Current trends in Catholic theology and the responsibility of the Christian

In this paper I shall try to give you a brief overview of the current trends of Catholic theology in Europe, and in connection with this I shall present some of my own favorite ideas. Linking these two topics has one drawback: it might create the impression that I rank myself with the leading theologians of today. Let me state that all I claim is to have emphasized certain things that others also have pointed out, and probably better. In any event, I hope that my formulations are merely somehow new expressions of old Catholic truths.

Two further introductory remarks: First, that in theology as in other sciences, connecting lines go incessantly back and forth between America and Europe. Often, movements which began on your side of the Atlantic and are already waning reach us belatedly as, for instance, the “God is dead” theology. Conversely, emigrants from Europe sometimes achieve a degree of continuing success here which they did not meet with at home. Under these circumstances the news that I bring may not be new to you at all, or new only in that it reflects a certain European point of view.

Secondly, by necessity my selections will be merely rudimentary examples of the overall theological situation. I hope you will understand that I had to omit naming eminent scholars who have done pioneer work in some fields but have not become prominent in systematic theology. I am thinking of men like Hubert Jedin or Yves Congar and a large number of exegetes whose work bore only indirectly on systematic theology. Lastly, I don’t intend to discuss systems of thought the orthodoxy of which is doubtful, like those of certain Dutch theologians or of Hans Küng, whose questionings are certainly stimulating but whose theories are widely rejected.

I propose to present to you three basic trends, in the second of which I would like to include myself. But before I do so, let me point out that despite their considerable differences in approach, structure, and conclusions, all three of these directions have one thing in common. In contrast to the predominantly intellectualistic school-theology taught in seminaries and universities well into this century, which was usually kept carefully apart from ethics and spirituality, to say nothing of politics, today we all are at pains to stress the unity of theory and practice. A simple reflection on the character of Christian revelation prompts us to do so. Already in the Old Testament, God’s word is always an active, productive word, transforming the world. How much more so in Jesus Christ, whose words and deeds are a powerful testimony, right unto the Cross. This always seemed self⁠-⁠evident to the great theologian saints, to the Church Fathers, most of whom were saints, to the great scholars, many of whom also were saints, to Newman whose canonization is being considered.

If, therefore, you detect in the following certain tensions between the various systems of theology, please remember that they all desire to be fully Catholic and to help the Christian in the world to witness more effectively. Each system has its own characteristic approach and its specific motivation that leads into Christian practice.

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1. The Transcendental Way: In view of its importance, we must give first place to the transcendental approach. Its best-known representative is Karl Rahner. Rahner is the theological exponent of the Catholic school of thought that follows Joseph Maréchal whose primary concern was to reconcile Thomas Aquinas with German idealism from Kant to Hegel. Rahner, whose first publication revealed a similar philosophical tendency, abides by the slogan “Nicht hinter Kant zurück!” (No regression to the pre-Kantian.) Besides Maréchal another great forerunner must be mentioned, Maurice Blondel, who in his book L’Action (1893) pointed to the valid and truly Catholic features of the so-called “immanence theory,” which went astray in the form of “modernism.”

It is not easy to summarize Rahner’s widespread concerns. I might attempt it as follows: Because it was God’s intention from the beginning to surrender himself totally to his creatures, man—the final product of natural evolution—is from the outset projected beyond himself toward union of God and man, a union that came into existence in the person of Christ. Anthropology thus becomes inchoate or deficient Christology. And because all the truths of revelation have their center and their foundation in Christ, there is in man a potential that corresponds to every dogma, if not in his objective categorical and finite world of objects, at any rate in the transcending impulses of his knowledge and his freedom which must be kept expectantly open to God’s gratuitous coming into finiteness.

