The Charge Against Rahner (Part 2): Anonymous Christians?

Man’s implicit knowledge of God is a ‘transcendental revelation’ which remains somewhat shadowy and moves towards an explicit, categorical revelation. This revelation is Jesus Christ. Other religions, however, can be seen as legitimate means of salvation insofar as they have not yet encountered the truth of Christianity in an existentially meaningful way. He states that his view of other religions is analogous to the religion of Israel which was a lawful religion which enabled its faithful adherents to attain salvation. If non-Christians are to be saved then they must be able to receive grace through their religious traditions (for man is a socio-historical being). All this does not relativise Christianity which remains the absolute religion and Jesus Christ the final mediator of grace. For Rahner then, adherents of other religions can be viewed as “anonymous Christians” because they receive grace which ultimately derives from Christ himself even though they remain ignorant of this fact. Rahner is opposed to the approach of “dialectical theology” to the theology of religions which posits a sharp distinction between the revelation of Christianity and the unbelief and humanly constructed character which permeates the other religions. This is so because of his transcendental anthropology wherein all humanity is implicitly seeking God.

One of the major criticisms of Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” is that it seems to do away with the salvific efficacy of Christ’s death on the cross. Karl Rahner asks the question of how Jesus Christ can be said to be present in the lives of non-Christians. He affirms that Christ is present in the lives of these individuals through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is present through the “merits of Christ.” Here Rahner, however, encounters a problem. He does not wish to assert that Christ’s death in anyway ‘changes the mind of God’ – he appears to have a somewhat crude atonement theory in mind wherein the mind of a capricious God is appeased through the sacrifice of his Son. He wants to steer clear of any such notions and also maintain the basic continuity of the revelation of Christ with general, transcendental revelation – it is simply a fuller revelation of what was already implicit – the historical and dramatic aspect of the Christ-event is downplayed. Thus Rahner posits that rather than being an ‘efficient cause’ of God’s grace (i.e. it actually brings it about), the Cross is to be seen as the ‘final’ cause of God’s grace – the sign of his irrevocable and tangible gift of the Spirit for our salvation. It seems clear that Rahner has abandoned the traditional Christian emphasis on the salvific efficacy of the Cross of Christ of which the New Testament is replete. In so doing he also seems to minimise the tragic aspects of life and the brokenness and sinfulness of our human condition. In a sense his theory can appear overly optimistic – he downplays the extent to which human beings reject God’s offer of Himself for a far more optimistic notion that in confronting adherents of other religions one should approach them as if they were already living a life of grace and so are “anonymous Christians”.

This leads on to a second major criticism of Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” and that is that it appears to render mission somewhat superfluous. If God’s universal salvific will (and this cannot be denied regardless of what position one takes regarding Rahner) means that humanity is already ‘enveloped’ in grace and on the path to salvation – the necessity of preaching the gospel “to the ends of the earth” appears to lose its urgency. As the then Cardinal Ratizinger points out, all individuals now seem to be able to be saved simply by virtue of fully accepting their humanity and the Christian “plus” is merely that he realises he is grasped by God’s love. This seems apparent in the following passage by Rahner: “anyone who courageously accepts life…has really already accepted God.” The particularity of Christianity, the necessity of the Church, the sacramental system and so forth no longer appear absolutely necessary. The explicit proclamation of having heard Jesus’ call and responded to it are of the essence of Christianity and the formation of disciples and preaching the word is absolutely necessary for this to take place. If others are “anonymous Christians”, however, this urgency is lost, for by becoming Christian, people would merely be moving into the realm of the explicit and visible sign of God’s self-communication. The notion of conversion seems to disappear. Rahner is sensitive to these criticisms and argues that implicit faith is always striving to be made explicit and so all people are still called to become members of the Church. He also adds that Christians have a greater chance of salvation than those who remain outside. Despite these attempted assurances (and Rahner’s basically orthodox intentions cannot be doubted) it is difficult to dismiss the charge that the notion of the “anonymous Christian” does certainly make mission seem far less of an important issue than the major task of the Church which it has long been held to be. Rahner does state, however, that anyone who closed himself off to ‘explicit faith’ could not be justified by implicit faith and so the basic problem may lie to an extent in Rahner’s use of ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ which certainly tends towards a misunderstanding of Rahner’s position as making the ‘explicit’ superfluous. Von Balthasar charged Rahner with basically positing an Enlightenment version of religion, a general theory of religion – universally applicable to all men and doing away with particularity.

Or so the story goes. But is it a fair account of Rahner’s position? Does his theology ultimately end up with Christians annihilating themselves, as Balthasar has it in his dialogue between the commissar and the Christian (a Rahnerian) in The Moment of Christian Witness? “You’ve liquidated yourselves and spared us the trouble”…

Another criticism of Rahner has been directed at him from both so-called ‘pluralists’ and ‘exclusivists’. This is that the term “anonymous Christian” is in fact ‘imperialistic’ and an impediment to dialogue. John Hick is one who has thus accused Rahner – stating that if one regards the adherents of non-Christian religions as basically ‘crypto-Christians’ then one is simply imposing a Christian identity on them whether they like it or not. Rahner, however, never meant for the term to be used in the confrontation with other religions, rather it was an intra-Christian term. The force of the argument is somewhat nullified when one considers that Hick basically tells adherents of all religions (including Christianity) that their beliefs and practices are simply expressions of a common religious experience of man and that he knows better than all of them what their fundamental beliefs really are. Rahner is working within a Christian dogmatic framework and any charges of ‘arrogance’ are simply misplaced – they are essentially arguments against the claims of Christianity to be the absolute religion – one can argue against this if one wishes but in doing so one ceases to be a Christian. Similarly Lindbeck argues that any notions of “implicit faith” such as the “anonymous Christian” are a hindrance to dialogue. It is better, says Lindbeck to dispense with any such designations and treat the other religions as they would like to be treated – as distinct readings of being. “The otherness of the other” (Milbank) is thereby respected and an authentic dialogue can commence. There is certainly some force to this argument and it certainly appears more honest than when Hick levels it at Rahner.