What do you think?
Rate this book
Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity
Karl Rahner is one of Catholicism’s most influential, and yet difficult to understand, theologians. This remarkably comprehensive volume gives a page by page explanation of Rahner’s great summary Foundations of Christian Faith . With an excellent introduction and helpful indices, this book is an indispensable addition to every theological library.
488 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
47 people are currently reading
611 people want to read
About the author
Karl Rahner
681 books82 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
August 9, 2011
If you want to be sure that you hav read the most important work by one of (if not the) mot important philosophical Catholic theologian of the twentieth century, this is it! Do not let the subtitle fool you, though. Although "an introduction to the idea of Christianity" this magnum opus of Karl Rahner, SJ is no introductory book - or perhaps it is introductory in the way that Thomas Aquinas says that his Summa Theologica is an introduction to the basics!
Rahner is perhaps best known for his correlation of Christian theology (particularly a retrieval an renewal of St. Thomas' thought from the ossified confines of pre-Vatican II neoscholasticism) with existential philosophy, particularly as expressed by Martin Heidegger. This forms the basic thrust of his theolgical approach in this book and elsewhere, as he seeks to provide an intelligent explication of the Christian faith in te new circumstances created by Enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought. Arguing that the human person is fundamentally open in his or her very existence to the transcendent reality, and that this experience is (necessarily) mediated through the categorical and historical experiences - in particular the definitive self-communication of God in the person of Jesus Christ - Rahner seeks in this book to both retain traditional Catholic orthodoxy while recognizing that the philosophical categories that have been used to express this faith may be freighted with understandings that actually hinder a properly orthodox understanding. He therefore uses the book as a way of showing how a contemorary theology which takes as its concrete starting point the concrete human person existing in history and in his / her existential reality can provide an enhanced foundation upon which Christianity can continue to be intellectually robust and honest in the contemporary world.
Rahner is certainly no leftist. His comprehensive vision has suffered from baseless attacks of heterodoxy, however, partially because the denseness of his German is pregnant with multivalance. (That's the Rahneran equivalent of saying He says a lot with few words!) However, the book assumes a familiarity with the Denzinger manuals of theology - the hallmark of neoscholasticism - with which he takes issue in articulating his own method, mostly because he considers them no longer adequate to the task of fundamental theology. Thus, those that don't know the manuals and don't know their technical vocabulary as well as that of existential philosophy, run the risk of misunderstanding and mischaracterizing this quite orthodox Catholic thinker.
On the whole I tend to think Rahner is right on target as far as he goes, however, he has been criticized as focusing on the existential reality of the individual believing Christian and not enough on the social, political, and ecclesial dimensions of the faith. His later works represented a turn in this dirction but he died before he could develop these ideas further, and that taks has fallen to his students such as Johann-Baptiste Metz and others.
However, it can never be denied that this book, and Rahner's other works, have offered a coherent theological vision and helped bring about a substantive and important renewal in Catholic theology, its understanding of the human person, and the truths of the faith in a way that is not only intellectually substantive, but can even be spiritually inspiring!
Rahner is perhaps best known for his correlation of Christian theology (particularly a retrieval an renewal of St. Thomas' thought from the ossified confines of pre-Vatican II neoscholasticism) with existential philosophy, particularly as expressed by Martin Heidegger. This forms the basic thrust of his theolgical approach in this book and elsewhere, as he seeks to provide an intelligent explication of the Christian faith in te new circumstances created by Enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought. Arguing that the human person is fundamentally open in his or her very existence to the transcendent reality, and that this experience is (necessarily) mediated through the categorical and historical experiences - in particular the definitive self-communication of God in the person of Jesus Christ - Rahner seeks in this book to both retain traditional Catholic orthodoxy while recognizing that the philosophical categories that have been used to express this faith may be freighted with understandings that actually hinder a properly orthodox understanding. He therefore uses the book as a way of showing how a contemorary theology which takes as its concrete starting point the concrete human person existing in history and in his / her existential reality can provide an enhanced foundation upon which Christianity can continue to be intellectually robust and honest in the contemporary world.
Rahner is certainly no leftist. His comprehensive vision has suffered from baseless attacks of heterodoxy, however, partially because the denseness of his German is pregnant with multivalance. (That's the Rahneran equivalent of saying He says a lot with few words!) However, the book assumes a familiarity with the Denzinger manuals of theology - the hallmark of neoscholasticism - with which he takes issue in articulating his own method, mostly because he considers them no longer adequate to the task of fundamental theology. Thus, those that don't know the manuals and don't know their technical vocabulary as well as that of existential philosophy, run the risk of misunderstanding and mischaracterizing this quite orthodox Catholic thinker.
On the whole I tend to think Rahner is right on target as far as he goes, however, he has been criticized as focusing on the existential reality of the individual believing Christian and not enough on the social, political, and ecclesial dimensions of the faith. His later works represented a turn in this dirction but he died before he could develop these ideas further, and that taks has fallen to his students such as Johann-Baptiste Metz and others.
However, it can never be denied that this book, and Rahner's other works, have offered a coherent theological vision and helped bring about a substantive and important renewal in Catholic theology, its understanding of the human person, and the truths of the faith in a way that is not only intellectually substantive, but can even be spiritually inspiring!
September 13, 2022
I thought I would be able to brag that I was (probably) the first person in the last 40 years who’d read this book. But it took me months, taking it in small doses, to get to page 121, and there were still 330 pages to go. It’s the same self-conscious mystification as Rahner’s The Trinity, but raised to a power. George Weigle, a well known Catholic writer, remarks acutely that Rahner seems to be writing not for Catholics with “this or that problem with this or that aspect of Catholicism, Christianity, or even belief,” but rather for “the men and women of the German academy, formed in the skepticism and relativism that were two by-products of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger; convinced of their cultural superiority; dazzled by the sciences' accomplishments; tempted by Marxist social and economic analysis.”
