Introduction to Part 1
In the introduction to this chapter (p. 176), Rahner presents his doctrine of the “anonymous Christian.” The Hindu, Buddhist, or Moslem may well accept what Christianity wants to convey, Rahner suggests, without that Hindu, Buddhist, or Moslem professing a Christian faith. Whenever a person accepts God’s call to transcendence and responds to it, one becomes a Christian, even without knowing the name of Christ.
Still, one is only a Christian in the full sense of the word by means of Baptism and explicitly Christian faith. Rahner calls this “the historical and reflexive dimension of God’s transcendental self-communication” (176). It is “historical” because Christianity is not just an idea but has manifested itself in history. It is “reflexive” because that transcendental self-communication of God, offered to everyone in an interior way, is reflected in the life of Jesus. Without the history of Jesus, says Rahner, transcendental theology would be not be recognized for what it is.
This chapter on Jesus Christ brings two elements together: transcendental and historical theology. The point of departure is the encounter with Jesus in history. The chapter then explicates what Rahner means by an “ascending Christology” or “Christology from below.” This theology begins with the man, Jesus of Nazareth, who showed himself to be the one whose life and words were affirmed and validated by God. The “ascending Christology” then connects this man with the eternal Word by whom God intended from all eternity to reconcile us to God’s own self.
We recognize in the man, Jesus, the fullest expression of a transcendental encounter with God, an encounter in comparison to which our own experiences seem incomplete. The experience of the man Jesus enables us to ascend to a recognition in him of the divine Logos. To be sure, the classical “descending Christology,” which begins with the idea of God entering human history, is also important. But the human, rather than the divine, is Rahner’s starting point.
(VI.1, p. 178). The “evolutionary view” about which Rahner speaks does not refer mainly to an evolution on the part of Jesus Christ. Rather, it has to do with our own evolution and with the self-transcendence to which we are called (A). Transcending ourselves by responding to God’s call is a kind of evolution. We evolve by opening ourselves to the God who unites all creation (B). Rahner calls this “active self-transcendence.” He means that we transcend the merely material by knowing it for what it is, namely, the vehicle of spirit (C). Our proper end, the end of both matter and spirit, is to lead the material world into a consciousness of its spiritual vocation (D). Humanity is thus the shepherd of the cosmos, drawing it to God as its own innermost life and destiny (E). In this “evolutionary view,” Christ is God’s offer of self-communication. When we accept the offer, we enjoy membership in the very life of God (F). Christ is the “absolute saviour,” embodying God’s offer and manifesting in himself the definitive acceptance of that offer by human beings (G). As divine Word, Christ established the world as the reality wherein the divine would show itself. As human being, he achieved a “hypostatic” union with God (H). This hypostatic union, accomplished definitively in Jesus alone, is part of a transcendence taking place in all human creatures (I).
A. Explanation and Clarification of the Topic (VI.1.A, p. 178). Our question about Jesus proceeds from an evolutionary view of the world. Rahner intends to avoid the theories of Teilhard de Chardin, thereby presupposing (rather than presenting) the nature of evolution. An evolutionary starting point does not mean that we are trying to view the incarnation as a consequence of evolution (as in the heretical “consciousness Christology” of the early twentieth century). Nor are we trying to say that the incarnation is incompatible with evolution (and thus embracing a intellect-denying fideism). Rather, we seek a correlation of the two, namely evolution and faith.
Evolution is the view of the contemporary person, the person in a pluralistic world. Such a person sees the diversity of religions and asks what is specific to the Christian religion. His or her question is not, “What is the message of Christ?” but rather, “How is it possible to take the question of a God-Man seriously?”
Rahner’s method of procedure is straightforward. He poses questions about the unity of spirit and matter. He asks what is the nature of this unity from the standpoint of an evolutionary view. Further, he asks about the relation between the history of nature and that of the human being. His goal is to show that, in human beings, matter “discovers itself” in spirit. The human being is the one who transcends matter. The ultimate transcendence has already begun in the “hypostatic union” of two natures in Christ. In this incarnation is the beginning, Rahner says, of the divinization of the world.
B. The Unity of All Created Things (VI.1.B, p. 181). Matter and spirit do not exist “alongside” each other, unmixed and separate. Christianity presumes that they have much in common. It teaches the union of spirit and matter in the person. The Christian believes that the fulfillment of the human spirit is not an individual achievement. It must be understood as part of the fulfillment of the cosmos.
Natural science knows "about" matter, but "it cannot know matter itself " (182). Why not? Because natural science abstracts form the person and seeks impersonal knowledge. Impersonal knowledge enables the scientist to calculate. But it does not enable the person to see the interrelationships between matter and the person. Rahner believes that we can only know matter in relation to the human being. Even the scientist cannot know the human being, not even in a "medical" and "physiological" way, as matter alone. To be sure, the person is not a "platonic spirit" either. But knowledge of the person must be spiritual as well as material.
Rahner offers the following thesis: "Spirit is the single person insofar as he becomes conscious of himself in an absolute presence to himself" (183). The human being is open to all of reality. He or she is oriented to the ground of reality, i.e., God. This openness is not a possession but has the character of "being taken possession of." God draws us into mystery. We are "taken possession of" when we accept the mystery of God. So when we become conscious of ourselves as the presence of God's absolute call and mystery, we "become" spirit.
