Sacramentum Mundi Online

Get access Subject: Religious Studies

Edited by: Karl Rahner with Cornelius Ernst and Kevin Smyth.
Advisor for the online edition: Karen Kilby, Durham University

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Sacramentum Mundi Online is the online edition of the famous six volume English reference work in Catholic Theology, edited (in 1968-1970) by Karl Rahner, one of the main Catholic theologians of the 20th century. Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology was originally published by Herder Verlag, and is now available online at Brill.

For more information: Brill.com

Unbelief

(2,185 words)

Author(s): Karl Rahner
1. The notion and the discussion. For the word “unbelief’ (ἁחίστία incredulitas) see, for example, Mt 13:58; Mk 9:24; Rom 3:3; 4:20; 11:20, 23; Heb 3:11, 19. Unbelief is the deliberate rejection of faith. It is presupposed that faith and unbelief (in the case of men capable of a decision) are not two possibilities among others, but that everyone either believes or refuses to believe and that there is no way of avoiding this choice. When the concept is so defined, the question at once arises as to whe…

Unity

(829 words)

Author(s): Lourencino-Bruno Puntel
1. Concept and nature. Unity is usually defined as the state by which a being is not divided in itself but divided from everything else ( indivisio in se et divisio a quolibet alio). Scholastic philosophy then distinguishes between transcendental unity, which is a property of being as such and numerical unity which is limited to corporeal, beings. The above definition, however, reflects certain presuppositions: it comes from the comparison of two or more different beings. To arrive at the full and original concept of unity (transcendental unity), we must go back furth…

Universals

(1,519 words)

Author(s): Albert Keller
The universal is what all have in common, the general denomination which fits all things or many things (i.e., all of a certain type or group). 1. History of the problem: the controversy. The existence of the universal or general is undeniable, and was not called in question even in the controversy on universals. For language uses the same word for several situations or to designate a multitude of particulars and it can only convey meaning on this supposition. The question is whether there is anything universal apart from the …