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71 (2006) 143178
2006 Irish Theological Quarterly
Sage Publications [www.sagepublications.com]
DOI: 10.1177/0021140006072575
s the infinite God is a boundless mystery, so are all His decisions, His
plan for mans salvation. Ecclesiology has to deal with a mystery, the
Church, that is grounded in three deeper mysteries: the Trinity, the
Incarnation, and the blessed Eucharist. How does one comprehend mysteries surpassing human intelligence? (Cf. Eph 3:1619.) That is the
theologians task. Since God cannot be blamed for any flaw in His revelation, incomprehension and confusion regarding the good news must be
traced squarely to the incapacity of theologians. But they must say something. Woe to me, if I do not preach the gospel (I Cor 9:16).
Faith is Gods gift through the Churchs ministry. Insofar as it is meant
to be understood, it implies a theology, that is, a human word about God.
Since God does not contradict Himself, human understanding of God
should be consistent. Hence philosophy is required. All theological difficulties are really philosophical difficulties. God does not have trouble
communicating, men have trouble understanding. Post-Vatican II confusion resulted from a change in the philosophies undergirding theology.
The dominant pre-Vatican II theology presupposed an analogous concept
of being at the foundation of thought. Thus in principle all reality is
conceptualizable. Theologians accordingly seek to find the most exact
concepts applicable to mysteries of faith. As the twentieth century
progressed, some theologians, aware of the mysteries transcendence,
1. The article incorporates sections of a talk The Church as Sacrament: Whose
Interpretation? given in May 2004 at the International Theological Conference held at the
Catholic Theological Institute of Riga. I have greatly increased the section on Vatican II,
changed parts of the sections on Rahner and Semmelroth, and substantially altered both
the section on Schillebeeckx and the conclusion. I wish to thank the Rev. Guido
Vergauwen, O.P., for his criticism and for procuring for me the French translation of
Schillebeeckxs De sacramentele Heilseconomie.
143
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the Body of Christ.14 The tension between the organic and institutional models is manifest. Thus in deciding to compose Lumen
Gentium, the Fathers of Vatican II were confronting a theological problem. Most probably they are not fully aware of all its implications. But,
given ecclesiologys pivotal position, any change in it must have profound consequences for theological method and content.
Through its early approval on 21 November 1964, Lumen Gentium set
the parameters for subsequent debates and documents. From the first
chapter the change is obvious. Defined as a mystery rooted in Gods
decrees for mans salvation effected through Christ, the Church is seen
as a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit (4), and an examination of various Scriptural images
culminates in a long section on the Church as Spouse and Body of
Christ (6f.). Only in the final paragraph is the visible, organizational
aspect of the Church explained as a living instrument of salvation
entrusted to the hierarchy for propagation and governance (8). The subordination of the hierarchy to the living Church is repeated insofar as
the second chapter on the People of God precedes the third chapter on
the hierarchy that serves the whole body.15 Clearly the organic image
takes precedence over the institutional. 16 But whereas Mystici Corporis
seeks to identify the Mystical Body with the institutional Roman
Catholic Church, now the true Church of Christ is said only to subsist
14. E.g. Timothy Zapelena, S.J., De Ecclesia Christi, II, 2nd ed. (Rome: Gregorian, 1954),
dedicates the final 248 of 579 pages to the Mystical Body after considering, in the first volume and the first half of the second, questions of hierarchy and jurisdictional competence.
The first volume published in 1955 went through six editions as compared with only two of
the second. Even Charles Journet, Lglise du Verbe incarn (Bruges: Descle de Brouwer,
1962) dedicated the first volume to the Churchs institutional structure before considering
the Body of Christ; yet the ample treatment attempted a synthesis of internal grace with
external structure. Most ecclesiology manuals before 1943 ignore the Body of Christ. Two
noteworthy exceptions are Ludwig Lercher, S.J., Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae, I, 2nd
ed. (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1934), 386404, who uses Body of Christ to demonstrate the
Churchs supernatural end and dignity, and Herv, Manuale, I, 19th ed. (1943), 42348,
who places Mystical Body of Christ immediately after the apologetical part to introduce
the section on the Churchs members with their obligations and jurisdictional rights. (The
preface, x, states that the section was added already in 1935 to the twelfth edition.)
15. Moeller, History, 127f., considers the precedence of the People of God over the hierarchy the first of the Copernican revolutions that marks Lumen Gentium; the hierarchy
serves the People even though, in another sense, the precedence is reversed insofar as the
hierarchy applies the sacramental order that constitutes the People of God. Among the
reasons for placing People of God before Hierarchy the Relatio, 209f., considers the hierarchy a means subordinate to the end of the People of God, their salvation. Cf. also Yves
Congar, O.P., The Church; The People of God, in The Church and Mankind (Concilium vol.
1) (New York: Paulist, 1965), 1113; the rest of the article (1337) is quite good at showing the advantages and drawbacks of the term People of God.
16. When Melloni, Beginning, 50, writes about the Council abandoning the dominance
of the image of the mystical body, he must be referring to its juridical interpretation as in
the preparatory schema. Periti consider the image still very significant: Congar, Lumen
Gentium , 15961; idem, Dune ecclsiologie en gestation Lumen Gentium chap.
I et II, Le Concile, 133f.; Moeller, History,126f. LG 7, entirely dedicated to the Body of
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in the Catholic Church (8).17 But is there not a danger that the emphasis on dynamic, internal unity with Christ and other believers will
relativize the ecclesial structures, reducing them to means of furthering
Christian fellowship? If they are judged inadequate or incapable of such
a task, cannot the structures be rejected? Recent history in Europe and
North America has shown that such a danger is not illusory. In a materialistic culture encouraging self-fulfillment, the norms for judging
reality too easily become subjective and malleable.
Christ image, is longer than LG 6, which contains all the other Scriptural images. The
Relatio, 173, explains that because the Theological Committee agrees with many Fathers
that Mystical Body is more than an image and leads more deeply into the mystery of the
Church, its paragraph is placed after the consideration of other Scriptural images.
17. Mystici Corporis, in AAS 35 (1943), 199, 202f. Yet even here the identification is not
simple. Members of the Church are those baptized who profess the true faith and have
not unhappily withdrawn from the Body-unity or for grave faults been excluded by
legitimate authority. But this would include all those baptized, including Protestants,
outside the Catholic Church who have not renounced her authority. Cf. Karl Rahner, S.J.,
Die Gliederschaft der Kirche nach der Lehre der Enzyklika Pius, XII. Mystici Corporis
Christi , Schriften zur Theologie (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 19541984), II, 1417, 33f.; but
Rahner, 7294, distinguishes between the juridical, external definition of the Mystical
Body, given in Mystici Corporis, and the traditional Mystical Body, which includes all those
justified before Christ and, according to Rahner, is open to embrace all who have a votum
Ecclesiae. Earlier Herv, Manuale, I, 44857, holds the same opinion. For various
interpretations of subsistit in cf. Francis Sullivan, S.J., The Significance of the Vatican II
Declaration that the Church of Christ Subsists in the Roman Catholic Church, in
R. Latourelle (ed.), Vatican II: Assessment and Perspectives (New York: Paulist, 1989), II,
27476. Sullivans own interpretation of the universal Church as a communion, at various
levels of fullness, of bodies that are; more or less fully churches does not do justice to the
whole sentence which he is interpreting. The text speaks of the unique one, holy, catholic,
(i.e., universal) and apostolic Church entrusted to Peter and the other Apostles to extend
and rule and continues: This Church, in this world as a constituted and ordered society,
subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by Peters successor and the bishops in communion with him. Sullivans universal Church is hardly an ordered society in this world. It
is also difficult to agree with Sullivan that a non-Catholic community, perhaps lacking
much in the order of sacrament, can achieve the res, the communion of the life of Christ
in faith, hope, and love, more perfectly than many a Catholic community (278f.).
