Change, Suffering, and Surprise in God: Von Balthasar’s Use of Metaphor

Abstract

This article is a critique of the claim made by Gerard O’Hanlon that von Balthasar has pioneered a new way of combining metaphorical and literal discourse, and that this enables him to predicate change, suffering, and surprise of God, while maintaining classical positions on divine transcendence. Some such positions on divine nature and on the notions of univocity, analogy, and metaphor are explored. It is argued—using in particular the contemporary Thomism of Herbert McCabe and some recent studies on the philosophy of metaphor—that von Balthasar, as interpreted by O’Hanlon, tries to give literal expression to what in metaphors is non-propositional. The article concludes that there is no novel advance in combining analogy and metaphor that could enable von Balthasar to avoid self-contradiction in a classical framework.