UNIVERSITY OF SAINT MARY OF THE LAKE

MUNDELEIN SEMINARY

KARL RAHNER AND THE EUCHARIST: THE MEANING OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION

AND SYMBOL

CLASSICS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY THEOLOGY

BY

MICHAEL BRUMMOND

MUNDELEIN, ILLINOIS

NOVEMBER 2012
 1

In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Humani Generis which addressed “some

false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine.”1 Among the

errors he noted at the time he mentioned those surrounding the Eucharist with brevity and clarity:

Some even say that the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic
notion of substance, should be so modified that the real presence of Christ in the Holy
Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism, whereby the consecrated species would be
merely efficacious signs of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with
the faithful members of His Mystical Body.2

The following decade and a half would see certain theologians, both Catholic and

Protestant, attempting revisions of the traditional formulae in favor of expressions such as

“transignification” or “transfinalization.” Such was situation into which Pope Paul VI would

intervene with his own encyclical Myterium Fidei in 1965, confirming and amplifying the

affirmations of Humani Generis in regards to the perennial validity of the formulae enshrined in

the Council of Trent. Regarding the dogma of transubstantiation, the Pope criticizes those who

presume “to take doctrine that has already been defined by the Church and consign it to oblivion or else

interpret it in such a way as to weaken the genuine meaning of the words or the recognized force of the

concepts involved.”3 The Pope further specifies:

To give an example of what We are talking about, it is not permissible to…concentrate

on the notion of sacramental sign as if the symbolism—which no one will deny is
certainly present in the Most Blessed Eucharist—fully expressed and exhausted the
manner of Christ's presence in this Sacrament; or to discuss the mystery of
transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the
marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole
substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ….4

Finally, Pope Paul VI affirmed the continuing viability of the traditional forms of

expression:

1
Pius XII, “Humani Generis http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-
xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html (accessed October 28, 2012).
2
Ibid., 26.
3
Paul VI, “Mysterium Fidei,” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-
vi_enc_03091965_mysterium_en.html (accessed October 28, 2012), 10.
4
Ibid., 11.
 2

…it cannot be tolerated that any individual should on his own authority take something away from the
formulas which were used by the Council of Trent to propose the Eucharistic Mystery for our belief.
These formulas…express concepts that are not tied to a certain specific form of human culture, or to a
certain level of scientific progress, or to one or another theological school. Instead they set forth what the
human mind grasps of reality through necessary and universal experience and what it expresses in apt and
exact words, whether it be in ordinary or more refined language. For this reason, these formulas are
adapted to all men of all times and all places. 5

It was largely between the writings of these two pontiffs who demanded precision in

expression and faithfulness to the tridentine formulation, that Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904-1984)

undertook his own investigation of the theology of the Eucharist. In Rahner, one finds a

theologian striving to authentically appropriate the faith and formulations of Trent while at the

same time seeking to establish the legitimate limits of these modes of expression. Moreover,

while not denying the content and legitimate validity of these traditional ways of speaking, he

proposes his own contribution to an understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. This paper shall

examine these two facets of Rahner’s theology of the Eucharist through an examination of his

understanding of the terms transubstantiation and symbol.6 Doing so will necessarily also bring

us into contact with his larger sacramental theology, which is itself rooted in his metaphysics (a

metaphysics of symbol) and ecclesiology.

Rahner on Transubstantiation

Rahner offers an ample discussion of the Eucharistic presence and the doctrine of

transubstantiation in his article “The Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.”7

This material was originally presented in the context of ecumenical dialog, specifically a lecture

given to Catholic and Protestant theologians in which Rahner attempted to show the points of

contact and divergence between the Catholic and Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist. He begins
5
Ibid., 24.
6
The Rahnerian corpus being quite extensive, this examination cannot, of course, claim to be exhaustive. Needless
to say, the conclusions drawn here are only valid for the works cited, and while the author attempted to find all
works that clearly discuss the matter, no claim is made regarding the development of Rahner’s thought beyond the
bibliography herein contained.
7
Karl Rahner, “The Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,” in Theological Investigations, Vol.
IV, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966).
 3

by rehearsing many of the central aspects of the doctrine of the presence of Christ in the

