I love Karl Rahner
Nov. 30th, 2004 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theatokosI have recently finished a little book by theologian Karl Rahner called Mary, Mother of the Lord. I believe it is out of print, which is too bad, because it is fantastic. I have my own theological thoughts, differing from his firm Catholicism, but it is such a delight to read a theologian so positive, so commited to raising us up in grace, not condemning humanity nor getting caught up in the theological math of words. I wrote a short essay (in the wee hours this morning; I've been up since 4am for no good reason) for my meeting with Father Joe later this morning.
In all of Rahner's writings on Mary the Mother of God there is both a deep reverence for her and a surprising hopefulness. I say surprising because so often Mary is elevated beyond all human comparison. She becomes a point of meditation that we as bad children, recalcitrant and hopeless, must think on as we stand in the corner. Her perpetual virginity and her sinlessness often seem impossibly irrelevant to those of us living "real" life. Rahner understands our point of view,; he often asks what significance this point or that doctrine can have in the life of everyday Christians, yet he never approaches Mary as a weight to borne, an example made by God to highlight our inadequacy. In Rahner's writings Mary is always a source of hope and inspiration. He achieves this by raising her up, not by dragging her down.
In this age of commonality, in an age where we want to be better than others by being just like everyone else (an excellent example of this is reality television), it is not surprising that we want to drag down our examples and say "See! They're just like us!" Movements to find and "raise up" the historical Jesus and books like Elizabeth Johnson's Truly Our Sister, in which she attempts to "raise up" Mary by emphasizing her very ordinariness, do not actually achieve their goal. By emphasizing their ordinariness, their humanity becomes not an encouragement to us, but a way of dragging them down to our level. "See! They're just like us!" We want to know that our favorite stars and political figures are ordinary people, average Joe's, or failures in other parts of their lives. We want to think that deep down we're all the same. I find this trend in theology to historicize Mary and Jesus to much the same phenomenon. We want our gods to be just like us.
But we do not need gods just like us, anymore than we need singers to sound just like us. We need to be raised up. We need something higher than ourselves to shoot for. Rahner, while affirming Mary's humanity, emphasizes the astounding transformation in her because of God's grace. She is raised up, but rather than as a carrot dangling forever out of reach, she is an encouragement: "See! She was just like us!" Rahner encourages us to trust in the grace that can transform a regular woman into a figure strong enough to cooperate in salvation. We should see this near goddess-like woman as a symbol of hope, not of condemnation. Rahner hints that what has been done in Mary's life can be done in ours'. "But her life, poor, insignificant, modest, sorrowful, gives us solace after all, and the strong hope that we are more than merely sinners, that God's grace is doing in us what it did in her" (82).
Rahner's enthusiasm for his subject is clear and his writings are hopeful and encouraging. If Mary was an ordinary human and yet could be graced so extraordinarily highly, then we too can experience grace in ways far beyond ordinary. By raising up one we are all raised up; we gain nothing by dragging Mary down into the dirt. She was there once, and because of her we have reason to stretch a little higher and become, through faith, more than we think we are.
In all of Rahner's writings on Mary the Mother of God there is both a deep reverence for her and a surprising hopefulness. I say surprising because so often Mary is elevated beyond all human comparison. She becomes a point of meditation that we as bad children, recalcitrant and hopeless, must think on as we stand in the corner. Her perpetual virginity and her sinlessness often seem impossibly irrelevant to those of us living "real" life. Rahner understands our point of view,; he often asks what significance this point or that doctrine can have in the life of everyday Christians, yet he never approaches Mary as a weight to borne, an example made by God to highlight our inadequacy. In Rahner's writings Mary is always a source of hope and inspiration. He achieves this by raising her up, not by dragging her down.
In this age of commonality, in an age where we want to be better than others by being just like everyone else (an excellent example of this is reality television), it is not surprising that we want to drag down our examples and say "See! They're just like us!" Movements to find and "raise up" the historical Jesus and books like Elizabeth Johnson's Truly Our Sister, in which she attempts to "raise up" Mary by emphasizing her very ordinariness, do not actually achieve their goal. By emphasizing their ordinariness, their humanity becomes not an encouragement to us, but a way of dragging them down to our level. "See! They're just like us!" We want to know that our favorite stars and political figures are ordinary people, average Joe's, or failures in other parts of their lives. We want to think that deep down we're all the same. I find this trend in theology to historicize Mary and Jesus to much the same phenomenon. We want our gods to be just like us.
But we do not need gods just like us, anymore than we need singers to sound just like us. We need to be raised up. We need something higher than ourselves to shoot for. Rahner, while affirming Mary's humanity, emphasizes the astounding transformation in her because of God's grace. She is raised up, but rather than as a carrot dangling forever out of reach, she is an encouragement: "See! She was just like us!" Rahner encourages us to trust in the grace that can transform a regular woman into a figure strong enough to cooperate in salvation. We should see this near goddess-like woman as a symbol of hope, not of condemnation. Rahner hints that what has been done in Mary's life can be done in ours'. "But her life, poor, insignificant, modest, sorrowful, gives us solace after all, and the strong hope that we are more than merely sinners, that God's grace is doing in us what it did in her" (82).
Rahner's enthusiasm for his subject is clear and his writings are hopeful and encouraging. If Mary was an ordinary human and yet could be graced so extraordinarily highly, then we too can experience grace in ways far beyond ordinary. By raising up one we are all raised up; we gain nothing by dragging Mary down into the dirt. She was there once, and because of her we have reason to stretch a little higher and become, through faith, more than we think we are.