rahner begegnen (Photo credit: mimax)

“The topic, “humanity as a being threatened radically by guilt,” is undoubtedly burdened today with a special difficulty: we cannot say that people today are bothered in a very immediate way and at a clear and tangible level of their consciousness by the question whether and how as sinners in their individual histories of salvation and its opposite they find a merciful God, or how they are justified by God and before God.  The normal person today does not fear God in this sense, and the question of his or her individual justification, which was, once with Augustine and then again at the time of the Reformation, the question on which the church was to survive or perish, this question does not bother people today very much or maybe even not at all . . . It might be the case, of course, that in the depths of an individual’s conscience and a really decisive points in someone’s person history it is a very different matter.  But judging by first impressions, in everyday life people today have no clear consciousness that they stand before God burdened by guilt and blame which cannot be shifted and as people deserving condemnation, but who nevertheless are saved by the incalculable miracle of God’s pardon, by God’s grace alone, and are accepted by God (Luther, Pascal, etc.) . . . A person today, then, is more likely to have the impression that God has to justify the unhappy condition of the world before human beings, that they are the sacrifice and not the cause of the condition of the world and of human history.”

– Karl Rahner, Foundations of the Christian Faith

Rahner goes on to make several other compelling observations.  First, regardless of the above, human beings do have a sense of the moral and what they “must” do in their lives.  We experience all of our finitude, fragility and ambiguity in the area of moral norms, he says.  Rahner understands this morality in terms of both our freedom and responsibility.  His notion of freedom is not about the ability to make arbitrary decisions one way or the other, however;  rather, Rahner sees humanity’s freedom as a totality of the direction of one’s existence expressed in the form of either a “yes” or “no” to God.

But this “yes” and “no” are not mere parallels choices.  Nor are they in any way the mere some of our good and evil acts.   A “no” to God can only be understood in light of the possibility and God’s intention for our “yes.”  Similarly, guilt can really only be grasped in a dialectical relationship with forgiveness.  In a way then, Rahner is saying we must be “Hearers of the Word” before we can truly know our radical dependence on God and need for the forgiveness that is offered in the coming of God to humanity through Christ.

What has always interested me about Rahner though is the extent to which he refuses to put up boundaries that demarcate access or status for anyone’s existential relationship before God.  As he rightly argues, the warnings in Scripture about judgement are just that — warnings — and they pertain to life here and now.  Eschatological accounts or mentionings of “hell” are not predictions for any individuals per se.  What these sayings do tell us, however, is that the possibility of a life decision against God is real, has final consequences, and should be taken very seriously.

Rahner tells us not to worry about the end so much or who and who’s not going to make it, but to focus on the way that leads there.  In other words, in many respects the decision is “hidden” — even though the way is made known and fruit will be shown.

My question in light of all this is, how do Christians convey this existential need and guilt before God — particularly given the difficulties set forth by Rahner’s above outline of the contemporary attitude?  I find his description of people today to be very accurate, and it probably describes me too from time to time!  Is this really bad?

I think it is . . . and it isn’t.  People just don’t believe as easily anymore that God is out to smite them.  Frankly, I’m kind of glad.  At the same time, I recognize that there are lots of potential problems with this.  The damage of individualism cuts both ways, in Christian and non-Christian circles.  Individualism can have a kind of positive expression, in which we isolate ourselves before God in the Kierkegaardian sense, but individualism today in the Western context looks more like ignoring responsibility for social ills and personal piety.  This is related to Rahner’s characterization of humanity ontological condition of freedom and responsibility.  It makes me think of the situation of globalization today very much and the lack of awareness and concern for the humanity’s heightened interdependence and the contingency of society and the planet itself.  We do not appreciate these realities, and yet they may be making the best case possible for the truth about sin and guilt.

Maybe this is a clue into a new way of talking about sin at the popular level.  The problem is not as much that any one person’s “no” is so condemnable — though in a sense it is! — but more so  that our collective “no” is.  The pain, betrayal, lust, hate and violence caused by human beings trying to run their own show and revolve the world around themselves is inexpressibly dire.  Everybody knows this if they’re honest, and we all see some of it even in ourselves.  We participate in it, and we should all take part of the blame.  According to Rahner, we know it too because of our openness to the “beyondness” (transcendence) and mystery of God that is historically mediated to every person’s experience of reality.  This openness is what raises our awareness of guilt before God despite our varying degrees of “righteousness” before each other.

Maybe the conversation can start with that.

Related articles

• Karl Rahner: Mystic of Everyday Life (prodigal.typepad.com)
• Of two men who come to mind … while it is raining, my daughter is playing with her little next-door friend (dailylight.wordpress.com)
• Richard Rohr Re The Profane (literarylew.wordpress.com)
• Can Buddhism Inform the Christian Understanding of God? ~ John Ankele & Anne Macksoud {Interview} (elephantjournal.com)

I’ve written before about how I think the most distinct characteristic of Christianity is the doctrine of God’s incarnation in Christ, rather than the Reformation’s adage of salvation by grace alone and faith alone.  Some people might want to say, why not both? While I certainly agree that forgiveness and grace are always unearned gifts, I would push back on “both/and” just because I think the preoccupation with salvation in the first place is the oversight of the Reformers.  Of course they probably had this focus largely because of their late Medieval Catholic context.  But fortunately for us, we’ve moved beyond that – well beyond it, I hope.  As Tripp Fuller recently commented in a Homebrewed Christianity podcast, “Calvin’s Institutes were awesome like five hundred years ago, but [some people] are still repeating it today, and it just keeps getting worse.”

