Karl Rahner’s book Inspiration in the Bible is divided into two parts, the first part deals, more or less, with the settled doctrine of the Church as it concerns the inspiration of scripture, while the second part of the book presents his “thesis,” where he attempts to situate the doctrine of inspiration in a holistic manner within a broader context of the Church’s foundation by God.  In my paper I will first examine and critique his treatment of the established doctrines of inspiration and canonicity as it existed at the time of his writing, which was just prior to the opening of the Second Vatican Council.  Then, after this is done, I will look at his “thesis” itself, in order to see both its strengths and weaknesses, while offering some insights into what says from an Eastern Christian perspective.

Part I:  The Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration

          In his treatment of the Church’s traditional doctrine of inspiration Fr. Rahner begins by looking at some of the problems connected with the doctrine, and gives the solutions to some those problems as they have been presented by theologians since the Council of Trent.  It should be noted from the outset, that he makes it quite clear that he is not attacking or throwing into doubt the existing teaching of the Church, but is simply recapitulating it in order to prepare for his “thesis” which he hopes will solve some of the problems inherent in the doctrine as it is normally presented.

1.  The Nature of Inspiration and Dual Authorship

          First, he affirms unequivocally the fact that God is the author of sacred scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, and then goes on to emphasize that it is not the Church’s acceptance of the books of scripture that makes them inspired, “Rather, inspiration consists in God’s supernaturally enlightening the human author’s mind in the perception of the content and essential plan of the book, and in moving his will to write no more and no less than what God Himself wants written, God providing him with special assistance to ensure that the work, thus conceived and willed, be correspondingly carried into effect.” [1]  Second, he affirms that the human authors are true literary authors of the sacred texts; in other words, he affirms that the human authors “. . . are not mere secretaries taking down divine dictation”; [2] instead, “they are true authors.” [3]  In fact he goes on to assert that “. . . they are no less authors of the scriptures than other men are of their own writings.” [4] Thus, sacred scripture, unlike any other writing, has two literary authors, God and man. [5]

          After asserting the idea that the human author is a true literary author, Fr. Rahner goes on to reject any conception of inspiration as a type of “dictation,” which would reduce the human author to a mere automaton.  The fact that the human author is an instrument of divine grace in writing the sacred text, does not require that he lose those distinctly personal characteristics that make him a rational human agent, for as Fr. Rahner explains, the human agents “. . . authorship remains whole and inviolate at the same time as it is permeated with and embraced by that of God,” [6] because “God’s authorship does not merely tolerate full human authorship, it demands it.” [7]  This idea is related to what St. Augustine said in connection with the doctrine of justification, “He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent.  He made you without your knowledge, but He does not justify you without your willing it.” [8]

2.  The Grace of Inspiration

          The notion that both God and man are true authors of sacred scripture, and that God acts, in, with, and through, the human author without destroying his freedom or personal characteristics is related to the ancient Catholic understanding of how grace itself operates.  Grace, as the infused gift of God’s life and energy, does not destroy nature, rather it heals, perfects, and elevates it, imparting to it a truly supernatural character and fulfilling its latent potencies.  Within this context it is possible to affirm something that at face value seems contradictory, that is, the idea that God is the whole author of sacred scripture, while at the same time man is the whole author of the biblical text as well.  In dealing with the problem of the dual authorship of scripture Fr. Rahner asks, “. . . how is it possible to conceive of two literary authors working together, not as a team, but in such a way that each of them is the author of the whole work?” [9]  For Fr. Rahner the answer to this question cannot reduce God to a transcendent cause, because the idea that God is the transcendent cause of the Bible “. . . is not sufficient to make him its author; if He is to be truly its author, His operation itself must be within the world, within salvation history.” [10]  Any reduction of God’s activity to a transcendent cause is also rejected within the Eastern Christian tradition, for anyone who reduces God operations (energies) in this way, “. . . renders metaphysically unintelligible any intimate relation of the world, and thus of man, to God, leaving only the extrinsic relation of creation understood in terms of efficient causality.” [11]

