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This article compares and contrasts the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause with the Zen Buddhist concept of satori. The aim is to underscore a unique but not commonly recognized characteristic of Ignatian contemplation and promote interreligious understanding. I argue that Ignatian prayer methods, though primarily kataphatic in their approach, share common features with apophatic spirituality and Zen meditation, even though Zen does not make any reference to God. This article consists of three main parts: In the first part, I delve into Ignatius's own religious experience, particularly the experiences he had during eleven months in Manresa, and interpret these experiences from the lens of the Ignatian consolation without previous cause. In the second part, I explore the overall goal of Zen, focusing on the discussion of Zen sunyata and satori. In the final part, I draw out points of contact and differences between the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause and Zen satori with an aim toward better appropriating the Ignatian consolation without previous cause from Zen satori. In doing so, I hope to make Ignatian spirituality more appealing and available to spiritual seekers across religious traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, informed by Vatican 2 and one of its premier modern day scholars, Gerald O'Collins, we will argue (1), that while the Christian evangelist should proclaim that Jesus is the only way to God, she should nonetheless be open to the possibility that Christ is saving those in non-Christian traditions as non-explicit or anonymous Christians, and, (2), that other serious religious traditions can be interpreted as doctrinally consistent with (or something nearby) the Nicene Christian tradition. In conclusion, these theses will lead us to argue that in the Christian's approach to evangelism, her first step in persuading her non-Christian counterpart should be to emphasize the commonality that exists between the Christian tradition and the relevant non-Christian tradition. The evangelist then, should not see her main task as developing arguments against her interlocuter's religious tradition (though, this has its place), but rather her focus should be on proclaiming an additional truth that her interlocuter can accept alongside many of her already held religious commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, informed by Vatican 2 and one of its premier modern day scholars, Gerald O’Collins, we will argue (1), that while the Christian evangelist should proclaim that Jesus is the only way to God, she should nonetheless be open to the possibility that Christ is saving those in non-Christian traditions as non-explicit or anonymous Christians, and, (2), that other serious religious traditions can be interpreted as doctrinally consistent with (or something nearby) the Nicene Christian tradition. In conclusion, these theses will lead us to argue that in the Christian’s approach to evangelism, her first step in persuading her non-Christian counterpart should be to emphasize the commonality that exists between the Christian tradition and the relevant non-Christian tradition. The evangelist then, should not see her main task as developing arguments against her interlocuter’s religious tradition (though, this has its place), but rather her focus should be on proclaiming an additional truth that her interlocuter can accept alongside many of her already held religious commitments.

Hoy nuestro contexto cultural, social y eclesial se encuentra necesitado de una reflexión profunda y seria acerca del lenguaje teológico. Es una preocupación pastoral para la verdadera comprensión de los oyentes del mensaje evangélico. El lenguaje teólogico está unido al proceso de inculturación de la fe en el tiempo y en el espacio en las distintas etapas de la historia. Es importante alertar del peligro de caer en la "traición semántica" comprendida como el giro inesperado que experimentan los conceptos teológicos tradicionales cuando son utilizados en un horizonte de comprensión distinto al contexto cultural en el que nacieron, porque ya tienen en ese nuevo horizonte una acepción distinta de la que etimológicamente les pertenece. Es vital la búsqueda de un nuevo lenguaje teológico que haga justicia a la experiencia religiosa actual en el marco de la modernidad.

La teología más fecunda del siglo XX ha sido aquella que ha sabido realizar la interacción mutua entre filosofía y teología. Entre sus mayores exponentes, Rahner, nos presenta su teología en diálogo con los tres grandes filósofos de la modernidad: Kant, Heidegger y Hegel. Se ha juzgado erróneamente que su teología fuera un barniz de sus reflexiones filosóficas. Analizando sus obras se puede confirmar que la teología de Rahner es la reflexión teológica, cuyo fundamento y objetivo último es la revelación, la sagrada escritura, la tradición y el magisterio eclesial. La filosofía le aporta un lenguaje conceptual que le sirve para dar a su teología honestidad científica.

