner’s theology does not
mean that theology is based on a completely rational foundation. If this were
so, theology would not be theology but philosophy. Philosophy is rational, but
theology is both rational and dogmatic.
For if our intention were to deduce the doctrine of Incarnation as a cogent inference from an evolutionary view of the world, then we would be making an attempt at theological rationalism, an attempt to turn faith, revelation and dogma into philosophy, or to reduce the ultimately irreducible facticity of concrete history into speculation and metaphysics.[60]
Rahner’s dogmatic theology is
Christological. From the perspective of his Christological dogma, Rahner has a
global view and consequently draws conclusions about all other problems.
We can recognize the
following structures in Foundations of Christian Faith: first, by
transcendental anthropology and theology, Rahner develops the foundation for,
or the possibility of, a human being’s listening to the event of Jesus Christ.
Second, by historical method he inquires into the event of Jesus Christ as
historical event and the historical encounter of Jesus Christ with human
beings.
After justifying Christian
faith as belief in Jesus Christ as the climax of all revelation, as God
incarnate, Rahner draws conclusions on the position of Jesus relative to other
religions.
Rahner does not begin his
Christology with Chalcedon’s dogma, but with New Testament testimonies, and
with the historical Jesus.[61]
Guided by historical method when inquiring about the historical Jesus, Rahner
nevertheless proceeds by way of Christological dogma:
The method of procedure in this section is very difficult because, precisely in view of our previous reflections, in this topic the two moments in Christian theology reach their closest unity and their most radical tension: first, essential, existential-ontological, transcendental theology, which must develop in a general ontology and anthropology an a priori doctrine of the God-Man, and in this way try to construct the conditions which make possible a genuine capacity to hear the historical message of Jesus Christ, and an insight into the necessity of hearing it; and, secondly, plain historical testimony about what happened in Jesus, in his death and resurrection, and about what in its unique, irreducible and historical concreteness forms the basis of the existence and of the event of salvation for a Christian. Consequently, at this point what is most historical is what is most essential.[62]
Transcendental and historical
methods are mixed in Rahner’s Christology. Transcendental method is used to
explain the possibility of listening to revelation, while historical method is
used to situate or describe the historical concreteness of Jesus as event.
We are really asking a transcendental question, but it has a historical concreteness in the hearer, in the questioning subject, and we shall characterize this concreteness as the situation of an evolutionary view of the world.[63]
The foundations of Rahner’s
Christology lie in the encounter between Jesus Christ and the apostles.
Therefore, Christology is the foundation of all his other theological conclusions.
In this first chapter, I have
treated the principal idea of Rahner’s theology: grace as self-communication of
God. Human beings have God as part of their nature: “God in his own most proper
reality makes himself the innermost constitutive element of man.”[64]
The high point of grace for human beings is Jesus Christ who is so close to God
that people can say that he is God incarnate; he is hypostaticly united with
God. In other words, Jesus Christ is the absolute savior and therefore the
unsurpassable climax of revelation. From this position, Rahner considers world
religions as inferior to Christianity. Believers in non-Christian religions
receive salvation through Christ even though they don’t know that. They are
anonymous Christians because “Christ is present and operative in non-Christian
believers and hence in non-Christian religions in and through his Spirit”. They
are saved through symbols in their religions because the symbol-grace structure
is the way God wills to bestow grace on humankind. The starting point of
Rahner’s theology is transcendental anthropology and dogma, especially
Christological dogma. Rahner is a transcendental and dogmatic theologian. His
book is entitled Foundations of Christian Faith; however, his
"foundations" is more for Christians than for non-Christians.
In this second chapter I
treat Schillebeeckx’s theology in which I recognize two phases, early and late.
In the first section I will describe generally the Schillebeeckx’s early
theology, and in the second section I will treat the theology of
Schillebeeckx’s later periode.
Edward Schillebeeckx in the
early time of his life adopted the Christological dogma of Chalcedon as the
starting point of his theology, and thus showed the Church to be a constitutive
element of salvation.
Schillebeeckx’s theology
presupposes the following fundamental ideas. He writes, first, “We are able to
reach God only by way of creatures, this desire is by its nature powerless.”[65]
He also says: “Personal communion with God is possible only in and through
God’s own generous initiative in coming to meet us in grace.”[66]
Human beings can only have knowledge of God through creatures. By their
capacity human beings cannot attain God. The personal relation between God and
human beings is God’s grace.
Salvation possesses a
sacramental character that requires religion as a means. Religion is above all
a saving dialogue between man and the living God. It is therefore essentially a
personal relationship between man and God, a personal encounter or a personal
communing with God.[67]
Grace never comes only interiorly. To separate religion from Church is
ultimately to destroy the life of religion. If one is to serve God, to be
religious, one must also live by Church and sacrament.[68]
Young Schillebeeckx’s
Christology started with the dogmatic definition of Chalcedon, “one person in
two natures”.
The incarnation is the whole life of Christ, from his conception in the womb, through all his further life of action, completed finally in his death, resurrection and being established as Lord and sender of the Paraclete; it is prolonged everlastingly in his uninterrupted sending of the Holy Spirit.[69]
From this incarnational view,
Schillebeeckx built his Christology. Jesus is God incarnate, so acts of Jesus
are acts of God. Jesus expresses the love of God the Father to human beings.[70]
Jesus’ death became the means of redemption.[71]
Christ is the sacrament by which human beings encounter God. The Church,
established by Christ as His presence in the world, is the sacrament by which
human beings encounter God as well.
For young Schillebeeckx, the
Church is constitutive of all human salvation. Jesus Christ is one person in
two natures. He is God in a human way, and He is man in a divine way.
Everything he does as man is an act of the Son of God. His love for human
beings is God’s love for humankind. Jesus Christ is the sacrament by which God
wants to save human beings.
The Church is the People of God. Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection, became the head of the People of God. The earthly Church is the visible realization of this saving reality in history. It is a visible communion in grace, and is the visible expression of Christ’s grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society that is a sign. Thus Schillebeeckx says that “The Church therefore is not merely a means of salvation. It is Christ’ salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this word. Thus it is, by a kind of identity, the body of the Lord.”[72] He also emphasizes that “What Christ is doing invisibly in this world through his Spirit, he is at the same time doing visibly through the mission of his apostles and of the members of the Church community.”[73] So that, finally, he holds that “The earthly body of the Lord, the Church, is at the same time the Lord’s pleroma; being filled with Christ, it in turn fills the faithful.”[74] The Church realizes the redemptive work of Christ by celebrating the sevenfold ecclesial realization found in seven sacraments.
Therefore, nobody, even those
outside of the Church, can be saved without Jesus Christ who is the Son of God
incarnate. Nobody can be saved without belonging to the Church, which implies a
personal relationship between man and God.[75]
“If one is to serve God, to be religious, one must also live by Church and
sacrament.”[76] The Church
is the constitutive means that God uses to save all human beings.
Religion and Church are the
sacraments of salvation in the world. Thus, in his early theology,
Schillebeeckx wrote that the Church is “a visible communion in grace;”[77]
it is Jesus’ redemptive community, established by God, and having Jesus Christ
as its head. The Church, assembled in his death, is “the visible expression of
Christ’s grace and redemption, realized in the form of a society which is a
sign (societas signum).”[78]
The Church, therefore, is not merely a means of salvation, but “Christ’s
salvation itself, this salvation as visibly realized in this world. Thus it is,
by a kind of identity, the body of the Lord.”[79]
For the early Schillebeeckx,
the audience of his writings consists in Christians. In this respect one can
recognize a similarity between Rahner and Schillebeeckx. His later theology
appears more distinctive in contrast to his early audience, method, and
conclusions.
There
is a shift of audience for Schillebeeckx’s later writings. The audience of
early Schillebeeckx is Christians with a traditional mentality, while the
audience of later Schillebeeckx is Christians of a post-modern mentality or, in
his own language, “marginal” Christians of the Church. In his response to CDF,
he said his theology has “non-believers and marginal Catholics” as its
audience.[80] Moreover, in the foreword of Jesus
Schillebeeckx wrote: “The book has been written in such a way as one might
suppose would put the contents within reach of anybody interested. (Theological
jargon has been avoided as much as possible; but it seemed impossible at times
to do without it. Therefore definitions of certain technican terms have been
provided at the back of the book).”[81] In Interim Report on the books Jesus
&Christ Schillebeeckx stated that theology is for people of the
present time, so Schillebeeckx’s theology is for people of this generation:
“Finally, no one writes a Christology for eternity, but for the good of people
alive now, hoping that in it he will make audible the echo of the apostolic
faith.”[82] In the book Church: The human Story
of God he wrote: “So I hope that the book will be useful to many
people. As far as I am concerned, it is a Christian confession of faith of a
consistently rational theologian, who is conscious of standing in the great
Catholic tradition on the basis of which he may be able to, indeed has to, say
something- as an offer- to his fellow men and women.”[83] Thus, Schillebeeckx’s audience is people of
mordern times. Non-believers, marginal Catholics, and Christians of the modern
world are living and thinking in the way of modern science. They do not accept
Christian belief simply on the authority of others, but accept only what they
see or experience in their daily lives, what can be experimented on or proved.
Therefore, Schillebeeckx took as the starting point of his theology this
secularized world with its experiences as data for theological reflection.
In this second section, I present Late Schillebeeckx’s theology,
focusing on, first, God’s salvation experienced in this world; second,
religions as the concrete context of talk about God; and third, Jesus as God’s
universal love for human beings.
By quoting the Council of
Florence-Ferrara in the fifteenth century and the Second Vatican Council on the
salvation of gentiles[84],
Schillebeeckx shows that he does not only use dogma but also human experience
in the world as the starting point of his theology. For him, human beings look
for salvation and God’s revelation through both positive and negative
experiences in the world.
Salvation is something that human beings search for in this
world. Salvation history consists in events which liberate men and women.[85] Human history is God’s saving history.[86] God brings salvation to men and women is in
this world, even though it is not totally fulfilled in this world. If human
beings do not get salvation in this world, they will not get it after death. Salvation starts in this world:
extra mundum nulla salus. Human beings experience salvation in their daily
lives. Every human being experiences salvation in this world, even if they are
not incorporated in any religion.
The world and human history in which God wills to bring about salvation are the basis of the whole reality of faith; it is there that salvation is achieved in the first instance… or salvation is rejected and disaster is brought about. In this sense it is true that extra mundum nulla salus, there is no salvation outside the human world. The world of creation, our history within the environment of nature, is the sphere of God’s saving action in and through human mediation. The history of the religions is only one segment of a broader history; the religions are the place where men and women become explicitly aware of God’s saving actions in history.[87]
God creates human beings to be master of their actions. Human
beings shape the world and its future, and carry out their plans in concrete
and variable situations. Human beings are unique and multifaceted, so their
salvation must include all kinds of human aspects and dimensions. The salvation
that human beings look for is not only for their souls but also for their bodies,
not only for themselves as individuals but also for their families and
societies, not only for themselves but for all humanity as well.
