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Spirit In The Church
English, German (translation)
- GenresTheology
104 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Karl Rahner
691 books87 followersKarl Rahner, SJ (March 5, 1904 — March 30, 1984) was a German Jesuit and theologian who, alongside Bernard Lonergan and Hans Urs von Balthasar, is considered one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.
He was born in Freiburg, Germany, and died in Innsbruck, Austria.
Before the Second Vatican Council, Rahner had worked alongside Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Marie-Dominique Chenu, theologians associated with an emerging school of thought called the Nouvelle Théologie, elements of which had been criticized in the encyclical Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII.
He was born in Freiburg, Germany, and died in Innsbruck, Austria.
Before the Second Vatican Council, Rahner had worked alongside Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Marie-Dominique Chenu, theologians associated with an emerging school of thought called the Nouvelle Théologie, elements of which had been criticized in the encyclical Humani Generis of Pope Pius XII.
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March 14, 2023
THE THEOLOGIAN LOOKS AT VARIOUS ‘SPIRITUAL’ ISSUES
Theologian Karl Rahner wrote in the first chapter of this 1977 book, “Scripture speaks in other than doctrinal terms of the Spirit who is given to us. The Bible refers to our own experience of the Spirit … and therefore we are especially entitled to ask where and how we experience the Spirit in our own selves in this personal, biblical way.” (Pg. 4)
He suggests, “if we isolated the mystical core-experience more exactly from such unusual peripheral phenomena as ecstasy, trance and so on… then it would certainly be easier to see that such mystical experiences are not events that are sadly beyond the experience of an ordinary Christian, but that the testimony that mystics offer of their experiences indicates an experience which every Christian … can make and evoke but which he or she too easily overlooks or represses.” (Pg. 9)
He states, “Let us take… someone who is dissatisfied with his life, who cannot make the good will, errors, guilt and fatalities of his life fit together… even when he adds remorse to this accounting. He cannot see how he is to include God as an entry in the accounting, as one that makes the … values, come out right. This man surrenders himself to God … to the hope of an incalculable ultimate reconciliation of his experience in which he whom we call God dwells; he releases his unresolved and uncalculated existence … in trust and hope and does not know how this miracle occurs that he himself enjoy and possess as his own self-actuated possession.” (Pg. 19)
He notes, “Christianity is not elitist… the New Testament … offers details of various sublime experiences of the Spirit that can be summarized as ‘mystical’: But all men who selflessly love their neighbor and experience God in that lo0ve are accorded ultimate salvation by God’s jurisdiction, which is not capped by the highest ascent or deepest immersion of the mystic.” (Pg. 28)
He observes, “There are… earnest Catholics who are anxious to have a right mind about the Church and who hold the view… that the hierarchy if the only vehicle of the Spirit or the only portal through which the Spirit enters the Church. They imagine the Church as a sort of centralized state, and a totalitarian one at that… For a Catholic every ‘clash’ with the Church is always an occurrence recognized by the Church itself as an expression of its own life and only to the extent that it is such a thing.” (Pg. 41)
He states, “The sixteenth-century Reformers did not intend… to reject the evangelical counsels as such… Scripture attests to them too plainly. And it was only liberal rationalism of the eighteenth-century sort, with little understanding even of the faith of the Reformers, that thought itself obliged to be cleverer and wiser than Scripture in these matters. But what the Reformers could not see was that things of that kind would have anything to do with the visible Church and its officials and laws…” (Pg. 53)
He admits, “A number of forces … within the Church here on earth must be felt by human beings themselves as disparate and opposed, precisely because they are unified by God alone. Of course, it is true … that the various gifts of the one Spirit must work together harmonious in the unity of the one Body of Christ. But since the gifts are on in the one Spirit but do not form one gift, that unity of the Body of Christ itself is only fully one in the one Spirit. For the rest it is true that no one singly forms the whole. No one has every function.” (Pg. 64-65)
He states, “the institution is always the same and develops … from the palpable, unambiguous principles it embodies from the outset---though this is not to dispute the creative and spontaneous element even in the juridical development of the Church… But the charismatic is essentially new and aways surprising. Of course it also stands in inner though hidden continuity with what came earlier in the Church and fits in with its spirit and with its institutional framework.” (Pg. 73)
He argues, “But where we encounter ‘prophetic’ visions, which lay demands upon us the validity and binding force of which are not evident apart from these visions, the only criterion which can justify this claim is a real miracle (physical or moral) in the strict sense. If Catholic fundamental theology can and must apply this criterion to public Christian revelation, how much more must it apply to private prophetic revelations.” (Pg. 81-82)
He also notes, “It is also evident that even today we are not necessarily secure against attempted fraud: the ‘revelations’ of Maria Rafols (d. 1853) which have been published since 1926 are a modern forgery; the ‘apparitions’ at Lipa in the Philippines were deliberately staged as a hoax; the visions at Gimigliano were invented by the little visionary after seeing the film on Bernadette (though many people claim to have seen the sun-miracle during those ‘visions’).” (Pg. 86)
He states, “The possibility of God’s predicting the future is quite consistent with the Christian concept of God, difficult as it may be to see precisely how God can know the future without prejudice to its ‘futurity’ and especially to its freedom. As the living and omniscient God he transcends time and history…” (Pg. 97)
He concludes, “the prophetic genius will never die out in the Church… This is not to say that all the prophecies, even of saints, must be accurate and accurate… An absolute criterion of a genuine prophecy can be found, before its fulfillment, only in … the sole proof of a genuine vision… namely a miracle … which is demonstrated to be such, and is performed in such connection with the prophecy that it can really be taken as its divine confirmation… but it does not follow that every pronouncement of the visionary on the future is warranted, especially since this information about the future was only disclosed at a much later date…” (Pg. 101-102)
This will interest Catholics studying such issues in the Church.
