This innovative book discloses Karl Rahner's foremost achievement: discovering and delineating an ethos of Catholicism, a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach to life in Christ. Karl Rahner's Theological Aesthetics does so by placing the German Jesuit and his teacher, philosopher Martin Heidegger, into a richly detailed dialogue on aesthetics. The book treats classic Rahner topics such as anthropology and Christology. But it breaks new ground by exploring themes such as angels, Mary, and the apocalypse, juxtaposed with analogous philosophical topics in Heidegger.

Since its emergence in the sixties of the last century, liberation theology in Latin America has paid little attention to the areas of aesthetics and art. At the same time, theological aesthetics seldom has been directly and explicitly concerned about the reality of the poor and the struggle for justice. This mutual disinterest between liberation theology and theological aesthetics is regrettable, because discerning a correlation between them would benefit both theological disciplines in their attempt to understand the saving action of God in the world. It is the intention of this book to fill that gap. A Theological Aesthetics of Liberation correlates liberation theology and theological aesthetics, exploring different themes such as the liberating power of art, and how the Spirit of God is involved in the process of liberation in and through art. This study is a critical reflection upon the question of the beauty of Jesus Christ, especially in relationship with the event of the cross, and upon its meaning for Christian life. This book analyzes such topics in conversation with important theologians: Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jon Sobrino, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Edward Schillebeeckx, and other contemporary Christian theologians who have explored these themes.

This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesau's goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.

This book is made up of a collection of texts unavailable in one volume until now, including six previously untranslated essays, from a major theologian of the twentieth century. Rahner's numerous writings focused on the revelation of God as mystery in the world and on the human being who has an essential openness towards the transcendent. His articles reveal an empathy and a depth of insight into the relationship between theology, faith and the arts which are remarkable and may take the reader by surprise. More recently, Rahner's contribution to the growing field of theology and the arts has been recognised by leading theologians on this subject. He asserts that theology must integrate the verbal and non-verbal arts as they are authentic means of human self-expression, of religious experience, and of God's self-communication; and therefore they are essential sources of theology. Rahner argues that theology, understood as a person's 'reflexive self-expression' about him- or herself 'in the light of divine revelation', cannot be regarded as complete until 'the arts become an intrinsic moment of theology itself'.

Theological discourse in the West has consistently valued the word over the image. Aesthetics, which discerns the criteria and value of the beautiful and what "pleases the senses," is the discipline that prioritizes sensual intelligence over the rational; this book advocates a reconsideration of the doctrine of the incarnation through an aesthetics of vulnerability, in which the ethical optics of attention to the vulnerable other becomes the standpoint in which to ponder the significance of "God became human." Relying on such diverse thinkers as Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Blanchot, Karl Rahner, and Masao Abe, Susie Paulik Babka explores visual art, images, and poetry as theological sources, designating what Blanchot called "a region where impossibility is no longer deprivation, but affirmation."

Freedom Made Manifest explicates Rahner’s theology of freedom by elucidating its configuration and sources. Much of its inquiry centers on the fundamental option: each human person’s eternal decision made, paradoxically, in time, as a definitive answer to God’s personally-tailored call to salvation. This idea stems from three principal sources: Catholic conversations with transcendental-idealist philosophy, penitential theology and practice, and Ignatian spirituality. Rahner’s unique redeployment of these sources inflects the fundamental option with theologies of concupiscence, mercy and forgiveness (especially as ecclesially mediated), and devotion to Jesus Christ. Awareness of these inflections can show how Rahner’s theology of freedom may assist in theological reflection on freedom’s susceptibility to injury and trauma.

How can we theologically reflect on universality in a world that increasingly focuses on particularities and differences? Marijn de Jong argues that the question of universality calls for a reconceptualized form of metaphysical theology, which he finds in the work of Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx. Casting a new light on these theologians, de Jong demonstrates that their methods contain a dialectical interrelation of hermeneutics and metaphysics – an interrelation which seemingly has been lost in more recent hermeneutical theology. Rahner and Schillebeeckx carefully balance particularity and universality without falling prey to relativist or absolutist ways of reasoning. By analyzing fundamental themes such as experience and interpretation, nature and grace, faith and reason, and intelligibility and mystery, de Jong reveals the modest theological metaphysics that lies at the heart of their methods. This critical retrieval demonstrates the enduring relevance of these thinkers and opens up new avenues of thought for theologians that do not want to shy away from the difficult question of the universality of God.

In Spiritus Loci Bert Daelemans, who graduated as an architect and a theologian, provides an interdisciplinary method for the theological assessment of church architecture. Rather than a theory, this method is based on case studies of contemporary buildings (1995-2015), which are often criticized for lacking theological depth. In a threefold method, the author brings to light the ways in which architecture can be theology – or theotopy – by focusing on topoi (places) rather than logoi (words). Churches reveal our relationship with God by engaging our body, mind, and community. This method proves relevant not only for the way we perceive these buildings, but also for the way we use them, especially in our prophetic engagement for a better world.

This collection of articles presents the main contributions to the third LEST (Louvain Encounters in Systematic Theology) conference, held at the K.U.Leuven's Faculty of Theology, November 2001. Its theme, Theology and Conversation: Towards a Relational Theology, continues the explorations in contemporary theology as set out in the 1997 LEST I conference on The Myriad Christ (BETL 152) and in the 1999 LEST II conference on Sacramental Presence in Postmodern Context (BETL 160). In LEST III also, the plurality and diversity of theological approaches play a major role and the question is raised whether the contemporary theological endeavour in a global world contains in itself the tools to respectfully and constructively approach this diversity. The ideas of relation and conversation, as found in the theologies of the Trinity and of creation, as presupposed in ecclesial praxis, and as articulated in reflections that take their bearings from spiritual experience, provide a powerful means for renewed theological reflection capable of confronting plurality and diversity.

Karl Rahner (1904–84) was one of the most significant theological voices of the twentieth century. For many his theology has come to symbolise the Catholic Church's entry into modernity. Part of his enduring appeal lies in his ability to reflect on a whole variety of issues in theology and spirituality and concentrate this plurality into a few basic convictions. This Cambridge Companion provides an accessible introduction to the main themes of Rahner's work. Written by an international array of experts, it will be of interest to both students and scholars alike. Each chapter serves as a guide to its topic and recommends further reading for additional study. The contributors also assess Rahner's significance for contemporary theology by bringing his thought into dialogue with many current concerns including: religious pluralism, spirituality, postmodernism, ecumenism, ethics and developments in political and feminist theologies.