          Now, although Fr. Rahner asserts a true synergy between God and man in the writing of the sacred texts, he seems to be unable to overcome a rather Scholastic of God’s relationship to the world, and so he tends to focus on causality rather than upon the concept of participation, and this in my estimation is one of the weaknesses in the first part of his book and within his overall thesis in general.  In the Eastern Christian tradition the human agent as he acts in the supernatural order cannot be reduced to an instrument of God; instead, he is always seen as a person in a relationship of communion with the tri-personal God.  In other words, man does not relate to God as an effect to a cause, rather, he relates to God personally as being open to other beings.  Thus, a man in a state of grace is in his own right a cause along side of God, producing an effect in either the natural or the supernatural order in a truly synergistic fashion.  Now clearly this does not mean that a man acts alone in some kind of Pelagian sense, for that would be totally contrary to the Eastern Christian metaphysical view of the world; instead, the human agent’s energy and the uncreated divine energy, which is enacted by the three Divine Persons, works together in a true, personal and ontological, communion of life and love. As a consequence, any reduction of the interaction between God and man to causal terms instead of seeing their relationship in terms of participation makes it impossible, from an Eastern perspective, for man to experience divinization in any real or ontological sense.  In the Eastern Palamite system, God is not the cause of deification, but is Himself the uncreated deifying grace, not at the level of His essence for that is incommunicable, but in His uncreated energies. [12]

3.  Divine Illumination and the Movement of Man’s Will by God

          After briefly touching on the various types of causality in relation to inspiration, Fr. Rahner goes on to explain how he understands the illumination of the intellect that occurs through the gift of inspiration, and whether the human author has to be “. . . conscious of his inspiration.” [13]  He comes to the conclusion that it is not necessary for the human author to know that he is inspired in performing his task, nor is the inspired author required to assert that what he is writing is the inspired word of God; instead, divine illumination can be understood to “. . . mean only that God acts effectively in such a way that the human author’s mind receives a specific certain knowledge – and this alone – which God wills him to have. [14]  How God does this has not been defined by the Church, nor is it likely to be defined, but one must hold that God can do this activity, and that in doing this, He is able to effectively communicate His intention through the human author without destroying the human author’s freedom or personal characteristics.

          After investigating the nature of divine illumination Fr. Rahner moves on to the related problem of the movement of the human author’s will, and how this can be achieved by God without destroying his freedom.  In order to discuss this topic Fr. Rahner brings up the technical theological term “praedefinitio formalis,” which he identifies in some sense with efficacious grace, that is, with the efficacious power of God to achieve a certain specific end.  In other words, he is dealing with the mystery of predestination.  Rahner holds that this concept of formal predefinition is necessary in order to assert that God is a true author, for God’s activity must be more than “. . . merely permissive and co-operative, but rather predefining.” [15]  Moreover, like efficacious grace, God’s movement of the human author’s will infallibly has its desired result, and can have no other result, because God is the primary agent of action; but nevertheless, this efficacious movement or predefined outcome does not destroy the real and free activity of the human agent in question.  Clearly, this is a mystery.

          Fr. Rahner concludes the section of his book on the connection between inspiration and divine illumination by highlighting the paradox inherent within the dogmatic tradition of the Church on this topic; for the Church asserts unequivocally that God is the author of the whole of the sacred texts, while she simultaneously teaches that each of the human agents although inspired by God is also a true author of the book ascribed to him in its entirety.  In other words, “. . . we must find an activity of God which will make Him literary author of the Bible, while at the same [time] not merely tolerating – in some inexplicable way – the authorship of the human writer, but positively requiring such a human authorship,” [16] while also safeguarding the truth that God achieves His goal through what Rahner calls  “formal predefinition.”

4.  Canonicity

          Next Fr. Rahner examines the problem of determining the canonicity of the sacred writings.  Clearly, it is the Church that must judge whether or not a text is inspired and canonical, because this decision must be an act of the entire community of faith, which reflects the Church’s own life and self-knowledge.  The books of scripture do not in and of themselves show forth in any visible or objective fashion that they are inspired texts.  Thus, the determination of which books are canonical and inspired cannot simply be an act of logical judgment on the part of any one person, nor even on the part of the Church’s Magisterium.  Moreover, as it concerns inspiration “. . . it is not to be supposed that the authors themselves have attested to it, for we cannot even assume a priori that they themselves knew of it.” [17]  As Fr. Rahner points out, the letter of St. Paul to Philemon hardly appears on the face of it to be an inspired text, for can one really claim that St. Paul intends this letter to have the same authority as the Pentateuch or the writings of the Old Testament Prophets.  Clearly, it is unlikely that St. Paul would have asserted that to be the case when he wrote that letter.

