Derya asks: “Can I put another request then? Would you mind writing about Balthasar? I know he is not liked by some. I am curious about what you think about him.”
It’s true that he’s not liked by some. A lot of more traditionalist thinkers regard Balthasar with suspicion, bordering upon hostility. As I said in a previous blog-post, he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (and he isn’t entirely my cup of tea, to be honest), but the hostility is surprising.
After all, he died a couple of days before being made a Cardinal, and, at his funeral, the then Cardinal Ratzinger stated that his elevation to the Cardinalate was pretty much John Paul II’s act of approval and commendation, in the name of the Church, of Balthasar’s theological ouevre.
So why the controversy? Firstly, Balthasar argued that it is legitimate to hope that all might be saved. He didn’t preach an empty hell. He didn’t deny the Church’s teaching on hell. He simply argued that it’s acceptable to hope that redemption might be universal.
To many readers, the expression of this hope constitutes a rejection of a fundamental truth – that hell is real and that an awful lot of people end up there. To others, all that Balthasar was saying in answer to the question “dare we hope that all might be saved” was, as Fr Richard J. Neuhaus puts it, “yes, we dare so hope and should so hope, while maintaining the orthodox understanding that the final judgment is, of course, God’s alone”.
The other controversy surrounds Balthasar’s “Holy Saturday” theology. Balthasar was spiritual director to a physician called Adrienne von Speyr, who experienced to a very marked degree a sense of being abandoned by God. Studying the writings of mystics from the early middle ages to the modern period, Balthasar found that this experience of “God-abandonment” was not uncommon, and concluded that it was in the experience of God-abandonment that these mystics were most intimately united to the person of Christ.
Balthasar then postulated that maybe Christ’s own Passion was characterized by this sense of complete and utter God-abandonment (as in the agony in Gethsemane and the cry of dereliction on the Cross), and extended this forward into the descent into hell, which he presented not so much as a triumphant descent (the traditional view) but as the culmination of the process whereby the incarnate Son experienced distance and separation from, and ultimately abandonment by, his heavenly Father.
In arguing thus Balthasar wasn’t seeking to deny the idea of redemption as victory over death and sin, and over hell and the devil. Rather, he was attempting to approach the psychological reality and horror of Christ’s Passion and descent through an act of awed contemplation of what it means to say that the Son of God has truly become incarnate, truly suffered, and truly known, healed and redeemed the darkest depths of the human condition.
Balthasar isn’t always entirely successful at explaining how (for example) Christ’s work of atonement operates. Thomas Aquinas is, frankly, far better at explaining things than Balthasar is, far more lucid in expounding the mysteries of the faith, and is in most ways a far more satisfying theologian. A little Balthasar goes a long way, and maybe he’s best enjoyed as a dessert at the end of a nourishing main course of Aquinas (!)
However, Balthasar never claimed to be offering a fully coherent systematic analysis of theology. Instead, he described his theology as a “kneeling theology” – i.e., theology conceived as the wonderment of contemplative prayer – and it is this contemplative, erudite and often lyrical “style” of theology which can make Balthasar either inspiring or frustrating, depending on the sensibilities of the reader.
"...my fundamental intention: to demonstrate the reality of Christ as insuperably the greatest thing...because He is precisely the human word of God for the world, the most humble service of God which carries beyond measure every human aspiration to fulfilment and is the extreme love of God in the glory of his death, so that all go beyond themselves and live in Him."
Hans Urs von Balthasar, 1903-1988.
17 comments:
As one of those who "gets" (in my feeble amateurish way) Fr von Balthasar, thanks for your post.
I think that it is perhaps not unimportant to point out how from the beginning and throughout his work he relies on the Angelic Doctor as a fundamental reference (and he certainly was an expert in 'Thomism', contra some people who call themselves theologians these days who haven't the slightest familiarity with St Thomas's work).
Doctor Sententiarum - thanks for your comment. I'm inclined to agree with you that Aquinas is a fundamental point of reference for Balthasar, and I feel that the attempts of some admirers of Balthasar to emphasize the supposed differences between the two have done the reputation of Balthasar a disservice.
He sounds fascinating. I'm not going to start reading theological tomes anytime soon, but in the unlikely event that I do I'd probably give him a go.