Weigle should have added two things. First, drawing on Heidegger and Kant doesn’t advance the discussion even for members of the academy, since Catholicism is built on contradictions. Concerning the trinity, for example, Rahner told his reader that one must “presuppose that two opposed relations can be really identical with something absolute.” Rahner then adds, “Such a presupposition cannot be positively verified in the empirical domain of finite reality, nor can it be shown to be positively contradictory, unless one already admits that the basic difficulty is insuperable.” (The Trinity, p. 71) But the basic difficulty is indeed insuperable, and the postulate is self-contradictory. Trying to elaborate mysteries like the above through the filters of Kant and Heidegger just leads to an explosion of metaphysical folderol.
The second problem is that the metaphysics of Foundations seems at most to be only tangentially related to Catholicism.
Rahner begins Foundations with a statement that is almost undeniably true — but from which he quickly departs. “Every theology,” he says, “is always a theology which arises out of the secular anthropologies and self-interpretations of man.” (P. 7) Still laying out ostensibly plausible premises, Rahner explains that any current theology can be “genuinely preached only to the extent that it succeeds in establishing contact with the total secular self-understanding which man has in a particular epoch.” (Id.)
If preaching is somehow the goal of Foundations, it is preaching that attempts to consider the “theoretical possibility of giving a justification of the faith which is antecedent to the task and the method of contemporary scientific enquiry, both theological and secular. Thus this justification of the faith includes fundamental theology and dogmatic theology together. It takes place on a first level of reflection where faith gives an account of itself.” Rahner explains that “This scientifically first level both of reflection on the faith and of giving an account of it in an intellectually honest way constitutes a first science in its own right.” (P. 9)
Rahner’s problem is that there is no “science” of theology. The closest he comes to reasoning that is not purely theological is a reference to Newman’s “illative sense.” (p. 10) But the illative sense is never mentioned again. Nor does Rahner make contact with secular self-understanding. Instead, he simply asserts the same groaner that has been a staple of Christian thought since Tertullian: The fact that the “central truths of the faith are mysteries in the strict sense” is not nonsensical insofar as “mystery is not to be identified with a statement which is senseless and unintelligible for us.” (P. 12) Rather — and here Rahner asks Heidegger and Kant to pitch in — the fact that “the horizon of human existence which grounds and encompasses all human knowledge is a mystery” gives humans “a positive affinity, given at least with grace, to those Christian mysteries which constitute the basic content of faith.” (Id.) Rahner seems to be unaware that one mystery can hardly explain another, and that grace, whatever else it is or does, has never helped anyone explain Christian mysteries.
Once Rahner decides to discuss mysteries, virtually anything he says that makes sense to him doesn’t make sense. Even emotions get caught in the net of his academic jargon. He tells his reader that there is “a unity of reality and its ‘self-presence’ which is more, and is more original, than the unity of this reality and the concept which objectifies it.” (P. 15) What is this more original self-presence? “When I love, when I am tormented by questions [tormented by questions?], when I am sad, when I am faithful, when I feel longing, this human and existentiell reality is a unity, an original unity of reality and its own self-presence which is not totally mediated by the concept which objectifies it in scientific knowledge. This unity of reality and the original self-presence of this reality in the person is already present in man's free self-realization.” (Id.) Rahner seems to be trying to assert a vaguely Kantian concept of freedom through Heidegger, and the result is a to-be-expected deformation of language. He follows similar strategies throughout the book, subsuming Catholic mysteries under the mysteries of post-modernist metaphysics.
As far as I can tell, Rahner wants to ground Christianity in man’s sense of transcendence, his openness to God’s “self-communication” to him; or, perhaps more properly — if one reads Foundations to the end — man’s transcendence is grounded in Christianity. Rahner explains that in one’s transcendental experience there is “an unthematic and anonymous, as it were, knowledge of God. Hence the original knowledge of God is not the kind of knowledge in which one grasps an object which happens to present itself directly or indirectly from outside. It has rather the character of a transcendental experience. Insofar as this subjective, non-objective luminosity of the subject in its transcendence is always orientated towards the holy mystery, the knowledge of God is always present unthematically and without name, and not just when we begin to speak of it.” (P. 21)
How Rahner gets to Christianity is the subject of later parts of the book. The parts of the book I got through didn’t hint at solving this. Using the book’s detailed table of contents I did read Rahner’s discussion of primitive religion — but perhaps not with enough attention, since I didn’t see how man’s innate awareness of God remained unfulfilled until the advent of Christianity. By-the-bye, I also looked ahead in the book to see how Rahner explained Jesus’s resurrection, since the irruption of cosmic truth is attested to by nothing more than a few Hebrew peasants. The discussion starts with an astonishing use of scare quotes:
“From the New Testament on, Christian doctrinal tradition says correctly that with regard to faith in the resurrection of Jesus all of us are and remain dependent on the testimony of predetermined witnesses who ‘saw’ the risen Lord, and that we could believe in the resurrection of Jesus only because of this apostolic witness and in dependence on it. Consequently, even the theology of mysticism, for example, denies to the mystics to whom Jesus ‘appears’ the character of being resurrection witnesses, and denies to their visions any equality with the appearances of the risen Jesus to the apostles.” (P. 274) Does this mean that the witnesses are not to be trusted? Not at all: “our faith remains tied to the apostolic witness.”
Rahner’s point is that these are not Sherlock’s witnesses or the witnesses Hume finds ridiculously untrustworthy. As a mere historical event, the resurrection cannot be believed. (P. 275) But — “and this is decisive here, we hear this witness of the apostles with that transcendental hope in resurrection which we have already discussed. Hence we do not learn something which is totally unexpected and which lies totally outside of the horizon of our experience and our possibilities of verification. Moreover, we hear the message of the resurrection which we believe with God's ‘grace’ and with the interior witness of the experience of the Spirit. This statement is not tainted in the least with the suspicion of mythological theory.” (Id.) Because Rahner believes in the resurrection, and believes, with the same faith, that the witnesses of the resurrection experienced it as a particularized statement of man’s necessary yearning for God and God’s reciprocal self-communication, he finds the witnesses believable.