          If, as far as the New Testament is concerned, one limits inspiration to the Apostles there is another difficulty, many of the writings accepted as canonical do not claim to have been written by Apostles, nor does the Church’s tradition assert that they all were written by eyewitnesses to the events of Christ’s life (e.g., Mark’s Gospel, Luke’s Gospel, and the letters of Paul).  So, one cannot reduce inspiration to appointment to an Apostolic office during Christ’s public ministry.  In other words, inspiration is not reducible to Apostolic authorship, nor does it avail to assert that the “. . . Apostles could have approved their disciples’ work and thus made it their own, so that even these writings could be truly attributed to the Apostles and are therefore . . . inspired.  Because merely to approve another’s work does not make one its author.” [18]

          The final problem surrounding canonicity is focused on the time it took for the various texts of the New Testament to be recognized as canonical by the Church.  It was not until the fourth century that the canon was definitively established by the Church and once this occurred a distinction had to be made between the recognition of canonicity and the inspired nature of the text itself, because inspiration is not reducible to canonicity, [19] and yet all the books that have been accepted as canonical are also held to be inspired.  That which is held to be canonical by definition serves as a rule of faith, but we must make “. . . a distinction between the material content and formal concept of canonicity.  The latter is simply inspiration recognized and ratified by the Church; a book is canonical because it is approved by the Church as inspired, and the Church so approves it because she knows that it is inspired.” [20]  Thus, the inspiration of the sacred text precedes the canonical recognition of the text as inspired, and so inspiration is not caused by the Church’s act of recognition.

          Moreover, the Church rejects any notion of inspiration as an ongoing process, for “. . . the inspiration of any given biblical book is a revealed truth, which cannot therefore have been given to the Church later than the end of the apostolic era.” [21]  The Church continues to be guided by the Holy Spirit, but she is no longer inspired in the way that the Apostolic generation was inspired, and consequently, she cannot receive new public revelation. 

5.  Inspiration and the Church’s Magisterium

          In this brief section I will look at how Fr. Rahner views the relationship that exists between inspiration, canonicity and the authority of the Church’s Magisterium.  It is quite clear that sacred scripture is not a self-authenticating document, and thus it needs the testimony of a living witness in order to secure its own authority.  This living witness is the Church’s Magisterium, for it is the Church that testifies to the truth of sacred scripture and to all that has been revealed by God throughout salvation history.  The Church is in some sense the locus of the inspiration given by the Holy Spirit, and so the Bible is in some sense dependent upon the Church; [22] and yet, the Church is also dependent upon the sacred scriptures, for they are a particular expression of her own faith and life, and are consequently binding for her because they have been inspired by God and are not simply a work of her own doing.

          Fr. Rahner examines what he sees as an apparent contradiction in the Catholic understanding of the relationship between the Church and sacred scripture.  The problem is centered on the Church’s infallibility and how this operates in connection with the recognition of the canonical and infallible authority of the Bible.  The Church’s own authority must itself be in some sense canonical, but when she testifies to the canonical, inspired, and infallible authority of sacred scripture, this “. . . evacuates her own authoritative, ‘infallible’ magistery in favour of the Bible, as the infallible Word of God (although she needs that very infallible magistery to certify the Bible’s authority), or else she evacuates the absolute authority of the Bible at the very moment that she certifies it.” [23]  The answer to this problem can be found by remembering that the authority of the Church and the Bible, while in some sense distinct from each other, are not separate from each other, for the Church and sacred scripture are not independent of sources of authority, rather they interpenetrate each other, for both of them have the source of their authority in the absolute authority of God.

          The difficulties presented by Rahner in this portion of his book have been resolved to a certain extent by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in the document Dei Verbum.  In that document the Council Fathers asserted that a relationship of mutual dependence exists between sacred scripture, sacred tradition, and the Magisterium of the Church, and without defining in any great detail how these three elements interrelate in forming a single complex reality, they insisted that all three must be taken together, for as they put it, “It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, sacred scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” [24]  In saying this, the Council Fathers moved in some sense beyond the old arguments about whether or not there were one or two sources of revelation, because by insisting upon the unity of sacred scripture and sacred tradition under the guidance of the Magisterium they provided a new paradigm for understanding the problem.  Thus, there is a single deposit of revelation, which is transmitted in different ways in the life of the Church. [25]