Eucharist following principally the declarations of the Council of Trent. He affirms with the

council the real presence of Christ according to the varying formulations used by Trent, noting

that Trent itself appealed to the words of Christ for the proper (and not metaphorical) meaning of

the real presence.8

Rahner goes on to affirm with Trent that the whole Christ is present under each species,

body, blood, soul, and divinity. This presence is brought about by the word of blessing

pronounced over the gifts. Rahner places more emphasis on the enduring significance of the

word for the real presence than does Trent: “It is only by their being constantly referred back to

the words of consecration that the species of bread and wine constitute the sign…which indicates

and contains the presence of Christ.”9 This sign of Christ’s presence is also, for Rahner,

constituted by the elements’ relation to being a meal. As a result, “the more clearly…the

reverent adoration of Christ in the sacrament is referred back to the eating of the body of Christ,

the more Eucharistic piety corresponds to the full truth and reality of the sacrament.”10 Since the

nature of nourishment is prior to actually consuming the species, however, Rahner agrees with

Trent that “Christ is present before the actual usus.”11 Moreover, this presence exists

independently of the faith of the minister or the recipient.

Rahner then suggests that, “if we prescind for the moment from the question of ‘in usu –

ante usum,’” the aforementioned doctrines are, in fact, essentially held in common by the

Catholic and the Lutheran.12 The starkest difference between the two confessions, however, is

8
Ibid., 291.
9
Ibid., 292.
10
Ibid., 293.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 294.
 4

the Catholic insistence on the doctrine of transubstantiation in connection with the real presence.

Hence, we come to Rahner’s explanation of the meaning of transubstantiation.

After repeating the meaning of transubstantiation given by the Council of Trent and

citing other instances of the term in magisterial documents including the reference in Humani

Generis above, Rahner summarizes by saying that “the Church would have had to deny its own

being, as it understood itself to be, if it gave up this doctrine.”13 Hence, the Council of Trent

took the doctrine of transubstantiation as a definitive expression of the orthodox faith in the real

presence without much debate. The “proof” of transubstantiation for the Council of Trent,

however, is rooted in the very words of Christ as he offered His body to the apostles:

“But if what Christ gives his apostles is his body, and if we must really and truly take it,
without misgivings, that what our experience knows apart from our faith in the word of
Christ is the same as before: then this two-fold premise, if it is not to be voided in one
direction or the other, can be expressed by saying that what is given is really and truly the
body of Christ, under the experimental reality (but only this!) of bread.14

In this sense, and independent of any particular philosophical framework, the Eucharist is

definitively the substance of the body of Christ and precisely not that of bread. Rahner

highlights this fact by considering the Eucharist under the category of “event.” In the Eucharist

there is a “happening” such that “it was not always true that this was the body of Christ,” thus

necessitating a kind of transformation.15 “For if what is given is also simply bread, hence bread

from every aspect, hence the substance of bread…it would not be the body of Christ, but

bread.”16

Up to this point, Rahner has been giving what he sees as the reasons for holding the

doctrine of transubstantiation. In explaining the “meaning and limits of the affirmation which

13
Ibid., 297.
14
Ibid., 297-298, emphasis original.
15
Ibid., 299.
16
Ibid., emphasis original.
 5

speaks of transubstantiation,”17 he begins with an important conceptual distinction. He

distinguishes between a logical explanation of a matter, and an ontic explanation. A logical

explanation, he says, makes the matter explained clearer by “interpreting it on its own terms” not

offering new information distinct from the original matter: “The logical explanation…explains

by giving precisions, but does not affirm anything else in explanation of the matter in hand.”18 A

logical explanation can be such even if it employs new terminology. On the other hand, an ontic

explanation would assert something new in addition to the matter to be explained, such as

“indications of its cause, of the precise, concrete way in which it came about and so on.”19 So,

for instance, I can explain my car not starting logically by referring to the engine not turning over

– for that is what it means to say my car won’t start. I explain the same event ontically when I

refer to the fact that I left the headlights on and have a dead battery – an explanation of the cause

beyond the original affirmation.20

Rahner, holds that transubstantiation is a logical explanation of the words of Christ. As

such, the doctrine of transubstantiation essentially guards against any weakening of the sense of

Christ’s words: “By this I mean that the doctrine of transubstantiation tells me no more than do

the words of Christ, when I take them seriously.”21 Transubstantiation, then, does not explain the

