Abstract

The German theologian, Karl Rahner , commented frequently on the love of neighbor. Several writers have studied the moral implications of Rahner's theology. Some writers have begun to reevaluate Rahner's theology in light of the thought of the French philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas . Levinas developed his thought in critical relation to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. He is known for his proposition that ethics is first philosophy. ;The purpose of the dissertation is to enrich the understanding of Rahner's theology and the foundations of moral theology by examining Rahner's understanding of the love of neighbor in light of Emmanuel Levinas's thought on the Other. The two thinkers are different: Rahner is a systematic thinker, while Levinas seeks to discover dimensions of human existence that resist systematization. Regarding Rahner's understanding of the love of neighbor and his analyses of human subjectivity and intersubjectivity, the difference between the two thinkers centers on Levinas's recognition of a relationship of asymmetry between the I and the Other in which the moral debt of the I to the Other is non-reciprocal. The conclusion reached at the end of the dissertation is that Levinas's thought on the Other offers a more adequate explanation of the love of neighbor. ;To meet the purpose of the dissertation, four tasks are undertaken. The first is to present Rahner's theological reflections on the love of neighbor through an examination of key essays from Theological Investigations . The second is to relate Rahner's understanding of the love of neighbor to his metaphysical anthropology as it is developed in his philosophical works, Spirit in the World and Hearer of the Word. The third is to give an exposition of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas by retracing his discovery of the origin of ethics in the encounter with the Other in the domain of language. Finally, the fourth task is to relate Rahner's reflections on the love of neighbor to the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Attention is given to the challenge of Levinas's metaphysics of ethics to a metaphysics of being, and to the implications of this challenge for Rahner's thought on the love of neighbor.