The Paradox of the Incarnate and the Transcendental Horizon: A Theological Cartography of Henri de Lubac and Karl Rahner in the Context of the Indian Church (1947–2026)

"The dominance of Karl Rahner in Indian theology was a historical necessity; it provided the confidence for a local church to assert its identity. But the "transcendental" paradigm has reached a point of diminishing returns. It risks dissolving the distinctiveness of the Christian event and unintentionally colonizing the Hindu experience. Henri de Lubac, the neglected partner, waits in the wings. His theology—steeped in the Fathers, obsessed with the paradox of the concrete, and fiercely protective of the social unity of mankind, offers the corrective needed for the next century. For an India grappling with the violence of abstraction, de Lubac’s insistence that "humanity is one" not by a vague concept, but by the concrete blood of the Corpus Mysticum, is a message of radical hope. The future of Indian theology may well depend on a "Return to the Center":a return to the paradox of the Incarnate that de Lubac so faithfully guarded."