Theological Investigations. Volume XIV: Ecclesiology, Questions in the Church, the Church in the World by Karl Rahner (review)

496 BOOK REVIEWS sage which Heidegger made famous, describes our situation. " It is the time of the gods that have fled and of the God that is coming. It is the time of need, because it lies under a double lack and a double Not: the No-more of the gods that have fled and the Not-yet of the God that is coming" (" Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry," p. 289). Heidegger also cites Nietzsche's pronouncement of the death of God to make the same point. This is a profane age in which the absence of the divine is intensely felt. Being has withheld the presence of the divine from us; we, on our part, are unprepared for that presence. We, nonetheless, desire the divine presence; we want to be religious. Heidegger cautions us, however, not to seek satisfaction of that want by clinging to the gods that are no longer. Silence is the proper response to the absence of God. But it is an expectant silence; this is at once a time of need and a time of preparation. Heidegger is suggesting that our age is similar to the age of Socrates and Aristophanes when old gods were nearing death. Both periods evidence a loss of meaning, a homelessness, a decline of traditional values. Heidegger assumes that Being will again become meaningful when poets arise who will mythically or symbolically give meaning to Being by naming gods. In the interim, Heidegger feels, we should silently dwell within the emptiness of the absence of the divine. Heidegger waits watchfully for the epiphany of the God promised by the Poet. Ohio University Athens, Ohio JAMES L. PEROTTI Theological lnvesti.qations. Volume XIV: Ecclesiology, Questions in the Church, the Church in the World. By KARL RAHNER. Translated by David Bourke. New York: The Seabury Press, A Crossroad Book, 1976. Pp. 842. $12.95. This volume contains nineteen disparate essays on contemporary Church questions, the results of lectures and papers delivered by Karl Rahner during the years 1969-1971. Parenthetical numbers below refer respectively to these essays. The first set of seven essays is pastoral in its intent and deals with uncertainties about faith and ecclesiastical discipline which Catholics experience today. Changeable and unchangeable factors of dogma, ethics, the structure of the Church are difficult to identify in the concrete, and thus conflict arises; but the only point for a Christian to wonder about BOOK REVIEWS 497 is that the unchangeable element endures in the new forms and is opportune for meeting the questions of the day (1). Heresy, being cut off from the Church because of doctrine, is still a possibility in the Church today; but pluralism of ideas which are incapable of a synthesis is a fact of modern life which calls for the individual Christian to develop attitudes toward the official teachings of the Church: Rabner gives a set of guidelines for developing a Christian attitude toward the Church's teaching for today (2). Indirectly Rahncr addresses Hans Kiing's book Unfehlbar? -eine Anfrage, through a complex and difficult study of "ultimate certainties ," both those offered by human trust and the meaningfulness of existence and those which come from belief in Jesus Christ and the acceptance of the Church's teaching (3) . A more concrete article considers the concept of infallibility in the Catholic ecclesiology in historical perspective: its relatively late definition, the likelihood of future definitions of dogma, how the dogma itself has progressed since 1870, i.e. it has come of age (4). A burning and rather caustic defense of a 1967 document of the German Bishops which treated among other things the non-infallible teaching office in the Church reminds us of the pettiness and intrigue which still associate themselves with ecclesiastical enterprise (5) . The nature and function of the Roman Congregation of the Faith and its relation to the newly formed Commission of Theologians is outlined in a paper which Rabner delivered at the first session of the International Papal Commission of Theologians, October 6, 1969, the outline of problems and topics for the Commission to treat is still topical (6). Finally, there is a reflection upon the right of a local synod to...