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Hegel in Rahner: A Study in Philosophical Hermeneutics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Winfried Corduan
Winfried Corduan
Affiliation:
Taylor University, Upland, IN 46989
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Extract

Philosophical hermeneutics concerns itself with the philosophical concepts a theologian uses to express the content of revelation. This paper is an exercise in the philosophical hermeneutics of Karl Rahner. It will focus on one particular aspect of his philosophical background, namely those elements which he shares with the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. This exercise is designed to be conceptual in nature, rather than historical. The question of how much of Rahner's thought is directly influenced by his reading and study of Hegel is probably not answerable with certainty and, at any rate, is not as interesting as the conceptual question of how these two thinkers took recourse to very similar ideas in order to solve some common problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 71 , Issue 3-4 , October 1978 , pp. 285 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1978

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References

1 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Grundzüge der Christologie (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1969) 327Google Scholar.

2 Küng, Hans, Menschwerdung Gottes (Freiburg: Herder, 1970) 648–52Google Scholar.

3 Baker, Kenneth, “Rahner: The Transcendental Method,” Continuum 2 (1964) 51–59Google Scholar and A Synopsis of the Transcendental Philosophy of Emerich Coreth and Karl Rahner (Spokane: Gonzaga University, 1965) 1Google Scholar.

4 Sheehan, Thomas J., “Transcendental Method and Subjectivity as the Groundwork for Karl Rahner's Theological Anthropology” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Fordham University, New York, 1970) 164Google Scholar.

5 Fischer, Klaus P., Der Mensch als Geheimnis (Freiburg: Herder, 1974) 345–55Google Scholar. See also Corduan, Winfried, “Hegelian Themes in Contemporary Theology,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22 (1979)Google Scholar.

6 Pearl, Thomas, “Dialectical Panentheism: On the Hegelian Character of Karl Rahner's Key Christological Writings,” ITQ 41 (1974) 119–37Google Scholar.

7 Pearl understands Hegel only from the vantage point of a strictly formal system of thesis-antitheses-synthesis, relying for the most part on English secondary sources. He is familiar with only one time that Rahner mentioned Hegel by name, surely an inadequate basis for judgment on Rahner's relation to Hegel. The only works by Rahner to which he makes reference are Spirit in the World and a few articles from Theological Investigations, both in the English translations.

8 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Smith, Norm Kemp; New York: St. Martin's, 1929) 17–22Google Scholar. See also Hartmann, Klaus, “On Taking the Transcendental Turn,” Review of Metaphysics 20 (1960) 223–49Google Scholar; de Vries, Joseph, “Approach to Metaphysics: Objective or Transcendental?” (trans. Seidensticker, William D.; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968)Google Scholar.

9 Hegel, G. W. F., Phänomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1952) 63–75Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., 63–65.

11 Ibid., 66–75; cf. Dove, Kenley Royce, “Hegel's Phenomenological Method,” Review of Metaphysics 23 (1970) 615–29Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., 548–64.

13 Hegel, G. W. F., Wissenschaft der Logik (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1963)Google Scholarpassim.

14 Rahner, Karl, Geist in Welt (2d ed.; ed Metz, J. B.; Munich: Kösel, 1957) 15Google Scholar.

15 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 84, a. 7. Rahner prefaces his own discussion with an exegesis of this article.

16 Geist, 130–31.

17 Ibid., 88–89.

18 Cf. Rahner's article on Heidegger in which he expounds many of his own views: “The Concept of Existential Philosophy in Heidegger,” Philosophy Today 12 (1969) 126–37Google Scholar.

19 Rahner, Karl, “Aquinas: The Nature of Truth,” Continuum 2 (1964) 62Google Scholar.

20 CraI, 54–56, 134–37.

21 Ibid., 132.

22 Phänomenologie, 79–89.

23 Ibid., 81.

24 Ibid., 82.

25 Ibid., 87.

26 “Existential Philosophy,” 129.

27 Ibid.

28 Geist, 133.

29 Phänomenologie, 97–101.

30 Ibid., 102–28.

31 Ibid., 129.

32 Hegel, G. W. F., Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1959)Google Scholar, section 426–49. Hereafter all references to the Encyclopedia will be cited by the section number.

33 Ibid., 430–35.

34 Ibid., 436–37.

35 “Truth,” 62.

36 Geist, 88.

37 Ibid., 130.

38 Ibid., 173–92.

39 Phänomenologie, 63ff.

40 Ibid., 549–64.

41 Enzyklopädie, 577, refers to “the Idea of philosophy which is centered around selfknowing reason.” See also Phänomenologie, 561.

42 Geist, 175, 393.

43 Ibid., 190.

44 Logik, passim; Enzyklopädie, 53ff.

45 Logik, 31.

46 Enzyklopädie, 381.

47 The discussion of man is Hegel's “subjective spirit”— Enzyklopädie, 387–482. See Fetscher, Iring, Hegels Lehre vom Menschen (Stuttgart: Fromman, 1970)Google Scholarpassim.

48 Hegel reserves the term “anthropology” for the first part of “subjective spirit.” Enzyklopädie, 388–411.

49 Enzyklopädie, 386, 481.

50 Rahner, Karl, Schriften zur Theologie V (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1965) 183–221Google Scholar. See also Rahner, , Foundations of Christian Faith (trans. Dych, William V.; New York: Seabury, 1978) 26–35Google Scholar, 178–92.

51 Gcisr, 195.

52 Rahner, Karl, Hörer des Wortes (2d ed., ed Metz, J. B.; Freiburg: Herderbücherei, 1963) 63 and passimGoogle Scholar.

53 Schriften, I. 324–45.

54 Foundations, 57–66.

55 This would be the “extrinsicist” position which Rahner rejects, Schriften, I. 324–45.

56 Enzyklopädie, 481–82; Geist, 298, Hörer, 103; Schriften, II. 260–62.

57 “Only Christianity, through its teachings of the incarnation of God and of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believing community, has provided for the human consciousness a completely free relationship to the infinite, and has therefore made possible the comprehending knowledge of spirit in it infinity.” Enzyklopädie, 377 Zusatz (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970) 10Google Scholar. One of the many places where Rahner makes a similar point is in the article, “Jesus Christus, systematisch,” in LThK (ed. Hofer, J. and Rahner, Karl; Freiburg: Herder, 1956–65), V. 956Google Scholar.

58 Ibid.

59 Hegel, G. W. F, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1927) 141Google Scholar.

60 LThK, V. 956; Foundations, 192–203.

61 Cf. Winfried Corduan, “The Christology of Karl Rahner: A Critique,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, forthcoming.

62 Vorlesungen, 166; Schriften, I. 196; Foundations, 212–28.

63 Vorlesungen, 140; cf. 134–35; Schriften, IV. 146–47.

64 Vorlesungen, 57.

65 Schriften, IV. 275–311.

66 Ibid., 290. Cf. also Rahner, Karl, “Der dreifaltige Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte,” Mysterium Salutis II (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1967) 327–36Google Scholar.

67 Vorlesungen, 141. For Rahner this universality becomes the basis of his famous doctrine of the “anonymous Christian.” LThK, V. 958; Schriften, V. 136–59; VII. 187–213; X. 531–47.

68 Schriften, 1. 196, 202; IV. 147.

69 Schriften, IV. 147.

70 “Truth,” 60–72.