This is not convincing. Earlier in the book Rahner says that “In the fact that man raises analytical questions about himself and opens himself to the unlimited horizons of such questioning, he has already transcended himself and every conceivable element of such an analysis or of an empirical reconstruction of himself. In doing this he is affirming himself as more than the sum of such analyzable components of his reality.” (P. 29) It would seem that the witnesses had already opened themselves to such unlimited horizons. As Rahner says, resurrection had been accepted by Jews “during the Maccabeean troubles” (p. 278), so the disciples were metaphysically prepared for something that transcended anything empirical. This is an odd way to describe first century Hebrew peasants, but even if accurate it doesn’t make Jesus’s resurrection any less a myth.
Rahner’s discussion of original sin goes off the rails for a different reason. He says that “The ultimate and radical nature of guilt itself lies in the fact that it takes place in the face of a loving and self-communicating God, and only when a person knows this and makes this truth his own can he understand the depths of guilt.” (P. 93) But amazingly, the source of this guilt, in its depths, is not one’s intentional sinning but simply the fact that one lives in the world — a world that necessarily involves give-and-take. Rahner’s explanation of original sin is nothing short of mind-boggling.
“All of man's experience points in the direction that there are in fact objectifications of personal guilt in the world which, as the material for the free decisions of other persons, threaten these decisions, have a seductive effect upon them, and make free decisions painful. And since the material of a free decision always becomes an intrinsic element of the free act itself, insofar as even a good free act which is finite does not succeed in transforming this material absolutely and changing it completely, this good act itself always remains ambiguous because of the co-determination of this situation by guilt. It always remains burdened with consequences which could not really be intended because they lead to tragic impasses, and which disguise the good that was intended by one's own freedom.
“But this human experience, which is really quite obvious, is prevented from becoming innocuous by the message of Christianity and its assertion that this co-determination of the situation of every person by the guilt of others is something universal, permanent, and therefore also original. There are no islands for the individual person whose nature does not already bear the stamp of the guilt of others, directly or indirectly, from close or from afar. And although this is an asymptotic ideal, there is for the human race in its concrete history no real possibility of ever overcoming once and for all this determination of the situation of freedom by guilt.” (P. 109)
How does one encounter one’s guilt? It’s everywhere, and nothing other than a supernatural force can absolve one. Buying a banana implicates one in guilt before God.
“[W]hen someone buys a banana, he does not reflect upon the fact that its price is tied to many presuppositions. To them belongs, under certain circumstances, the pitiful lot of banana pickers, which in turn is co-determined by social injustice, // exploitation, or a centuries-old commercial policy. This person himself now participates in this situation of guilt to his own advantage. Where does this person's personal responsibility in taking advantage of such a situation determined by guilt end, and where does it begin? These are difficult and obscure questions.” Nonetheless, each person’s sin “bears the stamp of the guilt of others in a way which cannot be eradicated. But this means that the universality and the inescapability of this co-determination by guilt is inconceivable if it were not present at the very beginning of mankind's history of freedom.” (Pp. 100-101)
If one stopped buying bananas, there would be something else. In a room with other people, one would breathe more than one’s share of air. Even the Dali Lama eats something linked to an exploited person, or flips a switch, or walks on a floor in a way that somehow threatens the free decisions of others. In a sense, the entire world is its own exploited colony.
What are the consequences of guilt? Not hell, apparently. Rather, “we can understand all of the portrayals in scripture and tradition of the essence of hell as plastic images and pictures of this ultimate loneliness.” (P. 104) So hell is a myth. Maybe it is explained later in the book.
More significantly, Rahner’s notion of original sin leaves no room for the first man whose sin the sacrifice of Jesus atoned for. How then is Rahner a Catholic? He asserts that the claim that Adam committed a personal deed that has been transmitted to his descendants “has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian dogma of original sin.” (P. 100) This seems to be at odds with Christianity as it was conceived of by Paul and as it was understood for almost 20 centuries thereafter.
For example, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914) defines “original sin” as “(1) the sin that Adam committed; (2) a consequence of this first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam.” The Encyclopedia also says, “The whole Christian religion, says St. Augustine, may be summed up in the intervention of two men, the one to ruin us, the other to save us (De pecc. orig., xxiv).” The Encyclopedia elaborates with many citations. See my notes below.
It does appear that the Catholic church is now somewhat embarrassed by Adam. Looking at the Catechism of the Catholic Church published by the Vatican in 1993, I couldn’t find a reference to Adam. Still, the Catechism can hardly avoid including paragraph 615: "’For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.’ By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who ‘makes himself an offering for sin’, when ‘he bore the sin of many’, and who ‘shall make many to be accounted righteous’, for ‘he shall bear their iniquities’. Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.” (Footnotes omitted, but the first quotation of course is from Romans.)
The above is truly absurd — but it has some weight, something that forgiveness for eating a banana lacks.
Weigle should have added two things. First, drawing on Heidegger and Kant doesn’t advance the discussion even for members of the academy, since Catholicism is built on contradictions. Concerning the trinity, for example, Rahner told his reader that one must “presuppose that two opposed relations can be really identical with something absolute.” Rahner then adds, “Such a presupposition cannot be positively verified in the empirical domain of finite reality, nor can it be shown to be positively contradictory, unless one already admits that the basic difficulty is insuperable.” (The Trinity, p. 71) But the basic difficulty is indeed insuperable, and the postulate is self-contradictory. Trying to elaborate mysteries like the above through the filters of Kant and Heidegger just leads to an explosion of metaphysical folderol.
The second problem is that the metaphysics of Foundations seems at most to be only tangentially related to Catholicism.
Rahner begins Foundations with a statement that is almost undeniably true — but from which he quickly departs. “Every theology,” he says, “is always a theology which arises out of the secular anthropologies and self-interpretations of man.” (P. 7) Still laying out ostensibly plausible premises, Rahner explains that any current theology can be “genuinely preached only to the extent that it succeeds in establishing contact with the total secular self-understanding which man has in a particular epoch.” (Id.)
