ABSTRACT
Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009) studied under Yves Congar. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, he elaborated his own characteristic theological thinking, which has often led scholars to mention him in the same breath as influential Catholic theologians such as Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Hans Urs von Balthasar, in addition to Congar. Like these men, Schillebeeckx helped to lay the foundations for the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), and he played an active role, inter alia through the periodical Concilium, in the post-conciliar debates. Schillebeeckx, who was influenced by existentialism and other currents of thought, focused especially on the problematical aspects of the way of thinking and living that are typical of modern life. This means that he must be regarded as a modern theologian in more than one sense: not only because he lived through two World Wars, the Cold War, and the period of rebuilding after the Second World War, but also because of his concentration on the theological discussion of the conditions of modern life. He was a theologian who knew the age in which he lived, while at the same time wishing to remain anchored in the church’s life.