I have discovered some of the most astonishing Thomistic quotes as footnotes to articles by Balthasar. Give me some time and I'll post them. I'll see if I can't dig up from the archives a post on Balthasar's Moment of Christian Witness also.
My suggestions to the Balthasarian neophyte would be the collections of sermons, or perhaps Heart of the World, a meditation on the self-emptying of Our Lord, as a way of entering the Balthasarian world.
Or the more or less readable-on-their-own-sections of The Glory of the Lord that treat specific Christian responses to the Person of the Lord: in Clerical Styles, B. includes e.g. Irenaeus, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas; in Lay Styles, as I recollect, he looks at Hopkins, Soloviev, Dante etc.)
And The Moment of Christian Witness is, I agree with Fred, a profoundly compelling, fairly short meditation on the Christian's response to Our Lord's call to be disciples.
Moment of Christian Witness is also an incisive satire of a certain notion of dialogue among Christians...
A Balthasarian specialist presented that it was only later when Balthasar again reread and reaccepted Aquinas as a main reference in part through the inspiration of Etienne Gilson and Erich Pryzawa and perhaps some others (maybe DeLubac and Rousselot and Scheeben). He was supposedly first taken aback by the overly dry, exclusive and rationalist presentations of Thomas in the seminary and turned away from attention to Aquinas. In my view some of von Balthasar's writings seem less erudite without clarity and overly meandering about hypostheses that may be without a magisterial content. Some writings similarly seem without a clear reference to Aquinas. But some of his work does appear to manifest an uncovering of a magisterial view of the content of doctrines of the faith with their connection as clearly some of his work shows Aquinas as a fundamental reference. The Glory of the Lord is an example of a more careful approach that does show an appropriation of certain main principles in Aquinas- it contains some remarkable theological work that seems to do a great service to the church. Aquinas is far more clearer about doctrine as a whole and his whole approach seems far more sound if one has the patience to read through his work and receives the grace to understand it. It still does not make sense how some good intentioned theologians seem to wish to stamp Balthasar's work in its main approach or his overall work as heretical.
Julianna - I think you're spot-on with everything you say. My impression is that Balthasar initially reacted against the Aquinas he encountered in the seminary, but later came to know and love the real Aquinas.
Fred - I'd be very interested to read those quotes and the other material you mention.
Madame Evangelista - although Balthasar wrote a whole series of massive tomes, he also wrote a lot of much shorter and more accessible volumes(though even some of these require a pretty serious commitment on the part of the reader!).
Doctor Sententiarum - thanks for the suggestions. Some of the essays in "Explorations in Theology" are a good introduction, too.
People of knowledge.. Why was his teaching on Christ's descent to hell was so controversial? Is that one of the reasons some see him as a heretic?
(I know, I can just go and read about all this, but I am still a lazy student.)
Derya - I think some people feel that what Balthasar says contradicts the traditional idea of the "harrowing of hell", according to which Christ descends into hell, triumphantly liberates the Old Testament saints, and leads them into heaven.
Actually, I don't see any reason why the two understandings of the descent into hell can't be held in conjunction with each other. You could argue that Christ experiences hell (as Balthasar presents this), and that it is precisely in virtue of his "Holy Saturday" experience that he destroys the power of hell and extends his victory and redemption and kingship even to that part of the universe where God was previously absent.
Mark,
in one post, I quote a bit from Balthasar's Credo, which includes both perspectives.
Fred - thanks. I think that quotation sums up the two perspectives on the descent into hell perfectly.
Thanks for the Credo link at Ressourcement; and for the reminder that that blog exists. --Marc
A starter, perhaps, followed by Aquinas, rather than a dessert.
Thank you Mark, and thank you Marc.
Of course Balthasar knew his Aquinas. Anybody who has read his works will know how much he is indebted to the Angelic Doctor. Still, it is not Aquinas' type of theology that provides the style of Balthasarian theology. It is the world of the Fathers that is truly his theological home. And I dare say, thank God!!! Irenaeus, Augustine, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus Confessor... Balthasar cannot be pigeonholed!
Tonydec - thanks for your comment. I get relatively few comments on this blog, but von Balthasar is usually guaranteed to stimulate some sort of discussion. I've come across people who are effusive in their praise, and others who appear to think not only that vB was wrong but that he was maliciously wrong. For my own part, I think he's at his best when expounding and illuminating the tradition (whether that be Irenaeus or Maximus or Bonaventure or Therese).
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