Fries-Rahner plan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Fries-Rahner Plan is a draft by Heinrich Fries and Karl Rahner who, from a Catholic perspective, explored the possibility of uniting the Protestant churches with the Roman Catholic Church as part of a future one church. It was presented in book form in the Luther anniversary year 1983 under the title: Unification of the Churches - Real Possibility .

The dynamic understanding of ecumenism was innovative, as can be seen in thesis 7: the non-Catholic churches grow into the succession .

content

The authors formulated eight theses:

  1. All particular Churches recognize basic texts of the Christian faith: the Bible , the Apostolic Creed , the Nicene-Constantinople Creed ;
  2. In no particular church is a belief explicitly rejected, which is an obligatory dogma in another particular church (but no positive attitude to this dogma of the other particular church is necessary, let alone its adoption);
  3. The particular churches continue to exist side by side on their previous territory and largely in their previous structure (the Roman Catholic side renounces an ecumenical return );
  4. All particular churches recognize the Petrine ministry because it guarantees the unity of the church; the Pope undertakes not to make use of his teaching authority ( ex cathedra ) outside a council of the whole (future one) Church;
  5. All particular churches are headed by bishops , but they do not have to be elected according to Roman Catholic law;
  6. The particular churches practice lively ecumenism in various fields;
  7. Future ordinations will take place in all particular churches in a form acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church; no statement is made about existing offices in the non-Catholic churches;
  8. The particular churches practice pulpit and sacrament fellowship.

reception

“Despite the well-thought-out approval of prominent Protestant theologians such as Eberhard Jüngel , the book met with violent objections ... [especially] from Protestant theologians, culminating in Eilert Herms ' counter- thesis that there is an adversarial between Catholic and Protestant understanding of God's saving action Contradiction. "

Joseph Ratzinger , prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 1982 , made derogatory comments in an interview about the Fries-Rahner plan, which he described as a "trick of theological acrobatics".

Herms and Ratzinger thus criticized thesis 2, which they interpreted to mean that the question of truth was suspended for tactical reasons. This thesis was based on Karl Rahner's conviction that the present, unlike the Reformation, is characterized by a pluralism of thought. In the 16th century, position stood against position, there was a commitment against anathema . Today you can respectfully accept a belief of your interlocutor, even if you don't share it yourself. Rahner called this an "existential epistemological tolerance." In doing so, he drew the conclusions from what the Würzburg Synod of the German Bishops' Conference in 1975 had formulated: A Catholic is not obliged to take into account all of the "manifestations and derivations in the history of the learned and lived faith" personally, and he certainly does not have to expect that from Christians of another denomination.

literature

  • Heinrich Fries, Karl Rahner: Unification of the churches - real possibility (Quaestiones disputatae, 100), Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1983, ISBN 978-3-451-02100-8 .
  • Heinrich Fries, Otto Hermann Pesch : Arguing for the one church . Kösel, Munich 1987, ISBN 978-3-466-25129-2 .
  • Eilert Herms: Unity of Christians in the fellowship of the churches. The ecumenical movement of the Roman Church in the light of Reformation theology. Answer to the Rahner Plan . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1984, ISBN 3-525-56527-5 .
  • Eberhard Jüngel: Unity of the Church - concrete . In: Worthless Truth: On the Identity and Relevance of Christian Faith , Theological Discussions III , 2nd edition Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-148226-3 . Pp. 335-345.
  • Joseph Ratzinger: Luther and the unity of the churches . In: International Catholic Journal Communio 12 (1983), pp. 568-582.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Kühn, Otto Hermann Pesch: Justification in the dispute . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1991, p. 1 .
  2. ^ Joseph Ratzinger: Luther and the unity of the churches . 1983, p. 573 .
  3. ↑ Erich Geldbach: Ecumenism in Contrasts . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, p. 57 .
  4. ↑ Erich Geldbach: Ecumenism in Contrasts . 1987, p. 58 .