Rahner’s principal objective is pastoral. He sees modern man estranged from biblical truths and, stressing the essentially transcendent nature of man, he seeks to demonstrate how closely Christian truth conforms to the profoundest and boldest hopes and expectations of mankind. At the same time, by showing that all transcendental knowledge and aspiration cannot be man’s objective, he tries to leave room for the mystery of God in his self⁠-⁠revelation; or, in other words, for the trans⁠-⁠rational that was so dear to the heart of thinkers like Wittgenstein and the members of the Frankfurt School.

Rahner has restructured Catholic theology with the same vigor as perhaps Father Lonergan did in your country. Yet, to my mind, his method seems to have limitations and also dangers, and he has to defend himself against many attacks. There is no time to discuss here the subtler points or details. I can only summarize roughly.

The act of God’s incarnation in Christ, though it did take place historically at a given time and place, is seen so much as the transcending fulfillment of all that is human, that Rahner has difficulty in proving the necessity for an explicit, historical Christianity. If a man follows the guidance of his own conscience and does what he believes is right, he is caught up in the grace of God and may be called an “anonymous Christian,” no matter what religion or atheistic worldview he may adhere to. Here Rahner comes very close to Karl Barth who said that the only difference between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians are aware of God’s grace to all mankind, and that, therefore, it is their duty to announce it to the world. From this, some of Rahner’s pupils have drawn the more radical conclusion that all religions are more or less on the same level; they are roads by which man, following his transcendental aspiration, can reach the same goal. Today, Rahner seems to stand undecided at a crossroads: his thoroughly Catholic heart wants him to be faithful to the visible, official, and sacramental Church, but his speculative bent demands the relativization of everything ecclesiastical in the name of an all⁠-⁠pervading grace.

My main argument—not only against Rahner but against the entire transcendental school which already existed before him and spread alongside him—is this: It might be true that from the very beginning man was created to be disposed toward God’s revelation, so that with God’s grace even the sinner can accept all Revelation. Gratia supponit naturam. But if God sends his own living Word to his creatures, he does so, not to instruct them about the mysteries of the world, nor primarily to fulfill their deepest needs and yearnings. Rather he communicates and actively demonstrates such unheard-of things that man feels not satisfied but awestruck by a love which he never could have hoped to experience. For who would have dared describe God as love, without having first received the revelation of the Trinity in the acceptance of the Cross by the Son?

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2. I have no convenient label with which to designate the second current in European theology today, even though I include myself in it. One could speak of men overwhelmed by the Word of God in the way the beloved is overwhelmed by the declaration of the lover: “I love you because you are you”; or as one is overwhelmed by a great work of art—of Bach or Mozart, of Poussin or Dante—by something that is unmistakably unique and bears the imprint of grace. This approach cannot be described as “extrinsicist,” to use an expression of the modernists.

I would like to mention three names, the names of three of my closest friends. First, Heinrich Schlier, exegete, follower and friend of Bultmann, converted by the evidence of the New Testament’s catholicity, who in writings of great depth, has endeavored to show us how unfathomable and worthy of adoration the Word of God is. His method is, in a way, intuitive, but it is also recognized as scientifically impeccable. Not very different in his approach is Heinz Schürman of Eastern Germany who dares to encounter the rationalism of many contemporary German exegetes with an intricate exegesis of his own, showing the Catholic richness as well as the ethical implications of the biblical texts. In his commentary on St. Luke, Schürman even goes so far as to defend the infancy narratives and the figure of the Mother, and he sees in the group of Jesus’ disciples the forerunners of later religious orders. The third name that I will mention, Louis Bouyer, is well known to you. Bouyer is also a convert. He has a close affinity with the Eastern Church and, therefore, he too sees the relationship between monasticism and the Gospels. He, like the others I mentioned earlier, is no “extrinsicist,” and still less a follower of Barth when he refuses to approach the historical Christ through any other media than the Word of God spoken to Israel. Bouyer is well aware of the religious depth of nature and human history; at present he is working on a sophiological cosmology. But the word of God holds him spellbound and he firmly believes in the incarnation of the Word in the sacred rite which must be enacted and celebrated so as to sanctify from its center man’s secular life.