“how” of the real presence for Rahner: “It is a way of formulating the truth that the body is

present, and it is correct and significant so far as it explains and defends that truth.”22 The upshot

of this approach is that one can hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation while not at the same
17
Ibid., 300.
18
Ibid., 300.
19
Ibid., 301.
20
Rahner remarks makes the following observation, pertinent to the original ecumenical context of the article:
“The difference between Catholic and Protestant theology here seems to me to be only this…that for the Catholic
theologian the logical explanation of the words of Scripture by the Church can become a definite truth of faith,
while on principle for the protestant theologian it remains – theology, which is always subject to revision in the
opposite sense.” Ibid., 302.
21
Ibid., 302.
22
Ibid., 303.
 6

time necessarily accepting a scholastic (or any other) metaphysics: “This [transubstantiation]

rests solely on the words of Christ, and implies only the possibility of what is implied in these

words of Christ: it does not imply other matters which can only be known by presupposing a

given philosophical system.”23 In fact, for Rahner, “it is a priori improbable… that a dogma can

only be formulated and understood in dependence on a well-defined philosophical system.”24

This means that “the truths of the faith do not clearly imply any particular philosophical system,

which would then be imposed as binding by the magisterium on account of this implication.”25

Hence, the meaning of terms like substance and species must be derived not in the first place

according to an Aristotelian or scholastic framework, but primarily from the reality being

explained, i.e. the real presence:

In an adequate and comprehensively valid statement of reality, therefore where God

speaks or where man may rightly speak on his own behalf, substance is that which makes
it objectively true that a certain thing pointed to and distributed is either really bread and
bread alone, or is not bread, but the body of Christ. The species is the empirical
appearances of a thing, as it presents itself to us, but not as criticized from a higher, more
comprehensive, “truer,” standpoint. In this sense of the words we say: out of the
substance of bread, while the mere species of bread remains, the substance of the body of
Christ has come to be.26

Referring to matters that remain “obscure and open,” Rahner points out what may be an

application of this philosophically neutral understanding of transubstantiation. He suggests we

need a better definition of what we mean by the substance of bread:

But still one can no longer maintain today that bread is a substance, as St Thomas and the
Fathers of the Council [of Trent] obviously thought it was. One can only regard a morsel
of bread as an agglomeration of substances and we do not know in which elementary
particles the notion of substance is verified….27

23
Ibid., 303, emphasis original.
24
Ibid., 290.
25
Ibid., 290.
26
Ibid., 304.
27
Ibid., 307-308.
 7

While the scholastic doctrine of transubstantiation must address these difficulties, for Rahner,

transubstantiation as a logical explanation of the real presence is unaffected by this struggle to

define the substance of bread.

So, in Karl Rahner we find a theologian who embraces the ontological weight of the real

presence and the traditional formulae used to express that presence. His understanding of

transubstantiation, however, ties him to no single philosophical approach while maintaining what

he sees as the content of the doctrine. This frees him to explore other modes of expressing that

same content. He suggests a path for such exploration:

But is there not more to be gained in the line of a profounder insight into the mystery of
the Eucharist than we now possess explicitly, from a well-intentioned rekindling of the
antagonism – not contradiction – between the transformism of St Ambrose and the very
realistic symbolism of St Augustine?

Following the Augustinian route, it is to Rahner’s exploration of the meaning of symbol that we

shall now turn.

Rahner’s and Symbol

Nothing raises the suspicion of many (“conservative”) Catholics as quickly as referring to

the Eucharist as a “symbol.” As William V. Dych observes,

…to call the Eucharist a symbol resounds in some ears as tantamount to a denial of the
real presence of the paschal mystery of Jesus in the Eucharist. “Is this presence real, or is
it just symbolic,” is a common shibboleth used to distinguish the true believers from
heretics. There are, of course, many meanings of “symbol” that could justify this
suspicion, but it is clear from Rahner’s understanding of a real symbol in Christology that
the suspicion is unfounded in the application of his understanding to Eucharistic
presence.28

Hence, to uncover Rahner’s intention, we shall examine his theology of symbol, and then its

application to sacramental theology.

