GOD AND THE UNCONSCIOUS: ON KARL RAHNER, JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, AND THE FREUDIAN UNCONSCIOUS.

摘要

This essay is, primarily, a study in the theology of Karl Rahner and, secondarily, a study in the Freudian concept of the unconscious, as mediated through Paul Ricoeur.; The first, introductory chapter presents the main argument--that Karl Rahner could not deny certain features of the Freudian unconscious and still consistently assert that justification is by faith, not only because of human sinfulness, but also because of the limits of human creaturliness.; Rahner explains the permanent inability of human persons to know themselves fully in two different ways: (1) in terms of the permanent many-layeredness of human material existence and (2) in terms of the unity of the mystery of God and the mystery of human persons. This essay uses the first explanation and rejects the second.; The next four chapters amass evidence to show that Rahner assumes the permanence of unconscious modes of human functioning. Chapter two presents Rahner's formulation of the uncertainty of human knowledge concerning justification. Chapter three presents Rahner's doctrine of concupiscence, which includes a level of concupiscence that is neither sinful nor a consequence of sin. Chapter four presents Rahner's views on death, the consummate manifestation of concupiscence, and argues that the neutral core of death and concupiscence is a function of human materiality. Chapter five discusses Rahner's metaphysics of knowledge, and argues that the dependence of human knowledge on objects in the world shows that human materiality is the cause of the incompleteness and potentiality of human self knowledge.; Chapter six presents the features of the Freudian unconscious, which this essay claims are assumed by Rahner: (1) the permanence of the unconscious; (2) the unconscious as a function of the dependence of embodied human persons on objects in the world. Alternate readings of Freud are discussed and rejected, particularly, revisionist readings of Freud which would discard Freud's metapsychology and his language of energies and forces.; Chapter seven, the conclusion, summarizes the results of the preceding arguments.