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tion consists simply and solely in the perfection of love which is given us in Christ by the Spirit of God," Rahner presented a new interpretation of "the evangelical counsels" ("Reflections on the Theology of Renunciation," Theological Investigations III, 47). To say that "the evangelical counsels" are "an 'in itself better means,' " Rahner concluded, does not mean that they are a better means toward this love as "the subjective perfection" of a person (56 f). Rather, they are the best means (indeed the only means) to represent this love with "ecclesiastical visibility" in the world as "an eschatological transcendent and ecclesiological love." Thus, the basic reason why Rahner can continue to regard "the life of the counsels" as "better in itself" is that he has transposed the traditionally common ethical understanding of "the more perfect life" into metaphysical view. The evangelical counsels are not a better means for achieving the love which is ethical perfection; they are a better and unique means to represent (phenomenally) the eschatologically transcendent and ecclesiological (noumenal) dimensions of the love, the Christian perfection, of every Christian. Precisely because Rahner moves from an ethical standpoint to a metaphysical one, it is possible for him to distingush "religious life" in itself from "religious life" with regard to the individual. It is no longer a question of the better ethical means to the ethical end, Christian perfection; it is a question of the metaphysical means of achieving the metaphysical end of rendering explicit, of translating into "ecclesiastical visibility,'' the transcendent and ecclesiological characteristics of Christian perfection. This end, the translation of transcendent features of love, is, of course, an ethical value--one among others. But precisely because it is neither the end, Christian perfection, nor a necessary means to the end, it is not the object of an ethical imperative directed to the Christian as Chn:,tian. Thus, as soon as note is taken of the fact that, while the Christian has the duty to achieve Christian perfection, he does not have as Christian the duty to make the particular translation of Christian perfection which is Raimer's "religious life" in itself, the ethical question of "religious life" immediately reappears-and as a question in which "religious life" is inseparable from individuality.
a