Lévinas presents atheism as the original good condition of the soul before acknowledging or rejecting God. Such description is closely linked to the notion of separation. Man is a created being, but a separated one, self-contained, though not absolute. Even if not causa sui, he may exist on his own. The description is radically different from that by Augustine, who refers to creation as the participation of man in God. Similarly, there is an almost literal contradiction between the statement by Lévinas and the words of Tertullian, claiming that the soul is Christian by nature. A comparison of Levinas’ text with the theology of Karl Rahner also points to significant differences. Rahner presents the awareness of God as a transcendental, unthematic experience. Lévinas also states that the awareness of God is unthematic, however, he does not share Rahner’s description of the experience of God as the primary transcendental experience. According to Lévinas, God comes from outside through the face of the Other. Levinas’ analyses seem highly interesting for fundamental theology and the theology of spirituality.

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O objetivo desta nota é reunir alguns elementos que podem contribuir para um estudo não apenas teórico como também histórico do fenômeno a que se denomina heresia. Ele se estrutura em duas partes: (i) um levantamento de dados histórico-semânticos que permitem (ii) uma investigação do que seria, em termos fenomenológicos, a essência da heresia. Toma-se como inspiração o pensamento de Karl Rahner, autor de grande importância para a heresiologia no século XX, embora pouco conhecido nos meios universitários brasileiros.

This paper attempts to move beyond a critique of historically dominant ways of thinking about teaching and learning relationships to offer a conceptualization of relational pedagogy from a theological perspective. It offers commentary on the potential of relational pedagogy for Christian faith-based schools informed by the scholarship of German theologian Karl Rahner and the dialectical child psychotherapy of D. W. (Donald) Winnicott. An argument for a theological-relational pedagogy is outlined, followed by discussion of three features linking Rahner, Winnicott, and relational pedagogy: realizing our human-ness through relationships with others; the role of a dialectical unity between self and other; and the mystery of human subjectivity. The paper concludes by signalling some of the implications for faith-based curriculum and pedagogy arising from our argument, centred on the emergence of a new theology of childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through the writings of Jean Vanier, this paper encourages Catholic theologians to examine critically their theological sources and their own rhetoric for the context of developmental disabilities. Specifically, this thought experiment is an invitation for the Catholic academy to consider how its theologies of charity can assist the church to reflect on its pastoral ministry to people with developmental disabilities. Some Catholic discourse is built on an assumed one-directional concept of charity that emphasizes the agency and gifts of the giver over the receiver. Such a one-sided model of hospitality tends to emphasize the giver as the person without developmental disabilities, whereas the person with disabilities is described as the receiver of hospitality; their own gifts and agency thereby are either unacknowledged or downplayed. This paper argues, instead, that Catholic theologies of charity, particularly regarding developmental disabilities, should be built on a mutuality that affirms each person's agency to be both a giver and a receiver of charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Como complemento a la contribución de Marta García Fernández sobre «la sacramentalidad de la Palabra», el presente artículo propone ahondar en esta relación fecunda que existe entre palabra y sacramento, pero ahora desde la perspectiva del sacramento. Primero, comentando textos fundamentales de san Agustín y de Karl Rahner, se presenta la intuición fructífera del sacramento como palabra, como la palabra por excelencia. Segundo, se investiga el papel de la palabra en el sacramento como forma sacramenti y condensado de la fe. Finalmente, se propone la sacramentalidad del silencio litúrgico como caja de resonancia para la Palabra.

