Hans the USSR von Balthasar

Hans the USSR von Balthasar (Lucerne, August 12th 1905 - Basle, June 26th 1988), catholic theologist Swiss, of language German E.

Biography

Born in a German-speaking Switzerland catholic family from Lucerne, in Swiss, Hans the USSR von Balthasar make her studies in a school Bénédictin E then in the Jesuit. He studies the Philosophie and the Littérature with Vienna and Berlin.

In 1927, it carries out a religious retirement with Basle, where it feels called by God. In October 1928, it obtains its Doctorat at the Protestant university of Zurich, on the subject eschatologic Histoire of the problem in the German modern literature . As of November, it begins its noviciate in the Society of Jesus. He then studies the philosophy scholastic and the Théologie during several years. He then meets other students like Jean Daniélou, as well as teachers theologists like Henri de Lubac, which shows him the importance of the Pères of the Church, or the philosopher Erich Przywara, which makes him discover Hegel, max Scheler, and Heidegger.

Hans the USSR von Balthasar is ordered priest in July 1936. He refuses a post office with the Gregoriana , Rome, and settles with Basle. He gives conferences and binds friendship with the theologist protesting Karl Barth, with which he shares the same passion for Mozart. He is indeed an excellent pianist and a musician of quality. He founds a secular institute, the Communauté Midsummer's Day , with the Protestant mystic Adrienne von Speyr, which he converts with the Catholicism and of which he becomes the confessor and the spiritual director.

At this time, its difficulties accumulate: his/her father dies, his mother fall seriously sick, just as his mentor Erich Przywara. Moreover, Adrienne von Speyr has visions, with the regard of which the Catholic churches and luthériennees, in 1947 and 1949, prefer to take distances. The Society of Jesus prefers not to take under its responsibility the Midsummer's Day Institute, and the “new theology” of Henri de Lubac, to which it is close, is the criticism object many within the Roman ecclesiastical apparatus. In 1950, Hans the USSR von Balthasar leaves the Society of Jesus. It is found without work and resources. The Swiss Congregation for catholic education it banished institutes and universities.

It succeeds in living by giving conferences. Whereas its health worsens, the theology of the USSR von Balthasar makes followers more and more. Although it is not invited to the Vatican II, it receives, in 1984, the Prix Paul VI for the Théologie, and in 1988, is created cardinal by Jean-Paul II the June 26th 1988 but dies two days before the consistory where it was to receive the ring and the bar cardinalices.

Theological and philosophical thought

the thought of the USSR von Balthasar is an organic thought, within which the passage by philosophy is necessary. Impregnated Fathers of the Church and medieval theology, but also of the German idealistic philosopher with a significant coloring hegelienne, Balthasar takes distances with a theology which opposes the faith revealed with the reason (that of Karl Barth, with which it will maintain a long debate). But more deeply, it is Goethe and its esthetics which it chooses, against Kant and its categories.

the history of the relationship between philosophy and theology passes by four moments: (1) Greece, in search of wisdom and truth in a completed figure; (2) The patristics which integrates Greek philosophy by exploding it in the Revelation and the transcendence; (3) Medieval philosophy, in particular the scholastic of Thomas d' Aquin, where opens out the idea of the human capacity to reach the divine one naturally (with the risks of chosification of the divine grace which will lead to the Protestant reaction); (4) the modern moment which is divided into two philosophical currents with which theology must be integrated: one which it names the " mediation antique" and which seeks to find the glare to be it and to take again on its account the old metaphysics (and which is achieved in particular at Heidegger); the other " the turning towards the esprit" , started with Descartes which will lead to the German idealism and positivism. Theology marries each one of its moments, by sometimes seeking the organic articulation, sometimes the confessing claim.

However, the USSR von Balthasar does not accept an interpretation of its thought as being a Christian philosophy. Philosophy must lead to the ultimate questions face on which options are essential.

One of the keys of reading of the thought of the USSR von Balthasar is that of the " figure" (Gestalt) and of its radiation. The love of god in Christ completely committed in is created, and even the imperfect and particular figures impose the respect. The divine light is not reserved for those which confess it, more especially as it appears through the figures of created and the history, even most tragic it Gloire and the Cross. From this point of view, it moves away from Hegel for which the truth in the final analysis is tested definitively only in the moment of the absolute spirit. The love of god is vaster than the car-comprehension of the Spirit by itself. This is why the USSR von Balthasar invested itself in vast Dramatique of God himself, keystone of a theology where art and the theater speak.

One should not deduce from it that the thought of Balthasar is a theological immanentism. Its analysis of the analogy to be it, supported not on a logical approach, but initially on the freedom which conditions the love within God and in the relationship between God and the creature, the registered voter in the line of the spiritualistic metaphysicians. From this point of view, the thought of the USSR von Balthasar is a balance successful between old and medieval metaphysics, and contemporary phenomenology.

Works

The work of Hans the USSR von Balthasar is immense and practically without any equivalent during the Twentieth Century. Henri de Lubac said of him that he was perhaps the man more cultivated of his time. To enter his work, one will be able to read the two little books " the love alone is worthy of foi" , and " God and the man of aujourd'hui". Its most imposing work is its trilogy, which starting from the good, of beautiful and truth, is declined in 17 volumes between an esthetics ( Glory and the Cross ), dramatic ( Divine Dramatique ) and a theology in particular of the Holy Spirit ( Théologique ).

List nonexhaustive.

Apocalypse of the German heart (1937-1939)
Presence and thought. Test on the religious philosophy of Gregoire de Nysse (1942)
cosmic Liturgy (1947)
glory and the cross. Esthetic aspects of the Revelation , (1961-1969)
the heart of the world , (1956)
Word and mystery at Origène (1957)
Ronchamp (foreword with an album of photographs) , transl. Armel Guerne, Desclée de Brouwer, 1958.
Benchmarks (1973)
dramatic divine the (1973-1983)
With the dubious believers (1980)
the Christian Bernanos (2004)
the truth is symphonic (2000)

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