12 Quotes & Sayings By Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner, S.J., was the first full professor of dogmatic theology at the Gregorian University since its foundation in 1442. He received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1924. He was also a philosopher, theologian, philosopher of religion, and spiritual writer. He wrote numerous books on subjects such as God, revelation, faith, freedom, the Church, the Church Fathers, Christology, Christology of St. Paul, Trinitarianism, etc. Designed by Karl Rahner himself with the assistance of Professor Eberhard Jüngel (Katholische Akademie Wien), known for his classic monograph The Trinity (1958), this book is a brilliant summary of classic Catholic thought on the doctrine of God's existence and nature. This book contains Rahner's theological commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" ("IIIa Qq Read more

5-7"). It is an important work because it demonstrates that Aquinas' thought is highly compatible with the Catholic Faith. For this reason this book is considered a primary source for those who wish to understand what Aquinas really taught about God and His creation.

This scholarly work will be helpful to those who want to study Thomas Aquinas and its history of interpretation. Author: Mary Frances Berry

When man is with God in awe and love, then...
1
When man is with God in awe and love, then he is praying. Karl Rahner
Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause...
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Meditating on the nature and dignity of prayer can cause saying at least one thing to God: Lord, teach us to pray! Karl Rahner
3
For it is the bitter grief of theology and its blessed task, too, always to have to seek (because it does not clearly have present to it at the time)...always providing that one has the courage to ask questions, to be dissatisfied, to think with the mind and heart one ACTUALLY has, and not with the mind and heart one is SUPPOSED TO have. Karl Rahner
4
In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all. Karl Rahner
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The dead are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me. Karl Rahner
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The task of the theologian is to explain everything through God, and to explain God as unexplainable. Karl Rahner
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The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim Him with their mouths and deny Him with their actions is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable. Karl Rahner
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For a Catholic understanding of the faith there is no reason why the basic concern of Evangelical Christianity as it comes to expression in the three “only's” should have no place in the Catholic Church. Accepted as basic and ultimate formulas of Christianity, they do not have to lead a person out of the Catholic Church. They can call the attention of the Catholic church again and again to the fact that grace alone and faith alone really are what saves, and that with all our maneuvering through the history of dogma and the teaching office, we Catholic Christians must find our way back to the sources again and again, back to the primary origins of Holy Scripture and all the more so of the Holy Spirit. . Karl Rahner
9
Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise. Karl Rahner
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How often I have found that we grow to maturity not by doing what we like, but by doing what we should. How true it is that not every 'should' is a compulsion, and not every 'like' is a high morality and true freedom. Karl Rahner
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The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all. Karl Rahner