86
CHICAGO STUDIES
gospel will only be respected when it gets results. Raimer's theology suggests to me that the results for which the gospel aims are diverse and several-leveled, but that the core of all its efficacy is the accepting of the absolute mystery of existence, which is our experience of God, as the saving love published by Jesus Christ. The efficacy of the gospel is its power to humanize, its ability to help men live the •·eality which is and make the reality which ought to be. The primary reality which is its enveloping mystery of existence. How good to find a theology which rests in this mystery (thereby making faith the universal human issue), and which then moves to all the many problematic ways in which the mystery, whose silence really grounds· and enables our human freedom, must be honored by responsible daily Jiving. Because Jesus Christ declares the essential mystery of human life, reminding us tirelessly that the kingdom of heaven is the sole pearl of great price, the unum necessarium, he is himself man's essential good news. Because he and his people draw the implications of this mystery for particular concerns of daily Jiving, theology must constantly hone its knife on the whetstone of private and social experience. Karl Rahner offers contemporary Christians a vast corpus of theological investigations which keep mystery and experience in constant interaction. I think this may be a good expression of the basic spiritual theology we need today, ani! for the foreseeable future.