Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (Grundkurs des Glaubens. Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums (Herder, 1976)), translated by William V. Dych (New York: Seabury Press (A Crossroad Book), 1978).

Preface. In his 1976 Preface, Karl Rahner said that he wrote the Foundations of Christian Faith for educated readers but not for specialists. He aims to present an idea of Christianity, a conceptual overview of Christian faith. The overview is intellectually honest, but does not claim to be complete. It is a basic course, not the final word. Rahner says that it offers a kind of saving knowledge for everyone, not just for professional students of theology. In the Preface, Rahner makes two assertions. First, he says that an “idea” of Christianity exists. He calls it a formal concept. This concept can be induced from a study of the various expressions of Christianity. In other words, the many aspects of Christian faith reflect a single idea, a unity that we call Christian faith. Rahner asserts, secondly, that his search for the idea of Christianity is somewhat “pre-scientific.” It does not proceed in the ordinary scientific manner, with a comprehensive survey of theological literature and citations of all the relevant sources. A scientific survey, he says, may not yield an account of Christian faith. And that is Rahner’s goal: to address Christian faith as a single whole that underlies the many theological specialty studies.

Cover photo of Rahner, scanned from the books by George Vass, Understanding Karl Rahner, four volumes (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics; and London: Sheed and Ward, 1985).

Introduction. The Introduction sketches the general aim of the Foundations, its method, and the book’s assumptions about spiritual knowledge. The first part shows how the book intends to help Christians (and those who want to be Christians) understand the relation between Christianity and the whole of existence The second part gives us an insight into the general method that Rahner pursues throughout the Foundations. It is a method that unites philosophy and theology in faith. Against those who would subordinate philosophy to theology, Rahner wants to integrate the two. Philosophy presents the human being as a question, he writes, a question about the goal and meaning of life. Theology reflects on Christianity as an answer to that human question. It is the answer that God wants to share the divine life, and indeed offers it, to all humanity. The third part identifies problems about how we can know ourselves and God. Some of these problems concern the relation between: - the knower and Christian faith, - our openness to reality and our limited knowledge of it, and - what we know and how we conceptualize it. In general, Rahner suggests that the bases of Christian faith are reliable. Although spiritual knowledge is limited and imperfect, it is nevertheless true knowledge, based on experience, rooted in history, leading to transcendence.

Part 1. General Preliminary Reflections.

(Intr.1, p. 1). The goal of the Foundations, says Rahner, is less religious edification than intellectual reflection. It asks about the idea of Christianity and about what makes faith possible. At the same time, however, it is no merely neutral history of religion, for it presupposes faith. What does it mean to ask about the possibility of faith? For an answer, see Parts 2 and 3 below.

Part 2. Preliminary Remarks on Methodology.

(Intr.2, p. 3). In this section on method, Rahner explains how his book is a response to the Second Vatican Council. The council recommended an introductory course for seminarians (A) that would summarize the major Christian teachings (B) in a way that recognizes the needs of the age (C). Such a course would acknowledge that theology today is pluralistic (D), and that Christians today can give an account of their faith even in a situation of pluralism (E). Finally, the course envisioned by Rahner would contain a fundamental theology that is also a philosophic reflection on human nature as God’s creation (F). In short, Foundations of Christian Faith acknowledges the pluralism of modernity but insists that a single account of the faith is possible – not as an objective treatise, but as an expression of faith in the God of Jesus Christ.

A. The Call of Vatican II for an Introductory Course. (Intr.2.A, p. 3). The origin of the Foundations is the Vatican II request, in Optatam totius 14, for an “Introductory Course” in Christianity. Such a course focuses on the mystery of Christ and integrates philosophy and theology. The goal is to make even the beginning student aware of (a) the meaning of theological studies, (b) the interrelation of the branches of theology, and (c) the pastoral intent of such study..

B. The "Theological Encyclopedia" in the Nineteenth Century. (Intr.2.B, p. 4). This theological encyclopedia of the nineteenth century is a model for Rahner’s enterprise. Although the actual encyclopedias of that period are not adequate today, their intent – namely, to present the major themes of Christianity in outline – continues to be a sound one.

C. The Addressee of Contemporary Theology.(Intr.2.C, p. 5). In the Foundations, Rahner presupposes that there is a contemporary crisis in which faith is challenged, and that this crisis can be overcome. How? By affirming our faith honestly and in an intellectual way. Although Foundations is aimed at the beginner, such a beginner today is not like the beginner of Rahner’s youth, who could take Christianity for granted. The beginner whom Rahner addresses lives in a different situation, a situation in which the very possibility of belief is contested.

D. Pluralism in Contemporary Theology and Philosophy. (Intr.2.D, p. 7). There are so many subjects in contemporary theology and philosophy that no one can master them all. In this case, teamwork does not avail, for one must appropriate faith for oneself. Furthermore, there is no all-encompassing framework for understanding, and the theologian must be in dialogue with all the human sciences. Finally, one cannot treat philosophy and theology as a collection of facts, but rather must participate in (must affirm in faith) what one discovers and asserts. All of these observations suggest the pluralism of theology and philosophy.