If preaching is somehow the goal of Foundations, it is preaching that attempts to consider the “theoretical possibility of giving a justification of the faith which is antecedent to the task and the method of contemporary scientific enquiry, both theological and secular. Thus this justification of the faith includes fundamental theology and dogmatic theology together. It takes place on a first level of reflection where faith gives an account of itself.” Rahner explains that “This scientifically first level both of reflection on the faith and of giving an account of it in an intellectually honest way constitutes a first science in its own right.” (P. 9)
Rahner’s problem is that there is no “science” of theology. The closest he comes to reasoning that is not purely theological is a reference to Newman’s “illative sense.” (p. 10) But the illative sense is never mentioned again. Nor does Rahner make contact with secular self-understanding. Instead, he simply asserts the same groaner that has been a staple of Christian thought since Tertullian: The fact that the “central truths of the faith are mysteries in the strict sense” is not nonsensical insofar as “mystery is not to be identified with a statement which is senseless and unintelligible for us.” (P. 12) Rather — and here Rahner asks Heidegger and Kant to pitch in — the fact that “the horizon of human existence which grounds and encompasses all human knowledge is a mystery” gives humans “a positive affinity, given at least with grace, to those Christian mysteries which constitute the basic content of faith.” (Id.) Rahner seems to be unaware that one mystery can hardly explain another, and that grace, whatever else it is or does, has never helped anyone explain Christian mysteries.
Once Rahner decides to discuss mysteries, virtually anything he says that makes sense to him doesn’t make sense. Even emotions get caught in the net of his academic jargon. He tells his reader that there is “a unity of reality and its ‘self-presence’ which is more, and is more original, than the unity of this reality and the concept which objectifies it.” (P. 15) What is this more original self-presence? “When I love, when I am tormented by questions [tormented by questions?], when I am sad, when I am faithful, when I feel longing, this human and existentiell reality is a unity, an original unity of reality and its own self-presence which is not totally mediated by the concept which objectifies it in scientific knowledge. This unity of reality and the original self-presence of this reality in the person is already present in man's free self-realization.” (Id.) Rahner seems to be trying to assert a vaguely Kantian concept of freedom through Heidegger, and the result is a to-be-expected deformation of language. He follows similar strategies throughout the book, subsuming Catholic mysteries under the mysteries of post-modernist metaphysics.
As far as I can tell, Rahner wants to ground Christianity in man’s sense of transcendence, his openness to God’s “self-communication” to him; or, perhaps more properly — if one reads Foundations to the end — man’s transcendence is grounded in Christianity. Rahner explains that in one’s transcendental experience there is “an unthematic and anonymous, as it were, knowledge of God. Hence the original knowledge of God is not the kind of knowledge in which one grasps an object which happens to present itself directly or indirectly from outside. It has rather the character of a transcendental experience. Insofar as this subjective, non-objective luminosity of the subject in its transcendence is always orientated towards the holy mystery, the knowledge of God is always present unthematically and without name, and not just when we begin to speak of it.” (P. 21)
How Rahner gets to Christianity is the subject of later parts of the book. The parts of the book I got through didn’t hint at solving this. Using the book’s detailed table of contents I did read Rahner’s discussion of primitive religion — but perhaps not with enough attention, since I didn’t see how man’s innate awareness of God remained unfulfilled until the advent of Christianity. By-the-bye, I also looked ahead in the book to see how Rahner explained Jesus’s resurrection, since the irruption of cosmic truth is attested to by nothing more than a few Hebrew peasants. The discussion starts with an astonishing use of scare quotes:
“From the New Testament on, Christian doctrinal tradition says correctly that with regard to faith in the resurrection of Jesus all of us are and remain dependent on the testimony of predetermined witnesses who ‘saw’ the risen Lord, and that we could believe in the resurrection of Jesus only because of this apostolic witness and in dependence on it. Consequently, even the theology of mysticism, for example, denies to the mystics to whom Jesus ‘appears’ the character of being resurrection witnesses, and denies to their visions any equality with the appearances of the risen Jesus to the apostles.” (P. 274) Does this mean that the witnesses are not to be trusted? Not at all: “our faith remains tied to the apostolic witness.”
Rahner’s point is that these are not Sherlock’s witnesses or the witnesses Hume finds ridiculously untrustworthy. As a mere historical event, the resurrection cannot be believed. (P. 275) But — “and this is decisive here, we hear this witness of the apostles with that transcendental hope in resurrection which we have already discussed. Hence we do not learn something which is totally unexpected and which lies totally outside of the horizon of our experience and our possibilities of verification. Moreover, we hear the message of the resurrection which we believe with God's ‘grace’ and with the interior witness of the experience of the Spirit. This statement is not tainted in the least with the suspicion of mythological theory.” (Id.) Because Rahner believes in the resurrection, and believes, with the same faith, that the witnesses of the resurrection experienced it as a particularized statement of man’s necessary yearning for God and God’s reciprocal self-communication, he finds the witnesses believable.
This is not convincing. Earlier in the book Rahner says that “In the fact that man raises analytical questions about himself and opens himself to the unlimited horizons of such questioning, he has already transcended himself and every conceivable element of such an analysis or of an empirical reconstruction of himself. In doing this he is affirming himself as more than the sum of such analyzable components of his reality.” (P. 29) It would seem that the witnesses had already opened themselves to such unlimited horizons. As Rahner says, resurrection had been accepted by Jews “during the Maccabeean troubles” (p. 278), so the disciples were metaphysically prepared for something that transcended anything empirical. This is an odd way to describe first century Hebrew peasants, but even if accurate it doesn’t make Jesus’s resurrection any less a myth.
Rahner’s discussion of original sin goes off the rails for a different reason. He says that “The ultimate and radical nature of guilt itself lies in the fact that it takes place in the face of a loving and self-communicating God, and only when a person knows this and makes this truth his own can he understand the depths of guilt.” (P. 93) But amazingly, the source of this guilt, in its depths, is not one’s intentional sinning but simply the fact that one lives in the world — a world that necessarily involves give-and-take. Rahner’s explanation of original sin is nothing short of mind-boggling.
“All of man's experience points in the direction that there are in fact objectifications of personal guilt in the world which, as the material for the free decisions of other persons, threaten these decisions, have a seductive effect upon them, and make free decisions painful. And since the material of a free decision always becomes an intrinsic element of the free act itself, insofar as even a good free act which is finite does not succeed in transforming this material absolutely and changing it completely, this good act itself always remains ambiguous because of the co-determination of this situation by guilt. It always remains burdened with consequences which could not really be intended because they lead to tragic impasses, and which disguise the good that was intended by one's own freedom.