Confusion is introduced when Sullivan compares a Catholic community with a nonCatholic community, whereas Lumen Gentium speaks of the Catholic Church in
comparison with non-Catholic ecclesial communities (as well as Eastern Churches not
in communion with Rome). While none can deny that God is not bound to the sacraments
(cf. St. Thomas, STh., III, 64, 7c; 66, 6c) but can give grace where and when He wills, it is
another question whether a community qua community can mediate or effect more faith,
hope, and charity than a Catholic local church in communion with Peter. (Sullivan, 281f.,
is concerned with the role of ecclesiastic communities qua communities.) Were that true,
the sacramental economy of the Catholic Church would be relativized, and there would be
no strict need for the Catholic Church in Gods plan of salvation. It is hard to see how any
ecclesial community, imperfect at least insofar as it lacks the full unity desired by Christ,
can mediate more faith, hope, and love to Christ than the Catholic Church in which
resides, as Sullivan admits, 278, the full institutional integrity of the means of salvation. UR
3f. also relates all other Churches and ecclesial communities to the concrete fullness of
means of salvation that is to be found in the one Catholic Church entrusted to the apostolic
college with Peter at its head. Admittedly LG 8 substituted subsistit in for an earlier is
(est) that simply identified the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. Certainly the
notion of subsistence in Catholic theology, already before this usage, was very unclear,
sometimes signifying existence, sometimes person, sometimes standing under as the
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Probably the Council Fathers think that they have avoided relativizing objective structures of salvation to subjective experience by originally
defining the Church as a type of (veluti) sacrament, i.e., a sign and
instrument of communion with God and of unity among men (LG 1).
What do the Council Fathers intend with such a designation? Other
texts shed a bit of light. The Councils first document, Sacrosactum
Concilium 26, citing St. Cyprian, sees liturgical services as celebrations of
the Church which is the sacrament of salvation, namely, the holy people united and arranged under the bishops. Clearly the sacrament
includes hierarchical structure, which gives unity to the Church. Lumen
Gentium 48 looks more to the Churchs purpose, calling the Body of
Christ the universal sacrament of salvation, and Gaudium et Spes 45
picks up that reference: Every benefit the people of God can confer on
mankind during its earthly pilgrimage is rooted in the Churchs being
the universal sacrament of salvation, at once manifesting and actualizing the mystery of Gods love for men. These texts offer an intriguing
parallel to the Eucharist in which the work of redemption is carried out:
In the sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, the unity of believers, who
form one body in Christ (cf. I Cor 10:17), is both expressed and brought
about (LG 3, 42; UR 2; SC 47). For the Christian community has its
basis and center in the Eucharistic celebration through which believers
are fully joined to the Body of Christ. To the Eucharist all other sacraments are directed, for it contains the Churchs entire spiritual good,
Christ Himself. It is the source and peak of preaching the gospel and all
equivalent of substantia or suppositum. Actually the Councils text, composed in committee and resulting from theological compromises, leaves a penumbra of uncertainty. If this
Church is recognized as the Catholic Church, which the previous sentence confesses, what
does it mean to say that the Catholic Church subsists in the Catholic Church? If anything
more than a tautology is intended, a very analogous use of language must be in play, and the
Council does not intend to define doctrine. But what other Church would be governed by
Peter and his successor than the one entrusted to them by Christ? In fact the Relatio, 180,
insists, The mystery of the Church is not an idealistic nor unreal construction (figmentum)
but exists in this concrete catholic society under the leadership of Peters successor and the
bishops in communion with him. Maybe the Fathers and theologians, avoiding two
extremes, are leaving the door open to a new and more comprehensive ecclesiology. (Cf.
Congar, Lumen Gentium, 160f.; Aloys Grillmeier, S.J., The Mystery of the Church, in
Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, I, 139f.) Although subsistit may not be so intellectually stimulating as Chalcedons persona, the Councils new terminology points the way
for future theological endeavors. That the imprecision of meaning is deliberate may be
gathered from Philips, glise, 119: It is to be presumed that the Latin expression subsistit in
will cause oceans of ink to flow. He is the author of the schema (including the rejected est)
adopted as the basis of Lumen Gentium and very involved in the Constitutions composition. If he cannot give a precise meaning, who can? The Relatio, 177, merely states, in the
place of is the expression subsists in is used in order that it might better harmonize with
the affirmation about the ecclesial elements that are present elsewhere. Truly the text is
treating a mystery with very weak human words (ibid., 180). Cf. Moeller, Congar, Thomas
Stransky, and Christopher Butler in Session IV Discussion, in Vatican II, 17880; Grard
Philips, The Church: Mystery and Sacrament, in ibid., 191f., 194f.; Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Mysterium Ecclesiae, AAS 65 (1973), 3968; Notificatio de scripto
P. Leonardi Boff, OFM, Chiesa: Carisma et Potere, in AAS 77 (1985), 758f.; and Alexandra
von Teuffenbach, Die Bedeutung des Subsistit in (LG 8) (Mnchen: Utz, 2002).
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apostolic works (PO 5f.; SC 10). It perfects the Church, bringing all into
communion with Christ and fellow believers (LG 7; CD 15; SC 47), and
they are encouraged to have frequent resort to it in order to grow in love,
the bond of perfection and fullness of the law, which governs, gives
meaning to, and perfects all the means of sanctification (LG 42). For all
that, however, the Church as sacrament is not simply another name for
Eucharist. Qua universal sacrament of salvation, the Church, as
demanded by her own essential universality strives to preach the
gospel to all men (AG 1). She has to go out to those who have not yet
received the Eucharist. In this sense she precedes the Eucharist by her
preaching. In another sense the Eucharist precedes her preaching insofar
as she was founded by Christ as the sacrament of salvation just before
His assumption into heaven when He obliged her to preach to all nations
(AG 5: Acts 1:11; Mt. 28:1820). Thus the Eucharist, instituted on Holy
Thursday as the sign of self-giving and expansive love, comes before the
Church as preacher of the gospel. Though the Eucharist constitutes the
Church, the Church cannot be simply identified with the Eucharist. She
is only a type of sacrament.