Christian salvation is salvation of and for human beings, not simply the salvation of souls but the healings, making whole, wholeness, of the whole person, the individual and society, in a natural world which is not abused. Thus Christian salvation also comprises ecological, social and political aspects, though it is not exhausted by these.[88]
In this world human beings experience success and failure,
energy and depression, joy and sadness, hope and despair. They experience both
evil and goodness, but evil strikes them more powerfully. However, human beings
try to liberate themselves from evil in their daily lives. The “no” human
beings say to evil is sometimes revealed through a sigh of compassion when they
see others suffer. Human beings experience salvation not only in the future but
also now in worldly reality. Salvation is not merely intellectual, a matter of
ideas, but is experienced in concrete living. In certain sense, God is not only
the ground of salvation but also the very salvation for men and women.
Salvation from God comes about first of all in the worldly reality of history, and not primarily in the consciousness of believers who are aware of it. The cognitive sense of this is, of course, itself a separate gift, the significance of which we may not underestimate. But where good is furthered and evil is challenged in the human interest, then through this historical practice the being of God- God as salvation for men and women, the ground for universal hope- is also established and men and women also appropriate God’s salvation- in and through acts of love. Human history, the social life of human beings, is the place where the cause of salvation or disaster is decided on.[89]
Salvation does not consist only in awareness, but in a person’s
total lived experience. We cannot separate these two dimensions.[90] Salvation is not experienced only in
religion, but also in the world of human existence. The field where salvation
is experienced is broader than religion. It is the whole world, human and
secular. Salvation depends upon God and has its effects among human beings. It
exists within human life.
We cannot reduce the active saving presence of God to our awareness or our experience of this presence, which challenges us to make sense. Nor can we reduce salvation from God to the particular places of salvation that we call religions. Salvation history cannot be reduced to the history of religions or to the history of Judaism and Christianity. For the whole of secular history is itself already under the guidance of the liberating God of creation. Moreover the first place where salvation or disaster comes about is our co-called ‘secular history’, of which God is the liberating creator, but also the verdict on the history of disaster brought about by men and women.[91]
The world as it is, created
by God, reflects God and becomes the locus where human beings encounter God and
perfect themselves. The finitude of human beings does not come from any source
but God. Creation is a symbol of God’s presence in reality, because God is both
transcendent and immanent in the world. Therefore, in and through creatures,
even in and through their finitude, human beings recognize and depend upon God.
Here Schillebeeckx uses the term “authorities”, meaning, Scripture and
Christian tradition. “Nature and history are authorities in which and through
which God discloses himself as creator, in and through our fundamental
experiences of finitude.”[92]
Experiences that everyone
encounters must be used as theological data, as the starting point of theology.
Human experience in this world is an important element in Schillebeeckx’s
theology.
Salvation and revelation are
experienced in the daily lives of human beings. What was experience for
primitive Christians is for us today revelation or tradition. There can be no
revelation without experience.[93]
By evil and good, negative and positive experiences in daily life, the people
of yesterday received revelation and the people of today understand the
traditions that people of yesterday experienced. Experience is authoritative
for people today.
The authority of experiences therefore culminates in human stories of suffering: stories of suffering over misfortune and failure, the suffering of pain, the suffering of evil and injustice, the suffering of and in love, sorrow or guilt. Here lie the great elements of the revelation of reality in and through finite human experiences.[94]
Revelation pre-supposes
experiences. These experiences, described in first person language, come from
witnesses. The experiences of witnesses become testimonies for believers who
hear and answer by faith. One can receive revelation by hearing of the
experiences of another, but the believer himself has to live that experience.
“Faith comes from hearing, but it is completed and mediated only in a personal
experience”[95].
Through revelation, human
beings have faith in ultimate Reality. Christian revelation includes the
experiences of Abraham, Moses, God’s people during the Exodus and throughout
the history of Israel, and the apostles and early disciples of Jesus.
Therefore, Christianity is a religion of revelation in history and based on
experiences. Revelation is found in very important experiences that help human
beings to recognize God working in the world. Experiences of men and women
yesterday as revelation are tradition for us now. These experiences
constituting revelation and tradition are another important element in
Schillebeeckx’s theology.
Today, the negative
experiences that culminate in human histories of suffering cause us to revise
previous insights, and create an opportunity to accept and understand
revelation.
The great moments of the revelation of reality lie here in and through the finite experiences of human beings… The deepest experiences that dislocate and bear along our lives are thus also conversion experiences, cross-experiences that force us to a change of meaning, action and being. Such experiences destroy and fragment us, but only for the sake of leading to a new integration. [96]
Because the created world is
the work of God from the first, the secularized world includes positive
phenomena through which human beings can experience God. The laws of nature,
for example of physics, of psychology etc., apply to human beings, but human
beings are free and responsible. Today human beings take reason as the most
precious standard of truth. Consequently, for some people, Christian beliefs
are not of the same value as they were in former times. Everything is created
by God, and is therefore a vestige of God. Thus Christians can talk about God
to other human beings through the creatures of the secularized world. The fact
that human beings today live according to reason is a sign of human beings’
development. We have to believe that human beings of today are guided by God,
even when they accept reason and personal experience more than statements based
on authority.
In searching for the elements of secular experience which could point toward mystery, theological analysis should begin with man’s basic pre-reflexive trust in life and his self-commitment to the goodness and meaningfulness of human existence.[97]
By rightly interpreting the phenomenon of secularization, and believing that God always works in his creatures, Christians will be optimistic about the future of humanity.
Human
beings cannot detach themselves from God. Human beings perform good and evil
actions in the world. God creates human beings and assists them to liberate
themselves from evil. The struggle human beings engage in against injustice and
evil is realized with God’s help. Because this world is created by God, the
work of human beings to liberate humankind from evil is permanently inspired
and directed by God. Therefore human beings can recognize God and his action in
and through worldly reality and their own work against injustice and evil.
According to Schillebeeckx, the world and the people of today are the
theological locus for reflection and thought. The Church and its dogma are no
longer the only standards of truth.[98]
People in the world today
live in close communication with other people and cultures. The multiplicity of
religions is more than a historical fact. Pluralism is
a mentality of present-day people.
According to Schillebeeckx, religions are
sacraments of salvation, the multiplicity of religions is necessary, and the
Christian Church is one among others.
Salvation from God comes about in the first place in the worldly
reality of history. Through creatures and through human work in daily life God
comes to human beings. Religions and
churches are not themselves salvation, but are of the order of signs; they are
sacraments of salvation.[99] Only God is salvation for and of men and
women.
Religions, churches, are not themselves salvation but a ‘sacrament’ of the salvation that God brings about in his created world through the mediation of men and women in very particular contexts in which they live… Religions, churches, are of the order of ‘signs’, sacraments of salvation. They are the explicit identification and ultimate fulfilment of that salvation.[100]
Belief is a constitutive element of all religions. Belief in
God, as the ground and source of our world and the history of human liberation
in the midst of all kinds of chance, determination, and indeterminacy, is not
merely a belief in the existence of God. The basic belief of religions is that
God loves human beings and wills to save them.
It is belief in God as salvation of and for human beings whom he brought to life in this world. It is a belief in God’s absolute saving presence among men and women in their history.[101]
The world of creation is the sphere of God’s saving action in
and through human mediation. God’s saving acts are found in all of human
history, and history is broader than religions. Even if one does not belong to
any religion, she can still receive salvation through worldly reality.
Religions are small fields where God acts to save human beings.
The history of the religions is only one segment of a broader history; the religions are the place where men and women become explicitly aware of God’s saving actions in history.[102]
Because men and women come to religion through experiences of their fellow human beings and the world, this mediation through the world at the same time explains the difference between the various religions. Moreover, the rise of a multiplicity of religions can be explained from this same source from which religion as such comes into being: the multiplicity of human experiences of human beings and the world within particular divergent human traditions of experience. Talking about God on the basis of human experiences is essential bound up with making it possible to discuss worldly experiences in religious terms. And despite a universal basic human pattern (one which can never be ‘abstracted’ but always has specific content), human experiences always have a social and historical, indeed also a geographical, colouring. All that also produces variations in the universal human religious theme.[103]
According to
Schillebeeckx’s view, pluralism help us to better understand God. Religions are
necessary for human beings and cannot be eliminated. Pluralism is a matter of
principle. One religion cannot describe God as well as many religions.
People today, with their understanding of human history,
recognize the limitedness of every religion. Pluralism is a part of people’s
experience.
Pluralism is to be found within us as cognitive reality. That modern men and women, including believers, as it were spontaneously reject the theory that ‘salvation is to be found only within the church’ points to a spontaneous, pre-theoretical position as part of the structure of their own personality structure. They themselves think in pluralistic terms and know that no one has rights over the truth- although in that case there is then a threat of what is called indifferentism: to each his or her truth.[104]
Human beings have religious experiences, and then express them
in languages and doctrine.
Religious experiences are translated into the language of faith, into statements of faith, and now and then even into dogmas; they are ultimately also thematized in well-ordered theological views- in a constantly diminishing certainty of faith and inscreasing human risk.[105]
However, we need to distinguish between a real referent and an
ideal referent.[106] In other words, God and ideas about God are
two very different things. One is being outside the human mind, and the other
is being within human mind. God exists independently of human consciousness or
knowledge.
The fact that humanity has so many religions with all kinds of images of God does not in itself tell us whether or not God exists … The reality of God is independent of our human consciousness, independent of our expression of God; on the other hand, our talk of God is also dependent on the historical context in which we talk of God …Moreover, as reality God transcends all our thought and reflections; nowhere do we hear his voice or see his face. As a reality God cannot be verified; he is even a matter of controversy to human beings.[107]
For Schillebeeckx, there is more religious truth in all the
religions taken together than in one particular religion, and therefore other
religions need to exist on principle: “pluralism is a matter of principle.”
As a consequence of all this we can, may and must say that there is more religious truth in all the religions together than in one particular religion, and that this also applies to Christianity. There are therefore ‘true’, ‘good’, and ‘beautiful’-surprising- aspects in the manifold forms of relationship with God (present in humankind), forms which have not found any place in the specific experience of Christianity and are not finding one now. There are differences in people’s experience of their relationship to God, differences which cannot be smoothed over, for all the inherent similarities to other experiences. There are different authentically religious experiences which Christianity, precisely because of its historical particularity, has never thematized or put into practice.[108]
Therefore, religions are in God’s plan, not only before but also
after Jesus’ appearance in the world. Religions continue to exist in human
history because they express the diversity of God’s ineffability.
