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First Things reader recently sent me this remark by Editor in Chief, R. R. Reno:
"Closely related was my overconfident view, expressed in “Rahner the Restorationist,” that Karl Rahner is passé. He was the great muse of the decade or two after Vatican II. By my reckoning, the social conditions that made him so alluring—most importantly the nostalgia for an integral Christian culture—are no longer in place. But Pope Francis shows me mistaken. He talks very much like a Rahnerian, not the least when he treats unbelievers as “anonymous Christians,” a key concept in Rahner that allows one to baptize secular culture.
[Hat tip to G.N.]
Old apostasists never die; nor do they just fade away; they are sucked into the dry-sponge synapses of the callow and inferior intellects of subsequent generations.
ReplyDeleteWho says that the arc of intellectual evolution points ever-upward? Who says that it is an arc at all? It more resembles the congeries of silly string coming from a can wielded by a hyperactive three year old.
ReplyDelete"...the congeries of silly string coming from a can wielded by a hyperactive three year old."... Perfect!
Reminds me of trying to make sense of Communication Theory when I was writing my dissertation. Came across a line from Alister McGrath that summed up my feelings. He admitted to feeling "verbally defeated by Frei's prose, which is the most opaque I have ever been obliged to wrestle with." In a similar fashion, even after reading reams upon reams of Vatican II theology, one is left with the feeling that these guys either do not know quite what it is they are talking about, or they are determined to make sure that absolutely no one who might question their orthodoxy will ever be able to definitively summarize what it is they are talking about. Neither of which are flattering things to conclude about standard-bearer theologians.