In justifying the application of sacrament to the Church, Council
theologians appeal to earlier Scriptural and patristic usage in which
sacramentum translates the Greek mysterion.18 But that involves a bit of
stretching. Scripture usually refers the mystery to Gods salvific will
manifested in Christ. Christ is the mystery, though not exclusively so
since its revelation is intended to be accepted by believers, Christ in
you (Col 1:262:3; 4:24; Eph 1:314; 3:212; 5:32; I Cor 2:18; Rom
16:2527). The Church is not explicitly called a mystery. Only rarely do
the Fathers consider the Church a sacrament.19 Indeed, the Council
uses both sacramentum and mysterium in regard to the Church. She is
both within Gods mystery and herself a mystery (LG 25). In describing the Church as a type of sacrament, Lumen Gentium immediately
qualifies the word by sign and instrument. Such are the functions of the
post-Tridentine scholastic sacrament that causes grace by signifying. It
appears that the Council avails itself of a scholastic understanding of the
sacrament without tying itself to that understanding. There is an
unspecified analogy between the scholastic sacrament and the more general Scriptural and patristic notion. As Grillmeier writes: The
Constitution maintains a certain reserve about the expression, but the
notion of the Church as the sacrament of salvation forms a close link
between patristic and modern ecclesiology. There is no definition of
18. Council Daybook, 153f.; Henri de Lubac, S.J., Lumen Gentium and the Fathers, in
Miller (ed.), Vatican II, 155157; Philips, The Church, 188f.; idem, Lglise, 724;
Grillmeier, Mystery, 139f.
19. P. Smulders, S.J., La Chiesa sacramento della salvezza, in G. Barana (ed.), La Chiesa
del Vaticano II, 3rd ed. (Florence: Vallecchi, 1967), 364, admits as much, though defending
the usage; cf. 36775 for a good overview of the historical meanings of sacrament.
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order of natures, which concepts grasp, need not be closed upon itself. Since
in the unity of His being and willing, which is beyond contingency, God
intends a unity of creation and redemption, the notion of pure nature is an
abstract fiction. Though nature enjoys a relative autonomy, it receives all its
meaning from the supernatural. Nature is intrinsically ordered to the supernatural, created for a supernatural destiny which it demands but cannot
merit. Man has a natural desire for the God of grace. Given this fundamental continuity between nature and grace, the supernatural order can be said
to be rooted in human psychology and natural sacraments are assumed into
the supernatural order. Hence the Churchs sacraments are not arbitrary signs
but employ their natural symbolism for the bestowal of grace. The Christian
mystery thus brings nature to its culmination.24
To the tension between concept and reality corresponds the tension
between mans soul and body, the unity in diversity. The soul grows to full
personhood through the body even while mediating meaning to the body;
for through it the soul expresses its own experiences and intentions.
Because of its link with mans symbolic activity, significatio, the bodily symbol contains more than what it explicitly manifests. An activity is more
suggestive than any word, yet the activity needs the word to overcome its
inherent ambiguity. The transcendence in immanence of signifying in
word and symbol structures the understanding both of revelation as a saving event and of sacrament. Revelation-in-deed and revelation-in-word
accompany each other.25 This gives prominence to Christs revelatory role.
Although faiths material object is the saving God, He is known most
clearly where he revealed himself as such in Christ Jesus who is the
public manifestation of God and the means to salvation. As full divine
revelation, the man Jesus explains how faiths primary object, that is, the
saving God, can be made plural in various judgments of faith. Jesus words
manifest His reality, which remains nonetheless greater than the words.
24. Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., Lconomie sacramentelle du salut, trans. Y. von der Have
(Fribourg: Academic, 2004), 919, 42, 4851, 547, 119, 333, 336f., 540f. (this is the first
translation of De sacramentele Heilseconomie, originally published in 1952). So closely linked
are natural and supernatural orders that the Christian modality of the supernatural is a
different free divine initiative alongside the free divine initiative establishing the supernatural order. The Christian modality of the supernatural allows for sin, mans moral failure.
Thus the supernatural is not inherently constituted by the novelty of Christ; this explains
why Christs humanity will be only an instrument, not a true cause. This interpretation is
grounded in the neo-Platonic exitus-reditus structure of the Summa Theologiae, in which the
human, the supernatural, the Christian sacramental are each a partial aspect of the totality (1417). Cf. also Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with
God, trans. C. Ernst (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963), 4, 64f., 98, 121, 177.
25. Schillebeeckx, Lconomie, 31013, 3238, 3327, 3459, 540f.; idem, Revelation-inReality, 336, 39f., 45f.; idem, What Is Theology? 1524, 194f.; idem, Concept, 26;
idem, Revelation, Scripture, Tradition, and Teaching Authority, in Revelation, I, 810;
idem, The Lord and the Preaching of the Apostles, ibid., 25; idem, The Bible and
Theology, 1713; idem, Christ, 15, 64f., 76f., 198; idem, Eucharist, trans. D. Smith (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), 99101; Ambaum, Glaubenszeichen, 4751; Brambilla,
Cristologia, 1335.
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For human knowledge comes into contact with reality only in and through
a knowledge in which experience and conceptuality form a unity.26 Since
believing is an existential attitude of the whole man confronted by the
ultimate meaning of His life, not only is Jesus manifested in His words and
actions to those who experienced Him living, dead, and resurrected, but
also, since Gods saving act and self-revelation are always accompanied by
words inviting men intelligibly to faith, the apostles preaching belongs
constitutively to revelations totality. Hence there is at least an incipient
understanding of faiths mystery which theology later develops.
Conceptualist elements are preserved even while being transcended. The
personalist, existential act of faith, as a fundamental choice, cannot be separated from dogmatic faith, in which the personal attitude is completely
dominated by the objective reality of the revelation that presents itself.27
The structure of revelation reappears in the understanding of sacraments posed in De sacramentele Heilseconomie and Christ: The Sacrament
of the Encounter with God. The Church and the sacraments are signs and
personal, corporeal prolongations of the grace of the crucified and resurrected man Jesus, the primordial sacrament. The mystery involving all
Jesus historical acts of obedience, sacrifice, and worship of God is
realized and rendered visible in the instrumentum conjunctum, Jesus
humanity with its human freedom. Not only is Jesus the existence of
God himself (the Son) according to and in the mode of humanity but
also his human presence to His fellow man [is] permeated with his divine
mode of being and being present. With a human existence Christ is God
in a human way, and man in a divine way. In the man Jesus are united
both Gods invitation to dialogue and mans perfect response of fidelity.
He is grace become man. Because of their hypostatic link to the eternal
Son of God, His historical acts possess a perennial value which allows
them to be present in later history to all men. Now in heaven, in the
mode of glory, the glorified man Jesus intercedes for us and offers grace
in anticipation of the Parousia. This prayer is infallible, and as man
Christ sends the Holy Spirit after His exaltation. This glorified state
cannot be opposed to the efficacy of the historical Jesus nor does it add
anything to that efficacy since the same sacrificial will is common to the
historical and the glorified Christ. Jesus departure from the earth renders
26. Schillebeeckx, What Is Theology? 126, 132, 139, 140; idem, Scholasticism, 249f.;
idem, Revelation-in-Reality, 33f., 37f., 45; idem, Revelation, Scripture, 10, 13, 14f.;
idem, The Development of the Apostolic Faith, in Revelation, I, 74; idem, The Creed and
Theology, ibid., 213, 216. Brambilla, Cristologia, 136, 13948, who shows that the naturalsupernatural distinction is not based principally on the revelation of supernatural truths
but on degrees of Gods personal revelation.
27. Schillebeeckx, Revelation, Scripture, 10, 13; idem, The Lord, 257, 302; idem,
Revelation-in-Reality, 37f., 41f.; idem, Development, 57, 74; idem, What Is Theology?