That is why I said that the multiplicity of religions is not just a historical fact that must be transcended, but a matter of principle. There are authentic-religious experiences in other religions which are never realized or thematized in Christianity and, I added, perhaps cannot be without robbing Jesus’ identification of God of its distinctiveness.[109]
Truly, religions express God in different languages, different
cultures. “Religions are the concrete context of talk about God.”[110]
The Church is not seen as a superior way or the one true
religion which excludes all other religions. The Church is not superior to them
at all. Nobody could destroy other religions in the name of the Church as the
only one true Church.[111]
Though recognizing the claim of the uniqueness of Christianity,
Schillebeeckx thinks that the acceptance of the differences between religions
is implicit in the nature of Christianity. “The problem is, rather, how can
Christianity maintain its own identity and uniqueness and at the same time
attach a positive value to the difference of religions in a non-discriminatory
sense?”[112] Schillebeeckx’s answer is that the
distinctive and unique feature of Christianity is in Jesus of Nazareth.
The special, distinctive and unique feature of Christianity is that it finds the life and being of God specifically in this historical and thus limited particularity of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’- confessed as the personally human manifestation of God. In it there is a confession that Jesus is indeed a ‘unique’, but nevertheless ‘contingent’, i.e. historical and thus limited, manifestation of the gift of salvation from God for all men and women.[113]
Christianity consists in the experiences of the apostles with
Jesus. They recognize that Jesus is a special man that God encounters and
reveals himself as salvation for men and women.
In this respect, the essential feature of the Christian revelation is that on the basis of the experience of an encounter with Jesus his followers claim that in this man, in his life and message, in his action and the way in which he died, in his whole person as a human being, God’s purposes with men and women and in them God’s ‘own character’ have become revelation, have been brought to human consciousness in the highest degree: according to this experience of faith Jesus is the place where in a decisive way God has revealed himself as salvation of and for men and women. Christians experience Jesus as the supreme density of divine revelation in a whole history of experiences of revelation.[114]
In sum, Christianity, Christians experience Jesus as the supreme
density of divine revelation in a whole history of experiences of revelation.
Christians find God above all in Jesus Christ.[115]
Schillebeeckx likes to
explain why Jesus is the only way of life for Christians, and other religions
are ways for non-Christian believers. This Christology prevents Christians from
discriminatiing against other religions, and help them to recognize what is
distinct in Christianity.
We have to be able to explain why Jesus, confessed as the Christ, is the only way of life for us, though God leaves other ways open for others. We also have to explain why we are and remain sincere Christians without regarding non-Christians as heretics or discriminating against them.[116]
In this section on Jesus, we
will describe Jesus as God’s universal love for human beings, and Jesus as the
redeemer of Christians.
Schillebeeckx agrees with
Aloysius Pieris: “God has shown us his face in the man Jesus”. In his own
language, “Jesus is God’s universal love for men and women.” Through Jesus,
Christians recognize God’s eternal plan to save mankind. God’s salvation is
offered to everyone, to all human beings.
The God of all men and women shows in Jesus of Nazareth who he is, namely, universal love for men and women. Jesus Christ is the historical, culturally located expression of this universal message of the gospel.[117]
Through Jesus, Christians
know God deeply, and again in Schillebeeckx’s terms, “Jesus is the definition
of God”. Jesus’ person points to God, reveals God, but at the same time
conceals God because of Jesus’ own contingency, his human finitude. Because
Jesus is human, his reflecting of God is limited, and thus other religions are
necessary for talk about God. Therefore, the multiplicity of religions is a
matter of principle. This means Jesus and Christianity do not take the place of
other religions.
For Christians, Jesus is the definition of God; otherwise their Christology makes no sense. At the same time, for Christians too, this is a definition of God in non-divine terms, namely in and through the historical contingent humanity of Jesus. The definition of God which appears in Jesus finally points to an elusive, invisible God who escapes all identifications; otherwise ‘mysticism’ makes no sense. That is why I said that the multiplicity of religions is not just a historical fact that must be transcended, but a matter of principle. There are authentic-religious experiences in other religions which are never realized or thematized in Christianity and, I added, perhaps cannot be without robbing Jesus’ identification of God of its distinctiveness.[118]
God reveals himself through
Jesus of Nazareth. In and through the career of Jesus of Nazareth, God allows
himself to be identified. Therefore we have simply to decipher the image of God
that is given to us.[119]
The revelation of God in Jesus, as the Christian gospel preaches this to us, in no way means that God absolutizes a historical particularity (even Jesus of Nazareth). We learn from the revelation of God in Jesus that no individual historical particularity can be said to be absolute, and that therefore through the relativity present in Jesus anyone can encounter God even outside Jesus, especially in our worldly history and in the many religions which have arisen in it. The risen Jesus of Nazareth also continues to point to God beyond himself. One could say: God points via Jesus Christ in the Spirit to himself as creator and redeemer, as a God of men and women, of all men and women. God is absolute, but no single religion is absolute.[120]
Because Jesus is human and therefore contingent, He reveals God,
and at the same time, conceals God. Jesus is not the only living way to God.
Jesus is one among others.
Although we cannot reach Jesus in his fullness unless we also take into account his unique and distinctive relationship to God, that does not mean that Jesus is the only living way to God. Even Jesus does not just reveal God, but also conceals him, where he appears in non-godly, creaturely humanity. And so as a human being he is a historical, contingent or limited being who cannot in any way represent the full riches of God, that is, unless we deny the reality of his humanity (which runs counter to the consensus of the church, expressed in the Council of Chalcedon). So there can be no talk of a Christian religious imperialism on the basis of the gospel.[121]
Jesus is very special to Christians, but Jesus is still
contingent because He is truly human. Because of that, he is not absolute, but
one among others.
The role of Jesus Christ in
the salvation of all humankind is a great theological problem for pluralist
theologians. For Schillebeeckx, salvation is very concretely found in Jesus
Christ as a promise for all, but it is made concrete and spread throughout the
world by Christians not only accepting the idea about Jesus but also by
practicing the kingdom of God.
The universality of Christian salvation is an offer of salvation from God to all men and women…. The salvation that is founded in Christ as a promise for all becomes universal, not through the mediation of an abstract, universal idea, but by the power of its cognitive, critical and liberating character in and through a consistent praxis of the kingdom of God. So this is not a purely speculative, theoretical universality, but a universality which can be realized in the fragmentary forms of our history only through the spreading of the story of Jesus confessed by Christians as the Christ, and through Christian praxis.[122]
Jesus saves us, not Christ.
That is, if we live according to Jesus’ life, we obtain salvation. We are
obtaining salvation if we practice what Jesus did: loving. Salvation is
experienced in Christian life. Christians are saved and liberated by the
actions of their lives day by day. Again we recognize the echo of “extra mundum
nulla salus.”
’Jesus’ redeems us, not ‘Christ’…Moreover redemption through Jesus is unique and universal only in so far as what happened in Jesus is continued in his disciples. Without any relationship to a redeeming and liberating practice of Christians, redemption, brought by Jesus, remains in a purely speculative, empty vacuum. It is not the confession ‘Jesus is Lord’ (Rm.10, 9) which in itself brings redemption, but ‘he who does the will of my Father’ (Mt. 7, 2). One has to go the way of Jesus himself; then Jesus’ career concretely takes on a universal significance (Mt.25, 37-39. 44-46). In fact a fragmentary but real making whole of humankind is the best indication of liberation.[123]
In the case of Jesus, too, we must first look for a human, historical event which liberated men and women, which brought them to themselves and opened them up to their fellow human beings. For precisely all this was the medium through which believers began to recognize God’s face. Without Jesus’ human career the whole of Christology becomes an ideological superstructure. Without ‘human meaning’ in the life of Jesus, all religious meaning in his life becomes incredible. Only the human meaning of a historical process can become the material of ‘supernatural’ or religious meaning, of revelation.[124]
If someone did not understand the historical Jesus, but tried to interpret Jesus’ life by a pre-existing framework, they would be wrong.[125]
For Christians, Jesus’ death is presupposed in belief about his
resurrection, particularly his physical resurrection. “For without this
resurrection Jesus of Nazareth is one of the many utopias.”[126] Some modern theologians interpret Jesus’
resurrection spiritually and figuratively, but Schillebeeckx’s view on Jesus’
resurrection is very fundamental. Physical resurrection is very important to
Schillebeeckx’s theolgy.
Thus belief in the physical resurrection is openness to an event, an event which is not identical with dying itself, but is rather the free event of God’s own divinity which overcomes even death.[127]
Jesus’ resurrection fulfils the salvation of human beings in the
life beyond. If there is no resurrection of Jesus, then what does salvation
mean, when worldly life is so hard. Jesus’ resurrection makes his human life
meaningful and credible to Christians. Resurrection is the distinct point of
Christianity.
Understanding and trusting God on the basis of Jesus’ life and death, that is, looking through Jesus to God, means coming to terms with our own incompleteness, with the character of our existence which is not justified and not reconciled. A Christian who believes in the resurrection is therefore freed from the pressure to justify himself and from the demand that God should publicly take under his protection and ratify all those who believe in him.[128]
Jesus is the only way of life
for Christians, though other ways, which are the other religions, are opened to
others. Above, we saw Schillebeeckx’s view on Jesus and his human career. His
view helps Christians to be openminded about other religions and to recognize
what is distinct in Christianity. Schillebeeckx does not think his
Christological view diminishes Christianity’s value or that of Jesus Christ. On
the contrary, his Christological view helps people today accept Christianity
more easily.
Nobody writes a Christology
for eternity.[129] The way
theologians talk about God depends on their audience. For example, talk of God
in developing countries is basically different from talk of God in prosperous
countries, because the partner in conversation for the Western theologian is
the secularized person, the agnostic, or the atheist. However, the partner in
conversation for the theologian in the Third World is the poor and oppressed.[130]
Because of the shift in
Schillebeeckx’s audience, there was a shift in thelogy between early and later
Schillebeeckx. I will describe Schillebeeckx’s audience and then his
theological method in the last phase of his career.
