earticle

영어

In the Christian ethic the discussion about the essence of suffering necessarily includes the discussion of cross. It is because the cross becomes the first explanatory model over the meaning of suffering. Meanwhile, Christian theology has insisted that all kinds of sufferings can obtain their meaning through the cross. Especially, the concept of redemptive suffering affirms that suffering has the potential which can give a meaningful place in human life. It is because the root and original form of redemptive suffering come from Jesus’ suffering and the theological understanding of suffering always inherently has the nature of Christology in its nature. Theological line of this insistence is clearly revealed, but we need to make matter more clearly revealed how the cross can be a basis of criteria for the approach to suffering. To make the attitude toward the mystery of suffering revealed more clearly, Karl Rahner sees that theology needs to approach to the cross. According to Rahner, theological task is to show why our salvation is achieved through Christ’s death and how this kind of special free action has the meaning of salvation. Rahner asks how Jesus’ freedom decisively and receptively is involved in the suffering and salvation. Since this question testifies the connection between the moral attitudes in which human beings take action to reduce the suffering and the theology of suffering, it will be a very important issue in this study. Therefore, in this study, after we examine the interaction between Rahner’s Christology and theological Doctrine of Man, we see that three elements in Rahner’s theology of cross are given as one pattern and paradigm to practice the freedom in the face of suffering. First, meeting with Jesus’ death as human share of common prospect which is called as death can make all human beings accept their own ‘destiny’ in the common way as they practice their own freedom perfectly. Second, since Jesus’ death as an ethical behavior accepts the death with consciousness and teleology, theology of death as act makes us see the death as an active participation in God in the experience of Jesus’ suffering and death. Finally, the cross is a meeting with the part of incomprehensibility of suffering, that is, in Rahner a part of incomprehensibility of God. According to Rahner, the unavoidable and uncontrollable fact which is called as death, which is anticipated in all experiences of suffering, is the context which realizes Jesus’ own identity and His freedom.