Can't Have you Miss Rahner

Until the Mid XX Century, Catholic Theologians could read · Can't Have you Miss Rahner · Or Ayala

Hoffmann has this to say:

Karl Rahner was not deterred by the pope’s introductory warning and in fact used the ensuing symposium as the occasion to report that he had changed his mind and no longer considered polygenism to be theologically objectionable. He summarized his new perspective in a 1967 essay and expanded it for a 1970 publication in which he commented that Paul VI’s speech had not prevented the symposium participants from considering polygenism compatible with original sin doctrine. As he wrote in December of 1967:

The question of polygenism within Catholic theology may with all due respect for the interpretation of Humani Generis be treated as still open. There is certainly no dogma of monogenism. Cautious theological reflection enables us to show today that Trent’s dogma of original sin does not exclude polygenism. The two can coexist. On this point I have reappraised my own earlier view (Rahner 1967a, xii).

Rahner presented his new position as a thesis to be defended.

In the present state of theology and natural science, it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that polygenism is incompatible with the orthodox doctrine of original sin. Therefore, it is preferable and more prudent that the magisterium refrain from censuring polygenism (Rahner 1970, 185).

Rahner explained that he used a negative formulation because polygenism is a scientific hypothesis that cannot be deduced theologically. He offered two polygenetic hypotheses as legitimate settings for the occurrence of original sin. One possibility was that a single individual sinned and thereby blocked “the grace-transmitting function” of the entire human population. This was essentially the process he had hypothetically discussed in 1954 and then discarded as incompatible with the teachings of Trent unless the propagation of sin transpires in a manner other than through physical descent, a possibility he now accepted. Rahner also suggested another option that would involve a collective sin so that Adam represents “the concrete expression used for that one group,” the population that caused “the consequences which traditional teaching attaches to this sin” (Rahner 1967b, 71).

"There is certainly no dogma of monogenism."
Well, there is at the very least a taking for granted of monogenism in the context of dogma.

"Cautious theological reflection enables us to show today that Trent’s dogma of original sin does not exclude polygenism."
Cautious? Or highly incautious?

"In the present state of theology and natural science, it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that polygenism is incompatible with the orthodox doctrine of original sin."
But in the previous state, in the times of Haydock, it could?

Is theology regressing as science progresses?

The allegation is reminiscent of the certainly unfair quip about "God of the gaps" ... but it is provoked by attitudes such as Rahner's ...

If the quip is not fair to Catholic theology, it is fair to Rahner.

"He offered two polygenetic hypotheses as legitimate settings for the occurrence of original sin."

All ears ...

"One possibility was that a single individual sinned and thereby blocked “the grace-transmitting function” of the entire human population. This was essentially the process he had hypothetically discussed in 1954 and then discarded as incompatible with the teachings of Trent unless the propagation of sin transpires in a manner other than through physical descent, a possibility he now accepted."

"Unless the propagation of sin transpires in a manner other than physical descent"

Which is how it was always understood. We are ented into the sin of Adam by our physical descent. We are ented into the righteousness of Christ by Baptism. Propagatio is from:

1) the breeding of specimens of a plant or animal by natural processes from the parent stock.
"the propagation of plants by root cuttings"

In other words, allowing propagation to proceed by other means than physical descent means, it is not propagation.

But what about the next sense?

2) the action of widely spreading and promoting an idea, theory, etc.
"a life devoted to the propagation of the Catholic faith"

This would fall into "imitatione" ... something denied by Trent V.

So, option one by Rahner is out.

Rahner also suggested another option that would involve a collective sin so that Adam represents “the concrete expression used for that one group,” the population that caused “the consequences which traditional teaching attaches to this sin”

In fact, collective sins are individual sins. If no individual of a whole collective sins, the collective doesn't sin. One tends to speak of collective sins as in the fact of others already sinning being a weakening of one's resolve not to sin, and therefore a mitigation of individual responsibility. This could not happen if one was not already weakened before that by original sin. Collective sins cannot explain the original one.

This is also the response or a second response to the first one.

"One possibility was that a single individual sinned and thereby blocked “the grace-transmitting function” of the entire human population."

The one thing we do know about the original grace-transmitting function is that it would have been by propagation. This is sth only parents could block in relation to children, and for it to be blocked for all children, for the entire mankind, the parents doing it need to be the original single parent couple or even a single parent.

But I think the idea is about how in the Church today, certainly not on the level of the Church universal, but on the level of a parish or a diocese, the sin of one man could indeed block the grace transmitting function of the Church. In the Church, grace is transmitted sacramentally. A man could invalidate his sacraments or tie them to evil conditions that block the grace, if he were curate or bishop. However, this is to recall, God can confer His grace without the viciated sacraments, and as long as the sin in superiors is limited locally, it can be corrected from the outside. Similarily, parallel to parents (going back to the more Catholic version, for a moment) blocking grace for their children by their sins, there would be graces not blocked by parents, there would be parallel tribes of immortals with no sin tainting them.

The problem with this model is, we receive grace through sacraments instead of first from parents and then from walking directly with God, only due to Adam's sin. A condition following from its completion in effect, cannot explain what it is in its origin. Hence, this model too for polygenism is off too, even heavily so. A condition that's God's medicine for the fall cannot be one which preceded the fall and therefore and explains it.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Pentecost*
28.V.2023

* Will be published on May 29th, Pentecost Monday