No doubt we experience ourselves and others as "matter." But we are deceived if we believe that matter is all that there is. Were we to view people as purely matter, then we might regard them as mere instruments at our disposal. But they are not, and matter is only a starting point. From matter we realize that there is a reality, an otherness, in which we live and with which we can communicate. In that communication, we realize that the "other" is more than matter. He or she is rather a finite spirit, like ourselves, communicating in mutual knowledge and love. And in mutual knowledge and love all things are united, linked in freedom by the bonds of spirit.
C. The Notion of "Active Self-Transcendence" (VI.1.C, p. 183). The fact that we are both matter and spirit can be misunderstood. We can misunderstand ourselves statically, as if the relation of matter and spirit in us never changes. And we can misunderstand ourselves as the mere containers of the two, matter and spirit, as if they were irreconcilable opposites.
A truer understanding of the relation between matter and spirit must see, as Rahner says, "that it is of the intrinsic nature of matter to develop toward spirit" (184). In time, the person changes. He or she develops. In this development, the person transcends his or her former self. Indeed, one surpasses oneself, and actually "increases" one's own being. This is "active self-transcendence." One transcends oneself, not just by passively accepting what God causes, but also by means of "the power of the absolute fullness of being" (185).
For example, parents create their child, a new person, in an act which is (in the first instance) "merely" biological. Ultimately, however, that merely biological act is of great spiritual consequence. And in the theory of natural selection, matter appears to develop, once again, toward more successful life, and even toward the evolution of the human being. All of these are examples of active self-transcendence. Matter is developing toward spirit.
The highest dimensions of life and of spirit are variations of what existed previously. To be sure, new species evolve, and these are a development and a progression. But from Rahner's viewpoint, they are expressions of an underlying form or idea. The form or idea seeks to manifest itself. It has a telos or goal. And human beings not only possess themselves in that way, but can be conscious of the form or idea that underlies them.
D. The Finality of the History of Nature and Spirit (VI.1.D, 187). Human beings and nature have a single, common goal. The history of nature reaches its goal in the history of the human spirit. The goal of humanity is to continue the history of nature. It continues it by transforming the material world. Another way of expressing this idea is to say that nature culminates in spirit. Spirit, for its part, aims at the transformation of nature.
The goal of humanity, says Rahner, "consists in the infinite fullness of God" (188). The person, Rahner suggests, must simply accept God's hidden and seemingly distant dynamism as providence. This seems to be an argument for fatalism or resignation. But it is not. Rahner states that there is reason for hope: that reason is the history of freedom, a history "encompassed" by God's grace and will.
E. Man's Place in the Cosmos (VI.1.E., p. 188). Under the influence of science, we commonly think of humanity as the product of chance whose destiny is extinction. That is the despair of our age. The Christian thinker, however, insists upon the dignity and abiding value of the person.
Is there any support for human dignity in a scientific world view? Yes, says Rahner, it is the idea of the human person as the one who can now "direct" the very progression of culture and even of nature. This human person can hardly be a mere caprice or product of chance. He or she has the dignity of being a caretaker or shepherd of human destiny, and not just a mere product of chance. We must see, Rahner says, that a supposedly "brute nature" actually discovers its own goal in the human being. With that insight, we can avoid falling into the "platonic dualism" which regards spirit as the enemy of matter.
If nature's goal is spirit, then the cosmos is related to its ground or source. The ground of being then becomes not a logical presupposition (e.g., an original "creative impulse") but rather a goal. The ground of being becomes the one toward whom the person strives. It is a magnet which draws us to transcend what we were and to become what we are called to be. It is, in short, God's spirit. Persons are not just a product of the cosmos, but their union with God is the very goal of the cosmos. In the human being, the cosmos presses forward, reaching toward its own "self-presence in spirit" (190).
Hence we human beings are able to anticipate our goal. It is nothing less than the goal of the cosmos. Our goal is the unity of a spirit which knows itself. Christianity calls it salvation, immortality of the soul, resurrection of the flesh. These terms "mean" the fulfillment of the cosmos. The cosmos "desires" to receive God, described by Rahner as "the immediate self-communication of its own ground" (190). It desires this goal in and through its highest creatures, human beings.
What will it mean for the cosmos to achieve its goal? It will mean that the world will receive God in such a way that God becomes the world's innermost life. And this goal is already present, at least in anticipation. We see the world's goal in our own life-long struggle for existence and dignity, whereby we "act out of a formal anticipation of the whole" (191). A person may claim to be uninterested in God. Such may claim to rely, not on God, but on "science." But Rahner says that we are, by our nature, spiritual beings. We live in the midst of a mystery, a question about our goal and purpose. And this mystery and question remains, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.
F. The Place of Christ in an Evolutionary View of the World (VI.1.F, p. 192). The goal of the world, then, is to find itself in an encounter with God. We creatures of the world find ourselves in the manner or way that God has given to us. This is the way of self-transcendence. And since this is the way that God has given, then it is a fundamental clue to the nature of Christology.
