Karl Rahner, SJ (1904-1984), one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, is a favorite whipping boy for many traditionally minded Catholics.
Yet Rahner was something of a split personality. Part of him was the pious Swabian who, shortly after Vatican II, sat on stage at Notre Dame telling his rosary beads while another scholar read his lecture in English for him—and, who, at the same event, told a youngster asking how he might become a great theologian to “memorize Denzinger” (the 700-page compendium of Church doctrine).
The other half of Rahner was the student of existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger, the theological lodestar of a generation of Catholic thinkers who took the “spirit of Vatican II” in the direction of Catholic Lite, and the precursor, in some respects, of contemporary Germany’s “Synodal Path.”
It’s interesting, then, that Karl Rahner gave a very sharp answer to an interviewer who asked him in 1982 why he, a critic of the direction Catholicism had taken under Pope John Paul II, remained in the Church:
In all honesty, the [question] ‘Why I remain in the Church’ strikes me as abominable. … [The] real Christian believer can’t possibly have a patronizing attitude toward the Church that allows him or her to weigh staying in the Church against getting out of it. Relationship to the Church is at the very essence, an absolute of Christian faith. And one should be able to detect this when people who claim to be people of the Church, members of the Church, criticize their Church. …
As far as I’m concerned, people can energetically, fiercely, bitterly, even rabidly criticize much in the Church. But if it is the criticism of a Catholic, one should be able to see that here’s someone who wants to find eternal salvation as a member of the Church. Remember, the Catholic critic argues in the Church against the ‘Church’ on the basis of an intimate understanding of it. [This kind of critic] knows that the Church, ultimately, is not merely a … religious organization satisfying people’s needs but … the community which believes that Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one, is God’s irrevocable promise to us. Of what great importance is angers with pastors, bishops, possibly even the papacy, when one knows that in this Church … as nowhere else, in life and death, one can hold on to Jesus, the trusted witness of the eternal God?
A cradle Catholic, I must confess that I have never had a crisis of faith, although I will simultaneously confess that there have been times when the Roman engine room of the Barque of Peter has bred in me a transient cynicism that is spiritually desiccating. But then I return to that part of me that still admires parts of Karl Rahner (on whose Christology I wrote a thesis fifty years ago), and realize anew, with Rahner, what the sacraments mean:
…in this Church, God’s tangible word of grace was promised through baptism for a lifetime … in the Eucharist one can celebrate Jesus’s death and resurrection as an event of the holy God … in this Church … one can always hear the pure word of God’s eternal self-communication [and]… is promised forgiveness of all life’s guilt.
The inherently ecclesial character of Catholic faith was affirmed twenty-five years ago when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the declaration Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus) during the Great Jubilee of 2000. The declaration’s purpose was to reaffirm the Church’s conviction—central to the teaching of Vatican II—that Jesus Christ is the world’s unique savior, not simply one expression of a generic, divine “will to save” that expresses itself in history through various religious figures.
In this 2025 Jubilee of Hope, and in light of the ambiguities in the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity,” the key teachings of Dominus Iesus are worth recalling:
There is one true God, and thus one history of salvation.
If Jesus is Lord, then he is Lord of all, whether his lordship is recognized or not.
God denies no one the grace needed for salvation.
All who are saved, whether they explicitly acknowledge Christ or not, are saved through the redemption wrought by Christ.
There is one Church of Christ because the Church is Christ’s Body, and Christ does not have multiple bodies.
The Catholic Church is the fullest expression in history of the one Church of Christ.
And if you believe all this, as I do, you are an evangelical Catholic called into missionary discipleship, offering others the gift you have received: friendship with the incarnate Son of God.
(George Weigel’s column ‘The Catholic Difference’ is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Not a theologian, yours truly once had the urge to at least superficially survey the leading periti at the Council. While not a reader of the nuanced and obscure Karl Rahner, whose influence continues, here are some of my amateur and patchy notes by some of his “traditionally minded” critics:
At the Council in 1962-65 the theologian Ratzinger was with Rahner as a member of the European Alliance, and was initially inclined in the “liberal” direction. And, was early dependent upon Karl Rahner, but later became “more cautious in accepting his proposals” and “admitted that he disagreed on various points, and said he would begin to assert himself more after the Council was over.” (Ralph Wiltgen, “The Rhine Flows into the Tiber,” 1982). After the Council, Ratzinger later helped form the journal “Communio” partly as a counterpoint to “Concilium” founded by Rahner and others.
