God's Word in Human Flesh. Reflections on a Theology of Incarnation. A Conversation Between Michel Henry and Karl Rahner

Abstract

This article enriches the conversation already started between the transcendental theology of Karl Rahner and a radicalized French phenomenology (Emmanuel Lévinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Luc Marion) by integrating Michel Henry’s Phenomenology of Life in this context of theological reflection. From the point of view of Phenomenology of Life subjectivity is to be traced back to immediate self-affection that simultaneously puts man’s immanent relationship to his own body back into view and man as an incarnated subject into perspective. If one relates this anthropology to the work of Karl Rahner, thus the motifs of corporeality and affectivity in his theology receive increased attention. Within this innovative framework between Rahner and Henry, a line of interpretation can be extracted, in which the transcendental experience, Christology and theology reveal their affective und bodily nuances.