Concern for the Church/A Church to Believe In

...loyal but honest concern for the church of Christ and within it for the Roman Catholic communion underlies everything this book says...

...yet he rejects the naive absolutism that sees practically no limits to official teaching authority...

...Much of the resistance to change in the church does come from real fear that the substance of Christianity (or at least of Catholicism) will be lost...

...Both Rahner and Dulles are careful theological craftsmen, faithfully guided by Christian tradition...

...Rahner is...

...Those familiar with Rahner's thought will recognize his basic anthropological insight: humans are a transcendental relationship to the divine...

...Throughout his reflections, Dulles is obviously motivated by ecumenical concerns...

...Whether or not one agrees with this slow-paced "dreaming" - and I think many of us wonder if there is time for such high level foot-dragging in ecclesiastical officialdom - Rahner's approach performs a critically necessary task...

...He describes his dream of some future meeting of the pope with other world religious leaders in order to move towards some genuine unity...

...Instead of urging imaginative innovations by Catholic leadership, instead of saying that lay men and women may well have to take upon themselves responsibility for moving the church into the future, Rahner very carefully argues that it is possible for Rome to make the adjustments forecast at Vatican II, that it is not against the intrinsic God-given structures of the Roman Catholic church for the papacy to share not only consultation but policy-making with non-clerics, that the perennial elements of Roman Catholicism can endure (though perhaps pruned) into a new future...

...But he leaves no doubt that Christian disciple-ship demands from all in the church, powerful and powerless, a willingness to follow God into a humanly uncertain but divinely assured future...

...However, after describing this dream, Rahner gives us a clue to his whole approach: he tells us that a friend to whom he related this dream remarked that such lengthy discussion as the dream contained and such slow-moving and plodding approach to a goal that seems evident, is a typical dream for a theologian - to which Rahner replies that there may be more future in dreaming realistically than in unrealistic phantasy...

...and he moves instead towards a more nuanced and open understanding of both "infallibility" and "magis-terium...

...A reworking of essays that had been published on various occasions over the past decade, it reflects the specific concerns and involvements of the author - and in so doing, reflects many of the concerns of the American Catholic theological community...

...Many a progressive Catholic will find the early portions of the book hard going - not because of the dense style that characterizes Rahner's work, but because of the painfully short steps he suggests as implementation of Vatican II...

...One chapter in particular, which deals with the notion of ius divinum, deserves careful study by anyone interested in or actively working towards Christian reunion...

...But there is the other side of the book: the radical side...

...Bernard Cooke THIS twentieth (and apparently final) volume in the series Theological Investigations is vintage Rahner...

...This does not involve suggestions of revolutionary revision...

...On both topics Dulles is painstakingly careful in his argumentation...

...But in this book the insight is expressed in terms of the truly mystical dimension that will (in Rahner's view) mark Christian faith and prayer in future, a mysticism that will not be the relatively individualistic mysticism of the past, but a shared, truly common religious experience - an intensely personal faith lived in communion with others...

...suggestions about modifying the outlook and practice of Roman Catholicism vis a vis papal primacy...

...Many Catholics, both those in positions of power and a large percentage of "ordinary" Catholics, still think that any real change in church structures is ruled out in advance because of the way in which God has structured the church...

...For such people it must be pointed out that the "divinely instituted" aspects of the church can endure and even be strengthened in the midst of considerable alteration of church structures...

...While "papal infallibility" is a more evident stumbling-block to reunion, the manner in which different Christian groups understand and utilize the notion of "divine institution' ' underlies their whole attitude vis a vis retention or change of church structures...

...Profoundly traditional, working as a theologian within the Roman Catholic tradition to make reasonable the specific doctrines of that community, yet open to newness in the most radical fashion and frying to nudge his church towards the future - this is what Rahner has always been and what he gives voice to in this volume...

...Such fear must be dispelled gently by theological argumentation that flows from obvious, genuine concern for the church...

...Even when he discusses ecumenical possibilities, Rahner takes this very cautious line...

...Though the same cencern for the church is evident, A Church to Believe In, Avery Dulles's latest book, is quite a different kind of volume...

...Rather, it lies in Rahner's treatment of Christian spirituality and in his final chapter on God...

...Dulles comes to much the same conclusion as Rahner about, the extent to which flexibility and innovation can respect retention of essentials in Roman Catholic belief and life, but his approach is different...

...What comes through loud and clear in this portion of the book is that any Christian movement into the future must be a movement towards God that is as completely open as possible...

...In the end, Dulles argues for a dialectic between official and scholarly teachers in the church, with distinctive and irreplaceable roles for each group...

...What such a radical response to God's Spirit might mean for the church as an ' institution, Rahner does not say...

...Not all theologians are capable of the patient, cautious explanation that this situation demands...

...As a basic criterion for practical judgment about the retention, revision, or abandonment of any ecclesiastical structures, Dulles suggests obedience to God's present will for the church...

...Essentially, his own position is one of distinguishing between four spheres of institutional structure, seeing those closer to the center (the basic sacramental aspects of Christian life) as irrevocable and those further from the center as open to more drastic change...

...It is appropriately entitled Concern for the Church...

...and for that reason their advocacy of greater openness to structural changes in the church deserves a careful hearing...

...One of these concerns, the nature of magisterial teaching in the church, is handled in Dulles's discussion of papal infallibility and of the relation between the official (episcopal and papal) magis-terium and the specialized research and teaching function of professional theologians...

...and the pope makes some very circumscribed (though for the Vatican very daring...

...After a brief historical review of the question, particularly the Reformation and post-Reformation discussions, Dulles examines some of the current theological explanations of Catholic and Lutheran scholars, and then goes on to his own suggestions...