Later Schillebeeckx’s
audience is present-day men and women who live in the existential context of
oppression and liberation. “It is not the only possible context, but in my view
without this context all other possible contexts become detached from life and
become incredible to many people.”[131]
In Church Schillebeeckx hoped that “the book will be useful to
many people.”[132]
Schillebeeckx wrote Jesus for anybody who was interested, so he
tried to avoid theological jargon as much as possibe.[133]
Schillebeeckx’s audience
includes non-believers and marginal Christians,[134]
modern men and women who no longer believe in the authoritative teachings of
the Church as much as in their own reason and experiences; who think in
pluralistic terms and know that no one has exclusive rights over the truth;[135]
who live in different continents and in various cultures.[136]
In Interim Report, Schillebeeckx poses a question to readers: “in
your view, is Jesus still God? Yes or No? After all that has been said, I
really find this question superfluous, and only comprehensible if it is asked
as a result of lack of faith or misplaced concern for orthodoxy. However, let
us take even this concern seriously.”[137]
Schillebeeckx was writting to an audience of marginal Christians or Christians
lacking faith.
The new theology can be positively defined as a science which is based on a rational, empirically deduced theory which can only be formulated after the results of religious sociology and psychology have been fully assimilated and worked out.[138]
Schillebeeckx ranges himself implicitly in the new theology. His theology is one of critical theory, of theological hermeneutics with its rational, empirical, and practical characteristics. Critical theory is founded in the critical movement of the enlightenment, and tries to make the church’s tradition understood by means of hermeneutics.[139] Schillebeeckx wants to build his theology as a science: the secularized world’s negative experiences of contrast as data; his theology as the proposed postulate; his theology being verified by praxis. “Theology is the critical self-consciousness of Christian praxis in the world and the church.”[140]
Schillebeeckx’s method can be described as a critical
correlation, a theological hermeneutics of history, and a theocentric theology.
Schillebeeckx has as his
audience people of today, including non-believers and marginal Christians;
therefore, the starting point of his theology is what people today accept as
valid, that is, the secular world with its negative and positive experiences.
In the scientific spirit of today, all religions are equal; modern people do
not believe in dogma and authority but in their own experiences and intellects.
The Christian experiences of
the primitive Christians expressed in Scripture are a source of data for
Schillebeeckx’s theology. Experiences of present-day people are another source
of data for Schillebeeckx’s theology. Finding a critical correlation between
them is Schillebeeckx’s theological method.
The third hinge on which the two Jesus books turn is connected with the critical correlation between the two sources of theology which I discussed above: on the one hand the tradition of Christian experience and on the other present-day experiences.[141]
Theology is talk about God
for present-day people. It transmits revelation to people today by language and
present-day people’s experiences. Theology is both old and new, because this
revelation was recognized yesterday by people with their experiences and is
spoken to present-day people with their experiences.
Theology interprets not only
the Scripture but also the events, inclinations, “joys and hopes” of people
today. In other words, normative experiences of people of yesterday are
correctly interpreted by and through the experiences of present-day people, and
the experiences of people today are illustrated by the normative experiences of
people of yesterday.
What was experience for others yesterday is tradition for us today; and what is experience for us today will in turn be tradition for others tomorrow. However, what once was experience can only be handed down in renewed experiences, at least as living tradition.[142]
Critical theory as
theological hermeneutics interprets experiences of tradition and of present-day
people, and then narrates Gospel messages illustrated by the experiences of
people of today. Revelation is truth that everyone can experience.
Today, as yesterday, human
beings are oppressed by injustice. Living the Christian revelation entails
practicing the Good News. Theological hermeneutics of history, that is,
interpreting present-day experiences to find out God’s will for human beings,
and creating a narrative is Schillebeeckx’s theological method. Theology needs
to interpret Scripture, Christian tradition, and present-day contrast
experiences, and narrate these experiences to present-day people in their own
language; otherwise, theology is unscientific ideology.
Insofar as they are empirical data, religion, Christianity and the church all belong to those social forms the structure and function of which merit specific analysis… If theology is not conscious of this need and has not assimilated critical theory into its own design, it may well become an unscientific ideology.[143]
Praxis is an important characteristic of Schillebeeckx’s
theology. Through praxis confronted by negative experience, theology is
verified as correct or not. Theology’s being accepted by people is a proof that
it is a valid theology. This view incorporates the adage “vox populi vox Dei”
which expresses the belief that God always acts in and through people.
The relationship between theory and praxis as worked out by Habermas especially is, of course, of great importance to us if we want to understand correctly the hermeneutic process of this actualising theology… Critical theory’s understanding of itself as the self-consciousness of a critical praxis is also undoubtedly correct.[144]
Theology as hermeneutics guides present-day people but is judged
by their praxis. By praxis theology is proven true or false.
Schillebeeckx’s theology is
theocentric. Theocentric theology is appropriate for incorporating religions in
his theology. With a Christocentric view of theology, it is very hard to treat
the theological problems arising from multiple religions. Moreover, theology is
wider than Christology, “there are questions and also religious problems which
lie outside the Christological field. That is very important for the ecumene of
religions.” [145]
According to Schillebeeckx,
being “theocentric” is not an option for theology. Theology must not be
Christocentric, because “while as Christians we can and may make Jesus the
Christ the centre of history for ourselves, we are not at the same time in a
position to argue that the historical revelation of salvation from God in Jesus
Christ exhausts the question of God, nor do we need to.”[146]
If Jesus Christ did not exhaust the question of God, and religions can
contribute to doing that, then theology must not be Christocentric but
theocentric. A theocentric view of theology helps Christians to dialoque with
believers of other religions.
Young Schillebeeckx had used
Nicaea’s dogma as a starting point for his Christology.[147]
He developed his Christology using the traditional formula of the incarnation.
Later, however, Schillebeeckx would assert, “although institutions and dogmatic
positions are essential aspects of religion, they remain subordinate to
religious experience.”[148]
Later in his life Schillebeeckx wrote for “non-believers and marginal
Catholics.”[149] This
audience made Schillebeeckx change his methodology. Non-believers and marginal
Catholics, who are people in the modern world living and thinking in the way of
modern science, do not accept Christian beliefs simply on the authority of
others, but accept only what they see or experience in their daily lives, only
what can be experimented on or proved. Therefore, Schillebeeckx takes the
secular world as theological data that people today accept as valid.
Theological hermeneutics interprets not only experiences from tradition but
also those of present-day people. Christians are able to prove Schillebeeckx’s
theology by their praxis and by their negative contrast experiences. Theology
as science is rational and universally open to everyone, not only to Christians
but also to non-Christian believers. Therefore, according to Schillebeeckx, the
authority of the magisterium, human reason, and praxis are all standards by
which one judges the validity of theologies according to Schillebeeckx.
Schillebeeckx in his theology
of the plurality of religions adapts present-day views on religions. In this
theological view, other religions have the same generic role and priority as
Christianity. Moreover, in this view, the secular world is created and
continually guided by God; because religions are elements of this secular
world, they have existed until now as part of God’s plan. What God creates and
wills, He does not destroy. The fact that religions still exist today is proof
of that. Moreover, Christologically, Jesus is historically contingent, and
therefore reveals God and at the same time conceals God; because of that,
multiple religions exist as matter of principle, that is, many religions
describe God better than one religion.
The view of present-day
people on multiple religions, critically reflected on by theological
hermeneutics or critical theory, defines the starting point of Schillebeeckx’s
theology. His theology is theocentric. In it, the Church is incorporated into
the global view about religions, and Jesus is subsequently treated as being of
concern specifically to Christians.
In the first section of this third chapter, I present God as ineffable reality and human beings as finite, with intellect and language that are finite; therefore, nobody and no method can identify or express God completely; the religions of the world are as fingers pointing to the moon, symbolizing the infinite reality. Religions are intergrated with culture, and their theologies reflect for human beings some aspects of God’s beauty. In the second section, I present Rahner and Schillebeeckx as two theologians who try to talk about God to different audiences: ordinary Christians with a normal ecclesial form of faith (Rahner), and marginal Christians and present-day people of other confessions (Schillebeeckx). The audience is an important element which contributes to making their theologies different. In the third section, I say figuratively that theologies are fingers pointing to God. Pluralism in theology is necessary because of audiences with different mentalities.
God is a reality independent of human beings’ knowledge. Even if
human beings do not recognize God and deny his existence, God still exists. In
this section I treat the relationship between reality and human reason, then
reality as the standard of knowledge, and finally religions as fingers pointing
to the moon.
A human being wills to do many things, but his strength does not
always follow his will. He cannot understand everything as he would like to. He
cannot communicate totally to others what he experiences. He experiences
himself as being limited. Truthfully, a human being is finite. His reason and
language are finite, too. The intelligence of human beings cannot grasp the
entirety of reality; likewise, human language cannot express the whole of
reality. Judgment and language reflect reality only in certain measure.
Moreover, if reality is personal and absolute, then by definition human
intelligence cannot understand it completely! Free being is ineffable.
I focus on the relation between concept and reality, then
attributes of knowledge, and the relation between language and dogma.
Many theories explain the relation between concept and reality.
One theory presumes that ideas are real, the changing world is created
according to the world of ideas. That is Plato’s theory. In this theory, ideas
are real whereas this changing world is not. This theory assumes that ideas
already exist in a human being when he is born. Knowledge is “reminiscence” in
Plato’s theory.
A second theory presumes that this changing world is real.
Concepts are formed by human beings through experiencing this world through the
five senses. Concepts reflect reality. This is Aristotle’s theory; later on,
Thomas Aquinas adopts it. The moderate realism of Saint Thomas maintains that
there is a certain relation between concept and reality. To have knowledge,
human beings have to experience reality, develop concepts, and then judge where
true knowledge lies.
A third theory assumes that concepts are created by the human
intellect. The relation between ideas and this changing world is one of
convention. It is something similar to the relation between a traffic signal
and its meaning. All depends upon the human being. There is no intrinsic
relation between concept and reality.
Some western people today follow Aristotle’s moderate realism,
while others do not pay any attention to theories of knowledge. They accept the
reality of human beings’ having knowledge as a fact.
Knowledge is a constitutive element of the human. However, some
deny true knowledge to human beings.
In the history of western philosophy, skepticism did not deny
knowledge itself to human beings, but only the truth and certainty of
knowledge. For them:
i). Nothing can be rendered certain through itself. To be
accepted as true, it needs a proof that demonstrates that knowledge;
ii). Skepticists require that this new proof must be proved as
well; and with this newest proof scepticists again say it must be proved, too;
iii). That leads to an infinite regress and yields a vicious
circle.[150]
Skepticism destroys science. Its result is uncertainty and
insecurity. Even in the moral life, all would be relative because no knowledge
would be certainly true.
Skepticism in metaphysics amounts to agnosticism. Agnosticism
does not deny knowledge of God but proclaims the uncertainty of metaphysical
knowledge. In my opinion, we cannot classify Kant as an agnostic, because Kant
does not deny the certainty of knowledge about God. Kant affirms merely the
impossibility of proving God’s existence. Addressing the disagreement in the
history of metaphysics, for example, skepticism, agnosticism, and atheism, Kant
postulates that human beings must accept the reality of God’s existence, the
freedom of human beings, and the immortality of souls, because they cannot
prove them. For Kant, human beings know the phenomena but not the noumena of
realities.
