Theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar Research Articles

The Beauty of the Redemption of the World: The Theological Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor and Jonathan Edwards

Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, in hisHerrlichkeit, laments the eclipse of the aesthetic in modern theology, noting that thebeingof a Christian is itself a thing of beauty inscribed by the grace of God; that is, it is a form of existence “opened up to us by the God-Man's act of redemption. . . . God's incarnation perfects the whole ontology and aesthetics of created being.” Von Balthasar traces the loss of the aesthetic dimension from Protestant theology to the Reformation principle ofsola scriptura, which seeks to abstract “data” of scriptural revelation into objective formulae. This approach leads to the historicism of Hegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Barth, effectively removing the meditative gaze from theological contemplation. Von Balthasar's ultimate argument is that it is necessary for Protestant theology to revive the Alexandrian tradition in order to recover the “transcendent principle of beauty as derived from and most proper to God,” which is to be “for us the very apex and archetype of beauty in the world.”

Christology from Within: Spirituality and the Incarnation in Hans Urs von Balthasar

This work presents a model for contemporary Christology. By studying the uses of spirituality in the construction of modern Christology, and by examining the thought of 20th-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, it provides a Christology that arises from spirituality and theology.

Adrienne von Speyr and the Mystery of the Atonement

Adrienne von Speyr (1902-1967) is this century’s most remarkable mystical theologian: a mystic, that is, become theologically articulate. Although her place in the history of Catholic theology is, thanks to her influence on Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), entirely assured, her life and teaching—above all, her doctrine of the Atonement—are of considerable interest in their own right.Adrienne von Speyr was bom at La Chaux des Fonds, in a Frenchspeaking part of Canton Berne, Switzerland, on 20 September 1902. Her father, an eye surgeon, came from a Basle family distinguished for doctors, (Protestant) clerics and businessmen. Her relation with her mother was bad, but, to compensate, she enjoyed what her biographer, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, calls ‘a totally childlike existence in God and for God’. On such matters as how to be with God in prayer, and the value of sacrifice and renunciation she was instructed by an angel. Though she lived all her life in an academic milieu and became herself, as we shall see, a professional person, and, moreover, had as her confessor and biographer the most learned Catholic theologian of the present century, we cannot make sense of Adrienne’s mysticism unless we accept that, to her awareness, angels and saints were constantly coming and going in her life, and behind these the Holy Trinity itself. She got on well with her father, who allowed her to go with him on his hospital rounds in order to visit sick children. Similarly, in the holidays, when she stayed with an uncle who was director of a psychiatric hospital near Berne, she was found to have a great gift for calming the patients, getting through to them, and cheering the depressed. From these experiences came her resolve to become a doctor herself. Her own health was below par. She was often ill, and had recurrent backaches caused by inflammation of the vertebrae.

Home Truths from Nicaragua

Recently the distinguished Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar accused the almost equally distinguished Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff of not believing in Jesus’s divinity, and dismissed the liberation theology of Latin America as an export from Europe. What do Church leaders who know Boff well and have an intimate understanding of the pastoral situation in Latin America think of that?Pedro Casaldaliga is not a familiar name even to those in the English speaking world who take an interest in the Latin American Church. Yet within Latin America he is one of the most highly regarded figures in the ‘radical’ wing of the Church. A spry, fifty-seven year old Spaniard, he is one of those figures that move the Latin American heart more than any other type of hero—a Catholic bishop committed to the poor. His diocese of Sao Felix in the Matto Grosso in Brazil has been the constant scene of struggles between the multinational corporations and estate-owning landlords on the one hand, and the indians and landless poor on the other. Bishop Pedro’s stance in favour of the latter has caused him to be the target of many assassination attempts. He arrived in Managua, Nicaragua, in late July to show public support for the fast being carried out by the foreign minister, Father Miguel “Escoto, long a friend of his. As a European, though one who has lived in Brazil since 1967, he was particularly keen to draw more European attention to that struggle of which Nicaragua is the focal point.