With All My Questions

Karl Rahner was a brilliant theologian. One of the most important voices behind the reforms of Vatican II, he influenced millions more people than will ever read his scholarly books. Thoroughly engaged in dogmatic theology, Rahner also wrote of his own love for God:

Only in love can I find you, my God. In love, the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love, my whole being streams forth out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion, which make me a prisoner of my own poverty and emptiness. In love, all the powers of my soul flow out toard you, wanting never more to return but to lose themselves completely in you, since by your love you are the inmost centre of my heart, closer to me than I am to myself.

But when I love you, when I manage to break out of the narrow circle of self and leave behind the restless agony of unanswered questions, when my blinded eyes no longer look merely from afar and from the outside upon your unapproachable brightness, and much more when you yourself, O incomprehensible one, have become through love the inmost centre of my life, then I can bury myself entirely in you, O mysterious God, and with myself all my questions.

I am troubled by the phrase, "when I manage to break out of the narrow circle of self." It may imply that I am to muster the ability to love God more completely. We believe such love comes through the transforming work of the Spirit, who lifts our gaze from our own incurved selves to behold and enjoy the glory of God (Rom. 5:5). However, there is one part of Rahner's statement that I especially enjoy. You do not have to be a theologian to know the "restless agony of unanswered questions." I am glad they do not have to be answered before I can turn in love for God, whose nature and activity remain both mysterious and incomprehensible.

Peter said it this way: "You have not seen him, but you love him. You do not see him now but you believe in him, and so you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" (1 Pet. 1:8, NET Bible). Even with our questions.

Bob