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

Will

(2,577 words)

Author(s): Peter Rohner
1. Terminology. There is no generally accepted definition of what precisely the “will” means. The various definitions put forward in the course of history diverge from each other in many respects. An analysis of the present-day understanding of the term shows that it can have many different meanings according to the context in which it is used. The main usages are as follows. a) Will as volition, the act of willing (the scholastic actus voluntatis qua appetitus rationalis, intellectivus). Examples of the use of the word in this sense are texts which speak of the will as t…

Wisdom

(2,878 words)

Author(s): Eugen Biser
1. Preliminary Definition. The correlative terms of truth and wisdom have long been seen as the goal of effort in knowledge. Truth suggests primarily the spontaneity and the methodical accuracy of the act of knowledge, while wisdom suggests on the contrary the sovereign dominion of the longed-for coming of truth. But each of the concepts so strongly suggests the other that they can be defined in terms of each other, so that some pre-understanding of them may be arrived at. Wisdom is the truth beyo…