Rahner on hope, one more time

[Hugh Williams]

Listers all,

One of the main ‘pastoral’ reasons I take up Rahner’s Spirit in the World is because of our post-normal situation we now face or are in the midst of … and where, Rahner says, we need (philosophical-theological?) ‘protection’ from two extreme reactions – religious presumptuousness and secular despair. Thus, the issue of hope has taken on existential proportions for me.

What about you?

Rahner’s personal religious and secular context, I’m certain, has considerable bearing as the context for his sustained thought – this context of the theological ‘modernist’ crisis and in certain instances the ecclesial over-reaction, and then, of the utter and total German physical and moral defeat in war …

Dare I say that I’m unsure that Lonergan’s thought has anything like such a context which is why I wonder if it is well-equipped for what has come upon us? … but then, … is anyone’s thought equipped for this situation?

(Heidegger, for better or worse, is the one thinker that I know of who it seems to me has anticipated this situation …)

Intellectually then, at this ‘hour’, I want to see what metaphysics might underlie Rahner’s theology of hope which I find unusual, even quite radical, and yet somehow helpful …. (I believe I may have written on this previously … so with apologies...)

Hope is traditionally cast as an inevitable consequence of faith, and it is, in Rahner’s view, cast in a more or less unreflective and theoretical view that tends to reduce the will to an executive power for attaining the good. Rahner, instead, holds to a prior and more radical unity of knowledge and will where hope intends a prior medium between faith and love, and between knowledge and will.

For Rahner, faith only expresses a universal promise and not what God confers on me in the concrete. Grace only realizes its nature and purpose when this general promise is transformed into the particular and concrete for the individual person. This, he says, is the grace event, in Christian terms, that transforms faith into hope.

Hope functions as the medium of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) – their mutual interaction and interpenetration, but there is, in Rahner, this unique and non-derivative nature to hope whereby and wherein we only know who God is and who we are through, and in, this uncontrollable and incalculable ‘blessed event’ which involves commitment to both the blessed one and to salvation. Presumption and despair entail the ‘refusal’ of this commitment.  

Interestingly, in the latter sections of his reflection on hope, Rahner makes two significant pauses and shifts. First, he feels compelled to ask – ‘have we been speaking of hope too much in terms of individual salvation?’ He asks – ‘what does theology and existential ontology have to say about the cosmic and social dimensions of hope?’ He asks – ‘what of the laity’s eschatological hope, which is to find concrete expression in (both) secular (and ecclesial?) life in view of our prophetic role in both the Church and the world?’

Because this is an eschatological hope, in Rahner, directed to the absolute future of God, this is not to be equated with a conservatism. It is no opium of the people.

Because of the human being’s physical and historical nature our transcendent reach is not fulfilled only in an attitude of mind but in the actual intercourse with one’s physical and social environment – in our very practice. Planning and technology are necessary and justified but they do not and should not disparage the dimension of the unplanned as simply some remnant yet to be worked out.

In fact, planning increases the dimension of the unplanned (and unknown). It is in the unforeseen and incalculable future associated with our actual practices that we are to realize our eschatological hope. No firm or worldly structure constitutes the objective realization of our eschatological hope once and for all. Every structure is to be called into question in our reach for the incalculable and uncontrollable.

Rahner’s second pause and shift occurs in his saying that all this concentration upon the exercise of eschatological hope in the human historical dialectic of making and unmaking, … of this ongoing rhythm in the cultural destabilization and recomposition, is not the only way of exercising or speaking of this hope. For we as Christians also accept in the passing form of the ‘ordinary’ world, factors for which one is not responsible which have to be endured as part of one’s personal life in death and in the renunciations preparing for this death. We make our hope real in this process as well …

We, then, are not to hold fast to anything in this worldly life as if without it we are cast into an absolute void. This hope commands us in the very moment we have become makers of our world to let go of what is taken away and to actually renounce in the light of hope’s mysterious limitless/boundless future what is recognized as provisional and dispensable.

Thus, as a pilgrim people carrying this eschatological hope of an absolute promise, our relationship with tradition, for Rahner, is almost paradoxical - where our hope cannot simply be a hunger for fulfillment yet to be achieved as calculable and controllable, but rather it involves a courage for a commitment to that which is incomprehensible and uncontrollable, and yet permeates our very existence as the absolute future to which we are open and which actually sustains our very existence. It is an eschatological hope the consummation of which is nothing less than the mystery of God.   