Some identify agnosticism with the “negative way” of theology,
but in my opinion, they are very different from each other. One presupposes the
incapacity of the human intellect; the other is the result of the ineffability
of God as infinite reality. Clement of Alexandria is not an agnostic but a
theologian who stated the negative way of knowing God.
In other words, Clement of Alexandria, as the first Christian man of learning wanted to see Christianity in its relation to philosophy and to use the speculative reason in the systematisation and development of theology. Incidentally it is interesting to note that he rejects any real positive knowledge of God: we know in truth only what God is not, for example, that He is not a genus, not a species, that He is beyond anything of which we have had experience or which we can conceive. We are justified in predicating perfections of God, but at the same time we must remember that all names we apply to God are inadequate-- and so, in another sense, inapplicable.[151]
Although some refuse to accept the certainty of knowledge, the
truth of knowledge, the knowledge of God and of God’s attributes, and even
God’s existence, most human beings accept the fact that they possess true
knowledge about reality.
Knowledge is judgment. False or true are the attributes of
judgments. “The falsity consists in saying yes to what does not exist and no to
what exists, and the truth consists in saying yes to what exists and no to what
does not exist.”[152] If a judgment is not made, there is no
falsity.[153]
“Truth is the adequation of intelligence to reality.”[154] Truth is always the truth of a judgment,
and falsity is the falsity of a judgment. Truth cannot be separated from
judgment, nor judgment from intelligence.
Concepts and ideas belong to human beings; and judgment is human
act. However, human intellect, which makes judgments, is finite as the human
being is finite. Therefore, human intellect cannot grasp reality completely,
and human judgment cannot comprehend reality completely; similarly, neither
does human language adequately express reality. Human judgment reflects reality
incompletely.
Language is also a constitutive element of human beings.
Language describes what human beings understand and communicate to one another.
Language is finite as human beings are finite, so language cannot describe
reality completely. Here we encounter the problem of religious language, and
especially the conception of dogma in the Roman Catholic Church.
Dogma is a formula expressing the beliefs of Christians in a
definitive time and space. Dogma is “truths contained in divine Revelation or
having a necessary connection with them, in a form obliging the Christian
people to an irrevocable adherence of faith.”[155] In the Catholic view, dogmas are true and
irreversible; so Catholics accept implicitly the intrinsic relation between
idea, language, and reality. The Church accepts Aristotle’s and Thomas’ theory
of knowledge.
Here we see a shift. Truth by Thomas’ conception lies in the
judgment of a person, not in a formula. Dogma is truth, that is, a formula of
dogma is a true sentence which reflects reality correctly. True or false
consists in a judgement. It depends on human beings who make judgements.
Therefore, Christians must understand that dogma expresses “truth” in language
and is formed in a certain time in history; human beings must try to understand
“correct formulas” correctly.
Human beings are from different races, educational systems, and
cultures. So they look at reality with different points of view and express it
through different languages and terms. Therefore to correctly understand a
dogma, it is necessary to interpret it in the cultural context of the hearers,
or for the hearers to embed themselves in the culture of a dogma. A dogma
signifies a reality but is not identical with the reality. In the Christian
view, dogmatic formulas are not wrong (if understood correctly) but are
limited. They cannot totally express reality, and are not identical with it.
Human beings are limited; human intellects are finite; human
languages are inadequate; therefore, they cannot identify reality completely.
Moreover, truth is a relation, and its standard is reality.
All religions use ideas, concepts, and languages to describe
God, God’s properties, and the relation between God and human beings. Human
concepts and ideas reflect God in a certain measure, at least in an analogical
way; otherwise there would be no religions or theologies.
According to Asian cultures, God is the ineffable reality that
human beings cannot understand completely. There is no way that human language
can totally express infinite reality. “The Truth people can talk of is not the
unchanging truth; the Name people can call is not the unchanging Name.” (Tao Te
Ching, 1, 1). A human being approaches total reality, but cannot grasp it
completely by his reason, concepts, or language.
For the Asian mentality, dogma is not very important, because
every religion has a different view of infinite reality and reflects a certain
aspect of it. There are different understandings, various expressions, and
different doctrines such as the Hindu, Confucianist, Buddhist, and Taoist
traditions. Because of this, religious believers in Asian countries accept and
respect one other and their respective religions.
This conception does not fall into the relativism that the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warns Christians to avoid: “The faithful therefore must shun the
opinion, first, that dogmatic formulas (or some category of them) cannot
signify truth in a determinate way, but can only offer changeable
approximations to it, which to a certain extent distort or alter it; secondly,
that these formulas signify the truth only in an indeterminate way, this truth
being like a goal that is constantly being sought by means of such
approximations. Those who hold such an opinion do not avoid dogmatic relativism
and they corrupt the concept of the church’s infallibility relative to the
truth to be taught or held in a determinate way.”[156] Truly, one can state the relativity of
dogma, but not fall in relativism. We meet again the concept of the relativity
of human beings and of dogma (language). One can accept a dogma is a relative
formulation without falling into relativism.
In this century, with fast communication, the Asian mentality is
influencing the European and American peoples. St. Thomas also talked about
negative affirmation when human beings talk of God, but it is extremely strong
in Asian cultures. In Asian mentality, human reason cannot totally grasp
infinite reality, but only some aspects of it and those only partially.
Moreover, human beings from different regions and cultures grasp different
aspects of reality through different viewpoints, and they express them in
different languages and on different levels. For example, Hinduism expresses reality
as Brahman who is transcendent and immanent; Buddhism expresses the foundation
of all reality as Nothingness or Nihility, which embraces all; and Taoism
articulates reality as the Truth or the Name ineffable.
Concepts, ideas, and judgments are beings within human
intellects, while any reality that is known exists independently of human
beings and their intellects. Although true and false are properties of
judgments, reality is the standard by which one knows what judgments are true.
Reality is always the standard by which one recognizes what is true or false.
Judgments and languages are true in so far as they reflect reality.
God is the ineffable reality that no human intellect can exhaust
and no language can describe completely. In human history there are many
religions which talk about God. In Indian philosophy, there is a sound which is
used to describe the mystery about God that human beings cannot express. Buddha
used the figure of a finger pointing to the moon to teach his disciples not to
pay attention to his finger but to that which his finger was pointing to. We
must not pay too much attention to the words which are used to transmit what
someone wants to say about God, otherwise we will not receive the message
correctly.
Various religions exist. Most of them are integrated as cultural
elements of people in certain regions. Every religion expresses absolute
reality in different concepts, languages, cultures and even ideological
systems. Figuratively speaking, religions are fingers pointing to the Absolute.
In religion there are theological schools which try to describe
God by developing one of God’s characteristics. For example, in Christianity,
Christians can see Augustine and his school, Thomas Aquinas and his school; in
the New Testament, Christians can see Paul as a theologian, and John and his
school. The diversity of theological schools shows the ineffablity of the
Absolute and at the same time the limitedness of theologies.
Religions and their members’ experiences about God are true but
limited. What they communicate to others is true insofar as it reflects
Reality. After an event, audiences who were struck by different aspects
describe it differently. Even though these expressions are different from one
other, on certain levels and in certain respects each of them is true. That
descriptions differ does not mean that some must be wrong; it means that an
event is viewed from different perspectives. The same is true with God as
ineffable reality. Because God is ineffable and because we talk about him with
human capacity and from different point of view, we can, at different times,
both affirm and negate his attributes.
In sum, I can say: God is infinite reality, but because human
beings are finite, they cannot understand and describe completely this
ineffable reality. Religions, as human institutions, share the same destiny as
human beings. Religions are fingers pointing to the Absolute or even to the
Nothingness. Religions are constituted by the human expression of different
people, cultures, and ideologies, so they are necessary and legitimate.
Again I look at Rahner and Schillebeeckx as two typical
theologians who have different views on religions. Rahner considers religions
as legitimate before Jesus’ appearance, but illegitimate now because the climax
of revelation has already came. Religions should disappear because of
Christianity.
According to Schillebeeckx, religions continue to exist not only
as historical facts, but as a matter of principle, because every religion
reflects some aspects of God. Because Jesus in his human nature reveals, and at
the same time conceals, God, religions are necessary to reflect God.
Why are there differences between two well-known Catholic
theologians? In my opinion, the audiences chosen by these theologians, their
theological starting points and theological methods make their theologies
different.
Before Vatican II, Rahner and Young Schillebeeckx had the same
audience, namely Christians with their normal belief, who live within the
Christian tradition, and then possess transcendental conditions to understand
Christian doctrine in traditional formulations, for example, Jesus rose on the
third day after death, Jesus is God incarnate, Jesus is the climax of all
revelation. Traditional Christians who regularly go to Church believe easily
what the Magisterium of the Church teaches.
But after Vatican II, Schillebeeckx shifts his audience to
people embued with the scientific spirit, who do not believe in any authority
except their own reason and experience, who think that all human beings have
equal human rights and that all religions teach human beings to do good and not
evil. Not a few of them are marginal Christians; their beliefs are not in an
authoritarian ecclesial form. They are Christians who are perhaps not
practicising, who do not have the same transcendental conditions to hear and
accept the traditional formulation of Christianity. Moreover, Schillebeeckx
would like his audience to be as wide as anyone who wants to read his books.
According to Rahner, it is naturally impossible to say something
about the idea of Christianity to everyone at the same time. His audience is,
to some extent, educated Christians who know and accept what is in the
catechism and in the traditional formulations, who want to have an
intellectually honest justification of Christian faith.[157] Rahner chooses as his audience good
Christians who share “our own personal Christian faith in its normal ecclesial
form.”[158] Rahner’s audience in Foundations of
Christian Faith is the normal audience to whom his theology is
addressed. They want to justify their Christian faith.
Late Schillebeeckx chooses as his audience Christians with a
post-modern spirit, marginal Christians, and even believers of different
confessions. Schillebeeckx’s concern is with how they can hear the Gospel’s
message.
A transcendental condition is the condition needed for listeners
or readers to understand and accept what authors and theologians present or
talk about. For exemple, one can only believe in the resurrection of Jesus if
she hopes to survive in some final and definitive sense.[159] If someone leads a bad moral life and thus
does not hope to survive, then that one probably will not believe in Jesus’
resurrection. Therefore, hoping in one’s own resurrection is a transcendental
condition for belief in Jesus’ resurrection.
