66 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION methodological-epistemological paradigms for theology” 170 and that this paradigm is still very much alive among theologians today. Facing the complex field of ecumenical theology, Catholic theologians still tend to draw on this paradigm: the arguments against Eucharistic hospitality listed in section 1.3 demonstrate that practice is often perceived as the implementation of theological thought and therefore should unilaterally follow church teaching and discipline. In contrast, Johannes Först, building on the work of Hans Joas, argues that: [T]he church’s actions are fully-fledged realizations of the church and not only the application of theological thoughts. Pastoral work, which is the action aspect of the church, is not merely the application of theological thought, but rather a creative process which proceeds from and is provoked by people’s situations.171 Nicholas Healy agrees when he writes: It is thus not unreasonable to describe the concrete church, at least initially, more in terms of agency rather than in terms of being. Its identity is constituted by action. That identity is thoroughly theological, for it is constituted by the activity of the Holy Spirit, without which it cannot exist. But it is also constituted by the activity of its members as they live out their lives of discipleship.172 Both find themselves in Karl Rahner’s train of thought, summarized by Francis Schüssler Fiorenza as follows: Rahner reformulates pastoral theology as the actualization of the Church in practice and conceives of it in a way that underscores the integrity of praxis and influence of practical reason. Theoretical 170 Johannes Först and Heinz-Günther Schöttler, “Erzählen: erinnern und entwerfen. Ein nachmetaphysischer Diskurs über Gott und die Menschen,” in Heiligkeit und Menschenwürde: Hans Joas’ neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte im theologischen Gespräch, ed. Bernhard Laux (Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 2013), 184. Original text in German: “[d]er philosophische Idealismus ist zu einem methodisch-erkenntnistheoretischen Grundparadigma der Theologie geworden” (translation: FW). 171 Johannes Först, “Action and Church: Pastoral Work as the Focal Point of a Liberating Ecclesiology,” in Catholic Approaches in Practical Theology: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Claire E. Wolfteich and Annemarie Dillen, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 286 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 83. 172 Healy, Church, World, and the Christian Life, 5.
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