Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Tod - Sünde, Erbsünde; Beraubung d. Integrität; T. ohne S., (Maria, Jesus); K. Rahner, L. Boros (finale Option), J. Ratzinger

Kurzinhalt: The disembodied soul is in an unnatural state... Such a separation of body and soul cannot be part of God's original intention. It must be the result of sin:

Textausschnitt: DEATH AND SIN

178b The conception of the intimate relation between body and soul corresponds to much of our natural reaction to death. Death is a wrenching experience, not a simple transition. The disembodied soul is in an unnatural state. Removed from its body, how can it know anything? How can it remember anything?1 Without access to the senses, the soul is cut adrift from the world, from relationships, and possibly even from God. The biblical witness concerning death affirms this "unnatural" quality of death. Such a separation of body and soul cannot be part of God's original intention. It must be the result of sin: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned" (Rom 5:12). Here Paul is picking up on the mythological material of Genesis that has death (or no further access to the "tree of life") seen as part of God's punishment of Adam and Eve for their sin. Death is now a punishment for sin. According to a premodern Christian understanding, Adam and Eve would not have died if they had not sinned. (Fs)

179a From an evolutionary perspective, however, it is clear that death was an ever-present reality for all biological creatures prior to the advent of sin. Not only have individual living things died, but even whole species have gone extinct. And it is difficult to know what it might mean to think of human beings, as biologically constituted, being "immortal" if Adam and Eve had not sinned. Would our bodies not have burnt in a fire? Would poisons not have affected our biochemistry? Would falling rocks not have crushed our bodies? And would blood not have drained out of our open wounds? As finite biological beings, we could still be affected by physical, chemical, and biological actions that might lead to the destruction of our bodies. It would seem that the connection between sin and death is more mythological than literal, more exploratory than explanatory. (Fs)

179b One direct exploration of the connection between sin and death is to raise the question of meaning. What does death mean to one who is sinless? Conversely, what does death mean to the one who has committed sin? On the side of sinlessness, the Johannine Jesus speaks of his death as "going to the Father" (John 16:17). Similarly in the case of Mary, preserved free from sin, the church speaks of her assumption body and soul into heaven (Lumen Gentium 59). We might argue from these instances of sinlessness that where sin is present it robs death of its integrity, of its original inner meaning, a meaning we find revealed in the cases of Jesus and Mary. As a result of sin, death becomes ambiguous in character. We cannot say that for us death is simply a return to the Father; it is not just being taken "body and soul into heaven," at least not in any unambiguous sense. Death for us is inextricably bound to judgment, accusation, separation, and pain; it is not an unambiguous possibility of return, but the ambiguous possibility of judgment and ensuing punishment. The inner meaning of death has changed because of sin, and so the reality of death has changed. The death that we experience is the result of sin. Apart from the cases of Jesus and Mary we have no direct access to what death would be like "without sin," though we may witness approximations to it in the dying of people of strong faith. (Fs) (notabene)

179c The relationship between death and sin is not, however, the final word that faith can speak on the subject. Paul continues drawing his parallels between the sin of Adam and the obedience of Jesus:
If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Rom 5:17)

180a So if there is linkage between sin and death, we must also expect a linkage between grace and death. The theological writings of Karl Rahner and Ladislaus Boros point in the direction of such a linkage.2

The first thing that Rahner wants to dispel is the notion that death is simply a transition from one state to the next, like changing horses midstream. As we have already seen in relation to Aquinas, Rahner stresses the unity of spirit and matter, and death hits at the very heart of this unity. (Fs)

Death is an event which strikes man in his totality ... Man is a union of nature and person. He is a being who possesses, on the one hand, antecedent to his own personal and free decision and independent of it, a specific kind of existence with definite laws proper to it and, consequently, a necessary mode of development; on the other hand, he disposes freely of himself and is, in the last analysis, what he himself, through the exercise of his liberty, wills himself to be. Death must consequently possess for him a personal and natural aspect. In the doctrine of the Church, the natural aspect is expressed by saying that death is the separation of soul from body; its personal aspect by saying that it means the definitive end of our state of pilgrimage.3

180b But what about the personal aspect? How is it expressed in the reality of death? Here Rahner speaks of death as involving a personal response:

In death something happens to him as a whole, something which, consequently, is of essential importance to his soul as well: his free, personal self-affirmation and self-realisation is achieved in death definitively. This should not be conceived as something occurring "with" death or "after" it, but as an intrinsic factor of death itself.4

180c Ladislaus Boros has taken up Rahner's suggestion to speak of death as involving a "final option." For Boros, the moment of death involves a personal act of the will, whereby it freely accepts or rejects "everything for which it had been striving already, right from the beginning." He also characterizes death as a "moment of truth," of self-presence and self-knowledge, whereby it can "come to itself and so posit in content and composition both its own nature and the infinite capacity that is an essential element in this nature."5 Both the cognitional and volitional elements that Boros is seeking to identify give expression to the definitive element in death. They are not something that happens "after" death, but are constitutive elements of death itself. They are part of what is meant by the separation of body and soul. (Fs)

181a While there is no empirical way of discerning whether there is such an intellectual and volitional element in death, we can get a suggestion of it in terms of the ways in which people deal with death, when they are caught in a long process of dying, as in a terminal illness. As death approaches, people settle into patterns of dealing with their coming death; they adopt a certain stance in relation to it. They may want to deal with "unfinished business," heal significant relationships from the past, and find an inner peace. There may be a new sense of self-knowledge that emerges at this time. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her famous work On Death and Dying, speaks of a final stage of acceptance,6 but in some cases it might also be a final stage of resistance or fear. There emerges in the dying person a certain determinate attitude that they adopt toward their coming death. In this attitude we may witness in a more drawn-out manner the sort of inner decision that Boros is suggesting. (Fs)

181b Joseph Ratzinger suggests that there is something of a Platonizing element in Boros's presentation. He suggests that Boros "secretly [considers] the human condition less than acceptable."7 However, there are also some theological considerations that come into play. God is not a neutral agent in our dying. God wants all people to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), and Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father pleading for the salvation of sinners (Rom 8:34). It is not inconsistent with this understanding of God to think of the "one last chance" that the theory of a final option presents us with. Even in death itself God works for our salvation, offering us the final chance of salvation. This grace-filled offer still requires from us some form of response, a final movement of the will itself toward God. On this view, death could be our final providential moment of grace, a moment each and all experience. Death is judgment, not just for extrinsic reasons but because of the intrinsic nature of death as a final determination of our lives for (or against) God. It should also be noted that without grace a determination for God would simply be impossible, in death as much as in life. The final option is not a return to Pelagianism whereby we "save ourselves." God saves us through grace, and without grace any final option for God becomes impossible. Again, God is not a neutral judge (and certainly not a punitive judge), but always and everywhere God is a God of salvation. (Fs)

181c There is an interesting element in the tradition that might be an acknowledgment of some type of final option. The tradition speaks of the "grace of perseverance," a grace of persevering to the end (DS 1541). If grace is required until the point of death, is it not required in death itself? Nonetheless, the notion of a final option remains hypothetical, but attractive. (Fs)