Karl Rahner (b.1904)

Major work

•          Theological Investigations (20 vols.)

Importance

•          Roman Catholic theologian

•          One of most influential theologians of the 20^th century

•          Leading thinker behind Vatican II

•          Was a transcendental Thomist—said being is discovered not in external objectivity but in the subjectivity of a human knower

•          Helped popularize inclusivism

•          Believed in universalized saving grace

•          Said there are “anonymous Christians”–saved people who have not placed their faith in Christ; held that every human has the ability to hear God, thus there are saved people of different faiths

•          This dynamic impulse that orients all people toward the immediacy of God is called the “supernatural existential.”