          Clearly the Second Vatican Council has helped the Church to move beyond the question of whether or not scripture is materially or formally sufficient, in fact that entire argument is a parochial argument of the Western Christian tradition, because the East avoids this argument by focusing on the person of Christ and the fact that revelation is not simply the communication of facts or ideas, but is centered on the revelation of God’s tri-hypostatic existence and the notion of personal communion with God in Christ.  Scripture is one means for communicating this personal encounter with Christ, but it is not an end in itself, because it can be transcended through grace, for those who have entered into the light of Christ “. . . should not put all their hope solely in the scriptures written in ink.  For divine grace writes on the ‘tables of the heart’ the laws of the Spirit and the heavenly mysteries. ” [26]  Thus, when a man enters into the uncreated light of God, he will no longer need the scriptures, for they are not an end in themselves.

Part II:  The Church as the Locus of Inspiration

          In the second part of his book Fr. Rahner tries to solve some of the problems he diagnosed in the first part of the book.  His solution is mainly focused on the nature of the Church as willed and founded by God.  In other words, he highlights the fact that sacred scripture and the Church are intimately connected, and that both of them can only be understood when they are seen in intimate relationship with each other in subordination to the divine salvific will.

1.  Focus on the Spatio-Temporal Reality of God’s Will

          Fr. Rahner states that God wills the existence of the Church “. . . by a formal predefinition . . . within the context of salvation history.” [27]  In other words, the Church is the sign of God’s presence in the world that expresses His will to save humanity through a specific act of condescension on His part, that is, the kenosis of the incarnation.  Now because of this, the Church is not simply a natural reality, “for [God] does not . . . merely appropriate the Church to Himself like other works generally of which He is the transcendent cause, and which consequently refer back to Him as their author,” [28] instead, the Church is a supernatural reality and as such she is a pure gift of grace.

          Fr. Rahner emphasis is placed upon the paradox of God’s freedom and man’s freedom in relation to the foundation of the Church.  The Church comes into being through a free choice and action on God’s part, an action that is prior to any human act, and yet at the human level it “. . . includes such free action within itself.” [29]  The human actions in question are in some sense predefined, for God’s sovereign activity in founding the Church brings about those human actions; in other words, there is a true exercise of human freedom within the predestination of God’s salvific will.  Fr. Rahner is trying to balance grace and free will in relation to the foundation of the Church within history, and in doing this he is declaring the reality of the interventions of God within time, while simultaneously safeguarding the truths of salvation history as real spatio-temporal acts of God. [30]

          The historical character of God’s self-revelation finds its definitive fulfillment in the person of Christ, both in word and deed, and this fulfillment is perpetually made effective in time through the Church, which extends Christ’s own saving activity throughout time until He returns in glory.  This definitive fulfillment in Christ does not destroy the reality of the Old Testament events, but merely shows that those events were preliminary steps on the way to the definitive completion of God’s revelation in Christ and the Church.  The preliminary nature of the Old Testament Church and of the means of grace found within her, distinguish her from Christ and the New Testament Church, for the latter “. . . are the definitive presence of God’s grace in the world, an eschatological event of mercy, and end of history,” [31] while the former were only a shadow of what was to come to be in Christ.

2.  The Foundation of the Church

          So for Fr. Rahner the foundation of the Church reveals a threefold action on God’s part:  first, God, prior to any human action, wills to found the Church as an instrument for communicating His grace to humanity; second, His will is achieved through His own intervention in history, so that the events that occur in time are truly His own actions manifesting His pre-definitional will to save man, without excluding man’s own actions in the process; and third, all of this activity on God’s part includes an eschatological dimension.  The intervention of God in history continues on in the life of the Church, but it possesses a fundamental orientation to the Apostolic era, for that era “. . . in a qualitatively unique manner [must be held] as distinct from the subsequent preservation of the Church through history.” [32] 

          The Apostolic Church plays a foundational role that makes it unique and irreplaceable, and it possesses this special relationship because of its proximity in time to the events surrounding Christ’s life, passion, death, and resurrection.  This proximity in time is something that the Church of later ages cannot possess, and this so because of the historical nature of divine revelation.  Fr. Rahner goes on to emphasize that, “This is not to deny that, in terms of the mission and powers entrusted to her, it is of the nature of the Church thus founded to last through all ages and to exist in every generation.  Nevertheless, the first generation had a unique, irreplaceable function.” [33]

