Was Karl Rahner a Peligian?

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What is the status of Karl Rahner within the church? I know he considered grace to be intrinsic to human nature and not an external gift of God. He considered that everyone was a Christian by simply being human whether they where baptized/regenerated or not. How do these views not align with a peligian understanding of man’s inherent goodness?
 
Very good question. I would be interested in seeing the answers here.
 
Vinny213 said:
What is the status of Karl Rahner within the church? I know he considered grace to be intrinsic to human nature and not an external gift of God. He considered that everyone was a Christian by simply being human whether they where baptized/regenerated or not. How do these views not align with a peligian understanding of man’s inherent goodness?
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You certainly have a point. Rahner was not intentionally being a Pelagian, but I think you have hit upon the great weakness of Karl Rahner’s ecclesiology and soteriology: he did not distinguish well between man’s desire for God and actually having Him in the soul.

Rahner was laudably seeking non-rigoristic way to interpret the maxim “outside the Church there is no salvation.” (The rigoristic interpretation says that only those who are formally members of the Catholic Church can be saved; this has been explicitly condemned by the Church.)

However, by positing “anonymous Christians,” he seems to make evangelization unnecessary, or at least less pressing. Moreover, he effectively downplays the real benefits to being in the state of grace.
 
I don’t think that you’ve described Rahner’s positions accurately. It is not easy to read and understand his writings, although I have motored through his Foundations of Christian Faith. He was one of the most famous and influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century and was appointed as a peritus to Vatican Council II by Pope John XXIII. He was never censured or declared a heretic, although he certainly had his critics. If you tend toward Neo-scholasticism, you will be no fan of Rahner.
 
Rahner saw God’s grace in our humanity. According to him all humans are in a state of grace the moment they are born. Nobody is outside of Christ. Grace was not a gift but something inherent to man’s nature as man.
 
His view of the “anonymous Christian” stated that each human being, for its being a human being, is already graced and therefore a Christian even though he is not aware of it or does not want to be such.
 
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