“I Am, of Course, No Prophet”: Rahner’s Modest Eschatological Remark

This article argues that Karl Rahner’s theme of “eschatological ignorance” should be retrieved to facilitate and to fortify the enactment of Catholic theology’s prophetic commitments in a U.S. context. First, the article presents and defends Rahner’s famous distinction between eschatology and apocalyptic. Second, it characterizes Rahner’s distinction as representative of his conviction of a need for docta ignorantia futuri, which stems from his theology of God as Absolute Mystery, and which, though Rahner recommends it to twentieth-century Europeans, seems particularly well suited for theological application in the twenty-first-century United States. Third, it suggests how Rahner’s eschatological ignorance might make a prophetic impact on the American socio-religio-political climate