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Karl Rainer and Supernatural Existentialism

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As I started to write about Karl Rahner’s paper, I realized many incredible information I never thought would have me so intrigued about Karl Rahner’s perspective. I started to explore the interaction taking place of the notion of the supernatural existential of Karl Rahner. (Coffey) As A great deal of the credit for this new approach can be given to one theologian in particular, Karl Rahner (Perry 442). He never gives a separate extended treatment of what he has termed the “supernatural existential.” Rather, he touches on it briefly in various contexts as it is relevant. Makes me question why he touches the subject so briefly? For Rahner, a Christian theologian, the existence of revelation is assumed as a given. Rahner’s most significant observations about revelation are found in these anthropological reflections.In the tradition of transcendental Thomism, (Rahner) he defines humanity as that being which is always present to itself and, at the same time, experiences itself as open to a mysterious Infinity which transcends its self-awareness and calls all normal human experiences into question. Put briefly, humans are those beings who question their being. We do not experience our existence as closed in upon itself, but as open to others and the future. Yes, we experience ourselves as dependent upon this openness for our own existence. This experience of openness to Infinity or mystery is not a special experience reserved only for “inspirational” moments, rather it is a way of all human experience. At the same time, this experience is not such that it can be directly apprehended and conceptualized, rather it is the transcendental horizon that accompanies all conceptual experience as its ground of possibility. The significance of this analysis is that Karl identifies this transcendental experience of openness to mystery as God as we humans can experience God. That is, this experience of openness to mystery is the basis of

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