“But this human experience, which is really quite obvious, is prevented from becoming innocuous by the message of Christianity and its assertion that this co-determination of the situation of every person by the guilt of others is something universal, permanent, and therefore also original. There are no islands for the individual person whose nature does not already bear the stamp of the guilt of others, directly or indirectly, from close or from afar. And although this is an asymptotic ideal, there is for the human race in its concrete history no real possibility of ever overcoming once and for all this determination of the situation of freedom by guilt.” (P. 109)
How does one encounter one’s guilt? It’s everywhere, and nothing other than a supernatural force can absolve one. Buying a banana implicates one in guilt before God.
“[W]hen someone buys a banana, he does not reflect upon the fact that its price is tied to many presuppositions. To them belongs, under certain circumstances, the pitiful lot of banana pickers, which in turn is co-determined by social injustice, // exploitation, or a centuries-old commercial policy. This person himself now participates in this situation of guilt to his own advantage. Where does this person's personal responsibility in taking advantage of such a situation determined by guilt end, and where does it begin? These are difficult and obscure questions.” Nonetheless, each person’s sin “bears the stamp of the guilt of others in a way which cannot be eradicated. But this means that the universality and the inescapability of this co-determination by guilt is inconceivable if it were not present at the very beginning of mankind's history of freedom.” (Pp. 100-101)
If one stopped buying bananas, there would be something else. In a room with other people, one would breathe more than one’s share of air. Even the Dali Lama eats something linked to an exploited person, or flips a switch, or walks on a floor in a way that somehow threatens the free decisions of others. In a sense, the entire world is its own exploited colony.
What are the consequences of guilt? Not hell, apparently. Rather, “we can understand all of the portrayals in scripture and tradition of the essence of hell as plastic images and pictures of this ultimate loneliness.” (P. 104) So hell is a myth. Maybe it is explained later in the book.
More significantly, Rahner’s notion of original sin leaves no room for the first man whose sin the sacrifice of Jesus atoned for. How then is Rahner a Catholic? He asserts that the claim that Adam committed a personal deed that has been transmitted to his descendants “has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian dogma of original sin.” (P. 100) This seems to be at odds with Christianity as it was conceived of by Paul and as it was understood for almost 20 centuries thereafter.
For example, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914) defines “original sin” as “(1) the sin that Adam committed; (2) a consequence of this first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam.” The Encyclopedia also says, “The whole Christian religion, says St. Augustine, may be summed up in the intervention of two men, the one to ruin us, the other to save us (De pecc. orig., xxiv).” The Encyclopedia elaborates with many citations. See my notes below.
It does appear that the Catholic church is now somewhat embarrassed by Adam. Looking at the Catechism of the Catholic Church published by the Vatican in 1993, I couldn’t find a reference to Adam. Still, the Catechism can hardly avoid including paragraph 615: "’For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.’ By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who ‘makes himself an offering for sin’, when ‘he bore the sin of many’, and who ‘shall make many to be accounted righteous’, for ‘he shall bear their iniquities’. Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.” (Footnotes omitted, but the first quotation of course is from Romans.)
The above is truly absurd — but it has some weight, something that forgiveness for eating a banana lacks.
April 28, 2021
So in the very first pages of this book, Rahner states essentially that one of the challenges of his book is people approaching it who are not smart well-read enough will find it very challenging and might dismiss it out of hand. I am that person, though I tried to work with it and meet the text where it was at.
Needless to say, I would have gotten way more out of this book if I had a stronger grounding in like very basic theology and philosophy. This isn't to say it was wholly worthless to me--some sections I found super enlightening and powerful, especially the section on the church, and there are specific parts I would love for everyone to read to better understand how Catholicism works and functions as a religion, as a body composed of a church and of individuals. More challenging sections that I would probably need to return to a couple of times include the chapter on Jesus Christ (yes, hilarious that is the chapter I didn't understand the most in a book about Christianity,) and the one about eschatology.
Still probably the most comprehensive book about Catholic theology I've ever read, and despite some of the challenges in terms of density, I would say Rahner's writing is very approachable, and even funny at times. (His section about the use of the word God in particular had me giggling.) Would say definitely a necessary read and I hope I can some day come back to this with a better appreciation for the nuances and a better understanding overall.
Needless to say, I would have gotten way more out of this book if I had a stronger grounding in like very basic theology and philosophy. This isn't to say it was wholly worthless to me--some sections I found super enlightening and powerful, especially the section on the church, and there are specific parts I would love for everyone to read to better understand how Catholicism works and functions as a religion, as a body composed of a church and of individuals. More challenging sections that I would probably need to return to a couple of times include the chapter on Jesus Christ (yes, hilarious that is the chapter I didn't understand the most in a book about Christianity,) and the one about eschatology.
Still probably the most comprehensive book about Catholic theology I've ever read, and despite some of the challenges in terms of density, I would say Rahner's writing is very approachable, and even funny at times. (His section about the use of the word God in particular had me giggling.) Would say definitely a necessary read and I hope I can some day come back to this with a better appreciation for the nuances and a better understanding overall.
July 24, 2020
Dense, difficult and absolutely superb!
This is one of the books that profoundly informed my theological understanding and metaphysical paradigm.
It is only in the depths that one touches Karl Rahner's profound mystical ground of being: the transcendent Mystery that is always immanent, the divine origin, reality, orientation, home, and future of all creation.
This is one of the books that profoundly informed my theological understanding and metaphysical paradigm.
It is only in the depths that one touches Karl Rahner's profound mystical ground of being: the transcendent Mystery that is always immanent, the divine origin, reality, orientation, home, and future of all creation.
July 12, 2025
This is some Jedi level theology. A true meisterwork. Obi-wan level.
In the typical German way, he works through his arguments methodically with meticulous detail. He builds the ideas stepwise, proceeding carefully and never leaping over big canyons. Although it sounds plodding, it is not. It stays lively and connected to reality. The writing is energetic but incredibly well structured. Following a hierarchical outline with each paragraph following on the other. Almost geometric in its logic, but not dead, dry or sterile.
