Verse
Witt, Harold
compasses us all the time. In the centenary of Chesterton's birth, it is only fair to note both themes--child-like wonder at the ordinary and the universality of grace--were found in him...
...This last charge comes from the Tiibingen school of which Hans Kfing is the star...
...Like his claim to be a dilettante, this is a little disingenuous in view of his exhaustive treatment of, say, penance in the patristic period...
...Can't claim anything, it all happened so swiftly, no one really knows who was responsible for particular expressions in the final texts...
...I recall Rahner waiting for the elevator in the London house of the Jesuits...
...One had to give courses in this and that, one wrote them up, it turned out that they interested other people...
...Rahner's images are rare, apposite and welcome...
...Ha ha, laughed I, falling into the trap...
...He started adult life, anyway, as a philosopher--or more precisely his Jesuit superiors intended that he should teach the history of philosophy at Pullach...
...he would like to stand alongside the atheist and go with him through the purgatory and hell of rationalism...
...Rahner is modest again in that he genuinely believes that he stumbled into theological distinction and never sought for influence...
...The other cat appeared, and Rahner began with the vocative case, " 0 cat...
...It was after midnight, and cats were roaming...
...It worked...
...He concedes that he discovered in scholastic philosophy at its most banal a dynamism that enabled him to go beyond it...
...But he was switched to theology, no doubt in order to plug a gap...
...Rahner prefers what he calls a "wintry piety" that has been exposed to the icy blasts of the contemporary world...
...The idea that man is defined by his openness to being (anima est quodammodo omnia) is absolutely central in Rahner, and is the basis of his view of man's existential orientation towards God...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 HAROLD WITT THROUGH A GLASS, BRIGHTLY It was only a glimpse beyond trees of a blond young man coming down through shimmering oats and barley-a shoulderflash, a shine almost subliminal-gone before he was seen-but taking me down the path of youth through such a h e a t - - timothy brushing my calves, midges in light like that when I was blond eighteen-butterflies licking about like bits of loosened flame-lost in distance and time, stepping with dancer's feet, hair thick as a mane--quick without being in haste as bright air streamed through my hands-and unconcerned as he with any slowings of pace...
...Rahner is genuinely modest, in so far as he is allowed to be...
...1 November 1974:112...
...Rahner does not get upset about these charges and admits that there is some truth in them...
...I don't have any more trees to cut down," says Rahner, using a characteristic image: indeed, some of us have long thought of Rahner as a skillful Bavarian woodcutter, chopping patiently away at the encrusted tree of a dogma (hacking away the merely mitgedacht, what is "co-thought') until it is laid bare in its essential and luminous splendor...
...but it is true that his main concern lay elsewhere...
...He has been described as "the last of the scholastics," dismissed as too speculative and metaphysical, and is alleged to neglect the dimension of history...
...Even then, Rahner won't admit to any special distinction...
...He has said what he has to say...
...The cat curled round his ankle, arched its back, purred, joined us in the lift, but lost a heartbeat as the lift began to climb...
...In his birthday interview, Rahner shows himself to be very mistrustful of those who--with Cardinal Suenens - - p i n their hopes for the future of the Church on the Pentecostal movement...
...In the interview he explains that in his view, the remaining manuscripts in his files do not merit publication...
...Rahner also admits, with some cheerfulness, that be has made no discoveries in historical theology, but has merely "reflected on the data provided by others...
...Rahner said: "In the cat-consciousness this must be rather like an astronaut's journey...
...Ordinariness shall have the last word...
...Rahner has his critics in the German theological world...
...In the centenary of Chesterton's birth, it is only fair to note both themes--child-like wonder at the ordinary and the universality of grace--were found in him too...
...Impact on Vatican 11...
...There can be no doubt about the deep pastoral concern that has always made itself felt in his theology, along with a keen sense of what it means to be truly human...
...Subsequent worldwide reputation...
...One of them approached, but it fled as Professor Rahher addressed it in German which the cat found menacing...
...Theology can't deliver practical applications, he remarks, like "freshly baked breakfast rolls...
...Doesn't know whether it's for good or ill, others will have to judge, and it is they, not I, who speak of "Rahnerian theology...
...I suggested that he try English...
...But he had not read Heidegger...
...That is where Rahner stands...
...All those volumes...
...Despite his disclaimers, a simple test of Rahner's success is to list the phrases that he has injected into common theological discourse: we now find indispensable "anonymous Christianity," "the dynamic element in the Church," "the Church of the diaspora," "God as the absolute future" and the "Christology from below" in which Rahner once more studies ordinary life for latent pointers to Christ...
...They bring one back to ordinary things...
Vol. 101 • November 1974 • No. 5