Theologian Karl Rahner wrote in the first chapter of this 1977 book, “Scripture speaks in other than doctrinal terms of the Spirit who is given to us. The Bible refers to our own experience of the Spirit … and therefore we are especially entitled to ask where and how we experience the Spirit in our own selves in this personal, biblical way.” (Pg. 4)
He suggests, “if we isolated the mystical core-experience more exactly from such unusual peripheral phenomena as ecstasy, trance and so on… then it would certainly be easier to see that such mystical experiences are not events that are sadly beyond the experience of an ordinary Christian, but that the testimony that mystics offer of their experiences indicates an experience which every Christian … can make and evoke but which he or she too easily overlooks or represses.” (Pg. 9)
He states, “Let us take… someone who is dissatisfied with his life, who cannot make the good will, errors, guilt and fatalities of his life fit together… even when he adds remorse to this accounting. He cannot see how he is to include God as an entry in the accounting, as one that makes the … values, come out right. This man surrenders himself to God … to the hope of an incalculable ultimate reconciliation of his experience in which he whom we call God dwells; he releases his unresolved and uncalculated existence … in trust and hope and does not know how this miracle occurs that he himself enjoy and possess as his own self-actuated possession.” (Pg. 19)
He notes, “Christianity is not elitist… the New Testament … offers details of various sublime experiences of the Spirit that can be summarized as ‘mystical’: But all men who selflessly love their neighbor and experience God in that lo0ve are accorded ultimate salvation by God’s jurisdiction, which is not capped by the highest ascent or deepest immersion of the mystic.” (Pg. 28)
He observes, “There are… earnest Catholics who are anxious to have a right mind about the Church and who hold the view… that the hierarchy if the only vehicle of the Spirit or the only portal through which the Spirit enters the Church. They imagine the Church as a sort of centralized state, and a totalitarian one at that… For a Catholic every ‘clash’ with the Church is always an occurrence recognized by the Church itself as an expression of its own life and only to the extent that it is such a thing.” (Pg. 41)
He states, “The sixteenth-century Reformers did not intend… to reject the evangelical counsels as such… Scripture attests to them too plainly. And it was only liberal rationalism of the eighteenth-century sort, with little understanding even of the faith of the Reformers, that thought itself obliged to be cleverer and wiser than Scripture in these matters. But what the Reformers could not see was that things of that kind would have anything to do with the visible Church and its officials and laws…” (Pg. 53)
He admits, “A number of forces … within the Church here on earth must be felt by human beings themselves as disparate and opposed, precisely because they are unified by God alone. Of course, it is true … that the various gifts of the one Spirit must work together harmonious in the unity of the one Body of Christ. But since the gifts are on in the one Spirit but do not form one gift, that unity of the Body of Christ itself is only fully one in the one Spirit. For the rest it is true that no one singly forms the whole. No one has every function.” (Pg. 64-65)
He states, “the institution is always the same and develops … from the palpable, unambiguous principles it embodies from the outset---though this is not to dispute the creative and spontaneous element even in the juridical development of the Church… But the charismatic is essentially new and aways surprising. Of course it also stands in inner though hidden continuity with what came earlier in the Church and fits in with its spirit and with its institutional framework.” (Pg. 73)
He argues, “But where we encounter ‘prophetic’ visions, which lay demands upon us the validity and binding force of which are not evident apart from these visions, the only criterion which can justify this claim is a real miracle (physical or moral) in the strict sense. If Catholic fundamental theology can and must apply this criterion to public Christian revelation, how much more must it apply to private prophetic revelations.” (Pg. 81-82)
He also notes, “It is also evident that even today we are not necessarily secure against attempted fraud: the ‘revelations’ of Maria Rafols (d. 1853) which have been published since 1926 are a modern forgery; the ‘apparitions’ at Lipa in the Philippines were deliberately staged as a hoax; the visions at Gimigliano were invented by the little visionary after seeing the film on Bernadette (though many people claim to have seen the sun-miracle during those ‘visions’).” (Pg. 86)
He states, “The possibility of God’s predicting the future is quite consistent with the Christian concept of God, difficult as it may be to see precisely how God can know the future without prejudice to its ‘futurity’ and especially to its freedom. As the living and omniscient God he transcends time and history…” (Pg. 97)
He concludes, “the prophetic genius will never die out in the Church… This is not to say that all the prophecies, even of saints, must be accurate and accurate… An absolute criterion of a genuine prophecy can be found, before its fulfillment, only in … the sole proof of a genuine vision… namely a miracle … which is demonstrated to be such, and is performed in such connection with the prophecy that it can really be taken as its divine confirmation… but it does not follow that every pronouncement of the visionary on the future is warranted, especially since this information about the future was only disclosed at a much later date…” (Pg. 101-102)
This will interest Catholics studying such issues in the Church.
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