In 1982 Ratzinger explained Rahner’s theology as somewhat inclined to reduce being to history (thereby undermining its own assertion of man as both a “self-transcendent being” and as free; Christian salvation is found instead in being-taken-out-of oneself, by conversion and acceptance of the Other. Rahner is said to conflates being and history into a (finally closed) system, such that man finds himself in self-transcendence, rather than that man finds salvation in “the being-taken-out-of-himself that goes beyond reflection—not in continuing to be himself, but in going out from himself” (p. 171), in conversion. (Ratzinger, “Principles of Theology,” Ignatius 1987, 161-172).
Before the Council, Rahner was placed under scrutiny by Rome in 1962 for his views on the Eucharist and Mariology, but this passed when Pope St. John XXIII identified him as a peritus to the Council fathers. Near the end of the Council his theology of “transfinalization” (replacing transubstantiation) was disapproved in “Mysterium Fidei” (late 1965). Rahner was a public dissenter from “Humanae Vitae” (1968). He was critiqued as an example of historicism and for evasion of Marian dogmas. See “Gethsemani” (Franciscan Herald Press, 1981) by papabile Cardinal Joseph Siri, for example, for ambiguity about the Incarnation as in “Incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth represents a moment of the concretization of this mystery of the incarnation” (referring to “Sacramentum mundi,” vol. 4, col. 484).
In his” Unity of the Churches” Rahner suggested a convergence of churches (the “world church”) apart from comprehensive assent to defined Catholic teachings (especially the later Councils). His “Theological Investigations” includes the theory of ongoing revelation, and “Spirit in the World” promoted Transcendental Thomism as a hybrid with Heidegger’s phenomenology and Kantian idealism. Rahner seemed to stress individuality with transcendental accessories, more than he did a conversion response to a more distinct God.
Critics find that in Rahner dogma and theology are blurred. When I took “Sacrametum mundi” off the shelf sometime in the 1970s, it was only long enough to be totally intimidated. I soon came to appreciate Fr. Hugo Rahner, Carl Rahner’s brother, who said that someday he would like to translate Karl’s German works…into German!
I was taking theological studies on my path to Holy Orders when Dominus Iesus was released. It was a document that, in addition to the Catechism, Scripture, Vatican II documents and the Creed, most helped form my vocation.
So does Karl reject the teachings of the Fast Four Things?
In reading Ratzinger’s “The Divine Project” I gained an insight: Germans, incl. German Catholics, really take Kant and successors seriously. They really think the philosopher of Koenigsberg posed a vision of reality that the average German Catholic must grapple with to justify his faith. I suspect the average German, much less the average German Catholic, doesn’t even grasp what turgid “thinkers” like Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger are even saying. But because the Catholic thinking class imagines them as threats, they have contorted clear Catholic thought to try to respond to their opponents’ theories.
Reading Rahner, especially his Theological Investigations, has always been a good exercise. He was a careful thinker who made the reader think. For all of his failures to provide a theological “system,” one could do much worse than engaging his rigorous thoughts, even if not all of his conclusions.
Yes, we a motley crew , find us all in this boat together!
Always beneficial to accentuate the uniqueness of Christ to our salvation. There are no substitutes.
Rahner did possess that more clearly stated orthodox side, Weigel’s incorporation of that in his essay is a welcome addition, at least a reminder to our knowledge.
If I may contribute a resource: I recently translated an article by a respected Italian Dominican theologian and expert on Rahner, who offers a deep and critical engagement with Rahner’s influence—especially in relation to Saint Paul VI. It’s the first in a series of three, now available on my Substack:
https://oraetcogita.substack.com/p/saint-paul-vi-and-rahner?utm_source=publication-search
I hope this may offer a useful perspective for those interested in Rahner’s legacy and its enduring impact on Church theology.
Split personality? More the forked tongue, widely employed during the immediate post-conciliar era. Unfortunately it appears to have survived in more than a small contingent of the episcopate. May the passage of time see it eradicated…far sooner than later. If I recall correctly his correspondence with a favored female colleague is to be withheld from publication for one hundred years after his passing to eternal existence.