Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy Book

Kilby aims to provide a non-foundationalist reading of Rahner. What she means by this is a reading of Rahner whereby his theology is not epistemologically based upon his philosophy. She pursues this objective by (a) arguing that Rahner's transcendental argument fails as do transcendental arguments generally and (b) that Rahner's philosophy is, in key aspects, incompatible with his theology.

Does Kilby succeed? In part, she does, by providing a compelling reading of Rahner's theology but by failing to appreciate the role of Rahner's philosophy, she offers an equally one-sided reading. Kilby's critique of Rahner's philosophy centers upon the notion of the Vorgriff (or pre-apprehension) of being. Rahner argues that the use of concepts within judgments presuppose an implicit knowledge of the space of possibilities. This knowledge allows the agent to appreciate the universality of concepts and their applicability to multiple objects. According to Rahner, this an implicit knowledge of esse. This argument fails, according to Kilby, because it either merely restates the problem or misses the point. It restates the problem because it says that we understand universal concepts as applicable to multiple objects because we understand the space of possibilities in which such concepts can be applied to multiple objects. It misses the point because it says we must know being in order to know that men can tall, short, fat, slim, etc.

I suggest that Kilby has failed to give Rahner a sufficiently charitable reading. Given that Rahner's arguments could be stated more clearly, what is promising in his approach? Rahner offers a Thomist answer to the problems raised by Kant. But it would be a mistake to suggest that Rahner is a Kantian. This claim - made frequently by Thomists - misses the point. Rahner should be read in the context of post-Kantian Germany idealism. Kant's problem was determining how it is that our thought is intentional, is about objects. Kant framed this as a question of the condition of the possibility of experience but post-Kantians, like Hegel, rejected the idea of a thing in itself, standing behind the experienced appearances, arguing that the notion of something that was causally inert and unknowable was indistinguishable from the notion of non-being. Thus the question within the post-Kantian context is that of the relationship between subject and object. Hegel argues that this is only possible insofar as as being and knowing are identical. Hegel makes this argument in part by developing an early form of process theology. Without rehashing these details, one can see that Rahner is essentially making a similar move, arguing that the subject is identical with or at least participates in being and only because of this are particular concepts capable of showing up at all. But Rahner does this by employing a version of Thomism whereby God is not dependent upon the world and the subject's a priori is a participation in God's self-knowledge of being in general. In short, we are able to apply concepts because (a) reality is a partial self-expression of God's self-knowledge and (b) we possess the concept of esse, as a concept that implicitly contains all other concepts. Thus our knowledge is a matter of making explicit the implicit distinctions in the concept of being, and our knowledge is of reality because this concept and reality share a similar source in God's self-knowledge.

Why is a picture such as this plausible? It avoids both the radical anti-realism of deflationary readers of Hegel such as Pippen and Pinkard, and it avoids Hegel's heterodox theology. What advantage does it have over Thomism? It explains the nature of the agent intellect and its function and it responds to rather than rejects Kant's questions concerning the intentionality of our concepts. While my brief sketch cannot do justice to Rahner's philosophy, an adequate reading of Rahner ought to do more than dismiss his philosophy. Concerning the second point above, while Kilby has show that there is some tension within Rahner's thought, it seems very likely that Rahner's philosophy and theology can be harmonized to a much greater degree.

Finally what has Kilby done well? She has shown that there are theological reasons for adopting Rahner's transcendental philosophy. But she is mistaken to think that the plausibility of such theological arguments can be completely separated from the plausibility of Rahner's philosophy. As such, we are still waiting for a compelling reconstruction of Rahner's philosophy that draws upon recent work by Sebastian Rödl, John McDowell, among others.