God has created human beings in such a way that we can freely respond to God. We are spiritual beings, and when we respond to God, then we are communion with God. When God offered to humanity the divine self in Jesus Christ, we were invited to accept that offer. The acceptance of the offer "justified" us in St. Paul's sense of the word. It united us with Christ, made us members of his body, and so his justice before God became our own justice. To reject that offer is disbelief and sin.
G. On the Notion of Absolute Saviour (VI.1.G, p. 193). What do we mean by the term “saviour”? In Rahner’s view, saviour is the historical person, Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection are a sacramental sign to us. They signify that God has communicated the divine self and has moved the cosmos towards its goal. To be sure, God has moved the cosmos closer to its goal in other ways than through Jesus Christ. God’s self-communication began before the incarnation of the saviour. But in Jesus Christ the self-communication becomes “irrevocable,” “recognized,” and “concrete” in a moment of history (194).
Although God's self-communication is irrevocable and concrete, nevertheless it has not reached its conclusion. Christ, the "absolute saviour," is only the beginning of the fullness of time. But in him the fullness has begun. It began in OT times, for God's eternal Word was "at work" before the incarnation. And Jesus Christ, the future goal, is also the causa finalis, for he "caused" the cosmos to move toward its goal. Thus we say that the absolute saviour is both God's "promise" (i.e., God's self-communication) and also the acceptance of God's self-communication (i.e., the acceptance which took place in the man Jesus himself).
H. Remarks on the Meaning of the Assertion of a Hypostatic Union (VI.1.H, p. 195). Christ, the absolute saviour, must first of all be considered a human being. At the outset, we must consider him not as God acting in the world, but as a human person, that is, a part of the cosmos and of history. Jesus accepted God’s grace through obedience, prayer, and willingness to accept death. Jesus had an immediacy to God, an immediacy to God in his very humanity.
Throughout Christian history, there has been a temptation of Gnosticism. It is the temptation to regard God as above and beyond the world. To be sure, this God draws close to the human spirit and offers a kind of knowledge. Such knowledge is akin to the human sciences such as psychotherapy in that the knowledge can free the human being from ignorance. But such knowledge is different from Gnosticism. Unlike the Gnostics, Christians believe that "God lays hold of matter when the Logos becomes flesh" (196). They believe that, in the human being, matter is so ennobled that "matter becomes conscious of itself" (196).
When the Logos became flesh, the corporeal or material part of the world was established as the Logos' own reality. Matter is different from the Logos, doubtless, yet it expresses the Logos. Matter allows the Logos to be present.
Matter and Incarnation are thus two phases of God's self-communication. The divine Word established the world as the Word's very own material reality. The absolute saviour and human matter have become one. Hence we can say that "God becomes world" (197). The "self-transcendence" which we see in Jesus of Nazareth is the decisive moment toward which the cosmos is striving.
Does that mean that the self-transcendence of matter is "natural"? We witnessed this self-transcendence in a human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Was his self-transcendence purely a case of evolution? No, says Rahner, it is the goal of creation. It is related to earlier stages of human history, related not as a purely natural progression, but as a pure gift, a grace which built upon the earlier stages.
I. On the Relationship Between Human Transcendence and Hypostatic Union (VI.1.I, p. 198). In this section, Rahner speaks of the absolute transcendence of the human spirit of Jesus into God. It is a remarkable formulation: the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, has transcended his own human nature and achieved oneness with God. But then Rahner says something even more remarkable, namely, that this transcendence is not just a one-time event. Instead it is part of a transcendence taking place in all human creatures. All people potentially are in mutual intercommunication and have a common goal. To be sure, says Rahner, the transcendence was seen definitively only in the one person, Jesus of Nazareth. But all are invited to such transcendence. The only ones closed off to it are those who refuse it.
Was the hypostatic union of Jesus and the Logos a unique instance? No, says Rahner. The God-Man did not simply enter human existence once and for all, bring it to fulfillment, and leave it behind. There is a relation between the incarnation and our own self-transcendence. The entry of the Logos into human history is not just a once-and-for-all event, but also the means by which grace is bestowed on human beings. Thanks to Jesus Christ, all human beings know about the self-transcendence to which they are called. To be sure, the incarnation is a point of climax to which the whole world is directed. But is is a beginning, not an end. Through the incarnation, we receive God's very self, and are summoned into a new life with God.
Hence we can say that hypostatic union of Jesus and Logos, man and God, is a union toward which all humanity strives. The incarnation is thus a concrete moment within the process by which the divinization of all creatures is realized. And the hypostatic union, fulfilled in one man, is also a promise to all people. It is the promise that God will bring about human transcendence by communicating the divine self (201). Grace in us, and the hypostatic union in Jesus Christ, must be understand as aspects of the one decision and initiative of God.
"The hypostatic union takes place," says Rahner, "insofar as God wishes to communicate himself to all men in grace and glory" (202). The difference between grace and hypostatic union is that Jesus is God's offer to us. We are not the offer but the recipients. What is offered is the same, namely, self-transcendence and union with God.
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