Similarly, to believe in a traditional theology like Rahner’s, a
transcendental condition is Christian faith in normal ecclesial form, for
example, belief that Jesus is God incarnate, Jesus is the climax of all
revelation, Christianity is the unique true religion. If someone writes
theology that includes these beliefs, then he is orthodox and easily accepted
by Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form.
Not a small part of Christians, and specially Christians who
live in the intercultural regions as in the United States, do not share the
same transcendental conditions. Their mentality possesses a scientific spirit.
For them, experience as data and the human intellect hold a very important
place for them; equality between religions is respected as a human right;
authoritative teaching of the Church and tradition no longer have a relevent
position as it did in the past. With this mentality, this transcendental
condition, the later Schillebeeckx creates his theology.
In the context of this world, with its various Christian groups
on different levels of faith, Rahner and Schillebeeckx try to address their
different audiences concerning God and the Gospel message. Each author chooses
his audience and has his own method appropriate for the specific audience. The
methods include the starting point of each author’s theology and proper way of
proceding, so that his audience will accept them.
Rahner starts his theology with transcendental anthropology. A
human being experiences himself as a finite being, and by that recognizes
infinite reality.[160] A human being transcends himself and the
world, and thereby becomes spirit. The world is where God reveals himself to
human beings. A human being is spirit in the world, spirit incarnate.
Human beings experience
themselves as limited beings. Everyone accepts this. Through finite
realities human beings get scientific and even metaphysic knowledge. Most
people accept this, too. Transcendental anthropology and transcendental
theology are accepted by almost all people today. Because of that Rahner
chooses transcendental method.
According to Schillebeeckx, some think it is better to begin
theology from present-day experience than from the New Testament. Schillebeeckx
thinks that this is a false alternative.[161] Schillebeeckx chooses experiences written
in the Scripture, practiced in tradition, and lived by present-day people as
the starting point of his theology. Experiences accepted by everyone are the
data of all sciences, including theology.
Schillebeeckx’s method is a method of correlation which uses
both experiences of the New Testament and experiences of present-day people as
sources of his theology. There is no contradiction between the experiences of
Scripture, of tradition, and of present-day people. Present-day people are
aware of the multiplicity of cultures and religions. They recognize that some
religions have very deep experiences of God which are independent of
Christianity’s experiences.
Truly, transcendental method and correlative method do not
exclude each other, but complete each other. However, the starting point of
theology is important. It is the base upon which the author builds his theology.
Rahner puts his accent on the transcendental activity of the human subject,
Schillebeeckx on actual experience. Rahner’s starting point is the human nature
of all generations, whereas Schillebeeckx’s starting point is the experiences
of both Scripture and of people today.
Another starting point of Rahner’s theology is dogma, especially
Christological dogma. Because Rahner’s audience is Christians whose faith is in
normal ecclesial form, they accept these dogmas without a problem.
Rahner’s theology is dogmatic in the sense that it is based on
dogma and draws its theological conclusions from dogma by logic. One must
follow to their consequences the line of reasoning that theologians draw from
accepted dogma. For example, Rahner’s theological conclusions about religions
are drawn from his dogmatic theology, or rather his Christology. Therefore, if
someone accepts Rahner’s Christology, then she has to accept his theological
views on the religions.
Schillebeeckx’s method is hermeneutical. Hermeneutics interprets
experiences in history, experiences of the people of yesterday and of today.
The Scripture was formed through the experience of revelation. Therefore,
hermeneutics interprets the experiences written in Scripture to discover what
God wants to reveal to human beings today; in the same way, hermeneutics
interprets the positive and negative experiences of people today to discover
what God wants to say to the human beings of today.
In a broad sense, theology is a hermeneutics which interprets
human beings and events, to discover God’s activity and revelation through
nature and human history, and to become aware of God’s presence in human life.
Hermeneutics also interprets dogmas, to uncover the real meanings of these
dogmas for people today.
In a certain sense, hermeneutics is more flexible than
dogmatics. Dogmatic theology consists of logic, while hermeneutics bases itself
on the experiences of human beings from whom and for whom hermeneutics exists.
Dogmas presuppose that the people of yesterday understood reality correctly,
while hermeneutics presupposes that the people of today also understand reality
correctly. Therefore, if dogmas reflect God and the people of yesterday, then
interpretations reflect God and the people of today.
Rahner’s theology is Christocentric, because Christ holds the
central place in his theology. Christocentrism means that, from their
understanding of Jesus, theologians and Christians draw almost all their
theological consequences in theology. For example, because Jesus is God
incarnate, Christians recognize God’s love for human beings in the event that
Jesus was on the cross; because Jesus is the climax of all revelation, all
religions except Christianity should disappear.
Christocentric theology is very good for helping Christians to
recognize Christianity’s position in God’s plan of salvation. However, it can
create an aggressive spirit toward other religions when someone believes that
his religion is the only true one. Believers of any religion with a bad
education or a horrific lack of sound doctrine could fall into this trap.
Christocentric theology is only suitable for Christians whose faith is in
normal ecclesial form. Moreover, believers of other religions cannot accept
this theological view.
Schillebeeckx’s theology is theocentric. For Schillebeeckx,
Christology is also theocentric because God is the source of all visible and
invisible beings, and the one upon whom they converge. In a certain sense, all
theologies are theocentric. According to Schillebeeckx, theology -- that is
theocentric theology-- treats all religions; therefore, Christianity is merely
one religion among others. In it, Jesus is a human person through whom God wills
to show his universal love to human beings. In Schillebeeckx’s view,
Christianity is a part of the totality of religions, and all religions are part
of God’s plan of salvation.
The advantage of theocentric theology is that it covers all
theologies, even those of other religions. God is the foundation upon which all
religions can base discussion and mutual listening. It is very good for the
ecumenical task. Believers of respective religions can share their spirituality
with one other.
Of course, christocentric and theocentric theologies do not
exclude one other; they are optional views with which to understand God. Each
has advangtages and disadvantages. Rahner’s christocentric theology is a good
choice for Christians who want to learn more and more about God through Jesus
Christ. It encourages Christians to urge the missionary task to help others to
recognize God and God’s love in Jesus Christ. However, Schillebeeckx’s choice
of theocentric theology respects religions and helps others to recognize the
positive value in other religions. Furthermore, the danger of destroying
religions for the sake of the one true religion is eliminated.
In sum, audience is an extremely important element which
influences the starting points of theology and theological method. For various
audiences of different mentalities, a pluralism of theologies is necessary even
in the Catholic Church.
Theology consists in words about God which help people
understand God more and more. Audience is very significant for theology. People
from different cultures, different regions, and different languages vary
greatly. Black people are beautiful for black people, yellow people are
beautiful for yellow people, and white people are beautiful for white people. Beauty
is dependent upon each one’s view, and this applies in a certain sense for
theology. The background of each group of people is especially important; so
that, if theology is presented according to the culture of an audience, it will
be more comprehensible.
Because of the relation between reality and concepts, concepts
and languages cannot reflect reality totally. Religious language is limited,
but it can, in a certain measure, reflect infinite Reality.
People in Asian countries with a different mind-set have
different philosophies and theologies. They think and talk about infinite
reality in a way different from people of western cultures. We need eminent
theologians and varied methods so that human beings can understand more and
more the unexhaustable beauty of God.
The attitude of Second
Vatican Council illuminates Christians’ position on Christian theologies. Of
course, theologies appropriate to Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial
form must be respected and honored; however, the theologies suitable to
Christians whose faith lies outside this ecclesial form must also be supported.
We have to support both theologies because the Church is for all people, and
Jesus’ Gospel is appropriate for everyone.
The Church includes not
only Christians but also all people who belong to God, from Abel to anyone
“whose faith is known to God alone.”[162] In her
mission, the Church must address the Good News to Christians in other cultures
and of different mentalities. The Church can choose and has to choose another
language and even a different ideology with which to talk to them. The Church
is executing this charge through her theologians. Allowing pluralism is the
beginning of this theological task. It is hard job, but theologians must do it
because their mission requires it. This work sometimes obliges a theologian to
shift her ideology. That could sometimes cause misunderstanding among
Christians and even within the Magisterium of the Church.
To be human means having a bodyand being informed by an
ideology. God creates everything good, but creates human beings very good. If
we believe in God who creates and always guides human beings, then we must
trust all human beings in their struggle against evil. Consequently, Christians
must respect other religions and also their theologies.
To understand other religions and their theologies is very hard,
especially when other religions contain other ideologies. For example, in the
western ideology the Ultimate Reality is God, the Absolute, while in the
eastern mentality of Buddhist ideology the Ultimate is Nothingness, and the
“No” is the foundation of all realities. It is very difficult to shift from
this ideology to an other, and vice versa.
To avoid the conception that what does not conform to our way of
thinking is wrong, the idea of infinite reality and finite human beings is
necessary. Through that idea, Christians can listen to believers of other
religions and learn something from them. The stance of the Second Vatican
Council to religions means a lot for Christians. Pope John Paul II entering the
Muslim temple to pray makes sense to Christians. Pope John Paul II could
encounter God in a Muslim temple; how much more can Muslim encounter God there.
The Church’s mission is to present Jesus and Jesus’ Gospel to
believers of other religions. Therefore, to help them to more easily understand
her proclamation, the Church can choose to talk about Jesus using the language
and even the ideologies of other religions. In these cases, the Church would
not use her own ideology to transmit her message. She would empty herself to
speak with different languages and different ideologies to people of different
cultures and ideologies. A shift in ideology needs to change the formulas of
expression, even to the extent of not using Catholic dogmas, so that people of
the new mentality and other ideologies can understand it. That does not mean
that theology will be unfaithful to revelation or tradition. It means only that
the effort will be made to describe Christian realities in other languages and
ideologies.
Some religious leaders worry about differences between
theologies that could cause relativism and indifferentism in believers. First
of all, Reality is the foundation and standard of all talk about Reality.
Language, which is finite, cannot identify infinite Reality; therefore language
is relative. The case described here is not relativist because language can
describe Reality without describing it completely. Human language is truly
relative. Second, the indifferentism is a choice of human being among many
possibilities. Different theologies that show the limitedness of theologies and
the ineffablity and unhaustibility of Reality do not cause an indifferent
spirit. The first concern of theology is the truth.
In fact, some theologians have not had the same thinking or
positions as the Magisterium. Some theologians, so called pluralists, affirm
themselves within Catholic tradition while the Magisterium regards them as
outside the tradition, that is, their teaching or theology does not conform to
Catholic doctrine. There are tensions between the Magisterium and some
theologians. That happens probably because the Magisterium and those
theologians have different audiences[163] and therefore different conceptions of
truth, of language, and of knowledge about absolute reality. The audience of
the Magisterium is always Christians in normal ecclesial form of faith, while a
theologian’s audience could be the Catholic faithful, Christians in modern
time, academic men and women, or even the faithful of all religions or
atheists. Pluralist theologians also want to have as their audience members of
all world religions. For example, Rahner delivers his theology to Christians
whose faith is in normal ecclesial form, while Schillebeeckx fixes his eyes on
post-modern people. To avoid inconvenient tension, theologians need to define clearly
enough both their audience and the language they will use for their audience.