Last week Richard Rohr wrote the following in his daily meditations:

This is Christianity’s only completely unique message. Full incarnation is what distinguishes us from all other religions. This is our only real trump card, and for the most part, we have not yet played it. History, the planet—and other religions—have only suffered as a result. Incarnationalism does not put you in competition with any other religions but, in fact, allows you to see God in all things, including them! It mandates that you love and respect all others.

In other words, God bridges the divine-human gap – not primarily because of a theory of atonement, but because of Emmanuel itself, “God with us.”  Obviously this doesn’t mean atonement has no place, but the atonement can only be understood appropriately in light of the incarnation.  This is especially true for making any sense of suffering and the reason for which Jesus also suffered.  I’ve written about this before as well, but I think it’s worth repeating often.

The second lesson from incarnation according to Rohr has more to do with the truth of Christianity itself and its relationship to other faiths.  It should be very clear I think that Rohr is not insinuating that all religions are equally true, that they’re all saying pretty much the same thing, etc.  In fact I doubt Rohr would have any problem admitting that he finds the Christian faith to be most compelling in a universal way.  But the point is, he doesn’t really need to say that, because the gospel was never supposed to start a competition for truth to begin with.  All truth is God’s truth, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it shows up in unexpected places.  Hopefully it can be revealed anywhere and everywhere!  As Christians, however, we simply maintain that the Christ-form is the normative example of this – historically, cosmologically, anthropologically, and theologically.

The form of Christ in all its diversity and depth is always trying to get itself known and shown.  Who would ever want to limit that?  Certainly not God, right?  Only a narrow, un-universalized reading of the creeds and the great church tradition could warrant a restrictivist or exclusivist view of salvation.  This is the big mistake made by popular preachers and authors like David Platt and Francis Chan (see this video, for example), I believe, who, despite their welcomed challenge for American Christians to embrace the call of discipleship more seriously, have really thrown the baby out with the bath water when it comes to their understanding of the meaning of salvation and how non-Christians might receive it.  It would really help Christian leaders like Platt, Chan and others if they would recognize a distinction between the historical Jesus on the one hand and the cosmic Christ, or second person of the Trinity, on the other.  Instead though, theirs remains a black and white, individualist understanding of the good news reverting back to early stages of faith development, and I think that, despite the admirable and genuine zeal and fervor, they’re stuck in a form of therapeutic Christianity.  

For these guys, salvation still mostly means something like “heaven (instead of hell) when we die” because of a “payment” (see my post on this here), even if we’re also called to discipleship in the meantime as an expression of our gratitude.  This isn’t the “biblical” picture of salvation though.  Salvation is about “heaven coming to earth.” It’s about being healed and extending healing in this life, to everyone – not just Christians – even if it costs us the certainty and security of “heaven when we die” as a fall back.  We can still have faith and courage in the face of fear, faith that God will preserve and redeem everything of value that has ever existed – particularly that which seems to be perishing, including the planet.  I actually think this is essential.  But so far as we know, there’s no escape plan.  There’s just faith and hope in an “already/not yet” story.  The stage of the drama is right here and now, and it’s an unfinished one that we get to have a hand in writing.

This story by Carl Medearis makes a similar argument, and I like the way he gets there:

Medearis makes some other interesting remarks in this other video as well about how he doesn’t think belief in universalism (or not) should change the way we live.  It makes me think of the following quote from Calvin himself: “Even if there was no hell, because [a Christian] loves and revers God as [Creator and Caretaker] and honors and obeys [God as Lord], he [or she] would spurn the very idea of [God].”

I’m not one to downplay God’s judgement of sin — at all! — but I do think we’ve missed the point if we think salvation is primarily about avoiding that judgement.  I think the world is ready to hear a better gospel — one that is principally about repentance and forgiveness, yes — we need this — but equally about fidelity to the vision and mission of a making a more just, peaceful and grace-filled world.

Related articles

• Ask a Priest – Can Atheists Go to Heaven? (reflectionsofalaycatholic.com)
• An Incarnational Gospel: A Review of Prodigal Christianity’s Sixth Signpost (abnormalanabaptist.wordpress.com)
• Images of Salvation (XV) (frted.wordpress.com)
• Who Limits the Atonement? (abrahamsseed.wordpress.com)
• Evangel-lies #2 (mobiusfaith.wordpress.com)
• Images of Salvation (III) (frted.wordpress.com)
• Jesus Christ as Mediator (thechristiangazette.wordpress.com)
• Immortal Diamond – Take Eight! Probably the most controversial section of Rohr’s book (yliapu.typepad.com)
• Even The Demons Believe (thehallowedpath.wordpress.com)