Divine Fruitfulness: A Guide to Balthasar's Theology beyond the Trilogy

373 Pages·2007·2.33 MB·English

by  Aidan Nichols

Divine Fruitfulness
Previous volumes in the Introduction to Hans Urs Von Balthasar series
The Word Has Been Abroad: A Guide Through Balthasar’s Aesthetics
No Bloodless Myth: A Guide Through Balthasar’s Dramatics
Say It Is Pentecost: A Guide Through Balthasar’s Logic
ScatteringtheSeed:AGuideThroughBalthasar’sEarlyWritingsonPhilosophyand
the Arts
Divine Fruitfulness
A Guide through Balthasar’s Theology
beyond the Trilogy
Aidan Nichols,
OP
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Contents
Preface vii
1. INTRODUCTIONTOTHEWIDEROEUVRE 1
PARTONE:SOURCES
2. DIVINEPREDECESSORS:THEFATHERSOFTHECHURCH 23
3. DIVINEMENTOR:HENRIDELUBAC 57
4. DIVINE INTERLOCUTOR:KARLBARTH 75
5. DIVINEHELPMATE:ADRIENNEVONSPEYR 109
PARTTWO:THEMES
6. DIVINECONCEIVING:REVELATIONANDTHEOLOGY 127
7. DIVINEPROVIDING:TIMEANDHISTORY 143
8. DIVINECLIMAX:THEPASCHALMYSTERY 165
9. DIVINESOCIETY:THECHURCH 195
10. DIVINEHANDMAID:THEMOTHEROFTHELORD 229
11. DIVINEMISSIONS:THESAINTS 237
12. DIVINELIVING:PRAYERANDMYSTICISM 259
13. DIVINETELLING:ONCHRISTIAN LITERATURE 289
CONCLUSION:FRUITFULREFLECTION 337
BIBLIOGRAPHICALNOTE 345
INDEXOFNAMES 347
INDEXOFSUBJECTS 351
v
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Preface
With the present work I conclude the five-volume Introduction to Hans Urs
von Balthasar which has offered readers a series of ’guides’ to the different
parts of his corpus. In calling this fifth and final instalment a ’Guide to
Balthasar’s Theology’, I mean to institute a contrast with the fourth book in
the series, Scattering the Seed, which took as subject his early writings on
philosophyandthearts.InBalthasar’smaturetheologyweseetheseedthere
sown springing up, flowering and fruiting in an abundance of theological
applications. Hence the title of the book to which this is the Preface: Divine
Fruitfulness.Itssubtitlealsoincludesthewords,’BeyondtheTrilogy’.Tomy
threestudiesdedicatedtoBalthasar’sgreatTrilogy(TheWordhasbeenAbroad
on histheological aesthetics, NoBloodless Mython histheological dramatics,
Say itis Pentecoston histheological logic), DivineFruitfulnessgoes further in
four respects.
First, while at the opening of my three-part commentary on the Trilogy I
offeredanintroductiontoBalthasar’slife-storyaswellastotheworksofthe
Trilogyitself,hereintheopeningchapter,’IntroductiontotheWiderOeuvre’,
Iventuretoconsidernotonlyotheraspectsofhisliteraryproductionbutalso
the Church-political context of his work. How did he see contemporary
Catholicism–and,forthatmatter,howdiditseehim?Secondly,whereasmy
studies of the Trilogy touch wherever appropriate on the literally dozens of
writers – both Christian and non-Christians – of whom Balthasar makes
occasional use, this book identifies the principal origins of his architectonic
approach tothestructure, contentandethos of theology as awhole.(Hence
the overall title given to Chapters 2 to 5: ’Sources’.) Thirdly, though the
Trilogy contains, no doubt, Balthasar’s richest theological fare, to grasp the
bread-and-butter of his theological doctrine the remaining writings are fre-
quently more helpful. To alter the metaphor from gastronomy to optics: the
aesthetics, dramatics and logic offer three perspectives on revelation, per-
spectives that correspond to the three ’transcendentals’, the beautiful, the
good,thetrue.Butthatisnottosaythatthegreataffirmationsofrevelation,
and the major motifs of the Christian life, are incapable of exhibition by a
multi-focalapproachwhichprescindsfromtheseparticular’formalities’–to
use the more precise Scholastic expression in place of the somewhat
impressionistic contemporary term ’perspective’. (Hence the overall title