28
William V. Dych, “Karl Rahner’s Theology of the Eucharist,” Philosophy & Theology 11, 1 (1998): 130-131.
 8

Rahner’s theology of symbol is based in an “ontology of symbolism.” As a first basic

principle he asserts that “all beings are by their nature symbolic, because they necessarily

‘express’ themselves in order to attain their own nature.”29 That all reality is symbolic is rooted

in the interplay in all being between unity and plurality:

[E]very being as such possesses a plurality as intrinsic element of its significant unity; this
plurality constitutes itself, by virtue of its origin from an original unity, as the way to fulfil [sic]
the unity…, in such a way that that which is originated and different is in agreement with its
origin and hence has…the character of expression or “symbol” with regard to its origin.30

Hence, all being is symbolic, because all being “expresses itself, because it must realize

itself through a plurality in unity.”31 He distinguishes, however, between at least two kinds of

symbols. “Symbolic representations” are more or less arbitrary signs in which any one thing

could be said to be a symbol of any other thing. On the other hand “symbolic realities” (hence

the term “Real Symbol”] are more a constitutive part of his ontology. These are symbols, “in

which one reality renders another present…allows the other ‘to be there.’”32

This, then, is the ontological density of the idea of symbol. Any given being fulfills itself

only insofar as it expresses itself to another: “…symbol is the reality in which another attains

knowledge of a being.”33 The primary meaning of symbol for Rahner, then, is as follows:

As a being realizes itself in its own intrinsic “otherness”…, retentive of its intrinsic
plurality… as its derivative and hence congruous expression, it makes itself known….
The being is known in this symbol, without which it cannot be known at all: thus it is
symbol in the original (transcendental) sense of the word.34

From all that has been said Rahner develops a second principle: symbolic reality “is the

self-realization of a being in the other, which is constitutive of its essence.”35 Hence, wherever
29
Karl Rahner, “The Theology of Symbol,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. IV, trans. Kevin Smyth (Baltimore:
Helicon Press, 1966), 224.
30
Ibid., 229.
31
Ibid., 229.
32
Ibid., 225.
33
Ibid., 230, emphasis original.
34
Ibid., 231
35
Ibid., 234.
 9

we find any being attaining to the fullness of its essence, Rahner affirms that there is always

symbolic reality involved.36 Put the other way around, where symbol is involved (as it is in all

beings), the symbol allows the symbolized to be present in its true reality. We may remark at

this point that this is a far cry from “mere” symbols, or what Rahner calls “symbolic

representations.” We are not dealing with a more or less arbitrary sign; we are talking about a

constitutive element of all being. For Rahner, wherever there is being, there is necessarily being

expressing itself to another. Where being is expressing itself to another, we have a symbol. And

where we have a symbol, we have the reality of the symbolized.

It is therefore no surprise that, since Rahner finds symbol in all reality, he finds symbol in

theological realities. In fact, he says that theology becomes incomprehensible unless it is

understood as a theology of symbols.37 He constructs a kind of chain of symbols within theology

to demonstrate his point. The examples he offers are illustrative of the kind of theological,

ontological weight he gives to the notion of symbol that he will bring as a category to the

sacraments. For instance, he says that our approach to the Logos is a theology of symbol, since,

after all, “the Logos is the ‘word’ of the Father, his perfect ‘image,’ his ‘imprint,’ his radiance,

his self-expression.”38 If there were a theology of symbol to be written, Rahner says,

“Christology, the doctrine of the incarnation of the Word, will obviously form the central

chapter.”39 The incarnate Word is, for Rahner, the apex of the symbol of God present to the

world. Furthermore, as the Word is the symbol of the Father, so the human nature of Christ is

the symbol of the Word: “The humanity is the self-disclosure of the Logos itself, so that when

God, expressing himself, exteriorizes himself, that very thing appears which we call the

36
Ibid., 234.
37
Ibid., 235.
38
Ibid., 236.
39
Ibid., 237.
 10

humanity of the Logos.”40 Again, the Logos and the humanity assumed can be symbols in this

strict sense of the term precisely because they are “revelatory, because the symbol renders

present what is revealed.”41 Even further, the Church is seen as the symbol of Christ in the

world, the “persisting presence of the incarnate Word in space and time.”42 The Church as such

is a kind of efficacious sign that actually brings about the acceptance of what God offers.43

Stephen Fields summarizes: “As a Realsymbol, the Church is both distinct from and identical

with its signified reality, the glorified Christ, the effective means of sanctification.”44