Human intelligence cannot totally grasp the Absolute; furthermore, human language cannot entirely communicate Reality. Moreover, there are many people and cultures, and thus many ways to describe the Absolute. For example, the Absolute could be described as the Ultimate Reality or Nothingness, enveloping and grounding all realities. In the Christian view, dogma always reflects the ineffable reality that is God; dogma and the infallibility of the magisterium are still valid means of helping Christians in Christian cultures to approach absolute reality. However, other languages and conceptions are also ligitimate and good for describing God to people. Christians must respect other religions, their ways of describing the Absolute, and their theologies. To prepare to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them, theological pluralism is a first and necessary presupposition. Moreover, to accomplish her mission the Church could present Jesus and his Gospel to other cultures in the language and ideology of other religions so that believers of other religions can easily understand it.
In the first chapter of this
thesis, I presented Rahner’s theological thought as “God’s self-communication.”
Through the Christian message human beings recognize that God creates and loves
human beings; God loves human beings so much that God gives himself to human
beings and, at the highest act of love, God gives his own son to human beings.
Jesus is the climax of all revelation because he is God incarnate; therefore,
he is the constitutive salvation of all human beings. Before the coming of the
absolute savior, religions had been means used by God to save human beings; but
now that Jesus has come, all religions except Christianity must disappear on
principle.
Because Rahner’s audience is
Christians whose faith is in a normal ecclesial form, Rahner used
transcendental anthropology and Christological dogma as starting points of his
theology. Rahner’s theology is dogmatic because his theology has Christological
dogma as its starting point, and because he drew theological conclusions from a
dogmatic and Christological view. His theological view on religions is an
example. With transcendental anthropology, Rahner’s theology is foundational
for all human beings. However, with Christological dogma his theology is
foundational merely for Christians.
In the second chapter I
treated Schillebeeckx’s theology. Schillebeeckx has had two phases in his
theological career. Early in his life, Schillebeeckx had the same audience as
Rahner, and his theology at the time was very apt for Christians whose faith
was in the normal ecclesial form. Jesus and the Church are universally
necessary for salvation.
Later in his life,
Schillebeeckx shifted to experience as the starting point of his theology. By
critical theory, or hermeneutics of history, he interprets experience of the
people of yesterday in Scripture and of the people of today. With his theocentric
view, he recognizes religions as contexts of talk about God, and considers
Christianity to be one religion among others. Jesus is accentuated in his human
person. Jesus is God’s universal love for human beings. Jesus reveals God, but
at the same time conceals God. Therefore, other religions are necessary in
principle, because many religions reflect God better than only one religion.
Schillebeeckx’s method is to
correlate the experiences of people of yesterday written in Scripture with
those of people of today. Hermeneutics is essential for interpreting
experiences. The theocentric view is an easy way to incorporate religions into
theology. Based on experiences of people of today, Schillebeeckx’s theology is
more appropriate for people today with their various problems. All religions
are respected equally in an ecumenical view; thus, aggressive behaviour against
religions formed by a spirit of superiority is eliminated.
In the third chapter I
presented God as the ineffable reality that human beings who are finite cannot
completely understand. The knowledge human beings have about God is very
relative because God is infinite. Truth and falsity are attributes of judgment.
Reality must be the standard of correct judgment and formulation. Human
language is as finite as the human intellect and therefore cannot totally
describe infinite reality. Religions are fingers pointing to God in different
cultures, languages, and ideologies. Theologies belonging to religions are also
fingers pointing to God which help believers understand God more and more.
Rahner’s audience and
Schillebeeckx’s audience in later of his life are different. The audience of
one is Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial form; the audience of the
other is marginal Christians and even believers of other religions. Therefore,
Rahner and Schillebeeckx have different starting points of their theologies.
One used transcendental anthropology and Christological dogma; the other used
the experiences of the people of yesterday in Scripture and of the people of
today. Rahner’s and Schillebeeckx’s theologies are two fingers pointing to God.
Both Rahner and Schillebeeckx are prominent theologians; both are enthusiasts
for the theological vocation. One is transcendental; the other is correlative.
One is dogmatic; the other is hermeneutical. One is Christocentric; the other
is theocentric. One is foundational; the other is liberative. One is very fit
for traditional Catholics; the other is very appropriate for people today with
their scientific spirit. One is fit to Catholics who often go to Church; the
other is suitable for modern people and marginal Christians who go to Church
less frequently. Both positions are not only valid but also necessary in a
situation where there are various audiences of different mentalities.
Audience is an extremely
important element which influences a theologian’s starting point and
theological method. Different audiences have different mentalities and
ideologies; for example, the mentality of an audience embedded in an eastern
tradition is different from that of an audience in a western tradition, and the
mentality of an audience which is Christians whose faith is in normal ecclesial
form is different from that of an audience of marginal Christians. Thus,
different mentalities entail different theologies.
Different ideologies name and
express ultimate reality differently. In a theological view, the Church
includes not only Christians who believe in Christ, but also people from the
time of Abel[164] and even
men and women “whose faith is known to God alone.”[165]
The Church’s mission is to proclaim Jesus and his Gospel to people of all
generations, of all cultures and of all ideologies. Therefore, the Church,
through her theologians, must describe her beliefs in God and in Jesus in the
languages and ideologies of the people that the Church talks to. For example,
to proclaim Jesus and his Gospel to people of countries who live in cultures
and ideologies of the Buddhist tradition, the Church should express her beliefs
in God and in Jesus within the Buddist tradition. It is a very hard task, but
the duty Jesus mandated to the Church demands that she carry it out and
accomplish it. I can take Vietnam, my country, as an example.
Vietnam is an Asian country
where some peoples share a legacy of land, cultures, and religions.
Christianity has came to Vietnam in the seventeenth century through missionary
Jesuits who accompanied Japanese Christians boating from Japan to Haifo, a
province in the midst of Vietnam, to escape the terrific tribulation in Japan
at that time. In that way, the Vietnamese received the Gospel.
In Vietnam, before the coming
of Christianity, the three great religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and
Confucianism had lived peacefully together and respected one other. Accurately
speaking, Confucianism is not a religion, but in Vietnam the educated men
identified it as a religion where people respect ancestors and Sir Heaven (Ông
Trời) who creates all things and lives in heaven. The Buddhists in
Vietnam are about 90% of the population, 7% are Christians, and 3% are
believers of other religions. In the nineteenth century, there was a
misunderstanding about Vietnamese Catholics. At that time, Vietnamese patriots
identified Vietnamese Catholics as people supporting the foreign enemies who came
to conquer Vietnam, so they massacred the Vietnamese Catholics. There were more
than one hundred thousands Vietnamese martyrs at that time.
Vietnamese believers of
religions respect one other and their corresponding religions. Popular sayings
about religions include: “all religions are good,” “no religion is bad,” “all
religions teach their respective believers to live rightly and well.” Before
Vatican II, Vietnamese Catholics were worried about the damnation of their
ancestors, because all Vietnamese ancestors were gentiles (before seventeenth
century). Now, the constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Church has
liberated them from that fear by declaring that people outside the Church can
be saved (Lumen Gentium, n. 16). The Second Vatican Council really changed the
missionary view in Asian countries.
Now the increase of
Christians has slowed down, probably because the missionary work is not pushed
now as before, or because Christian life is either not examplary or not credibe
enough to non-Christians. Missionary work is not only a human effort, but also
and principally God’s work. Until now, Asian countries have not had big numbers
of Christians, because Asian Christians are not good in missionary work, or
Christians are no better than believers of other religions, or because that is
God’s will. God probably wills that Jesus be presented to and accepted by other
religions in a variety of ways, rather than that these religions be destroyed.
In Vietnam, and in all Asian
countries, I think we need a theology appropriate not only to Vietnamese
Christians, but also to non-Christian Vietnamese believers. This theology would
not exclude any religion nor its theology. It would include all, and at the
same time present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to believers of all religions.
Rahner, Karl. Foundations of
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Crossroad, 1995.
Rahner, Karl. “Christianity and
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Seabury, 1974).
Rahner, Karl. “Anonymous
Christians,” Theological
Investigations 6 (New York: Seabury, 1969).
Rahner, Karl. “Atheism and
Implicit Christianity,” Theological Investigations 9 (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1972).
Rahner, Karl. “Anonymous Christianity
and the Missionary Task of the Church,” Theological Investigations 12
(New York: Seabury, 1974).
Rahner, Karl. “The One Christ and
the Universality of Salvation,” Theological Investigations 16
(New York: Seabury, 1979).
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in Theology.” Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad,
1974).
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the World. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968.
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Word. New York: Continuum, 1994.
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in God. New York: Newman Press, 1969.
Rahner, Karl. The Trinity.
New York: Herder and Herder, 1970.
Rahner, Karl. Grace in
Freedom. New York: Herder and Herder, 1969.
Rahner, Karl & Lehmann, Karl. Kerygma
and Dogma. New York: Herder and Herder, 1969.
Carr, Ann. The Theological
Method of Karl Rahner. Montana: The American Academy of Religion, 1977.
Schineller, J. Peter, S.J..
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(1976).
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the Sacrament of the Encounter with God. New York: Sheed and Ward,
1963.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. “Experience
and Faith,” Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV
Schillebeeckx, Edward. “Five
Questions Facing the Church Today,” The Crucial Questions: On Problems
Facing the Church Today. Ed. by Frank Fehmers. New York: Newman Press,
1969
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Revelation
and Theology. 2 Vols. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967-1968.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. World
and Church. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1971.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The
Understanding of Faith: Interpretation and criticism. New York: Seabury
Press, 1974.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Jesus
in our Western Culture: Mysticism, Ethics and Politics. Lonson: SCM
Press Ltd, 1987.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The
Church with a Human Face: A New and Expanded Theology of Ministry. New
York: Crossroad, 1985.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Jesus:
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Schillebeeckx, Edward. The
Eucharist. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. For
the Sake of the Gospel. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
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and Man. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. God
is New Each Moment. New York: Seabury, 1983.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. The
Language of Faith: Essay on Jesus, Theology, and the Church. New York:
Orbis Books, 1995.
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Schillebeeckx, Edward. God the
Future of Man. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1968
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Schillebeeckx, Edward. Church:
The Human Story of God. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
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Investigation of Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx by the Sacred Congregation for the
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Crowe, Frederick E.,S.J.. Method
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1980.
