When is theology "biblical"?—Some reflections

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2003 by Roland E. Murphy

Karl Rahner: Supernatural Existential

It is merely a coincidence that the theologian of the "anonymous Christian" should be considered along with Jacques Dupuis. True, their views concerning pluralism of religions are in harmony, but our interest is in the role of the Bible. Rahner's contribution (1964) to the theoretical discussion of biblical inspiration is outstanding. Some fifty years ago Catholic theologians were compounding confusion in expanding the famous definition of Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus, which emphasized the divine action upon the mind and will and executive faculties of an inspired biblical author. He cut through this confusion by interpreting the divine will as establishing the Bible as a "constitutive part" of the primitive Church (1958; 1964). This has become the dominant view; the Old Testament was also a constitutive part from the beginning--indeed, it was at first the only Bible the Christian community possessed.

K. H. Neufeld has published an article (1987) concerning Scripture in the theology of Rahner, in which he mentions possible influences and describes Rahner as a dogmatic theologian who is interested more in biblical theology than in individual exegesis. This comes through in Rahner's contribution to SACRAMENTUM MUNDI (VI, 176-77), where he writes under the heading "Scripture (biblical theology) and dogmatics." He claims that "theology always reads Scripture with a knowledge which is not simply to be found in that precise form in Scripture" (177). The theologian works "on the basis of the Church's present awareness of its faith." In effect, he took his cue from the Bible only in a very broad sense, as can be seen from his FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. His basic theological vision was dominated by the concept of the supernatural existential. This famous phrase is described in the THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY (Rahner & Vorgrimler: 161):

   Underlying the concept of the supernatural existential is the
   following fact: antecedently to justification by grace,
   received sacramentally or extra-sacramentally, man is
   al ready subject to the universal salvific will of God, he is
   already redeemed and absolutely obliged to tend to his
   supernatural end. This "situation" is not merely an external
   one; it is an objective, ontological modification of man.

This "situation" is a given for Rahner in view of 1 Timothy 2:3-4 concerning the divine will that all be saved. Relying on an accepted biblical base, he reasons like the dogmatic theologian he is. In the process he reveals a specific view of history and Bible (1978). On the one hand, there is "history on God's part," which is the history of salvation and coextensive with the whole of world history; it is here that the transcendental self-communication of God takes place. On the other hand, the explicit history of salvation is to be found in the Bible. In Rahner's view, this is a special "official" history of revelation. Describing this "brief moment" from Abraham to Christ, he remarks: "What makes this history a history of revelation is rather the interpretation of the history as the event of a dialogical partnership with God, and as a prospective tendency towards an open future" (1967: 167; 1979: 177-90). Rahner critiqued the third chapter (surely it is a weak chapter) of the Dei Verbum of Vatican II for failing to offer "a survey of the whole of human history as the history of salvation and revelation" (1979:198). This point of view is reflected in the "anonymous Christian," which is an extension of the old expression of Tertullian that "the soul is naturally Christian." That statement is explained by Rahner in several ways, but this is characteristic: "the historical, explicit message of Christianity never encounters a human being conceived of as a merely pre-Christian `nature,' or as one shut in on itself by sin, or pursuing its course without an active relation to possible revelation" (1968: 23).