Abstract: With the celebration of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy indulgences have once again moved to the fore of Catholic imagination, with many pilgrims availing themselves of the opportunity to pass through a Door of Mercy or ‘Holy Door’ and thereby receive the jubilee indulgence. While the practice of indulgences has experienced something of a revival in popularity during recent papacies, the precise doctrine remains largely unrehearsed and unfamiliar, simultaneously evoking strong reactions of distaste and disquiet among many as memories of medieval abuse linger on. This article sets out the precepts of the most recent authoritative teaching on indulgences, itself almost fifty years old, before exploring the theological interpretation offered by Karl Rahner and tracing its gradual and largely anonymous appropriation in papal teaching through the post‐conciliar period. With Pope Francis promoting mercy as a central theme for his papacy and ecclesial vision, the paper closes by considering how he may be proposing a further re‐appropriation of indulgences which shifts attention from their post‐mortem efficacy to their capacity to establish a Franciscan reflexivity of mercy in the contemporary church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note aims to bring together some elements that can contribute to a study not only theoretical but also historical about the so-called phenomenon of the heresy. It is structured in two parts: (i) a collection of some historical and semantic aspects that found (ii) an investigation of what would be, in phenomenological terms, the essence of heresy. It is foundend on the article What is heresy?, writted by Karl Rahner, author of great relevance to heresiology in the twentieth century, though little evoqued in academic circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karl Rahner's ecclesial theology remains relevant for ecumenical work and specifically for the ecumenically thorny questions about papal authority and the infallibility doctrine. Rahner's approach offers insight for unifying Christian churches in three ways: 1. prioritizing the papal office's unifying role; 2. interpreting the doctrine of infallibility within an incarnate ecclesiology; and 3. contextualizing papal authority within a theology of communion and a subsidiarity administrative model. With this approach, infallibility is framed as a matter of doctrine and order, but a doctrine and order rooted in and reflecting the 'sensus fidelium'. The pope is the 'concrete guarantor of the unity of the church in truth and love'1 and not an absolute monarch. Rahner's call for ecumenical reforms serves the mission of the whole church - the sacrament of the incarnate God - on the personal, parish, diocese, regional, and universal levels. Many monarchical symbols of the papacy have been retired in recent years with the papacy of Francis, marking a moment ripe for Rahner's approach. The article concludes with a reflection upon how Francis' ministry reveals a commitment to communion theology of the Second Vatican Council and the subsidiarity principle that embodies Rahner's epistemological tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to articulate the universality of the eschatological expectation, in its specifically Christian form, by interpreting it from the perspective of a radical embodiment. This can be understood in a twofold manner. Firstly, the mysterious reality of the eschatological reign of God is rooted in – and thus can be more adequately grasped through the lens of – Jesus’ own body seen as distinct yet not separate from his risen body and, mutatis mutandis, from his extended body, both ecclesial and cosmic. Secondly, for the eschatological expectation to be lived out in an incarnational way, it must be ‘enfleshed’ in actions aimed at social and ecological liberation. The article consists of four sections. Firstly, we explain in what sense body – and more specifically Jesus’ body – is used in our analysis as a hermeneutic key to notions such as ‘risen body’, ‘spiritual body’, ‘extended body’, ‘social body’, ‘ecclesial body’, ‘cosmic body’, basar/kol basar (‘flesh’/‘all flesh’), and ‘life’. Then, the universality of the eschatological expectation is being articulated on two levels, namely, (1) with regard to the social, and in particular the ecclesial, body, and (2) with regard to the cosmic body, with ecological implications inherent in such perspective. Finally, we close the loop by briefly revisiting the notion of Jesus’ body.

In his enormous literary-production Karl Rahner (1904-1984) did not omit the question of intelligent extraterrestrial beings. Despite the fact that his statements about this issue are sporadic, fragmented and scattered, they nevertheless give a fairly clear and original philosophical and theological picture of this problem. Rahner presents the question of hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence in a metaphysical perspective in which the cosmos is constantly coming into being as a self-transcending reality. According to Rahner the cosmos with its physical laws and in accordance with the purposeful plan of its Creator is oriented not only towards humans (anthropocentrism), but also towards other embodied spiritual beings (subjectivity-centrism). In this perspective there is a real possibility that other intelligent beings besides us exist. From the theological point of view, according to Rahner these hypothetical beings, just like humans, are exposed to the self-communicating God-Trinity through the Logos-Christ-Redeemer (christocentrism). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article emulates the new stance of Professor Michael Hand on faith schools. He illustrates how theological criteria could be used to inform and guide curriculum aims in a way that avoids indoctrination and the perils of faith-based education. This approach is adopted vis-à-vis Catholic education in order to sketch out what a non-confessional theory of Catholic education might look like. It is argued that a central feature of Catholic theology, as presented by the leading theologian Karl Rahner, is a recognition of the centrality of mystery in human existence. This theological insight is applied to the curriculum and it is used to provide a theological justification for a non-confessional account of Catholic education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Christian engagement with nonbelievers is problematic when believing itself proves difficult even for people of faith. A recovery of the original unity of the fides quae (the “content” of faith held in belief) and the fides qua (how faith’s content is lived) can lead to a deeper sense of believing. Rahner’s understanding of faith as a “mystagogy” that leads to mission serves as a framework for recovering that original unity, and for addressing the contemporary problem of belief, not only for nonbelievers, but also for believers themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 50th anniversary of Vatican II (1962–65) provides a good opportunity to reflect on its theological significance. The ongoing debates surrounding the hermeneutics of the council, the plethora of historical-critical studies, and ecclesiastical resistance to its broader implementation raise the question: Has the creative Spirit and the original enthusiasm for the council been neutralized by such resistance, scholarly reluctance, and the seeming endless hermeneutic speculation? Pope Francis speaks about the resistance to Vatican II: There are those who resist it outright and those who resist it by building a monument to it. With this critique as a starting point, this paper revisits Rahner’s concise hermeneutics of the council because it presents an historical analysis but with a theological trajectory. In this context, this article articulates some of the permanent theological achievements of Vatican II taking the thought of Bernard Lonergan as a lead and speculates about two future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This ARTICLE RAISES a number of theological reservations about one contemporary Christian approach to teaching and learning. For many years David Smith and Trevor Cooling have played a leading role in demonstrating how Christian belief and theological themes might be integrated into classroom practice across the curriculum. But despite the good fruits in their work, there are some theological reservations that need to be raised. There is something deficient about the perceived relationship between theology and education that grounds this contemporary example of a Christian approach to teaching and learning. To illustrate this concern, an embryonic proposal that draws inspiration from the systematic theologian Karl Rahner is presented. This is done in order to describe how theology could provide the guiding framework for educational theory in general and for teaching and learning across the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the common perception that Rahner's affinity with German Idealism places him near either Kant or Hegel, his thought accords better with that of Friedrich Schelling, whom he studied under Heidegger. The author examines this historical point, and then reads several of Rahner's work s to identify systematic resonances with Schelling. The article argues that the thought of Rahner and Schelling are well paired because both insist that at the origin of reality lies a plural unity. This Rahner-Schelling commonality regarding metaphysical pluralism could contribute to a theological aesthetic centered on freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some of the key variations in content and genre between three major Catholic accounts of the theological virtue of hope. The successive transpositions of Thomas Aquinas’s scholastic and speculative presentation of this pivotal virtue are traced in John of the Cross’s mystical and poetic account and Karl Rahner’s apologetic essay, each of which takes up and adapts the Thomistic formulation under pressure from the needs of a different context. The examination of these adaptations shows theological creativity at work and captures the development of tradition with reference to a central Christian virtue that is much studied in contemporary theology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Teología y Vida is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Teologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article reinterprets the content of the dogma of the immaculate conception in light of an eschatological portrayal of original sin, the dynamic nature of the holiness of Mary as Daughter Zion, and a theology of redemption based on the wondrous exchange of natures in Christ. Drawing on Irenean anthropology, it is proposed that the immaculate conception confers upon Mary the perfect ‘image’ of God, while the assumption corresponds to her perfect ‘likeness’ to God, for only when Mary is taken up into heaven does she attain to the fullness of ‘objective’ redemption in her son. Since Mary is not exempt from mortality, the eschatological dimension of her life is not fully realized until she dies and shares in her son’s glorious resurrection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores basic insights from René Girard and Bernard Lonergan on the ‘structure’ of evil in human living. For Girard, the root of human evil lies in rivalries, affections of the human heart that lead to mimetic competition, and in the extreme, to the scapegoating of innocent or vulnerable people. For Lonergan, evil is the opposite of the good, so that there is a sense in which he identifies evil as it opposes the good at every level of its structure. In the case of both thinkers, the hope of a solution to the persistence of evil lies in the positive mimesis or imitation and participation in the Triune life of God. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does the notion of ‘Trinitarian persons’ have any practical value for the lives of Christians today? While theologians such as Karl Barth and Karl Rahner have famously argued that ‘person’ is an outdated term that can no longer adequately speak to contemporary Christians because of shifts in the term’s meaning, others like Wolfhart Pannenberg are convinced that these shifts are the precise reason that the term ‘person’ is more valuable than ever for trying to understand God and the divine/world relation. This article seeks to set out a clearer definition of Pannenberg’s use of the term ‘person’ in contrast to the definitions set out by Barth and Rahner and will use this definition to demonstrate the significance of Trinitarian personhood for theology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A theology of redemption for today will be one that communicates the meaning of the Christ-event in a way that is faithful to the central Christian tradition and that is coherent and life-giving for believers in the twenty-first century. It will be a theology that includes the biological world as well as the world of matter. This article works towards such a theology in three steps. It first discusses the Christ-event in biblical terms focussing on Romans 8. It then turns to two figures in the Greek patristic tradition, Athanasius and Maximus the Confessor. Finally it sketches a theology of redemption for today in terms of the notion of deifying transformation. Three levels of this transformation are explored, namely that of human beings, the biological world, and the material universe, along with its participatory nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teología y Vida is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Teologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Karl Rahner's theology is essentially spiritual and pastoral. His theology arose from his experience as a Jesuit, living at the heart of the traumas of twentieth-century Europe and, at the same time, interpreting the new academic insights in Church history and the early Fathers, scholasticism and modern philosophy, within the framework of the Church's traditional teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For reasons of academic fashion and ecclesial politics, Rahner is often dismissed as a liberal. Though elements of his thought on the church/world relationship do not date well, and others have been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream as to lose their interest, there is a dimension of his thought which remains important and which in fact undercuts typical divisions between liberals and their opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent in much Theology of Religions is the concept of fulfilment (the extension of the fulfilment of the Old Covenant by Christ, to the fulfilment of other religions by Christ). The three Catholic theologians who are the subject of this article – Jean Daniélou, Karl Rahner and Jacques Dupuis – rely heavily on the fulfilment concept in their understanding of the relationship between other religions and Christianity. However, each uses the concept differently. This article outlines and then compares the use of the fulfilment concept in the theology of these three prominent theologians, and in doing so develops a fulfilment typology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Benedict XVI's God is Love§1 humanity's relationship with God is described as an encounter with an ‘event’, the Christ-event. I argue that this shift in Catholic theology towards language of act and event signalled a relationship to existentialism, which, taken broadly, entailed an emphasis upon subjectivity and freedom uncharacteristic of the focus upon objectivity common to neo-Scholastic thought. As we shall see with Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, this newfound emphasis on subjectivity and freedom did not necessitate an abandonment of all the elements of the more ‘objective’ perspective. Rather, the task during the ascendancy of existentialist thought became the integration of human subjectivity with the objective and independent reality of the world and God. I suggest that Rahner and von Balthasar use notions such as act and event as a way of being mindful of the role of the subject's creativity and freedom in its encounter with the world, God, and other persons, without thereby undermining the freedom and creativity of that which is other than the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between Incarnation and extraterrestrial life in view of the question: can extraterrestrials be saved? The Franciscan theology of Bonaventure and Scotus is used to explore "exoChristology" by examining the Incarnation as a theological rather than anthropological event. The primacy of Christ, held by Franciscan theologians, provides an integral relationship between Christ and creation. From this relationship, it is shown that Incarnation takes place wherever there is intelligible life. It is suggested that all possible worlds, created through the Word of God, bear a spiritual potency within them and are open to spiritual transformation. The divine Word is incarnate in every created order through the appropriate form of intelligible life within that order and completes that order through love. Because Incarnation may take on other extraterrestrial life forms, it is suggested that there may be multiple incarnations but only one Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walter Kasper brings to light the religious quest for Jesus Christ in a secular, historical world. Taking up the turn towards anthropology and demythologization, he sets out to articulate rationally the logic of faith in which Jesus is recognized as the Christ. Pursuing this quest, he develops a theological discourse on freedom, redemption and self-transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate about voluntary euthanasia arises (essentially) from a fundamental anthropological question: do humans own themselves? An answer to this question is developed which starts out from the foundational ethic of Emmanuel Lévinas, The metaphysics of the countenance of the Other in Lévinas is then related to Karl Rahner's description of as the absolute enigma which is fated towards us. God, understood an that enigma, is experienced for us concretely in our relationship to the countenance of our neighbor, the other human being. Our being thus referred to the absolutely Other in the countenance of the other human grounds not only the non-disposability of that other human being, but also the non-disposability of myself. This is the decisive point for how one should think about euthanasia. In contrast to the (so called) voluntary euthanasia, accompaniment in dying takes account of that dialogical constitution of man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]