Mueller, J.J., S.J.. What
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1984.
Purcell, Michael. Mystery
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University, 1998.
Lonergan, Bernard J. F., S.J.. Method
in Theology. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972.
Rahner, Karl. “Transcendental
Theology.” Sacramentum Mundi. Ed. Karl Rahner. New York: Herder
and Herder, 1970.
Muck, Otto. The
Transcendental Method. New York: Crossroad, 1968.
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[1] On Rahner’s biography, it is due of Michael Purcell, Mystery and Method: The Other in Rahner and Levinas (Milwaukee: Marquette University, 1998), xxvii-xxviii.
[2] Most of this paragraph relies on R. Schreiter, Edward Schillebeeckx: The Schillebeeck Reader (New York: Crossroad, 1987) 1-8.
[3] Words about God can be human words or God’s words, but today “theology refers primarily to the human study of God.” Cfr. Francis Schuessler Fiorenza, "Systematic Theology: Task and Methods," in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, 1, ed. Francis Schuessler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 5.
[4] The title of this thesis is inspired by the story in the Buddist tradition that Buddha pointed to the moon with his finger. His disciples were looking at his finger, so Buddha told them not to look at his finger but at what his finger was pointing to.
[5] Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 174.
[6] Edward Schillebeeckx, “The Uniqueness of Christ and the Interreligious Dialogue,” in Report: Catholic Academy in Munich, Bavaria, April 22 1997, 16 [Typed Copy].
[7] For example, Schillebeeckx’s theology has been examined, re-examined, and re-examined again by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith regarding his orthodoxy, but until now the Congregation has not given the final sentence. There could be something misunderstood in Schillebeeckx’s theology. In my opinion, examining Schillebeeckx’s method, which comes from his theological global view and choice of audience, could help us to understand his theology correctly and to justify his orthodoxy, because Schillebeeckx’s method shifts according to his audience.
[8] Rahner, Foundations, 116.
[9] Rahner, Foundations, 12.
[10] Rahner, Foundations, 29.
[11] Rahner, Foundations, 30.
[12] Rahner, Foundations, 31.
[13] Rahner, Foundations, 20-21.
[14] Rahner, Foundations, 32.
[15] Rahner, Foundations, 34.
[16] Rahner, Foundations, 21.
[17] Karl Rahner, "Atheism and Implicit Christianity," in Theological Investigations, IX (New York: Seabury, 1972), 154-155.
[18] Rahner, Foundations, 52.
[19] Rahner, Foundations, 53.
[20] Rahner, Foundations, 117-118.
[21] Rahner, Foundations, 120.
[22] Rahner, Foundations, 119.126.
[23] Rahner, Foundations, 121.
[24] Rahner, Foundations, 120.
[25] Rahner, Foundations, 123.
[26] Rahner, Foundations, 128.
[27] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 276.
[28] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 266.
[29] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 268.
[30] Rahner, Foundations, 279.
[31] Rahner, Foundations, 280.
[32] Cfr. Rahner, Foundations, 194.
[33] Rahner, Foundations, 196.
[34] Rahner, Foundations, 202.
[35] Rahner, Foundations, 181.
[36] Rahner, Foundations, 311-312.
[37] Rahner, Foundations, 313.
[38] Rahner, Foundations, 314.
[39] Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 4-5.
[40] Karl Rahner, Hearer of the Word (New York: Continuum, 1994), 113.
[41] Rahner, Hearer, 106.
[42] Rahner, Hearer, 111.
[43] Karl Rahner, Hearer, 91-98.
[44] Karl Rahner, "Church, Churches and Religions," in Theological Investigations, X (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), 46.
[45] Rahner, Foundations, 322.
[46] Rahner, Foundations, 324.
[47] Karl Rahner, "Church," 45-46.
[48] Karl Rahner, "Church," 47.
[49] Rahner, "Church," 48.
[50] Rahner, Foundations, 314.
Rahner, "Church,” 45.
[51] Rahner, Foundations, 315.
[52] Rahner, Foundations, 316.
[53] Rahner, Foundations, xi.
[54] Rahner, Foundations, 1.
[55] Rahner, Foundations, 312.
[56] Karl Rahner, "Reflections on Methodology in Theology," in Theological Investigations, XI (New York: Seabury, 1974) 69.
[57] Karl Rahner, "Reflections,” 68.
[58] Rahner, Foundations, 126. 117.
[59] Rahner, Foundations, 177.
[60] Rahner, Foundations, 179.
[61] Rahner, Foundations, 246-249.
[62] Rahner, Foundations, 176-177.
[63] Rahner, Foundations, 178.
[64] Rahner, Foundations, 116.
[65] E. Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1971), 4.
[66] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 4.
[67] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 4.
[68] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 10.
[69] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 25.
[70] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 17.
[71] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 20.
[72] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 48.
[73] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 50.
[74] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 51.
[75] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 4.
[76] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 10.
[77] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 47.
[78] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 48.
[79] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 48.
[80] Edit. Ted Schoof, The Schillebeeckx Case: Official Exchange of Letter and Documents in the Investigation of Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1976-1980 (New York: Paulist Press, 1984) 119.
[81] Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (New York: Seabury Press, 1979) Foreword.
[82] Edward Schillebeeckx, Interim Report on the books Jesus & Christ (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 103.
[83] Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God (New York: Crossroad, 1990), xvi.
[84] Schillebeeckx, Church, xvii.
[85] Schillebeeckx, Church, 7.
[86] Schillebeeckx, Church, 10.
[87] Schillebeeckx, Church, 12.
[88] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 100.
[89] Schillebeeckx, Church, 12-13.
[90] Schillebeeckx, Church, 11-12.
[91] Schillebeeckx, Church, 11.
[92] Schillebeeckx, God Among Us, 91.
[93] Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 45.
[94] Schillebeeckx, Church, 28.
[95] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Experience and Faith," Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV, 3.
[96] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Experience and Faith," Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, XXIV, 9.
[97] Edward Schillebeeckx, "Five Questions Facing the Church Today," The Crucial Questions: On Problems Facing the Church Today, ed. by Frank Fehmers (New York: Newman Press, 1969), 54.
[98] Schillebeeckx, Church, xvii.
[99] Schillebeeckx, Church, 13.
[100] Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus in our Western Culture (London: SCM Press, 1987), 32.
[101] Schillebeeckx, Church, 11.
[102] Schillebeeckx, Church, 12.
[103] Schillebeeckx, Church, 26.
[104] Schillebeeckx, Church, 51.
[105] Schillebeeckx, Church, 27.
[106] Schillebeeckx, Church, 72.
[107] Schillebeeckx, Church, 73-74.
[108] Schillebeeckx, Church,166-167.
[109] Schillebeeckx, Church, 179.
[110] Schillebeeckx, Church, 62.
[111] Schillebeeckx, Church, 102.
[112] Schillebeeckx, Church, 164-165.
[113] Schillebeeckx, Church, 165.
[114] Schillebeeckx, Church, 26-27.
[115] Schillebeeckx, Church, 102 ff.
[116] Schillebeeckx, Church, 43.
[117] Schillebeeckx, Church, 179.
[118] Schillebeeckx, Church, 179.
[119] Schillebeeckx, Church, 180.
[120] Schillebeeckx, Church, 165-166.
[121] Schillebeeckx, Church, 9.
[122] Schillebeeckx, Church, 176.
[123] Schillebeeckx, Church, 168.
[124] Schillebeeckx, Church, 8.
[125] Schillebeeckx, Church, 9.
[126] Edward Schillebeeckx, God Among Us: The Gospel Proclaimed (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 134.
[127] Schillebeeckx, God Among Us, 135.
[128] Schillebeeckx, God Among Us,136.
[129] Schillebeeckx, Interim, 103.
[130] Schillebeeckx, Church, 53.
[131] Schillebeeckx, Church, 55.
[132] Schillebeeckx, Church, xvi.
[133] Schillebeeckx, Jesus, Foreword.
[134] Schoof, The Schillebeeckx Case, 119.
[135] Schillebeeckx, Church, 51.
[136] Schillebeeckx, Church, 81.
[137] Schillebeeckx, Interim, 140.
[138] Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith, 136.
[139] Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith, 102.
[140] Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith, 154.
[141] Schillebeeckx, Interim, 50.
[142] Schillebeeckx, Interim, 50.
[143] Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith, 140.
[144] Schillebeeckx, The Understanding of Faith, 142.
[145] Schillebeeckx, Jesus in our Western Culture, 3.
[146] Schillebeeckx, Jesus in our Western Culture, 2.
[147] Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 13ff.
[148] Schillebeeckx, Interim, 5.
[149] Edit. Ted Schoof, The Schillebeeckx Case, 119.
[150] Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, I (New York: Image Books, 1993), 442-445.
[151] Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy, II (New York: Image Books, 1993), 26-27.
[152] ARISTOTLE, Métataphysique, IV, 7. Cf. F-J.THONNARD, Précis d’histoire de la Philosophie (Paris: Desclée et Cie, 1966), 93.
[153] St.Thomas, Kant and Husserl accepted the same. Cf. F-J. THONNARD, Précis d’histoire, 1022.
ARISTOTLE, Métaphysique, VI, c.4: 1027, b, 25-29 quoted by ST.THOMAE AQUINATIS S.T., I, q.16, a.1: “Sed contra est quod Philosophus dicit quod verum et falsum non sunt in rebus sed in intellectu”.
[154] ST.THOMAE AQUINATIS S.T., I, q.16, a.1, corp.: “Quod autem dicitur quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus, potest ad utrum pertinere ... Sic ergo veritas principaliter est in intellectu; secundario vero in rebus, secundum quod comparantur ad intellectum ut ad principium”; a.2, 1: “Praeterea, Ysaac dicit, in libro de Difinitionibus, quod veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus”.
[155] Cathechism of the Catholic Church (California: Ignatius Press, 1994), n. 88.
[156] Declaration in defence of the Catholic doctrine on the Church against certain errors of the present day (Vatican City, 1973), chap.5, p. 12-14. Quoted by Francis A. Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 34-35.
[157] Rahner, Foundations, xi.
[158] Rahner, Foundations, 1.
[159] Rahner, Foundations, 268.
[160] Rahner, Hearer, 35 ff.
[161] Ed. Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 71 ff.
[162] “Eucharistic Prayer IV,” The Vatican Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 621.
[163] Ted Schoof, ed., The Schillebeeckx Case, 119.
[164] “Eucharistic Prayer I,” The Vatican II Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 606.
[165] “Eucharistic Prayer IV,” The Vatican II Sunday Missal (Massachussetts: St. Paul), 621.