          This emphasis on the first generation of Christians is common to both Western and Eastern thought.  As with any living thing, there is a point where it comes into being, but once it has existence it grows and develops, and this occurs without ever destroying the unity of its being over time.  Because even after the organism in question is fully grown, it is still one and the same being, for the growth has not caused it to become something other than what it was at the beginning, rather, all the latent potencies present within it at the beginning of its existence have reached their definitive completion in one and the same existing subject.  As Rahner says, “What comes later rests upon what was earlier; later forms, in spite of their evolution and development, exist only because of their derivation from the given origin (the Apostolic Church), not merely because they derive from the originating cause (God).” [34]  There is a sense in which the Church’s growth occurs through processes that follow naturally from the principles of her original foundation, that is, from the principles inherent within her own reality as a living being.

          Moreover, part of the process of the Church’s growth and development included the inspiration of the written scriptures, because “God freely, . . .  made the Bible a constitutive element of the Apostolic Church.” [35]  So even though the Apostolic Church had not collected the New Testament writings into a corpus, those writings still in some sense represent the rule of faith of the early Church, and this is so because sacred scripture is the Church’s book. [36]  Therefore, the Bible is God’s word to man communicated through His Church in order to witness to the foundational events of sacred history.  Where I disagree with Fr. Rahner is in some of his comments about the reduction of the Church’s paradosis to writing, because he is not sufficiently clear about what he means.  If he intends to say that the oral paradosis and the written scriptures are coterminous, [37] I would not agree, for as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council said, “It is not from sacred scripture alone that the draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed.” [38] 

          Nevertheless, the strength of Fr. Rahner’s theory of inspiration is centered on the holistic nature of God’s act of inspiration, for it occurs in the Church and not merely in the individual human authors.  In other words, it is both a communal and a individual reality; the biblical authors under the power of God’s Holy Spirit relate the truth that God wants communicated, but this truth is already lived and experienced in the Church’s own life and reflects it perfectly.  Thus, the Church and the Bible should not be seen as somehow in opposition to each other, because both of them flow from the same source, God. [39]

Conclusion

          As I have already indicated above, the strength of Fr. Rahner’s thesis on the doctrine of divine inspiration can be found in his understanding of it as an inspiration of the whole Church, and not simply as an inspiration of disparate individuals.  This does not take away from the true literary authorship of the men who wrote the various books of the Bible; rather, it highlights the fact that those men wrote the books of scripture as members of the Church, both during the Old Testament period and in the New Testament period.  Now, although I did not go into the topic in this paper, I think another of the strengths of Rahner’s theory can be found in his treatment of inspiration in relation to the Old Testament, because he makes the proper distinctions between the authority of the Church of Christ and the synagogue.

          Finally, Rahner’s theory has the benefit of being open to an Eastern Christian perspective that is sometimes lacking in the Western Church due to the importance of the Scholastic theology of the high Middle Ages.  Sadly, Rahner himself was not completely free of the Scholastic tendency to reduce God’s interaction with the creation to that of cause and effect, and he also had a tendency to over-emphasize God’s formal pre-definitional will in a way that is not open to the concept of reciprocity that is so important to Eastern Catholic soteriology, but he did move somewhat beyond those concerns, especially when he recognized that the foundation of the Church is something that is not merely analogous to God’s activities in the natural order. [40]  Overall, I believe his theory of inspiration, even with its weaknesses, is an advance on the views of theologians prior to the Second Vatican Council.  In addition, it has the added benefit of being open to an Eastern Christian approach that might hopefully lead to closer ties between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Books:

Second Vatican Council.  Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum.  (Boston:  Pauline Books and Media, 1965).

William A. Jurgens (Editor).  The Faith of the Early Fathers.  (Collegeville:  The Liturgical Press, 1979).  3 Volumes.

George Maloney, S.J.  Pseudo-Macarius:  The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter.  (New York:  Paulist Press, 1992).

John Meyendorff.  A Study of Gregory Palamas.  Translated by George Lawrence.  (London:  Faith Press, 1974).

Scott F. Pentecost.  Quest for the Divine Presence:  Metaphysics of Participation and the Relation of Philosophy to Theology in St. Gregory Palamas’s Triads and One Hundred and Fifty Chapters.  (Ann Arbor, MI:  UMI Dissertation Services, 1999).

Karl Rahner.  Inspiration in the Bible.  (New York:  Herder and Herder, 1961).