Perhaps this is the place to outline my own work. To the first part of a theological trilogy I have given the title Ästhetik, because in order to discern that which is essentially divine in revelation, man must begin by being ready, open, and perceptive. Aisthanesthai means to perceive receptively. The word is connected with the Latin audio, *avisdio, meaning “to comprehend, to hear,” and also with oboedio from *ob⁠-⁠avisdio, meaning “to obey” in the sense of acting appropriately. Only when man has the right attitude can God reveal and give himself as he is: in the glorious radiance of his love right up to the folly of the Cross. This love needs no other proof than itself. It is unique, it cannot be invented by man—and it was not invented by the early Church—and it cannot be surpassed by any human effort.

But because God appeals to man’s freedom and expects an answer, the Ästhetik is followed by Dramatik or praxology of Christianity. Here, all components of theology point to the Christian engagement in the God’s cause and to involvement in Christ’s mission to redeem the world. It is for this reason that I am personally and particularly interested in secular institutes where the Christian’s total decision for Christ is expressed in living the evangelical counsels and extending them into a secularized world, acting there—in the midst of the world—as the leaven of Christ.

Only when that which is essentially Christian has been grasped and put into practice can the third and final part be presented: Theo⁠-⁠logik or the logic of God’s revelation, its conditions, forms, and laws.

It seems to me that if all this is properly accomplished, one has no need for special apologetics. Christianity, like any work of art, is its own proof. Catholic Christianity, which strives to transmit and keep alive the fullness of divine revelation, has only to remain true to itself to prove that as a comprehensive interpretation of the world’s meaning it is superior to any other existing or possible system of ideas—be they pagan, like the Buddhist or hellenistic “reincarnation,” or Jewish-messianic as the Marxist earthly paradise promised in the temporal future.

To this second theological sketch I would like to add two thoughts: one on Christian meditation and the other on the Holy Spirit.

Not even at its highest level can Christian meditation ignore the concrete revelation of the triune God in the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here, and here alone, do we receive the proof and the assurance that God really is love, as St. John says. Buddhist meditation can and must be a process of abstraction from all wordly and finite objects and values, in order to attain a transcendence in which the difference between persons—and perhaps the difference between self and the Absolute—disappears. This is understandable from the viewpoint of a natural religion that knows no historical revelation. For the Christian, however, it would be a downright betrayal of God’s love in Christ were he to look for a “ground of being” while ignoring the Cross that Christ suffered for us and his resurrection that includes us. We do not need to search for God; he sought us and found us. All we have to do is to open ourselves to the Eternal Love that forever comes forth to meet us. That we must do in faith, without demanding a psychological “experience” of God’s love.

Secondly, Christian faith as a practical response of God is always trinitarian. There is no specialization for any of the divine hypostases; each leads to the others. Genuine piety toward Jesus always leads to the Father; otherwise it would not be genuine since it would run counter to the intention of Jesus. And any sense of being moved by the Holy Spirit is only genuine when it takes us to the Son and the Father. Again, St. John says that the Holy Spirit does not reveal himself, but he always interprets the Son. “He will have received from me what he will announce to you” (John 16:14). Neither “Jesu-ism” nor “pneumaticism” are Catholic. In the two epistles to the Corinthians, St. Paul has said all that needs to be said on this subject. (These should remain the magna carta for all pentecostals.)

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3. I move on to the characterization of the third important direction in Catholic theology today. Here, some of the deepest sources of early patristic tradition have sprung forth anew. One might say that rushing torrents have been released which are not likely to dry up soon but will flow into the future. Let us begin with Henri de Lubac’s penetrating study: Catholicisme: Les aspect sociaux du dogme. He points to the essentially communitarian character of the Catholic Church, which can only be achieved by genuine personalization of all its members and which derives from our participation in the interior community of the triune God. This book, which marks a turning point, not only quotes innumerable texts from the Church Fathers, but as a whole it reminds us of two nineteenth-century ecclesiologists of genius, Möhler and Newman. Like de Lubac, these two knew how to combine the social with the individual.