With this chain of symbolic theology forged, with this precise meaning of symbol in

mind, the sacraments easily fall into place as symbolic realities without any hint of suggesting

that they are “mere” symbols in the pedestrian sense. In defense of this idea, Rahner points to

the axioms of sacramental theology: sacraments, as sacred signs, effect what they signify and

signify what they effect.45 In fact, Rahner suggests that sacramental theology is “the classic

place in which a theology of the symbol is put forward in general Catholic theology.”46 In fact,

specifically within the context of discussing the sacraments he gives another definition of what

he means by “symbol” that will again signal to the reader that this is no “mere” sign:

By “natural symbols” or intrinsically real symbols, we mean for our purpose here, the
spatio-temporal, historical phenomenon, the visible and tangible form in which
something appears, notifies its presence, and by doing so, makes present, bodying forth
this manifestation really distinct from itself.47

Rahner points to the importance of understanding sacraments as symbols in connection to

sacramental causality. Sacraments cause grace precisely as symbolic realities: “In a word, the
40
Ibid., 239.
41
Ibid., 239.
42
Ibid., 240.
43
Stephen M. Fields, Being as Symbol: On the Origins and Development of Karl Rahner’s Metaphysics (Washington
DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000), 47.
44
Ibid., 47-48.
45
Ibid., 241.
46
Rahner, “The Theology of Symbol,” 241.
47
Karl Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963), 37.
 11

grace of God constitutes itself actively present in the sacraments by creating their expression,

their historical tangibility in space and time, which is its own symbol.”48 Sacraments are

efficacious insofar as they are symbols because they are the actualization of the Church’s nature:

“Precisely in as much as the Church’s whole reality is to be the real presence of God’s grace…

these sacramental signs are efficacious.”49 Hence, grace is caused by being signified, because

such signification, under the theory of symbol put forth, is the actual presence of the grace

signified, grace made manifest.

Stephen Fields points out that the shift Rahner is making here, is a decidedly

ecclesiological shift in understanding sacramental causality: “He [Rahner] replaces instrumental

causality with the Realsymbol and applies its causality to the Church, which the sacraments in

turn efficaciously signify.”50 Sacraments are symbols because they “make concrete and actual”

the reality of the Church in the life of the believer. The sacraments are symbols because the

Church, from which the sacraments derive, is itself a symbol. Hence, the sacraments are

efficacious signs of the Church.51 As Rahner says, “This concept of the intrinsic symbol… must

now be employed if we are to grasp what characterizes sacramental causation, and if we are to do

this on the basis of the ecclesiological origin of the sacraments.”52

So if one conceives of this theology of symbol as links in a chain, the Eucharist is the

symbol that links us to the reality of the Church. On might naturally expect the Eucharist to be

the symbol (in the Rahnerian sense) of Christ to us, but his Rahner’s theology of symbol places

the sacraments, and preeminently the Eucharist, in an ecclesiological context. This is because,

for Rahner, “viewed in relation to the sacraments, the Church is the primal and fundamental

48
Rahner, “The Theology of Symbol,” 242.
49
Rahner, The Church and Sacraments, 39.
50
Fields, 46.
51
Ibid., 48.
52
Karl Rahner, The Church and the Sacraments, 39, emphasis added.
 12

sacrament.”53 The Eucharist is the symbol that makes present and actual the mystery of the

Church:

We can and must say that participation in the physical body of Christ by the reception of
this sacrament imparts the grace of Christ to us in so far as this partaking of one bread is
an efficacious sign of the renewed, deeper, and personally ratified participation and
incorporation in that Body of Christ in which one can share in the Holy Spirit, that is to
say, the Church.54

The language Rahner uses to describe this relationship of Eucharist to Church is the

language he used to describe the ontology of a symbol. Recall that, in his understanding of a

symbol, a reality comes to the fullness of its essence in expressing itself to another, and thus

making itself present to the other. He applies this concept to the Church celebrating the

Eucharist as the symbol of its reality:

Because he really gives himself in ever new sacramental manifestation as sacrifice for the
Church and as sacrifice of the Church, because he exists in the Church in visible and
tangible sacramental form, there is the Church. She is most manifest and in the most
intensive form, she attains the highest actuality of her own nature, when she celebrates
the eucharist.55

The Eucharist, then is a Rahnerian symbol because it is only through the Eucharist “that

the real presence of Jesus in his paschal mystery can become visible, audible, and tangible in his

community.”56 The Eucharist, in particular, exhibits a unique symbolism which “arises from the

substantial presence of the Incarnate Word under the species of the natural signs of bread and

wine.”57 However, as a real symbol derived from the Church, the real presence takes on a

specifically ecclesiological meaning: “Even the real presence, which the theological tradition

usually specifies as the Eucharist’s symbolic reality, is derived from the Church. Christ’s