(See Karl Rahner’s “On the Theology of Hope” in Gerard McCool, ed., A Rahner Reader (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975) pp.224-239)

with some apologies

Hugh

[jaraymaker]

Hugh,

 

you point to Rahner’s second pause and shift occurs in his saying that all this concentration upon the exercise of eschatological hope in the human historical dialectic of making and unmaking, … of this ongoing rhythm in the cultural destabilization and recomposition, is not the only way of exercising or speaking of this hope. For we as Christians also accept in the passing form of the ‘ordinary’ world, factors for which one is not responsible which have to be endured as part of one’s personal life in death and in the renunciations preparing for this death. We make our hope real in this process as well …

We, then, are not to hold fast to anything in this worldly life as if without it we are cast into an absolute void. This hope commands us in the very moment we have become makers of our world to let go of what is taken away and to actually renounce in the light of hope’s mysterious limitless/boundless future what is recognized as provisional and dispensable.

Thus, as a pilgrim people carrying this eschatological hope of an absolute promise, our relationship with tradition, for Rahner, is almost paradoxical - where our hope cannot simply be a hunger for fulfillment yet to be achieved as calculable and controllable, but rather it involves a courage for a commitment to that which is incomprehensible and uncontrollable, and yet permeates our very existence as the absolute future to which we are open and which actually sustains our very existence. It is an eschatological hope the consummation of which is nothing less than the mystery of God.   

(See Karl Rahner’s “On the Theology of Hope” in Gerard McCool, ed., A Rahner Reader (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975) pp.224-239)

 Rahner and Moltmann were both stalwart Christians. In Moltmann's case, (which I read long ago), on the Net one can that his efforts bore "the title Theology of Hope, not because they set out once again to present eschatology as a separate doctrine and to compete with the well known textbooks. Rather, their aim is to show how theology can set out from hope and begin to consider its theme in an eschatological light. For this reason they inquire into the ground of the hope of Christian faith and into the responsible exercise of this hope in thought and action in the world today. The various critical discussions should not be understood as rejections and condemnations. They are necessary conversations on a common subject which is so rich that it demands continual new approaches."  GOOD for Rahner and Moltmann, but Heidegger his "hope" tries to reconcile itself with nihilism does it not. As to this, Buddhists does not lose hope but what about the Heideggian "nihilism or nothingness.".

 

More googling differentiates Heidegger's complex views on the subject:

 

The question of whether Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher, can be considered a nihilist is a complex and debated issue. Heidegger's philosophy is known for its depth and complexity, and his views on nihilism are not straightforward.

Heidegger is often associated with existentialism and phenomenology rather than nihilism. He is known for his exploration of the nature of being, existence, and the meaning of human existence. Heidegger's philosophy is focused on the concept of "Being" and the ways in which humans exist in the world.

While Heidegger does critique traditional metaphysics and the Western philosophical tradition, which can be seen as a form of nihilism in the sense of questioning established beliefs and values, he also offers a unique perspective on the nature of being and existence that goes beyond nihilism.

Some critics argue that Heidegger's emphasis on the limitations of language and the inherent finitude of human existence can be interpreted as nihilistic. However, others contend that his work offers a path towards a deeper understanding of being and a possible way to overcome nihilism.

Ultimately, whether Heidegger can be labeled as a nihilist depends on one's interpretation of his work and the specific aspects of his philosophy that are being considered. It is a topic of ongoing debate among scholars and philosophers." This is to be found at this long link:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=was+heidegger+a+nihilist&sca_esv=1cbe4b6585e2caa3&source=hp&ei=zPVEZqnULKeqxc8P8fiP6AQ&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZkUD3LJ8IsMsgePk5blH4T0J_oKR-lKT&oq=was+Heidegger+a+ni&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhJ3YXMgSGVpZGVnZ2VyIGEgbmkqAggAMgUQABiABDIGEAAYFhgeMgsQABiABBiGAxiKBTILEAAYgAQYhgMYigUyCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFMggQABiABBiiBDIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGKIESOmrA1BYWP6XA3ADeACQAQCYAb4FoAHIE6oBBzkuOC42LTG4AQHIAQD4AQGYAhSgAo4VqAIAwgIFEC4YgATCAgsQLhiABBjRAxjHAcICCBAuGIAEGNQCwgIKEAAYgAQYRhj5AZgDBJIHCDguMTEuNS0xoAf3iAE&sclient=gws-wiz

John

a.

[Hugh Williams]

John,

you write or relay - 'The various critical discussions should not be understood as rejections and condemnations. 

They are necessary conversations on a common subject which is so rich that it demands continual new approaches.'

this is very encouraging for ongoing dialectic and dialogue in the Socratic sense that philosophy (even theology) seems to be ...

perhaps needed now, in these post-normal times, more than ever ... even though a rare set of circumstances (a bit of 'leisure' for example) seem to be needed for such exchanges,

and yet in most every time and place some few individuals seem to find these circumstances and so take their place in this on-going discourse ...

though there be those exceptionally special times (as with the Greeks ...)

... I take your point on Heidegger ... but there are such original insights spread through out his work that thinkers whom I do very much trust, like Charles Taylor,

and the Jesuit William Richardson of Boston College (see his Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, 1963) give me reason to consider him seriously ... and then of course there

is Rahner himself and his Heideggerian influences.

thanks

Hugh

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