Human Transcendence as a Locus of Revelation and Foundation for Theological Work: Implications from Rahner’s Hearer of the Word

Abstract

This article concerns the complex relation between the heteronomous authority of divine revelation and human autonomy, particularly having regard to the context of Western, secularized, religiously plural societies. In the face of the current fragmentation of meaning and the crisis of morality, and considering that individuals must take on the responsibility for their own life projects and decisions themselves, they can no longer cope without personal autonomy to form their own frames of reference, rather than deriving them from religions, as in the past, whose doctrines have become alien to them. In Hearer of the Word, Rahner raises human transcendence to a category in which human autonomy and God’s ultimate Word meet on the level of Being, of existence, where meaning is reintegrated, the lively, original experience of Revelation is recovered, and the apparent contradiction between faith and lifeworld can be overcome through an authentic form of religious life.