To use a visual metaphor, it is as if he is creating an abstract steel structure and he carefully polishes each facet before moving on to the next. He moves around the structure, one facet at a time. Sometimes it is not clear why each facet is necessary, but as the structure comes together, it is a brilliant, electric work, humming with energy.
He brings together philosophy, theology, psychology and history. He creates the energetic force field with these four corners and this fusion hums like the beam of a light saber. His approach combines the transcendent with the historical (what really happens in the world).
Not a work of exegetical theology but rather fundamental philosophical theology. It is theology distilled and boiled down to its essence - strong stuff.
In some ways, it evokes Descartes’ Discourse on Method, cogito ergo sum’ (I think therefore I am). Very logical, beginning from base assumptions of the interior life of humanity. He begins with the human *experience* of transcendence and builds theology out from there one step at a time. Not that this is theology built on anthropology, rather it begins were we are, with ourselves as humans.
For such a philosophical work, it is remarkable orthodox. Not fundamentalist, to be sure, taking a historical critical approach, but holding fast to the creeds. He may shift the perspective on a few aspects, but never in denial of historical creedal Christianity (contra Tillich).
This speaks to the robustness of orthodoxy. It has survived for thousands of years through diverse philosophical programs and historical assumptions. The ecumenical creeds clearly contain some solid, some might say divine, insight. The way he begins with minimal philosophical assumptions, reasoning from a philosophical position, and ends up with an invigorated orthodoxy is, to me, remarkable. Of course, his thinking is saturated with the Biblical framework, and he holds the sola scriptura (in the proper Catholic sense). But his reasoning is not primarily exegetical, it is philosophical.
In addition to sola scriptura, he holds to sola fide and sola gratia. Pannenberg, on the other hand, takes some positions that are historically Catholic (Jenson takes some positions that are historically Orthodox (Capital O)). It is as if theology is converging on a unified understanding of Christian truth. Speaking of Pannenberg, Rahner has many stylistic and thematic resemblances to Pannenberg, beginning with the base assumptions that theology is to be done in public and is not the "grammar of the community," but rather the search for absolute, public truth. Stylistically and structurally, the German approach comes through in both authors.
Highly recommended on the understanding that this should be titled, ‘Theoretical investigations into the philosophical ideas that underly and link together the ideas in Christianity.’ There is a lot of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger that even I can see. If that is what you’re looking for, this is your systematic theology.
In the typical German way, he works through his arguments methodically with meticulous detail. He builds the ideas stepwise, proceeding carefully and never leaping over big canyons. Although it sounds plodding, it is not. It stays lively and connected to reality. The writing is energetic but incredibly well structured. Following a hierarchical outline with each paragraph following on the other. Almost geometric in its logic, but not dead, dry or sterile.
To use a visual metaphor, it is as if he is creating an abstract steel structure and he carefully polishes each facet before moving on to the next. He moves around the structure, one facet at a time. Sometimes it is not clear why each facet is necessary, but as the structure comes together, it is a brilliant, electric work, humming with energy.
He brings together philosophy, theology, psychology and history. He creates the energetic force field with these four corners and this fusion hums like the beam of a light saber. His approach combines the transcendent with the historical (what really happens in the world).
Not a work of exegetical theology but rather fundamental philosophical theology. It is theology distilled and boiled down to its essence - strong stuff.
In some ways, it evokes Descartes’ Discourse on Method, cogito ergo sum’ (I think therefore I am). Very logical, beginning from base assumptions of the interior life of humanity. He begins with the human *experience* of transcendence and builds theology out from there one step at a time. Not that this is theology built on anthropology, rather it begins were we are, with ourselves as humans.
For such a philosophical work, it is remarkable orthodox. Not fundamentalist, to be sure, taking a historical critical approach, but holding fast to the creeds. He may shift the perspective on a few aspects, but never in denial of historical creedal Christianity (contra Tillich).
This speaks to the robustness of orthodoxy. It has survived for thousands of years through diverse philosophical programs and historical assumptions. The ecumenical creeds clearly contain some solid, some might say divine, insight. The way he begins with minimal philosophical assumptions, reasoning from a philosophical position, and ends up with an invigorated orthodoxy is, to me, remarkable. Of course, his thinking is saturated with the Biblical framework, and he holds the sola scriptura (in the proper Catholic sense). But his reasoning is not primarily exegetical, it is philosophical.
In addition to sola scriptura, he holds to sola fide and sola gratia. Pannenberg, on the other hand, takes some positions that are historically Catholic (Jenson takes some positions that are historically Orthodox (Capital O)). It is as if theology is converging on a unified understanding of Christian truth. Speaking of Pannenberg, Rahner has many stylistic and thematic resemblances to Pannenberg, beginning with the base assumptions that theology is to be done in public and is not the "grammar of the community," but rather the search for absolute, public truth. Stylistically and structurally, the German approach comes through in both authors.
Highly recommended on the understanding that this should be titled, ‘Theoretical investigations into the philosophical ideas that underly and link together the ideas in Christianity.’ There is a lot of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger that even I can see. If that is what you’re looking for, this is your systematic theology.
October 7, 2017
Rahner's work is always challenging and this book is no exception. I was helped by having read and digested his early works (Hearers of the Word and Spirit in the World), both of which are much influenced by Heidegger's ontology. I don't think this work is all that "introductory", but it is a fascinating overview of theology.
August 27, 2020
Dílo tak těžký a rozsáhlý, že nevím, kolik jsem toho zvládl pobrat, ale stálo to asi za to :-).
August 31, 2022
Can't decide if this was theologically challenging and brilliant or a meaningless mess. 3 stars seems right.
Read
May 19, 2025Read this at the right time.
August 27, 2010
In the mid-20th century, Karl Rahner was one of the most important Catholic theologians and Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity serves as a digest of the themes which were so brilliantly pursued by this scholar. The easiest way to describe this book is to say that it is a transcendental theology in the sense that his primary thesis is that human beings are the only ones who know that they are finite, but that those who know existentially that they are finite have already begun to transcend their finiteness (p. 20). The book is not intended to be an overtly apologetic work. He states from the outset that even though rational arguments cannot establish faith, they should be part of faith (p. 8).
