Fortress Press

“A valuable addition to serious studies on Karl Rahner’s thought. The book draws on both central and less-known sources to present Rahner’s theology, Christology, and the influential thought of past thinkers from the patristic centuries and the twentieth century. It shows how incarnation and salvific activity have several theological modalities in Christian revelation, as it presents their dynamics in both human existence and cultural history. A resource for historical knowledge and contemporary theology.”

Karl Rahner’s theological dissertation from 1936, E latere Christi, submitted at the University of Innsbruck/Austria and published only in 1999, shows his early engagement with the church fathers. He knew the sources and went on with it. Here, for the first time, this long-overlooked and underestimated study is, in a fascinating, detailed, and knowledgeable way, comprehensively analyzed and made fruitful for the perception/reception of Rahner’s oeuvre: Jesus as the place of salvation, as locus theologicus, in the writings of Karl Rahner. Thus, at the beginning of Rahner’s oeuvre stands not only Spirit in the World (1939) and Hearer of the Word (1941) but also his profound concern with the tradition of the church fathers, which he wanted to make fruitful for the theology of his time—and for ours. It is remarkable how precisely Brandon R. Peterson deals with the writings of Karl Rahner. He knows Rahner and the most important secondary literature very well. His profound study analyzes, evaluates, and recapitulates. I have read it with immense profit.”

“Karl Rahner concluded his theology dissertation, E Latere Christi, by asking whether we can learn from the early church. Peterson asks what we can learn from the early Karl Rahner: not the philosophical Rahner of Geist in Welt but the ressourcement Rahner who pored through Greek and Latin patrologies and discovered Jesus Christ as he who represents salvation. “Representative soteriology” is Peterson’s term for the rich complexity of Rahner’s theology of salvation, centered on a sophisticated understanding of symbol and a deep spirituality formed by Ignatius Loyola and numerous church fathers. This astounding, meticulous work of scholarship recapitulates Rahner anew, incisively exposing many hitherto unstudied sources, perspicaciously illuminating old classics, and judiciously, irenically, and decisively answering Rahner’s most strident critics. Even more, it transcends the bounds of Rahner studies to express—in its form and matter—the beauty, sublimity, and wholeness of salvation in Christ.”

"Amid disputes about whether Karl Rahner gives enough attention to the saving significance of the cross, Brandon Peterson offers a fresh interpretation of Rahner's soteriology highlighting the key theme of Jesus as Representative. Of particular value is Peterson's analysis of how that theme is central to Rahner's early writings, including his untranslated dissertation. As Peterson demonstrates, it continues to echo through his later writings as well. A welcome contribution to contemporary soteriology as well as to Rahner studies."