The category signs of the times symbolizes the introduction of an important novelty in the history of the conciliar magisterium and of the theological methodology. This article offers two developments that wish to contribute to the deepening of the subject. Gaudium et spes brought a new form of knowledge, so new that relevant authors hesitated at the time of his authority. A large majority of the German episcopate then lined up around a critical text by Karl Rahner unpublished until recently. In addition to the presentation and commentary of this report, it offers the analysis of a later contribution by Rahner that provides answers to his own questions addressed to the outline of the Constitution. In a second moment, the article considers the subject from a different angle, but complementary. The way of proceeding no longer deductive and abstract but inductive and concrete (Congar) raised in the post-conciliar period the question about the theological status of the presence of the Word of God in and through history. In this context, the use of the notion of theological place is examined in some Latin American authors, especially I. Ellacuría, and a further deepening of it understanding is proposed.