In building his theology, Rahner comes back again and again to this personal awareness of transcendence. He recognizes theology as reflective thoughts on one’s personal transcendence (p. 69) and rejects the idea of a non-personal God as not fitting with our personal experiences of transcendence (p. 75). In other words, if we are longing for an experience beyond the finite in order to be more than we are, it is because we have a sense of that beyond the finite which beckons us. Naturally, at this point, I felt like Rahner was completely in tune with Anselm’s ontological arguments and didn’t think Rahner was breaking much new ground. I liked this idea of reflectively thinking about God based on our longing for completeness within and beyond ourselves, but I originally thought this was where it was going to stop.
It wasn’t where it stopped. Having established his rationale for a theology “from above,” Rahner began building on personal experience and God’s role as a guarantor of freedom (p. 105) to establish a theology “from below.” Ontological understanding of God is not enough for Rahner and shouldn’t be for any human who is honest. Authentic experience is historically based within the experience of time—even though it may point beyond time. Hence, much like my personal theological schema of “Presence in tension with Authority,” Rahner shows how imminence and transcendence must work together (p. 119) such that the “cause” (as argued by Aquinas) becomes an intrinsic, constituent part of the effect itself (p. 120). Indeed, during his discussion of Christology, Rahner coins a phrase for this tension of which I speak. His idea of “mutual conditioning” is very similar to my Authority/Presence schema (p. 208).
This is very significant when Rahner speaks about the God-Man relationship within the historical person of Jesus. He says that spirit and matter are essentially different, but the God-Man demonstrates that they are not to be understood as essential opposites (p. 184).
As a result, he is able to explore why saving power (soteriological significance) rests in neither Jesus’ death nor resurrection separately (p. 266). He is quick to point out that Eternity subsumes time, particularly as it relates to death (p. 270), so that he can argue that resurrection is not to be confused with resuscitation—life is more than existing (p. 267) [I know the page numbering doesn’t make sense in terms of a linear argument, but Germans sometimes give you the punch line before they give you the body of the argument.:] As he explores other theological themes, it all builds to a conclusion when he says, “…in Christology, man and God are not the same, but neither are they ever separate.” (p. 447)
As a Baptist minister (as well as professor at a Catholic University), I was particularly interested in Rahner’s approach to the Church. It was amazing to see how open he was to the dogma of Evangelical Christianity and how he explained Catholic understandings. For example, how many times have Protestants been told that Catholics “worship” Mary, the mother of Jesus. Rahner says, “The dogma [of the Assumption of Mary:] says nothing else but that Mary is someone who has been redeemed radically.” (p. 387) He warns about the dangers of idealizing the church (p. 390) because it shackles a believer to a SYSTEM instead of allowing said believer to be led through the multiplicity of reality into a sophisticated and enduring experience of life (p. 407). Perhaps, it is best to end this review with Rahner’s definition of humankind: “…a being who exists from out of his present ‘now’ towards his future.” (p. 431) Being open to that future via God’s self-communication is the challenge.
This book is the kind of volume that I end up reading 10-15 pages at a time. I have to think about what’s been said and consider where it fits with my thoughts, my studies, and my interpretation of Scripture. It is a challenging, mind-expanding experience that I expect to revisit from time to time. It will have an honored place on my shelf.
In building his theology, Rahner comes back again and again to this personal awareness of transcendence. He recognizes theology as reflective thoughts on one’s personal transcendence (p. 69) and rejects the idea of a non-personal God as not fitting with our personal experiences of transcendence (p. 75). In other words, if we are longing for an experience beyond the finite in order to be more than we are, it is because we have a sense of that beyond the finite which beckons us. Naturally, at this point, I felt like Rahner was completely in tune with Anselm’s ontological arguments and didn’t think Rahner was breaking much new ground. I liked this idea of reflectively thinking about God based on our longing for completeness within and beyond ourselves, but I originally thought this was where it was going to stop.
It wasn’t where it stopped. Having established his rationale for a theology “from above,” Rahner began building on personal experience and God’s role as a guarantor of freedom (p. 105) to establish a theology “from below.” Ontological understanding of God is not enough for Rahner and shouldn’t be for any human who is honest. Authentic experience is historically based within the experience of time—even though it may point beyond time. Hence, much like my personal theological schema of “Presence in tension with Authority,” Rahner shows how imminence and transcendence must work together (p. 119) such that the “cause” (as argued by Aquinas) becomes an intrinsic, constituent part of the effect itself (p. 120). Indeed, during his discussion of Christology, Rahner coins a phrase for this tension of which I speak. His idea of “mutual conditioning” is very similar to my Authority/Presence schema (p. 208).
This is very significant when Rahner speaks about the God-Man relationship within the historical person of Jesus. He says that spirit and matter are essentially different, but the God-Man demonstrates that they are not to be understood as essential opposites (p. 184).
As a result, he is able to explore why saving power (soteriological significance) rests in neither Jesus’ death nor resurrection separately (p. 266). He is quick to point out that Eternity subsumes time, particularly as it relates to death (p. 270), so that he can argue that resurrection is not to be confused with resuscitation—life is more than existing (p. 267) [I know the page numbering doesn’t make sense in terms of a linear argument, but Germans sometimes give you the punch line before they give you the body of the argument.:] As he explores other theological themes, it all builds to a conclusion when he says, “…in Christology, man and God are not the same, but neither are they ever separate.” (p. 447)
As a Baptist minister (as well as professor at a Catholic University), I was particularly interested in Rahner’s approach to the Church. It was amazing to see how open he was to the dogma of Evangelical Christianity and how he explained Catholic understandings. For example, how many times have Protestants been told that Catholics “worship” Mary, the mother of Jesus. Rahner says, “The dogma [of the Assumption of Mary:] says nothing else but that Mary is someone who has been redeemed radically.” (p. 387) He warns about the dangers of idealizing the church (p. 390) because it shackles a believer to a SYSTEM instead of allowing said believer to be led through the multiplicity of reality into a sophisticated and enduring experience of life (p. 407). Perhaps, it is best to end this review with Rahner’s definition of humankind: “…a being who exists from out of his present ‘now’ towards his future.” (p. 431) Being open to that future via God’s self-communication is the challenge.