E. The Justification of Faith on a "First Level of Reflection." (Intr.2.E, p. 8). Theology’s arguments for the credibility of faith (the traditional analysis fidei) do not establish faith. Rather, they are themselves a part of faith. Something like an “adequate” reflection on faith, a reflection that is scientifically thorough (i.e., a “second level” reflection, one in which each theological discipline gives an account), is not possible. In Rahner’s sense, all of us are rudes or beginners, for no one has an encyclopedic or all-comprehending faith. But it is possible for us to have a “first level” reflection, a reflection in which we are able to give an account of our own faith. This is based on something like converging probabilities or the method of inference that J. H. Newman called the “illative” sense. Foundations of Christian Faith aims to supply it.

F. The Content of the Introduction. (Intr.2.F, p. 10). The introductory course proposed by Rahner is a unity of philosophy and theology. The philosophy constitutes a “fundamental theology” in which we reflect on Christian existence and its foundations. The theology makes present what Catholics call dogma, namely, what has been revealed by God. The central and most important dogma is that God communicates the divine self to human beings, and that they are capable of receiving this communication. This is not only dogma, but also the philosophic foundation of human existence.

By unifying philosophy and theology, Rahner intends (1) to identify the human being as the “universal question,” (2) to show the transcendental and historical conditions that make revelation possible, and (3) to show Christianity as the “answer” to the question which the human being poses and in fact is.

Undoubtedly faith remains a mystery. But it is an intelligible mystery, says Rahner, a mystery that engages us at the heart of our being. Having said this, Rahner cautions us to be wary of a narrowly Christological approach that prematurely leaps to Jesus Christ as the “answer” before adequately posing the question. Then he warns us to avoid an exclusively philosophical (and not also theological) approach to the problem. Finally, he warns us to be wary of a naive Biblicism that might turn the foundational course into a course on exegesis.

Part 3. Some Basic Epistemological Problems

(Intr.3, p. 14). In his treatment of epistemology, Rahner anticipates the heart of his theology. That heart is the insight into transcendence, the insight that allows us to call his theology “transcendental.” By that term, Rahner means that we, in the very act of reflecting on our limitations, overcome those limitations. This is especially true when we think about the meaning of our lives. As we reflect on how limited our understanding of that meaning is, we paradoxically experience a desire for, and the intuition of, greater meaning. In this experience and intuition, we have an indirect knowledge of the God who enables meaning and invites us to express it conceptually (A). Whenever human beings know anything at all, they know themselves along with it (B). Despite the fact that our knowledge is conditioned by history, that conditioning does not hinder our essential openness to experience (C). We know ourselves as capable of knowing more, of transcending what had limited us before (D). This experience of transcendence provides an indirect knowledge of God as the one who presents humanity with choices and challenges it to grow (E).

A. The Relation between Reality and Concept, between Original Self-Possession and Reflection. (Intr.3.A, p. 14). Rahner distinguishes between an original experience – the experience, let us say, of an encounter with God as the one who calls us to a deeper understanding of ourselves – and the reflection on that experience. A rationalist might say that only the reflection, only the concept, of the experience is real. A modernist might say that reflection is a second-hand experience, an attempt to understand something which, in its original state, is much more fundamental. Rahner wants to say that the two form a unity. The experience of God strives to express itself in concepts. And the concepts one uses to express the experience may falsify it or be inadequate, and so must be purified.

B. The Self-Presence of the Subject in Knowledge. (Intr.3.B, p. 17). The traditional “correspondence theory” of truth (i.e., that truth is the concept that corresponds to the reality) assumes that the reality, the thing itself, is outside the mind. We have truth when the mind forms a concept adequate to the thing. But spiritual knowledge is such that one possesses the thing known and one’s own self (the knower) together. We know ourselves in knowing any thing. That knowledge of ourselves, however, is often implicit and unreflected. Our reflection on what we experience is never the same as the experience itself. The reflection on God in our act of knowing is never the experience itself of God.

C. Apriority and Essential Openness. (Intr.3.C, p. 19). It is true to say that there are a priori conditions for knowing anything. For example, our own self-consciousness is a kind of “law” governing the way things are known to us. We know things in the way that our very human nature allows us to know them. Having said that, however, we must add: the human being is open by nature. That is why we call the human being a “knowing subject.” Whenever we know anything – even when we know ourselves as conditioned by history and prejudiced by culture – we know that we are open to further experience. We are able to transcend ourselves.

D. Transcendental Experience. (Intr.3.D, p. 20). We know ourselves as capable of knowing more. That is the essence of transcendental experience. It is an “experience” in that we can know our capacity for transcendence in any and every experience whatsoever. And we call this experience “transcendental” because it points to a fundamental aspect of humanity. It is the human ability to know ourselves. Knowledge of ourselves is more than knowledge of this or that dimension of our lives. It is knowledge of ourselves as knowers – as those who, in the act of knowing anything, are simultaneously conscious of themselves and of what they are called to become.

E. Unthematic Knowledge of God. (Intr.3.E, p. 21). In transcendental experience, there is an intuition of God. Granted, this intuition is not always conscious of itself. The one who has it may not even know that it is an intuition of God. But that knowledge is still present. How? Because whenever we are aware of ourselves as knowers or seekers trying to understand the mystery of life, then God is present in that self-awareness: present as mystery, as the absolute and incomprehensible source of all that is. What we know, in knowing anything, is that our knowledge is a small vessel in a vast sea of mystery. Our own knowledge, small and incomplete, owes its existence to that vast sea as the mystery that bears it up.