Fr. John Hardon, SJ, on New Age Movement and Karl Rahner, SJ

Having been accused by an anonymous poster of making claims without evidence (even though something I try very diligently to do on this blog, within reason, is provide evidence). One of the greatest theologians of the late 20th Century, Fr. John Hardon, SJ, gave the following answer to a question on so-called “Centering Prayer”:

I can talk for hours on centering prayer. . . . And of course, again there are different forms of centering prayer. Because as you know, in India, Hindus are not united. . . . In other words, we think that we are separate individuals. At the foundation of centering prayer, you don’t believe it. The center of our being, the New Agers say, is the Absolute. The only real being, the center of our being, therefore is the Absolute. [This is trancendentalism or pantheism] According to God you are cheating. Because the god of centering prayer, I repeat, the way the New Agers have brought it in, is the only being who exists. He is the absolute being. And he is the same absolute being, in every human being as we would call it. But, what we call an – person – they would say – is not a distinct reality. At the heart of centering prayer, there is no infinite God who created the world out of nothing. . . . Thomas Merton never, never believed there was a God who was infinite. Never believed there was a God who was really distinct from the world that we say was created. . . . If you think you are a distinct person, distinct from God, you do not understand centering prayer. . . . Although, he himself died before what we now call the New Age movement came into existence. That was the Jesuit, Karl Rahner. . . . Karl Rahner’s thinking is also behind centering prayer, and Karl Rahner never, never was convinced that there is an infinite God. NEVER. . . .