Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian,net.religion,net.flame Subject: Re: Supposed claims to be the ONE TRUE CHURCH Message-ID: <5155@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Mar-85 13:10:24 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.5155 Posted: Sun Mar 3 13:10:24 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 3-Mar-85 13:10:24 EST References: <193@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <346@teklds.UUCP> <340@cadre.ARPA>, <373@teklds.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 52 re God being wishy-washy The counter position to this one is that of Karl Rahner. (Actually, a lot of other people have proposed it, but Rahner is probably the most famous.) Rahner writes like an existential philosopher, so here goes: Christians must realise, however, that, besides the explicit faith which they profess as being members of the visible Church, there is an implicit faith which is also salvific. Through this implicit faith, men who have never accepted or even encountered Christian Revelation become, not just anonymous theists, but anonymous Christians. In other words, tehy place an act of conscious, though implicit, faith in the Triune God of Christian Revelation. Rahner's theology of the anonymous Christian is an extension of his theology of the supernatural existential. [Note: this is real fancy Rahner talk. It means a lot of things, but one of them is that by man's very existing he is fixed in a place and time. In other words, man is incarnated. -- lac] Through the supernatural existential the unobjective Horizon of the human spirit [another Rahner buzz-word -- ``Grace'' does rather nicely here in most contexts, though sometimes only God will do -- lac] has become in the historical order the Triune God of Grace and Glory. By his Incarnation the Word has become the ground of man's elevation to the supernatural order and has also become God's historical revelation of himself to men. Therefore, when the human spirit, elevated by the supernatural existential, makes its loving surrender to the Horizon of the world, man receives the justifying grace of Christ. The surrender of the human spirit is a surrender in which both knowledge and love unite themselves in a single dymanic process. [...] A salutary surrender of the huamn will to the Triune God is an implicit act of charity. [...] It follows, therefore, that, if the human subject's free response to his world includes in its intentionality an act of loving surrender to the world's Absolute Horizon, the human subject has made an implicit act of saluatory Christian faith. Ontologically and not just metaphorically, he has become an anonymous Christian. [From Theological Investigations, vol VI, pp 390-395] Clear as mud, eh? The idea is that you cannot do any good thing except through Jesus Christ. So all ``good people'' are good through the same Christian God -- and all are saved through Him. Christians are fortunate enough to have a better idea of what is going on. I have real problmes with this definition of Christian myself. But it *is* interesting... Laura Creighton (anonymous Christian?) utzoo!laura