But the increasingly inevitable confrontation with Marxism gradually brought new insights, at first, possibly, in the writings of the Protestant Reinhold Niebuhr, then with increasing vehemence in the theology of Latin America, which no one can afford to ignore today. “Social aspects of dogma” simply means personal responsibility of each member for the whole. “If one member suffers, all the other members suffer with him.” The Christian poets and philosophers of Russia had expressed this maxim long before Lenin did so. “Political theology” came first with J.B. Metz; then came the “theology of revolution” propounded by Shaull and many others. And finally, there came the “theology of liberation,” whose Latin American proponents nearly all studied in Europe. The seeds that were implanted there developed explosively in the climate of Latin America. The Spanish author, Olegario Gonzalez de Cardeal has described this development with sympathetic understanding but also has criticized its limitations.

The theology of liberation is the theology of horribly suffering members of the Catholic Church who are crying for help. And if the husk of an often narrow-minded nationalism is penetrated, it becomes evident that we are confronted by the southern hunger-belt of humanity which, as it calls for help, accuses the richer brethren in Europe and the United States of capitalist exploitation and implores them to be mindful of the fundamental commands of the Gospel and of the solidarity between all members of the Mystical Body of Christ. Practical help here means more than a handout. It means effectively striving for a worldwide order which would realistically observe both the laws of world economy and the laws of the world Church, acting with Christian imagination and Christian determination to put an end to the worst abuses which cry out to heaven. Today, the United States has splendidly assumed responsibility for the defense of human rights in the world. In doing so, your President has formally acknowledged a role that the free and unfree worlds have assigned long ago to the United States.

I feel that the combined efforts of theology in the United States and Europe should also be directed toward helping the Latin American theology of liberation, which often becomes self⁠-⁠seeking and confused. What I mean is helping to clarify it with a sympathetic understanding of its genuine claims. Teilhard de Chardin saw the future of theology as supranational and global, but he did not recognize the concerns of liberation theology. We must include them in our theological thinking, but in doing so we must show greater discernment than our South American brothers do. Usually, their analysis of the social situation is based impulsively on Marxist categories of the “exploiting” and “exploited countries”… The tragic situation is more complex and we must show them that.

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There would be much more to say, but this must suffice. In conclusion I might point out again that the three theological directions outlined here do not contradict each other in their positive aspects. They complement each other in that each contributes something which the others do not stress sufficiently or are in danger of forgetting. None of the three sets itself up as absolute, but all recognize the whole of “Catholica.”

It is true that Karl Rahner is inclined to filter all questions through the prism of his own method, but on the other hand, his pastoral concern enables him to see all problems—theological and secular—in their realistic complexity, and to accept other attempts at a solution than his own.

The second direction also leaves room enough, as it avoids a rigid system in favor of an open dramatic situation in which every point of view may present itself. The transcendental school of thought should be criticized only if the historical facts of revelation are not given sufficient expression, and liberation theology will be criticized when it comes close to giving absolute priority to the political dimension.

The exponents of this third direction must learn—with all due regard to their justified claims—that the Kingdom of God cannot be coerced into existence by any amount of social or political effort. It remains the gift of God and of the returning Lord to a world that cannot perfect itself by its own efforts.

This, honored friends, is what I could tell you about European theology in the short time available to me. Most probably it did not convey anything particularly new to you. But I believe that in all these approaches Catholic theology has taken some concrete steps forward and is not merely repeating what has been said time and time again. And as I see it, these steps do not lead away from their Catholic focus but nearer to it, because their exponents do not theorize barrenly, as the Neoscholastics have often done, but proclaim the responsibility of all members of the Church for the salvation of the world.