Institute for Saint Anselm Studies
The Saint Anselm Journal
Volume 6, Number 1 (Fall 2008)

The Immaterial Grounds of Transcendentality: A Thomistic Response to Terry Klein's "Spirit in the World"

Giuseppe Butera
Providence College

ABSTRACT

In response to Terry Klein's reflection on Rahner's views on the soul as articulated in the latter's "Natural Science and Reasonable Faith," I argue that although Rahner offers a number of brilliant observations about the soul, he fails to appreciate their metaphysical implications. Although he is right to make much of the transcendentality of the human person, Rahner stops short of asking the metaphysical question that this fact of human being begs to be asked: What are the necessary conditions for the possibility of human transcendentality? The answer, I suggest, must be something like Thomas's doctrine of the immaterial subsistent soul.

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