What reason is there for belonging to the Catholic Church, or to any other church, for that matter? An answer that some people would give is: there may be plenty of good reasons, but there is no rationale. A good reason for belonging to the Catholic Church would be that you had always been a Catholic and that you felt at home in it; another would be that you were living in a Catholic country, and no other Christian church amounted to more than a sect there. These, of course, are personal reasons, applying to some people and not to others; as such, they contrast with any purported rationale. A rationale, if there was one, for belonging to a particular church would be a proposition holding good generally and not relating to certain individuals more than to others, that, in virtue of its truth, constituted a reason, perhaps a compelling reason, for belonging to that church rather than any other. Is it plausible to hold that there is no rationale, in this sense, for belonging to the Catholic Church, or, conversely, for not belonging to it?

We know that men and women have died rather than renounce, or rather than adhere to, the Catholic Church: if there is no rationale in the matter, they were pitiably deluded. There is no sense to be made of the history of Christianity unless we regard one proposition as held in common by Catholics and Orthodox, and rejected by Protestants.

Catholic moral theology since Vatican II has largely turned its back on certain aspects of the tradition of moral theology inherited from the time of the Counter-Reformation. What has been rejected is a false view of natural law, legalistic casuistry, and a mechanistic approach to morals which they imply. Quite rightly, theologians have sought more creative, more flexible and above all more spiritual frameworks. We need to be clear, however, about what we are rejecting and for what reason.

For some time, certain Catholic scholars have pointed out the dangers of a voluntaristic view of the nature of law, i.e. seeing law as primarily the product of the will (of man or of God). Francisco Suarez, very important in the development of the theory of natural law, has now become the object of attack, and is being blamed for much of the distortion of the Thomist understanding of law. William May has recently criticised him for his voluntarism and also for his ‘deductivism’—the creation of a highly elaborate system of laws, ranging from general laws at the top of the system from which are deduced particular regulations. This spirit of encompassing all human actions within a network of laws and precepts is the essential characteristic of legalism.

One of the topics to which Karl Rahner devoted a good deal of thought is what he called ‘searching Christology’. He did not think that Jesus Christ comes to human beings as a ‘bolt out of the blue’, so to speak, as an event for which they are totally unprepared; rather, Jesus the Christ comes to a human being who is open, even disposed, to recognize his significance, who is already—indeed always—a being who is searching for the Christ. In this article I am outlining Rahner’s searching christology, for I do not think it has received the attention it deserves, and then I am offering some of my own comments and critical reflections on the topic.

For Rahner, one of the things which precedes the human acceptance of Jesus Christ as God’s revelation is a human search in which, as we shall see, human beings are enough aware of what they are looking for to be able to recognize it when they find it. It is the detailing of what human beings are searching for that interests him.

He attempts to verbalize (albeit in the Christian terms with which he is most familiar) what he takes to be universal human experience. As humans, according to Rahner, we are beings of transcendence who reach out beyond ourselves toward others and ultimately toward the one beyond all limits, the one whom Christians call God (even if we do not always articulate that explicitly).

Ever since debate on the development process became popular it has been customary to frame the discussion largely in terms of the contrast between the underdeveloped societies (or, as they are now more tactfully described, the ‘less developed countries’) and the developed societies of the White North (capitalist and state capitalist). That these latter societies are industrially sophisticated and highly productive cannot be denied. Whether they are ‘developed’ in the sense many of the writers on global problems would use the word ‘developed’ is less certain.

Indeed if, as Pope Paul VI insisted, development ‘cannot be limited to mere economic growth’, if it ‘has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man’, we have to recognize that there are no developed societies. We have only the underdeveloped societies of the third world and the maldeveloped or overdeveloped societies of the White North. Or, perhaps, one global society in which the underdevelopment of the great majority of mankind is the price they have to pay for the overdevelopment of the affluent nations. Overdevelopment and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin. When we read of Pope John Paul II beginning his recent American visit with an appeal to the American people to share their wealth with the rest of the world, this has to be borne in mind.

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory ...
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
Break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
Psalm 98

Whether it was the morning stars’ song at creation, Miriam’s song of the sea, Deborah’s voice of victory, Gideon’s trumpet, David’s harp, the voices of the heavenly hosts or the shout of the Lord Himself with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, music has always played a vital part in ushering in the Kingdom of God.

Most often when we think of ‘religious’ music we tend to limit our vision either to these Biblical images or to traditional forms of liturgy, hymns, cantatas, oratorios, anthems or gospel song. But should we limit our vision to the status quo? Certainly not! A life of faith calls for a dynamic vision of newness of life.