The Place of the Body: Leiblichkeit in the Theology of Karl Rahner

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the role of Leiblichkeit (“bodiliness”) in the theology of Karl Rahner (1904–1984), arguing that it constitutes a foundational hermeneutical category across the major domains of his thought. Although existing scholarship has recognized Rahner’s emphasis on the concrete and historical character of human existence, it has not adequately examined bodiliness as a theological category in its own right. Through close and systematic readings of Rahner’s early writings on spirituality, his major philosophical works, and selected later theological writings, this study addresses that lacuna by demonstrating that bodiliness provides a unifying interpretive framework for his treatments of spirituality, philosophy, grace, Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, and eschatology. The dissertation is organized into two parts. The first explores the spiritual and philosophical foundations of bodiliness, establishing embodied existence as the ontological condition of mystical experience, human knowledge, and receptivity to divine revelation. The second traces its systematic theological implications, demonstrating that Rahner’s accounts of grace, Christ, the human person, the Church, and eschatological fulfilment are intrinsically grounded in historicity and embodied existence. The central thesis is that Leiblichkeit functions not merely as a recurring motif but as the constitutive horizon through which the human person exists in relation to the world, other persons and, ultimately God. By retrieving the theological significance of bodiliness, this study offers a more integrated interpretation of Rahner’s thought and opens avenues for interdisciplinary dialogue with philosophical anthropology, psychology, bioethics, feminist and ecological theology, and contemporary debates concerning artificial intelligence.