96, 97f., 1568; idem, The Creed and Theology, in Revelation, I, 216. The obverse truth is
that no dogmatic formulation ever exhausts the mystery expressed; thus it is always open to
further expansion and reformulation: Eucharist, 259, 4690, 926, 157f.
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28. Schillebeeckx, Lconomie, 13851, 193, 308f., 41620; idem, Christ, 10, 13f., 1720,
325, 3845, 479, 5063, 6673, 81f., 106, 112, 134, 138, 141, 147, 149, 159, 166, 180;
idem, The Sacraments: An Encounter with Christ, in Theology Today, I, ed. J. Feiner, J.
Trtsch, and F. Bckle, trans. P. White and R. Kelly (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1965), 1948,
2013, 20711, 213f. Schillebeeckx, Christ, 33, 115f., 161, does not allow Jesus to send the
Spirit nor the Church to be the sign of grace imbued with the reality it signifies before His
exaltation. Yet His earthly ministry already touched hearts with grace (38), the Spirit
descended upon Mary, John, Elizabeth, Zachariah, and Simeon (Lk. 1:15.35.41.67; 2:2527;
Mt. 1:18.20; cf. Mk. 12:36) and the Last Supper was a valid Eucharist.
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human worship of God that requests graces bestowal.29 At the same time,
insofar as Christ is really present in the community of believers and their
official, the priest, acting through their faith, and insofar as sacraments are
understood to render the Christian faith explicit in the corporeal realm,
Christ is said to express Himself in the sacraments, especially the
Eucharist, that serves as the center of the other sacraments. Indeed, in
each of the other sacraments is contained a votum Eucharistiae, a desire for
the Eucharist.30
In and through his Church, Christ sacramentalizes his intercession for
us in heaven. It is the way he as Lord manifests his eternally-present
divine redeeming act, so that every sacrament that is performed for
one of the faithful is a sacramental prayer for grace for this believer: the
prayer of Christ himself to which the Church joins her prayer here and
now. On the other hand, the sacraments are also the sacramentalizing of Christs effective sanctification from heaven in and through his
Holy Spirit. In virtue of the eternally-present redeeming act of the
Kyrios, both efficacious and an act of worship, the sacraments bestow
the grace which they ask of God by this act of worship.31
29. Ibid., Lconomie, 25, 49, 6870, 11519, 1402, 1513, 201, 286, 30912, 32739,
34751, 3848, 412f., 4214, 47981, 494, 516, 52343; idem, Christ, 49, 53f., 60, 6672,
74, 7982, 879, 91, 95f., 1004, 11216, 12635, 140f., 147, 149, 193, 197200. The book
is well summarized in Sacraments, 2047, 21421.
30. Ibid, Lconomie, 127, 194, 422, 438, 478, 522, 534; idem, Christ, 59f., 638, 1004,
170f., 1759, 193; idem, Eucharist, 103, 1225, 13744, 150f.; Ambaum, Glaubenszeichen, 53,
71, 102f., 1079, 173. By understanding the symbolic gesture as the matter to which the form
(word) of the significatio is joined and by understanding the sacrament not as a symbol-thing
but as a cultic activity with a symbolic texture which effects by signifying (Lconomie, 91,
147), Schillebeeckx might have difficulty with the Eucharist which, according to St.
Thomas (STh. III, 73, 1, 3; 74, 7c; 87, 1c), is accomplished with the words of consecration
before its application to people; it is a stable presence not just an activity mediating God.
Schillebeeckx, Eucharist, 108f., 112, 117f., 120, certainly sympathizes with attempts to
replace transubstantiation with transsignification and transfinalisation. But after Paul
VIs Mysterium Fidei rejects the inadequacy of these terms, Schillebeeckx, ibid., 14951, 83,
insists that the change of the bread and wines meaning depends on the metaphysically prior
objective change of the bread and wine into Christs real presence. Real presence, however,
is an analogous term since God is personally present in everything, in creation, in the ecclesial assembly, in His word, and especially in the Eucharist (43, 103f., 1279, 13742). Since
human meaning is relational (131f., 1458) and a reality expresses itself in its appearances,
which function thereby as its revelatory signs (100, 147f., 155, 157f.), and corporality is a
visible sign of the spirit (99101), the Eucharist is given in the Eucharistic assembly as Christ
makes Himself present also in and through the species as well as in and through the assemblys faith (1225, 134f., 142f.). Christs real presence in the Eucharist is, of course, really an
offer of grace . And Christs offer of grace remains real in it so long as it remains a
sign(143f., 81f., 84f.). The Eucharist differs from the other analogates of divine presence
by possessing a greater density (81, 103). Given that nature already desires grace and the
creature is a transcendental relationship to God who is not opposed to His creature but can
fill it inwardly, permeating it without its retreat before Him, could this not be a neo-Platonic
vision of universal grace coming to appearance in creatures, most densely in the man Jesus
and the Eucharist? But does this sufficiently preserve the dialogical aspect of revelation or its
novelty?
31. Schillebeeckx, Sacraments, 213f.
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that to the extent that he sins, man is outside the Church. Thus
Schillebeeckx can berate Catholics for the non-adherence of nonbelievers because Catholic life-witness has been insufficiently holy and
charitable.41
To balance that ecclesiology from below, in accord with Church doctrine, Schillebeeckx has to acknowledge valid sacraments ex opere operato
when the minister is sinful or disbelieves as long as he has the intention
of doing what the Church does. The institutional office stands alongside
the charismatic expression in communicating Christs grace to men. The
validity and salvific force of these sacraments is attributed to Christs
institution. Since such sacraments produce grace not as the expression of
the ministers faith, their efficacy must come from Christ. They are said to
cause, to offer, to give, to bestow, and to confer grace, to sanctify
and to bestow the Spirit; they are even a co-principle with Christ of the
sending of the Holy Spirit.42 Since God alone gives grace and nothing
human can send the Spirit, their causality must be merely instrumental.
Their causality must be analogous to the instrumentality of Christs
humanity as a cause of grace. His human acts are said to cause what they
signify. So the man Christ is said to send the Holy Spirit from heaven.
Similarly an infallible efficacy is attributed both to Christs prayer and to
the Churchs prayer in union with Him.43 But God does not pray to God
since there is no dependence of one divine person upon another, and
prayer cannot be infallible unless the prayer itself is caused by Gods
efficacious grace.44
The tension between these two views is mitigated to some extent
because the Churchs faith is presupposed as a given to which individuals
join themselves in responding to Gods grace. Thus even on the side of
subjectivity and the ecclesiology from below there is a corporate objectivity meeting individual subjectivity. Indeed, at times, efficacy ex opere
operato is ascribed to the prayer of Christ and the Church, not just to the
office established by Christ: Since a valid sacrament is genuinely a ritual
pleading and prayer of Christ and his Church on behalf of the recipient, all
that is necessary on its side for it to confer grace infallibly (i.e., ex opere operato) has been accomplished.45 Sacraments can thus be seen as established
41. Ibid., Christ, 96, 98, 204, 209f., 213; idem, Lconomie, 149, 193, 309f., 330, 335, 337,
527. Strangely, though sinning Catholics are excluded from the Church, many lapsed
Catholics are said to be also, in a certain sense, still following the Churchs way of life
(Christ, 213). Would that imply that the hierarchical Church cannot impose obligations,
e.g. Sunday observance, under pain of mortal sin?
42. Ibid., Christ, 504, 66, 704, 79, 159; idem, Lconomie, 153, 15867, 188, 37088,
51826.
43. Ibid., Christ, 98, 29f., 33f., 38f., 45, 668, 70, 81, 83f., 134, 138, 141, 147, 149, 159, 166,
180; Lconomie, 41820; idem, Sacraments, 205.
44. Ibid., Sacraments, 211f.; idem, Lconomie, 152f.
45. Ibid., Christ, 6670, 81f., 849 (recalling that Christs historical, redemptive mystery
is understood in terms of obedience and worship of God), 147; idem, Lconomie, 51922,
528, 5336.
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Jesus and the Trinity: the person or the nature?49 Modal presence of the
divinity in Jesus humanity hardly deals adequately with the mystery of the
hypostatic union. Schillebeeckx may react against considering Jesus
humanity an instrument, but it hardly clarifies the matter to consider that
humanity a content, a mode of being of the divine person.50 One understands how his later Jesus book will consider Christ a human person subject to human limitations, including error, and even have Him identifying
with John the Baptists call for repentance, believing in the Creator-God of
the Old Testament, and calling others to the same belief. The corporeal
resurrection is judged only one of various possible interpretations of Jesus
continuing work of converting believers to Himself and Gods forgiveness.51 For in history, men arrive at only partial perspectives about realitys
meaning, and alongside other interpretations of reality Christian faith can
only be proven true when the end of history will judge them all.
Schillebeeckx apparently changes his theology because he loses faith in the
concepts ability to mediate reality objectively. Mere abstractions from
the flow of history, they can only guide action pragmatically.52 With the
Church deprived of a message that is objectively and absolutely true and
without any material continuity to Jesus in history the resurrection is not
49. Analogously, though the person of the humiliated and glorified Christ ... is the saving
reality, what the encountered Jesus offers in the sacrament is grace in human form, sanctifying grace (ibid., Christ, 14, 182), and sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine
nature (STh. III, 112, 1c; 114, 3c).
50. Ambaum, Glaubenszeichen, 190, citing Schillebeeckx. Schillebeeckx follows de Petter
in rejecting the distinction between nature and supposite (301, n. 142), but Ambaum is
confused on this point, saying that Jesus human nature is not simply defined as a supposite
of the divine person, but it is the mode of existence of the Son. In Thomism the person,
not the nature, is considered the supposite (STh. I, 29, 2c; III, 2, 2c; 3c.2; 5.2; 16, 1c.1; 2,
1.3; 3c.2). When Schillebeeckx holds that Jesus humanity has its autonomy only in the
Word, he seems to break away from de Petter, who considers mans autonomy, that which
gives him subsistence or makes him a person, to be grounded in his rationality and selfconsciousness (Ambaum, Glaubenszeichen, 846, 190).
51. Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, trans. H. Hoskins
(New York: Seabury, 1979), 94, 115, 1379, 3317, 346, 352, 35660, 38097, 542f.,
62832, 655. Whereas Schillebeeckx considered that Jesus human nature has its autonomy
only in the Word (cp. previous footnote), now, 62832, 65361, creatureliness is understood as being of God; since God is pure hypostasis and creatively present in man, the
hypostatic union could be predicated of all men, if it did not cause confusion. In His human
transcendence Jesus realized the gift quality of His being so much as to be designated by the
Church Son of God, thereby specifying Jesus creaturely relation to God; Jesus cannot be
contrasted to God since God and man are not opposed but God works interiorly in mans
existence as intimior intimo meo. Jesus Abba experience provides no basis for a transcendent sonship (25869).
52. Ibid., 61619; idem, God the Future of Man, trans. N. Smith (New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1968), 1017, 28f., 31, 3542, 1805. This clearly acknowledged break with the past
reduces Schillebeeckx to a pragmatic, relativistic understanding, which, he previously
admitted, What Is Theology? 121, 124, 144f., would be Modernism and a priori deprive
also our modern concepts of faith of their serious meaning. Many have noted the break that
occurred at the end of 1967 (Brambilla, Cristologia, 172246, esp. 1769). Unfortunately in
an otherwise fine work, Ambaum, Glaubenszeichen, 189, chooses not to let the turn affect
his interpretation of Schillebeeckxs sacramentology. Yet he notes, 150, 172, some inconsistencies.
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and the self. Thus there is no objectivity unless over subjectivity, and since
the intellect is dynamic, searching for the true as its good, intellect and will
coalesce as a unity: the deepest truth is also the most free. Furthermore,
insofar as the intellect is dynamic and whatever is recognized as finite, is surpassed in the very recognition, nothing finite can satisfy its desire. It is
oriented toward the infinite horizon of being. Rahner takes up St. Thomas
doctrine of the natural desire for the beatific vision.56
Such a philosophy risks relativizing the concept. For the concept is only
part of the judgment and is constantly being surpassed in the movement of
affirmation. Nonetheless without a concept no judgment can be made. An
it alone without a something about it can in no way be imagined in
thought. Moreover Rahner postulates a concept of being which oscillates
from the non-being of matter to the plenitude of being, thus forming a conceptual duplicate of judgments movement; that allows the ontic language
of conceptualist thought to be translated into the ontological language of
Rahners existential, dynamic thought. This oscillation permits Rahner to
appeal to valid concepts when he wishes to emphasize the diversity between
body and soul, intellect and will, essence and existence, man and environment, world and God, nature and grace, and, inversely, to employ the
synthetic movement of judgment to emphasize their unity. So, for example,
a valid concept allows nature to be distinguished from grace as a remainder
concept within a dynamic existential subject, also called nature, whose
constitutive goal is the supernatural beatific vision. Yet Rahner more
frequently emphasizes Gods unified plan for the salvation of all and
the dynamic openness to grace that He has implanted in each nature.57
Upon such a nature his notion of the Church as sacrament is constructed.
Before that can be understood, two further presuppositions must be elaborated.
First, grace is conceived primarily as uncreated grace, Gods direct
presence in the soul. In approaching the soul God creates sanctifying
56. This brief summary does not do full justice to Rahners thought, his dialectical analogy:
cf. John McDermott, S.J., The Analogy of Knowing in Karl Rahner, IPQ 26 (1996): 20116
and idem, Dialectical Analogy: The Oscillating Center of Rahners Thought, Greg 75
(1994): 675703. (The order of publication reverses the order of composition.) These
insights have been deepened by Patrick Burke, Reinterpreting Rahner (New York: Fordham,
2002), 146. The argument for unity of intellect and will is made over the contingency of
the finite, which depends for its actualization on Gods willing; thus its reality can be known
only though a response that involves an affirmation of Gods willing. Love of God as an
inner moment of knowing is equally its condition and foundation. Karl Rahner, S.J. Hrer
des Wortes, 2nd ed., ed. J. Metz (Mnchen: Ksel, 1963), 11931. Rahners ecclesiology has
been very influential: e.g. Peter Franzen, S.J., Sacraments: Signs of Faith, in C. Sullivan
(ed.), Readings in Sacramental Theology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 5977;
John Gerken, S.J., Dialogue Between God and Man, in ibid., 7888. In Models of the Church
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 5870, Avery Dulles, S.J., though mentioning de
Lubac, Semmelroth, Schillebeeckx, and others, basically follows Rahners understanding of
the Church as sacrament.
57. Karl Rahner, S.J., Geist in Welt (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1939), 82; McDermott, Dialectical
Analogy, 6806; Burke, Reinterpreting, 4772. On the meaning of ontological and ontic,
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grace, the material condition for His quasi-formal supernatural presence. Each grace effects the other in mutual causality. Uncreated grace
can be interpreted as actual insofar as it is offered to mans freedom
and, after acceptance, finds expression over a dynamic nature in individual spiritual and material acts.58 Second, a theology of real symbol
is developed whereby the plurality within all being is understood as
constituting its essence. This self-realization of one being in another,
which is constitutive of its essence, occurs most clearly in the human
composite, in which the form of man implies a necessary reference to
the matter which it informs and so actualizes itself. So the body is the
souls symbol by which it signifies and realizes itself. This self-realizing
unity in diversity also characterizes God, whose Trinitarian plurality
constitutes His very essence: the Father is Himself only in relation to
the Word, His self-expression or symbol. Analogously Christs humanity is seen as the real-symbol of the Word, as the appropriate revelation
of God to men. Moreover, insofar as God is the reality of salvation, all
of His operations on man will find expression in symbols. For when
grace is received in the soul, elevating it, it must find expression in the
body which the soul informs.59
Because there can be no greater divine self-revelation in time than
Jesus Christ, the Church must always continue by Gods omnipotent
grace as the faithful witness to Christ and the unfailing bearer of His
life for men. Otherwise Christs self-communication could disappear
from the earth and Gods plan of salvation would be frustrated. Thus
the Church is guaranteed by divine predestination not only continuance as the principal sign of grace until the end of the world but also
the power of infallibly defining the content of her belief. Though the
Church as a whole is primarily guaranteed this absolute fidelity to
Christ, the necessary further structuring of the Churchs faith in a
social, visible institution involves the episcopal college and the Pope
who act as final instance in determining the Churchs faith when such
articulation is rendered necessary. The people of God and the hierarchy
are seen as two poles mutually conditioning each other within the
whole event of revelation. The Church is not considered an authority
cf. Rahner, Geist, 83; idem, Grundkurs des Glaubens (Freiburg: Herder, 1976), 124, 132f., 296;
idem, Probleme der Christologie von heute, Schriften, I, 189, 192f., where both types of categories are presented as capable of mutual translation and as complementary; idem, Jesus
Christus, in Sacramentum Mundi, ed. K. Rahner et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 1968), II, 3946, for
mutual translation; idem, Zur Theologie der Menschwerdung, Schriften, IV, 294, for the
description of ontic as static. Cf. also Karl Rahner, S.J., Zur Theologie des Symbols,
Schriften, IV, 2857, for ontic as dealing with a realitys in-itself and ontological with its
internal self-relatedness, which implies existential self-realization in self-knowledge and selflove.
58. K. Rahner, S.J., Zur scholastischen Begrifflichkeit der ungeschaffenen Gnade, in
Schriften, I, 34775; idem, Gnade, in Sacramentum Mundi, II, 45760.
59. Ibid., Zur Theologie des Symbols, 275311 (citation: 290). For a similar understanding of the body as symbol of the spirit in Schillebeeckx, cf. note 30 above.
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for the free acceptance of the offered grace. But even outside the sacraments justifying grace can be increased by faith which derives from the
word of God. The efficacy of word and sacrament are parallel and
complementary. Like a sacrament the powerfully salvific word produces
what it expresses; it is itself therefore an event of salvation, which (in
its external, historical and social moment) signifies what happens in
and under itself, and it lets happen what it signifies. Word and sacrament are unified insofar as the sacrament can be considered the words
highest, most dense, and most intensive appearance in corporeal,
visible, ecclesial form.65
Rahners understanding of sacramental causality overcomes many difficulties bedeviling conceptualist theology. A material sign can produce a
spiritual effect because man is a bodysoul unity. Furthermore, given the
basic unity between nature and grace, a natural sign can produce a supernatural effect, especially when a relation of mutual causality exists
between sign and signified. Yet a danger is concealed in Rahners theory,
one that becomes more obvious after his proposal of transcendental revelation. Previous to 1963 Rahner imagines revelation primarily as explicit
verbal revelation proposed from without to men, who through graces elevation recognize it for what it is, Gods supernaturally revealed word.66
Thus the link to the hierarchical ecclesial structure is assured for the
historical transmission of faith. But Rahner comes to realize that if God
offers grace to all according to His universal salvific will, if grace is primarily Gods presence in the soul, and if the soul is originally self-conscious,
the soul must possess a supernatural awareness of God. Grace and
revelation coalesce. The preaching of the Church only brings to explicit
consciousness what the missionarys audience already believes unthematically through grace.67 However important graces thematization might be
for mans complete actualization, the essential is already given in
uncreated grace. Moreover, since the infinite God is never exhausted by
any thematic expression, a pluralism in theology and practice should be
allowed.68 Pushed to an extreme, such a theory leads not only to
65. Ibid., Wort und Eucharistie, 31315, 321f., 32641, 3457, 3515.
66. Cf. Karl Rahner, S.J., and Herbert Vorgrimler, Glauben and Praeambula fidei, in
Kleines theologisches Wrterbuch, 1315, 296. The change is manifested in the second edition
of Hrer, especially in the footnotes.
67. K. Rahner, S.J., ber die Erfahrung der Gnade, in Schriften, I, 1059; idem, Grundkurs,
104, 108, 111, 1358; idem, Glaubenszugang, in Sacramentum Mundi, I, 41416.
68. Ibid., Probleme der Christologie von heute, in Schriften, I, 16974; idem, Was ist
eine dogmatische Aussage? Schriften, V, 6581; idem, Kleines Fragment ber die kollektive Findung der Wahrheit, ibid., 10410; idem, Der Pluralismus in der Theologie und
die Einheit des Bekenntnisses in der Kirche, Schriften, IX, 1133; idem, Zur Theologie
des kumenischen Gesprches, in Schriften, IX, 4356; idem, berlegungen zur Methode
der Theologie, in Schriften, IX , 836, 123; idem, Grundstzliche Bemerkung zum
Thema: Wandelbares und Unwandelbares in der Kirche, in Schriften, X, 24554; idem,
Bietet die Kirche letzte Gewissheiten? in Schriften, X, 3014; idem, Zum Begriff der
Unfehlbarkeit in der katholischen Theologie, in Schriften, X, 30523; cf. Burke,
Reinterpreting, 20425.
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explaining how any finite symbol can be ultimate, Rahner affirms strongly
Jesus unicity as the highest of the genus in which all others participate.73
Later in Grundkurs des Glaubens he bases the Church squarely upon the resurrection. He applies the fundamental insight that revelation consists not
primarily in propositions objectively given, but in a personal relation of
love and understanding. Since Easter represents no private event but is
intended for witnesses who see and comprehend, the disciples faith constitutes an intrinsic part of the resurrection itself.74 This juncture, in faith
and freedom, of faithful witnesses to the supreme self-revelation of God in
Christ establishes the essential elements of the Body of Christ, the Church.
Joined to Christ in grace, the members of the Church continue to
announce His saving deeds in word and sacrament in order that all may
come to full belief. Just as grace found its perfect historical expression in
Christ, so also grace continues to realize itself as a real symbol in the members of the Church that continues in time.75 Consequently the historical,
hierarchical Church serves as a norm for belief and he reincorporates into
his theology many arguments of the traditional conceptualist apologetics
for the Catholic Church as the one, true Church of Christ.76
Rahners whole theology involves a subtle dialectical analogy which
switches perspective frequently in an attempt to do justice to the both
and characterizing Catholic reality. Often difficulties arise with his disciples who emphasize one side of his thought. Thus his teaching that nature
finds its fulfillment only in grace, that God is experienced unthematically,
that theology is anthropology,77 and that dogmas can and should be
reformulated for modern man leads to Modernism. Besides some basic
metaphysical problems, one should also note that his understanding of
person changes according to need and is contradictory.78 In regard to
sacramental causality, ambiguities abound. The causality involved seems
to be final causality: God wills that His grace find an appropriate visible,
73. Karl Rahner, S.J., Der eine Mittler und die Vielfalt der Vermittelungen, in Schriften,
VIII, 223, 22633; idem, Die ewige Bedeutung der Menschheit Jesu fr unser
Gottesverhltnis, in Schriften, III, 25760.
74. Ibid., Grundkurs, 31325; idem, Jesu Auferstehung, Schriften, XII, 350f.; Karl Rahner
and Wilhelm Thsing, Christologie: Systematisch und Exegetisch (Freiburg, Herder, 1972), 38.
75. Rahner, Wort und Eucharistie, 31825; idem, Kirche, in Kleines theologisches
Wrterbuch, 199202; idem, Kirche und Sakramente, 17f., 21f.; idem, Offenbarung,
Sacramentun Mundi, III, 841f.; idem, Geist, 17589.
76. Ibid., Grundkurs, 33247, 35887.
77. Ibid., 54; idem, Probleme, 205; idem, Theologie und Anthropologie, 43.
78. For problems, cf. McDermott, Christologies, 30825; idem, Karl Rahner on Two
Infinities: God and Matter, IPQ 28 (1998): 4557; idem, Metaphysical Conundrums at
the Root of Moral Disagreement, Greg 71 (1990): 71826, 73642; and idem, Karl Rahner
in Tradition: The One and the Many to be published shortly in Fides Quaerens Intellectum.
For the various notions of person: in Trinitarian doctrine mode of subsistence and mode
of presence [Rahner, Trinitt, in Sacramentum Mundi, IV, 1019f.; idem, Der dreifaltige
Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte, in Mysterium Salutis, ed. J. Feiner
and M. Lhrer, II (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1968), 38993]; point of freedom vis--vis nature
understood as the necessity of the past [Rahner, Gliederschaft, 8691; idem, Zum
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social expression. But on whom does it work? Man has already received
grace. The sacramental sign seems to be Gods purpose, but how can God
be caused by anything less than Himself? Probably for that reason
Schillebeeckx maintained the non-coincidence of symbol and cause in
the sacrament and identified God as the efficient cause who enjoys the
complete initiative in effecting salvation. Admittedly Rahner allows in
Christology for God to be mutable in the other while remaining
immutable in Himself, and Christology is but the highest exemplification
of the Godcreature relation.79 Such a statement accords with his
dialectical method which switches from an ontic, abstract viewpoint in
which God can be designated Actus Purus to an ontological viewpoint
in which all things stand in dynamic relation and the first and last [reality] is said to be the ultimate unity of God and the world.80 But it is confusing; the late Rahner admits that contradictory dogmatic propositions
can be affirmed simultaneously as long as each stays open to the others
positive content.81 Such is the difference between the infinite God
unthematically experienced and conceptual formulations that one wonders whether the analogy of being has been ruptured. Though Rahner,
unlike Schillebeeckx, never surrenders to an irrational dynamism, the
human minds ability to attain reality consistently is put into question.
Otto Semmelroth
Rahner often speaks of the free dialogue between God and man in the
offer and acceptance of grace. Insofar as the natural order is distinguishable from the supernatural order, man remains free before Gods free offer
of grace. Freedom on both sides accounts for dialogue.82 Yet insofar as
God is the gift, giver, and foundation of mans acceptance grace effects
its own acceptance ontologically prior to its resultant symbolic expression83 the confrontation involved in dialogue is not highlighted. Yet
this dialogical element of revelation in word and sacrament is dear to O.
Semmelroth, whose theology of the Church as primordial sacrament is
basically shared by H. de Lubac and P. Smulders. Emphasizing Gods
revelation in its correspondence to human nature as corporeal and social
theologischen Begriff der Konkupiszenz, Schriften, I, 3935]; self-conscious, free center of
activity, which becomes nature in Christology [Rahner, Person, in Kleines theologisches
Wrterbuch, 283; Jesus Christus, 935f., 948]; the divine final subject or carrier expressing
Himself in the human nature [Rahner, Jesus Christus, 949; idem, Der dreifaltige Gott,
3336]; dynamism uniting with God in beatific vision, distinguished from more static concept of nature [Rahner, Jesus Christus, 952f.]. Cf. also Rahner, Grundkurs, 3746, which
describes as person what earlier articles on nature and grace identify as nature.
79. McDermott, Christologies, 104f., 108, 11214, 302.
80. Rahner, Grundkurs, 648, 71f.; McDermott, Dialectical Analogy, 6904.
81. Rahner, Zum Begriff der Unfehlbarkeit, 31820. Cf. Burke, Reinterpreting, 20425.
82. Cf., e.g., Rahner, Gnade, 452f., 454f., 460f.
83. Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens (Freiburg: Herder, 1976), 119, 124f., 131, 134f., 174f.
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Body manifests her reality most clearly around the altar in the hierarchically structured community destined to endure from Good Friday
until the Parousia in order that the faithful, nourishing themselves with
Christs Body, might persevere and grow through love ever more deeply
into the mystery of the Church. Baptism is understood as an initiation
into the Eucharistic community and cult, and the other sacraments are
interpreted as extensions and supports of the Eucharistic grace. In such
a perspective the sacraments can never be confused with magical rites,
but are understood as calls of love for mans response. The symbol
should offer to the living other its own personal content, without forcing the other; if he accepts the symbol and exerts himself with regard
to its content, the encounter occurs.87
Similarly the Church efficaciously proclaims Gods word in her preaching, which is seen as the initiation of a dialogue calling for men to respond
in faith by taking the sacrifice of the cross into their lives. For the Word
of God become flesh still speaks through the Church to whom He
entrusted His words. The Church continues in time the incarnate Christs
ministry. Preaching, so far as it is really carried out as the churchs living
act, is a saving image and sign of the incarnation of Gods son. Not only
are the preached divine words effective of themselves but also they stand
in the closest union with the sacraments. Sacraments include words and
preachers join symbolic gestures to their words. At a more profound level
sacrament and word mutually refer to each other, and each cannot exist
without the other:
The churchs preaching of Gods word is intended to be witnessed to
and answered by listening believers through their reception of the
sacraments. And the reception of the sacraments is determined by
the preaching of Gods word to such a degree that it can be meaningful only if it takes place in response to that preaching.
