Doctrinal challenges — How to proceed?

Fr Karl Rahner points us to three ways in determining how we could proceed with doctrinal challenges.

Oct 15, 2015

By Fr Karl Rahner
Fr Karl Rahner points us to three ways in determining how we could proceed with doctrinal challenges.

The first, what I name the “accretion model,” holds that approaching a pastoral problem in conversation with the church’s doctrine consists of brushing away whatever accretions—historical, theological, political, etc.—have obscured the church’s view of a given doctrine. But this assumes that there was once a perfectly pristine doctrinal statement that became obscured and is now waiting to be (re)discovered. Father Rahner rejects this, believing instead, “All human statements, even those in which faith expresses God’s saving truths, are finite. By this we mean that they never declare the whole of a reality.” 

The second is the “explication model,” which would have the church address pastoral problems by taking a particular doctrine, with its inevitable limitedness, and using logic or reason to deduce other doctrines from it. This treats doctrine as a box containing a variety of objects rather than as a window to help see something non- or pre-propositional. Father Rahner makes clear, however, that for the church to listen to God’s word means more than drawing deductions from it. The church engages in “a reflection on the propositions heard in living contact with the thing itself,” that is, as it cultivates its relationship with God in light of its present historical situation.

The third model Father Rahner rejects is what I call the “isolation model” and its many manifestations. They all have one commonality: they look at a particular doctrine with tunnel vision, sometimes ignoring other relevant doctrines, or important cultural contexts, or even the liturgical life of the church. Father Rahner rejects this on account of his belief that, “In the last resort every reality, even the most limited, is connected with and related to every other reality,” and hence, in his view, all forms of the isolation model fail.

All three of these patterns can be seen in the church’s recent conversation: “We must return to Jesus’ precise teaching about marriage”; “But you are assuming that Jesus really meant to legislate”; “But you would abandon all doctrine on the principle that the only thing that matters is that people love, by which you mean ‘not offend’ one another.” And so on. Dialogue like this does not appear to be a fruitful way forward and indeed barely manages to be dialogue.

So if these are patterns the church ought to avoid when addressing a challenging pastoral situation by means of doctrine, then how could it proceed more fruitfully?

Though frustrating on one level, it is also liberating to recognize, as Father Rahner does, that “there is then no adequate formal theory of the development of [doctrine] which would be in itself sufficient to permit a prognosis for the future.”  Reflecting upon doctrine in light of real pastoral problems is not like baking a cake with the aid of a detailed recipe.

Lacking such a formula, it is as absolutely vital that history, context and the real play a seminal role in such reflection. In Father Rahner’s words, “God’s revealing Word is directed through the medium of the historical process at the total history of humanity....” From there, the church continues to discern what the Spirit is saying.

The Church, as a whole, considers a thought which grows out of the whole content of its faith: it ripens, it merges ever more fully with the whole, while the Church lives it and perfects it. And so the Church of a certain day, if we may say so, finds itself simply there, believing in this special manner.

Perhaps Pope Francis himself best embodies this posture of active waiting. Lately, he has exhorted those around him to practice parrhesia — speaking boldly and frankly. This same parrhesia, and its underlying trust in the Spirit, ought to characterize the whole Church, most especially when it engages the important work of reflecting upon difficult and multidimensional pastoral situations. And this challenges all of us to grow as people whose deepest desire is to be attentive to the Spirit. -- America