53
Ibid., 19.
54
Ibid., 83.
55
Ibid., 84.
56
Dych, 131.
57
Fields, 50.
 13

Eucharistic body obtains only because the Church is first constituted as Christ’s body.”58 Fields

offers the following summary of the nature of the Eucharist as symbol:

In sum, the Eucharist, like all the sacraments, is a Realsymbol that mediates its signified
reality intrinsically, dynamically, and reciprocally. It is intrinsic because the Eucharist
substantially and univocally embodies its signified reality…. It is dynamic because the
Eucharist signifies and causes the Church, which signifies and causes the Eucharist when,
through its efficacious word, it makes natural signs channels of grace. It is reciprocal
because the person receiving the Eucharist returns to what is received, Christ….59

Conclusion and Analysis

Karl Rahner sought a way to formulate the doctrine of the Eucharist that was

faithful to the Church’s constant tradition, while that the same time proposing his own insights

into the Eucharistic mystery. His theology of how to express or explain these realities was

rooted in a deep sense of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, founded on the very words

of Christ, words that remain efficacious in the Church for all times.

When it comes to the doctrine of transubstantiation, Rahner seems to feel bound to retain

the medieval formula. The tradition of the Church, in both ecumenical councils (Lateran IV and

Trent) and in the writings of modern Popes (Pius XII and Paul VI) affirmed transubstantiation as

a privileged way to speak about the mode of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. While

at least tacitly embracing the term, Rahner does see potential problems with its use. With the

insights of the modern empirical sciences, substance in the classical sense is no longer thought to

exist. Rahner, therefore, offers what he finds to be the limits of the doctrine of transubstantiation

by categorizing it as a “logical explanation.” Transubstantiation says no more than the words of

Christ, “This is my body.” Thus, he apparently frees the term from its bondage to outmoded

philosophies and forms of thought.

58
Ibid., 51.
59
Ibid., 52.
 14

If Rahner did indeed empty transubstantiation of its historical and philosophical baggage,

one could just as easily ask if he has also emptied the term of its content altogether. After all, the

term only arose within those historical circumstances and particular philosophies. What value

remains in the doctrine of transubstantiation divorced from its context? Apparently little. For

once Rahner tidied up the doctrine, eliminating its seemingly embarrassing loose ends, he put it

on the shelf and makes little use of it in the remainder of his sacramental theology.

Instead, he turns to the category of symbol as a central explanatory tool in his

sacramental theology. This is both a return (as Rahner sees it) to a more Augustinian

understanding of the sacraments, and a turn toward an explanation for the modern person. After

all, who today has any experience or understanding of an allusive “substance” hidden beneath

the world of “accidents?” We all, however, have an understanding of the reality of symbols,

even if not in the refined sense Rahner uses it.

In a sense, Rahner’s use of the term “symbol” in regards to the sacraments fits easily with

established sacramental theology. Sacraments are, after all, efficacious signs of grace. Hence,

any facile criticism of Rahner’s use of symbol in sacramental theology betrays both a

misunderstanding of his use of the term as well as ignorance of basic sacramental theology.

Perhaps the more important point regarding Rahner’s use of “symbol” in regards to the

sacraments is his situating the sacraments in a larger theological context. Rahner is, in essence,

attempting an entire cohesive theology of symbol, of which the sacraments are only a piece. In

this tapestry, sacraments are situated squarely in the context of the Church. The sacraments are

efficacious because the Church is the efficacious sign (therefore symbol) of Christ in the world,

and the sacraments in turn make present and actual the Church.
 15

Rahner’s theological vision of symbol has the benefit of a certain aesthetical quality.

There appears to be a whole into which each part elegantly fits, at least potentially. It seems,

however, in the final analysis to be a theology as yet unable to come to terms with the true

density of the normative theological formulae of the tradition. One can seriously doubt whether

Rahner fulfills the doctrinal demands laid out by the two pontiffs at the beginning of this paper.

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 16

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Investigations, Vol. IV, translated by Kevin Smyth. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966.

Rahner, Karl. “The Theology of Symbol,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. IV, translated by
Kevin Smyth. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1966.