Anyone connected to Boston College will appreciate this book's cover image: a smiling Karl Rahner on a rainy day in Chestnut Hill, standing before the golden eagle and Gasson Hall. The image localizes, humanizes, and brings to scale a theologian who rose to titanic stature in the twentieth century and whose prominence currently resurges. Two long-time Rahner experts, Joseph Wong and Harvey Egan (Rahner's former student and, I presume, the man behind the camera), have coauthored a luminous book that places Rahner, as a humble lover of Jesus Christ who, for all his sophisticated accomplishments, aimed at little else than being a “normal Christian” and assisting others in doing the same (6).
The book has an introduction and eleven chapters; Wong and Egan split these (Leo O'Donovan, SJ, provides a generous, deeply spiritual foreword; ix–xiv). Egan introduces the book, writing of Rahner as a “sapiential theologian” (2). Wong takes up this helpful designation, stating that Rahner's theology grounds itself in “knowledge deriving from experience and joined with love” (15). Wong offers chapters on (1) transcendental Christology, (2) Christ as perfect man, (3) Jesus’ self-consciousness, (4) a sacramental-symbolic reading of Christ's death, (5) the centrality of resurrection for Rahner's Christology, and, as a transition point, (6) anonymous Christianity and the nexus between pneumatology and Christology. Egan's chapters cover Rahner's (7) mystical theology, (8) mysticism of everyday life, (9) Rahner's own thoughts (this chapter is a translation of part of a letter to Klaus Fischer, one of two such translations in the book) on the “practical logic” of mysticism (166), (10) Ignatian spirituality, and (11) devotion to Jesus. The chapters’ sheer range is stunning, and their depth, wondrous.
Two possible objections to the book are that it takes relatively minimal cognizance of recent scholarship on Rahner, and Wong and Egan repeat much of what they have published elsewhere. Such objections have limits. This book provides a key for approaching new developments in Rahner studies, and readers of prior material by Wong and Egan will detect new polish, which only decades of thought and prayer can bring.
Although even seasoned Rahnerians may struggle to explicate key ideas such as “transcendental” and “spirit in world” or how Rahner conceives of the Trinity, Wong and Egan can elucidate these in a phrase. “Transcendental” means the way that human persons are made so that Jesus “will not appear as totally strange to their experience” (Wong 87); “transcendental” signifies our “basal spiritual metabolism” (Egan 121, 144, 178). “Spirit in world” describes the human person as “a historical being who is not born ready-made” (152). Pithy explanations like these render Rahner's notorious difficulty easier, inviting new readers and fresh conversations.
It bears highlighting one key contribution from each author. Wong emphasizes the event character of Jesus (27, 80, 86–89, 109–111); Jesus is a person, but also an ongoing occurrence of transformative, life-giving encounter that all Christians, indeed all people, are welcomed to inhabit. Egan's signature offering comes in sustained reflection on the Ignatian “logic of existential decision” (166, 173, 180, 184–87). Egan reveals how Rahner's conviction that “God wills something specific for the individual” gives rise to a distinctive logic that marks the path of Christian life for individuals (who must decide to follow God's will) and for groups. Among such groups, the church is foremost, yet it is the greater society, which, collectively, must decide for good and against evil. The Christ event and the logic of existential decision—these two prime takeaways will enrich readers’ understanding of Rahner and of life.
The penetrating insights and personal connections from Wong and Egan result in a crisp text that can and should be used to introduce new generations to the wisdom of Rahner's theology, precisely through the gate of Jesus Christ (Jn 10:9) and the “Christic structure of existence” (111–15). I look forward to teaching Rahner to my upper-division undergraduates using this book; other professors for upper-division undergraduate and graduate seminars should join me. Wong and Egan are sapiential guides. Let us follow!
