Gratuity again

Rahner says that the Beatific vision is “through grace” and comes as a “free gift, not due to [man] by nature, not pledged to him by his creation (so that our creation, which was a free act of God, not due to us, and the free gift of grace to the already existing creature, are not one and the same gift of God’s freedom).”

I’ve asked before, but I ask again: Why not?

The key, it seems, is that “due by nature” clause. Rahner says that his insistence on the distinct gratuity of grace as opposed to creation implies pure nature. Of course it does; he built pure nature into the discussion. And the problem of gratuity arises only because he’s built “pure nature” into the discussion.

What if, instead of “nature” or “pure nature,” we used more biblical terms. What if creation comes with the promise of new creation? What if the existence of the “soulish” is a pledge of the coming of the “spiritual” (as Paul seems to say in 1 Corinthians 15)? Does that make the “spiritual” less gratuitous? If the fulfillment is a new creation, how is the gratuity a distinct kind of gratuity?

Or, maybe Rahner’s mainly concerned (as Milbank thinks) with views that collapse all gratuity into the gratuity of creation. That is, the emphasis is on the fact that grace is not “one and the same gift” as creation. This is true in the obvious sense that God created Adam at time A, and would (if he had not sinned) brought him to perfection at time Z. It is true also in the sense that creation is not in content the same as fulfilled or perfected creation – soulish and spiritual existence are not equivalent. They are not “one and the same gift” in these senses.

But that’s not what Rahner is concerned about. He thinks that any formulation that says gift A comes with a promise of gift B, C, D, and on up to Z is a threat to gratuity. In this, he is perhaps operating (like Derrida!) with a Kantian understanding of gift. If I give a gift comes in hope of a response, hope of a counter-gift, expectation of continuing communion between giver and recipient, then a gift is always a pledge. God gives the gift of existence in expectation that Adam will respond with gratitude and with the promise that He will continue in the endless round of gift, reception, and countergift. Rahner implies that the gift of creation is a “pure gift” that does not promise a continuing engagement, further gifts. Maybe.