given to Chapters 6 to 13: ’Themes’.) Fourthly, while Say it is Pentecost
included a brief ’Postword’, Divine Fruitfulness offers a Conclusion to the
vii
viii Preface
whole five-part series, asking at greater length the question, What will the
Catholic theology of the twenty-first century (and later) owe to this enor-
mously ambitious oeuvre?
There are several notable introductions to Balthasar’s thought by other
writers, and these of course necessarily overlap to varying degrees with the
matter I present in this book as in the others in the series. However, it is a
feature of Divine Fruitfulness that I make use of a good deal of rather inac-
cessibleBalthasarmaterial,publishedforthemostpartinSwissnewspapers
and magazines, much of which, I think I am right in saying, has not been
drawnuponbefore.MythanksgotoDonWillyVolonte´,DeanoftheFaculty
ofTheologyofLugano,duringmytwovisitsthere,formakingitpossiblefor
me to consult the holdings of the Balthasar study centre housed in that
institution,aswellastoFrauCorneliaCapolforsendingmephotocopiesof
other items in the Archiv Hans Urs von Balthasar in Basle.
Aidan Nichols, OP,
Blackfriars, Cambridge,
Solemnity of St George,
Protector of the Realm, 2006
1
Introduction to the wider oeuvre
Personal beginnings
He began as a Germanist, a specialist in literature in the German language.1
He himself wrote an elaborate and highly polished German, which some
critics,though,consideredinitselegancemorelikeFrenchandcertainlynot
typical of the Swiss. It was, however, among the Swiss that he was born in
Lucerne,on12August1905,intoapatricianfamilywhosehistorywentback
centuries in this historically most Catholic of the Swiss cities and cantons –
though on his mother’s side there was also Hungarian blood, from the
landowning class in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy still flourishing, or
relativelyso,atthetimeofhisbirth.HewenttoschoolwiththeBenedictines,
in the glorious sub-alpine and Baroque setting of their abbey school at
Engelberg,andlessmemorablywiththeJesuitsatFeldkirch intheAustrian
Voralberg, before studying German literature and philosophy in the Uni-
versities of Vienna, Berlin and Zurich.
Towards the end of his doctoral studies at the University of Zurich his
academic investigations of how the German poets and prosists saw ‘escha-
tology’ – the ultimates in human existence – were punctuated by a new
development in his personal life. While making the Spiritual Exercises of St
Ignatius,hesuddenly‘knew’–hedescribesitalmostinrevelatoryterms–he
shouldbeapriest.2HissubsequententryintotheSocietyofJesusin1929set
himoffonhistheological–asdistinctfromliterary-philosophical–journey.
While he did not enjoy the Neo-Scholastic teaching he received from the
Jesuit study-house in Bavaria, he appreciated enormously the years of his
formation spent with French members of the Society at Lyons, from 1933 to
1937.ThiswasatatimewhenCatholictheologyinFrancewasundergoinga
littlerenaissancefoundedonreturntotheFathersandalisteningtoawider
range of the voices of experience, notably from imaginative writers such as
1 IofferherewhatistosomeextentacomplementaryreadingofBalthasar’slifeandwork
fromthatgiveninthefirstvolumeofmycommentaryontheTrilogy,TheWordHasBeen
Abroad.AGuidethroughBalthasar’sAesthetics (Edinburgh,1998),pp.ix–xx.Thediffer-
encelieschiefly(anexplanationofhisworkaspublisheraside)onhowBalthasarsaw
boththeChurchofhisdayandhisownliteraryproduction,and,reciprocally,theway
hisworkwasviewedbyotherpertinentpartiesintheCatholicChurch.Allworkscited
arebyBalthasarunlessotherwiseindicated.
2 ‘Porque´ mehiceSacerdote’,inJ.–R.M.SansVila(ed.),Porque´mehiceSacerdote(Sala-
manca,1959),pp.29–32,andhereatp.31.
1