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Spirit in the World
One of Rahner's classic studies, this volume employs the German Jesuit theologian's deep understanding of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas to explore the relationship between the spirit and matter, metaphysical and concrete realities.
472 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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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.
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August 3, 2015
The last three pages are beautiful.
Three things are abundantly clear to me so far. First, Rahner is convincingly undermining the Kantian noumenal-phenomenal split by arguing that human knowing is a single act of knowing something other than the mind. Sensibility is human intellect's own self-othering act in matter whereby it has contact, even unity, with the world, and through which it returns to itself, self-fulfilled. Even the fundamental intuitive reception of the other in the process of knowing is a dynamic act, too. So knowing is poorly modeled by the representationalist paradigm. The idea of a mental image is itself an image, as Rahner nicely says.
It is not so clear to me if he is undermining Cartesian dualism. For the second thing that is clear is that he conceives of sensibility as an emanation of intellect. To be sure, intellect alone is not the nature of the human spirit. Or, better, the nature of human spirit is intellect that becomes itself only through emanating as sensibility in the material world. I contrast this with emergentist views that attempt to understand spirit as coming out of matter. However, inasmuch as there is for Rahner human spirit and a material world into which the spirit emanates, it does seem to me that he maybe is still operating with a spirit/matter dualism? Or can he be understood as having a panpsychist metaphysics? I'm not sure.
The third thing that is clear is that in most all the technical details, Rahner is vastly brilliant and kicks my butt. Man, this is complex stuff, and I have hardly an acquaintance with Thomas, on whom so much depends for Rahner's argument.
Three things are abundantly clear to me so far. First, Rahner is convincingly undermining the Kantian noumenal-phenomenal split by arguing that human knowing is a single act of knowing something other than the mind. Sensibility is human intellect's own self-othering act in matter whereby it has contact, even unity, with the world, and through which it returns to itself, self-fulfilled. Even the fundamental intuitive reception of the other in the process of knowing is a dynamic act, too. So knowing is poorly modeled by the representationalist paradigm. The idea of a mental image is itself an image, as Rahner nicely says.
It is not so clear to me if he is undermining Cartesian dualism. For the second thing that is clear is that he conceives of sensibility as an emanation of intellect. To be sure, intellect alone is not the nature of the human spirit. Or, better, the nature of human spirit is intellect that becomes itself only through emanating as sensibility in the material world. I contrast this with emergentist views that attempt to understand spirit as coming out of matter. However, inasmuch as there is for Rahner human spirit and a material world into which the spirit emanates, it does seem to me that he maybe is still operating with a spirit/matter dualism? Or can he be understood as having a panpsychist metaphysics? I'm not sure.
The third thing that is clear is that in most all the technical details, Rahner is vastly brilliant and kicks my butt. Man, this is complex stuff, and I have hardly an acquaintance with Thomas, on whom so much depends for Rahner's argument.
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