This book is the kind of volume that I end up reading 10-15 pages at a time. I have to think about what’s been said and consider where it fits with my thoughts, my studies, and my interpretation of Scripture. It is a challenging, mind-expanding experience that I expect to revisit from time to time. It will have an honored place on my shelf.
August 6, 2016
An important book in terms of recent theological developments.
The Roman Catholic Church divided at the time of Vatican II into two mainstream lines of theological thought. Rahner led the leftist or progressive side that rallied behind him. Joseph Ratzinger (who later became pope) led the opposition.
Rahner was an integral theologian at Council. His central ideas are spelled out in this volume. The primary concern is with the notion of grace or the "supernatural existential" or the "pre-conceptual" apprehension of God who is then defined thematically with revelatory symbols.
God remains the ultimate "ground of being" or "absolute mystery" that is intrinsic to human existence. Logical consequences such as the "anonymous Christian" who is existentially Christian (albeit barring the thematic content) or the notion of sacraments that draw grace from the naturally supernatural state of mankind were deduced from Rahner's re-ordering of theology along finer shades of modern thought.
Interestingly Rahner befriended Heidegger who influenced him significantly. Much of Rahner's thought is in Heidegger absent the mapping of Christian Revelation onto the existential framework. An important book for the aspiring theologian that is penetrable when the main ideas have been grasped adequately.
The Roman Catholic Church divided at the time of Vatican II into two mainstream lines of theological thought. Rahner led the leftist or progressive side that rallied behind him. Joseph Ratzinger (who later became pope) led the opposition.
Rahner was an integral theologian at Council. His central ideas are spelled out in this volume. The primary concern is with the notion of grace or the "supernatural existential" or the "pre-conceptual" apprehension of God who is then defined thematically with revelatory symbols.
God remains the ultimate "ground of being" or "absolute mystery" that is intrinsic to human existence. Logical consequences such as the "anonymous Christian" who is existentially Christian (albeit barring the thematic content) or the notion of sacraments that draw grace from the naturally supernatural state of mankind were deduced from Rahner's re-ordering of theology along finer shades of modern thought.
Interestingly Rahner befriended Heidegger who influenced him significantly. Much of Rahner's thought is in Heidegger absent the mapping of Christian Revelation onto the existential framework. An important book for the aspiring theologian that is penetrable when the main ideas have been grasped adequately.
September 18, 2015
I'm sad to say, but this was a real disappointment for me. I'm usually quite okay with there being a fair amount of terminology in theology, but I just had the feeling that there was mostly words and not much progress in this book. Rahner talks much about transcendence, self-interpretation, self-giving of God, presence and freedom. All interesting things, but I don't get interested the way he relates them to each other, or maybe the problem is that I don't quite see how he relates them. It seems that a fundamental problem for Rahner is how he wants to take the experience of transcendence as the basis for his theology, yet I can't see that he ever resolves how such an emphasis on transcendence can square with the Christian belief of a (very much) immanent God. Yet, a few chapters in he simply seems to assume that God for his theology.
The further problem I found is that he links both the story of original sin (aeteological) with the present, as well as eschatology with the present in the way that what we think about the too is a reflection of our present condition. He does, however, argue well against a completely feuerbachian view of religion, but I still don't quite see how he will be able to move away from this complete focus of the present.
The further problem I found is that he links both the story of original sin (aeteological) with the present, as well as eschatology with the present in the way that what we think about the too is a reflection of our present condition. He does, however, argue well against a completely feuerbachian view of religion, but I still don't quite see how he will be able to move away from this complete focus of the present.
June 12, 2011
This book was a challenge, but a rewarding one. I don't think I could have comprehended it without another book, The Foundations of Karl Rahner by Mark Fischer -- a very useful summary / paraphrase. There was a lot in this book I loved. His emphasis upon humanity's capacity for transcendence was something I pondered for weeks. His explanation of the Trinity is very helpful (the best I've read, I think), and I've still working through his Christology in my head. I certainly enjoyed his exploration of the Christian's relationship with Jesus Christ. His understanding of the Church and especially of the Scriptures, however, don't work for me, and seem to need further development. All in all, though Rahner is now definitely one my favorite theologians, probably this is not the book I will come back to, but the anthology The Content of Faith (which is a bit more accessible).
October 8, 2013
This book had not written for normal people sondern for experts.I Think it is too hard to understand his idea. I have read the german version of this book and found it too hard. I try to read more and more and learn more about his idea. But his centeral idea in this book is anonymus christian and it is based on "selbsmitteilung Gottes".
July 23, 2014
This was perhaps my hardest read, ever. Fr. Rahner writes like a philosopher, meaning almost unfathomable. But, as with some other of the great works I've read, I read this for the passages of flight out of philosophy and deep theology, into the mystical and the mystical had a great deal to do with living each day.
June 21, 2013
All of the philosophical heaviness and technical vocabulary we've come to expect from a 20th-century, German-speaking theologian, but without any of the dynamism or charm of his Protestant counterparts.
November 15, 2007
A great introduction into the modern Catholic academic understanding of Christian faith
Read
September 5, 2007Another fine work of one of the most influential Jesuit theologians.
April 16, 2009
Rahner is also one of my favourite authors. He is deep. As indicated, this is a reference book which should be frequently consulted. A 'must have' in my opinion.
June 24, 2009
Dense reading - but worth the effort!
September 1, 2012
Extremely hard to read,not least because KR invented a technical language of his own. Nonetheless if you can get past that it's the standard work on Existential Neo-Thomism. As though we care.
September 24, 2012
Marc said it well, though I might add that this is an essential book for for any reasonable thinker who wants to understand why Christ is such a mystery.
Read
December 28, 2012Are you kidding? Can't understand a word!!! If you can slog through, the concepts are incredible.
May 20, 2014
Some of the best explanations of Catholic "grace."
February 3, 2016
Astonishing
February 25, 2007
And this. My two Karls
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews