Rahner posits the Chuch as the basic sacrament. The other (seven) sacraments occur when the church 'addresses itself to and involves itself totally in existentielly [sic] decisive sitiations in human life'.
He says that, if institution by Jesus is a criteria, then NONE of the sacraments can be traced back to Jesus for certain (following modern Biblical scholarship). Instead, the sacraments flow from the institution of the church by Jesus. The sevenfold sacraments are an interpretation by the church of its sacramental existence.
Man must respond in faith, hope and love: the sacraments are not 'magical', though they have been misunderstood as such.
He goes on to adopt an almost Calvinist description - in all the sacraments is 'the efficacious word of God.' They are a 'tangible word of God'. But also: 'It is precisely in a sacramental word, where the chuch addresses God's word to an individual in his quite concrete salvific situation, that the individual precisely as individual is addressed by the word of God in a way which is not found in the general word of preaching even in a really existentiell sermon...'
2 comments:
I'm not sure how you make the link between calvin and rahner here. Rahner's idea of the sacraments cannot be further from Calvin's if you ask me.
For one, Rahner's theology of the sacraments helped shape the Catholic church's position (especially ecumenical) post Vatican II. You have to remember that, to Rahner you are always in a state of either dying in sin or living eternally in God's 'uncreated grace' (ie. as God). Participation in the sacraments is quite concretely, yet not exclusively, the latter, no less than being God Himself. This is why he calls the sacraments 'real symbols' - the term has to be understood distinctly from mere symbology, to rahner 'real symbol' is both an expression of and an actualization of God. No magic? That's right, they're also of this ordinary world - but that's not to demote the sacraments, it's to promote this ordinary world to the divine. Hardly Calvinist theology!
Oh, granted. I meant in using the idea of efficaciousness... of course, the differences are immense!
Post a Comment