Journal Articles:

John Breck.  "Orthodox Principles of Biblical Interpretation.”  St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 40 (1996), no. 1 and 2:  pages 77-93.

Book Review:  Karl Rahner’s “Inspiration in the Bible”

by Steven Todd Kaster

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Biblical Foundations

Dr. Minto

7 December 2004

_____________________________________

End Notes:

[1]  Karl Rahner, Inspiration in the Bible, (New York:  Herder and Herder, 1961), pages 11-13.

[2]  Rahner, page 12.

[3]  Rahner, page 12.

[4]  Rahner, page 12.

[5]  See Dei Verbum, no. 11: “In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.”

[6]  Rahner, page 15.

[7]  Rahner, page 15.

[8]  William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, (Collegeville:  The Liturgical Press, 1979), volume 3, page 29.

[9]  Rahner, page 16.

[10]  Rahner, page 16.

[11]  Scott F. Pentecost, Quest for the Divine Presence:  Metaphysics of Participation and the Relation of Philosophy to Theology in St. Gregory Palamas’s Triads and One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, (Ann Arbor, MI:  UMI Dissertation Services, 1999), page 49.

[12]  See Pentecost, pages 97-106: as Dr. Pentecost explains, “The grace by which God deifies man must, [Palamas] insists, be God Himself.” [page 100]; see also John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, translated by George Lawrence, (London:  Faith Press, 1974), pages 163-164:  As Fr. Meyendorff writes:  “Grace is therefore not a ‘thing’ which God grants to nature either to ‘complete’ its deficiencies, or simply to ‘justify’ it, or to ‘add’ to it a created supernatural, but it is the divine life itself.”

[13]  Rahner, page 19.

[14]  Rahner, pages 21-22.

[15]  Rahner, page 22.

[16]  Rahner, pages 23-24.

[17]  Rahner, page 25.

[18]  Rahner, page 27.

[19]  See Rahner, pages 53-54.

[20]  Rahner, page 28, note 18.

[21]  Rahner, page 29.

[22]  See John Breck, "Orthodox Principles of Biblical Interpretation,” St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 40 (1996) no. 1 and 2:  pages 77-78.  Fr. Breck explains that, “Tradition is the matrix in which the scriptures are conceived and from which they are brought forth.  Tradition, however, is the ‘living memory of the Church’ (Fr. Sergius Bulgakov).  It is the Church, in other words, that produces the canonical scriptures.”

[23]  Rahner, page 31.

[24]  Dei Verbum, no. 10.

[25]  Dei Verbum, no. 10:  The Fathers of Vatican II, rather than continuing the old arguments about the relationship between scripture and tradition, presented a teaching that was holistic in nature, focusing on the unity of the deposit of the faith, while distinguishing between the various means for communicating the divine revelation received by the Church, that is why they said that, “Sacred tradition and sacred scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church.  Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers, so that holding fast to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and the faithful a single common effort.”

[26]  George Maloney, S.J., Pseudo-Macarius:  The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, (New York:  Paulist Press, 1992), page 116.

[27]  Rahner, page 40.

[28]  Rahner, page 41.

[29]  Rahner, page 41.

[30]  See Rahner, page 42.

[31]  Rahner, page 43.

[32]  Rahner, page 43.

[33]  Rahner, page 44.

[34]  Rahner, pages 44-45.

[35]  Rahner, page 50.

[36]  See Rahner, page 50.

[37]  See Rahner, page 52, note 30:  In this note Fr. Rahner indicates that it is not necessarily his intention to maintain that the Church’s paradosis as a whole has been consigned to writing, but he does not rule that possibility out, which in my opinion is problematic, especially in the light of the teaching of the Fathers of Vatican II in Dei Verbum (no. 9).

[38]  Dei Verbum, no. 9.

[39]  See Rahner, page 53:  “The Scriptures are not produced merely ‘on the occasion of’ or ‘ in the course of’ God’s production of the Apostolic Church; rather, the active inspiring activity of God is an inner moment in the formation of the Apostolic Church and derives from this fact its peculiar character.  God wills the Bible together with His own authorship of it, and He posits both because, and to the extent that, He actively and effectively wills His own authorship of the Church.”  What Rahner seems to be proposing is a conception of inspiration in the Church, that is, that God’s authorship of scripture and His authorship of the Church are inseparable.

[40]  See Rahner, pages 41-42.

Copyright © 2004-2025 Steven Todd Kaster