Clearly, if the sacrament is an invitation to personal encounter, men
must understand to what they are being invited. Admittedly the word
only communicates Gods redemptive will; it does not, like the
the apostolic Church which is similar to the Words humanity as instrument. In Smulders,
Sacramenta et ecclesia, Periodica 48 (1959), while citing Semmelroth and Schillebeeckx,
he oscillates between a more Rahnerian view whereby internal grace tendentially brings
about external cult and juridical adhesion to the Church (8f., 3840, 448, 52f.) and the
view whereby juridical incorporation in the Church, through whose public cult Christ
works, brings about character and grace (269, 347, 424, 4951): per se Ecclesia juridica
est Ecclesia pneumatica.
87. Semmelroth, Personalismus, 208; idem, Kirche, 4667; idem, Die Kirche, 333f.,
34951; idem, Church and Christian Belief, 12, 85; idem, Church and Sacraments, 50f., 6881,
847, 95101; idem, Integral Idea, 139f., 141; de Lubac, Catholicism, 4863; idem,
Splendor, 133f., 15261; Smulders, Chiesa sacramento, 383f.
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sacraments, communicate the divine life; it prepares man for the actual
communication of God in grace.88
While the sacraments, as human signs, can also be understood as expressions of man worshiping God, the emphasis lies on the assimilation of man
to God through the divinely given sign. As Smulders notes, the sacrament is
not just a means of grace, but the very form of grace itself, the visible sign of
Gods one act, in which He established community with men.89 In all sacramental service the institutional element of the teaching, ruling, sacerdotal
office remains in polar tension with the communal element, the Church as
assembly of believers, and can never be loosened from it. For it stands for
Gods bestowal of grace from above, continuing the possibility of mans
encounter with the visible other representing God and manifesting that
redemption is Gods work, not mans.90 Yet insofar as Christs sacrifice to the
Father is represented in the sacraments and the one receiving them joins
himself to Christ, alongside that descending movement of graces offer there
is an ascending movement from man to the Father in Christ and in the
priesthood established by Him. The reception of a sacrament is the legitimate expression established by Christ, in which man should encounter God
the Father.91 Insofar as Christ is active in His priest to conduct men back to
the Father, Semmelroth first acknowledges a personal, or moral, causality
in the sacraments.92 Later he explains sacramental causality as a type of personal fidelity deriving from Christs total entrusting of Himself to the
Church, the sign of His promise to be with men, in such a way that the
divine presence summons a total human response of love.93
Although this view resembles the conceptualist ecclesiology in the measure that the Church and the sacraments function as institutional givens, as
mediators effecting or offering grace, their efficacy is no longer defined in
terms of various causalities but interpreted as personal encounters. In this, as
Semmelroth indicates, the closest category from the old theology is moral
causality, but he goes far beyond that. He strongly emphasizes human freedoms response, finds a unity among the sacraments in their vital continuity
with Christ and the Church, and makes room for many aspects of the
88. Otto Semmelroth, S.J., The Preaching Word, trans. J. Hughes (New York: Herder, 1965),
224, 119, 201; idem, Die Kirche, 35155; idem, Church and Sacrament, 516; cf. also de
Lubac, Splendor, 2208.
89. Smulders, ibid., 376; Semmelroth, Kirche, 805; idem, Personalismus, 211, 215f., 217;
idem, Church and Sacrament, 105f.; idem, Church and Christian Belief, 95; idem, Integral
Idea, 1379, 145f.
90. Semmelroth, Kirche, 17097; idem, Die Kirche, 333f., 336f., 3458; idem, Church and
Sacrament, 1934, 48; idem, Church and Christian Belief, 92f.; idem, Integral Idea, 142f., 146;
idem, Warum Kirche? (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercher, 1959), 2330; de Lubac, Catholicism, 42f.;
idem, Splendor, 8791, 11025, 140f., 14452; Smulders, Sacramenta, 43f., 49.
91. Semmelroth, Personalismus, 210, 209; idem, Kirche, 190f.; idem, Die Kirche, 354;
idem, Church and Sacraments, 59f.; idem, Integral Idea, 141f., 145f.; de Lubac, Catholicism,
62f.; Smulders, Sacramenta, 3440.
92. Semmelroth, Personalismus, 209, 215, 218; idem, Church and Christian Belief, 119;
idem, Church and Sacrament, 457; de Lubac, Splendor, 13444.
93. Semmelroth, Die Kirche, 3324.
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Elsewhere we have sought to develop Wojtylas thought so as to recognize realitys basic sacramental structure: in and through a finite form the
infinite God makes Himself present in a call for the total dedication of
love, and upon mans response depends his salvation or damnation. The
paradox of thought reflects the paradox of love, that is, the reality of Gods
omnipotence that addresses man through finite figures as the condition of
possibility for his freedom. Such a structure maintains the difference which
Semmelroths dialogue demands, yet, in view of Gods omnipotent initiative in creating man and calling him to a higher destiny, preserves Rahners
emphasis on God as the one responsible for mans free decision. Before the
gift of love, freedom is not merely indifference but also the compelled
response; neutrality is no longer possible. Once the paradoxical, sacramental structure of thought is recognized, all central Catholic dogmas can be
explained in terms of it.99 Thus the problem of historicity can also be overcome. Precisely because a divine person has become man, the Absolute can
be found in history. Moreover, since Christ is really and personally present
in the Eucharist, the Absolute still raises His liberating claim for our total
adherence in the Church. Because some finite understanding is necessary
for freedom to respond to Gods call, the Churchs faith, which has to be
preached, must enjoy the gift of infallibility. All that belongs to the ultimate mystery of Gods love that freely creates, actuates, and liberates
human freedom. Finally, Semmelroths stress on the definitive givenness of
the external sacrament can be joined with Rahners emphasis on graces
growth in individuals to full exterior expression, which reflects the early
Schillebeeckxs tension between the objective, historically given substance
of the sacrament and the ever new expression of grace in individuals constituting the Church. The Absolute has already entered time, establishing
salvation, but men in freedom must still appropriate it by receiving Him as
a gift. Eternity and time, the already and the not yet are joined in Gods selfgift and mans response, the very structure of K. Wojtylas understanding of
freedom. On the basis of their lived experience of the Christian mystery
these four thinkers participated actively in Vatican II, shaping its thought
and defining its destiny. Deo gratias!
JOHN M. MCDERMOTT SJ, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, 2701
Chicago Blvd., Detroit, MI 48206, USA. McDermott.John@shms.edu
The Problem of Person and Jean Mouroux, Sapientia 52 (1997), 7597, esp. 94f., where references to the others beside Mouroux are found. B. Ritzler, Freiheit in der Umarmung des ewig
Liebenden (Bern: Lang, 2000), 409527, explains Maritains thought in great detail on this
point, and Moretto, Dinamismo, 35964, shows how the late Marchal is also moving in the
same direction. After a criticism of Schillebeeckxs Christology, Brambilla, Cristologia,
58998, calls for a symbolic understanding of reality that opens the way for a free response
to the absolute revelation of God in Christ.
99. Cf. most recently John McDermott, S.J., Faith, Reason, and Freedom, ITQ 67 (2002):
30732; idem, La struttura sacramentale della realt, ScC128 (2000): 27399.
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