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Facing the Abyss: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Reading of Anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Anthony Cirelli
Anthony Cirelli*
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241 Bethel Ave, Staten Island, NY 10307
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Email: cirellia@stjohns.edu
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Abstract

At the heart of Hans Urs von Balthasar's oeuvre is his preoccupation with the encounter between finite human freedom and infinite divine freedom. While Balthasar's many interpreters have assayed the meaning and implications of this preoccupation, little attention has been given to his consideration of the experiential dimension of the encounter, especially the psychological implications. This essay will address such implications by relating the experience of the encounter to the particular psychological phenomenon of anxiety. It is my conviction that Balthasar clearly identified a correlation between the increasing presence of existential anxiety in modernity with the failure of modern persons to understand rightly the encounter between God and the person. Balthasar's assessment of the relationship between the encounter and anxiety provides his readers with a stimulating and original reading that complements, indeed completes, the philosophical renderings of anxiety provided by his contemporaries. Since the phenomenon of anxiety has not abated, a retrieval of Balthasar's work on the subject is both warranted and timely.

Keywords

Hans Urs von Balthasaranxietytheology and psychologyencounterontological differenceexistential
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 92 , Issue 1042 , November 2011 , pp. 705 - 723
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Author. New Blackfriars

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References

1 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Der Christ und die Angst[hereafter abbreviated CA] (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1951)Google Scholar; English translation: The Christian and Anxiety, trans. Dennis D. Martin and Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000). All subsequent references are to the German text (translations are my own) with corresponding pages of the English text. Balthasar understands anxiety as the experience of one's finitude or lack of freedom to realize the infinite horizon that constitutes conscious life. His understanding, therefore, is concerned with the distinctively existential rather than biological manifestation of anxiety.

2 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, My Work in Retrospect (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 35Google Scholar.

3 Allers, Rudolph, The Psychology of Character (London: Sheed & Ward, 1931), 347Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 348.

5 Balthasar, CA, 80 (Eng., 133–134).

6 Ibid., 81 (Eng., 135).

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid., 79 (Eng., 132).

9 Augustine, Confessions (trans. Chadwick, Henry [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992]) 8.10.22Google Scholar.

10 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Apokalypse der deutschen Seele: Studien zu einer Lehre von letzten Haltungen, 3vols. 3rd ed. (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1998) 141Google Scholar.

11 Balthasar, CA, 74 (Eng. 124).

12 Ibid., 69 (Eng., 117).

13 Ibid. (Eng., 117–118).

14 Ibid., 68–69 (Eng., 117–118).

15 Tillich, Paul, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), 127Google Scholar.

16 Balthasar, CA, 69 (Eng., 118).

17 Ibid. (Eng., 118).

18 Ibid., 78 (Eng., 130–131).

19 Ibid., 80 (Eng., 133).

20 Ibid., 80 (Eng., 133–134).

21 Ibid. (Eng., 133).

22 Ibid., 81–82 (Eng., 135).

23 Ibid., 12 (Eng., 38).

24 Kierkegaard, Søren, The Concept of Anxiety, ed. and trans. Thomte, Reidar and Anderson, Albert B. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 42Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 158.

26 Balthasar, CA, 7 (Eng., 32).

27 Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety, 157.

28 Ibid., 155.

29 Balthasar, CA, 83 (Eng., 138).

30 Ibid., 85 (Eng., 140–141).

31 Ibid., 7 (Eng., 32).

32 Ibid., 7–8 (Eng., 32).

33 Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Stambaugh, Joan (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 176–177Google Scholar.

34 Balthasar, CA, 70 (Eng., 119).

35 Ibid., 8 (Eng., 32). Balthasar's strident criticism of Freud and the culture of psychotherapy that he spawned is described by him (Balthasar) as a toxic antidote (giftigen Gegengift) to anxiety by modern persons (see p. 10 (Eng., 36).

36 See Freud, Sigmund, The Problem of Anxiety, trans. Bunker, Henry Alden (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963)Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., 75.

38 Ibid., 76.

39 Ibid., 84.

40 Allers, The Psychology of Character, 338.

41 Balthasar, CA, 13 (Eng., 40).

42 Ibid., 29 (Eng., 63).

43 Ibid., 30–31 (Eng., 65).

44 Ibid., 31 (Eng., 65).

45 Ibid., 19 (Eng., 47).

46 Ibid., 25 (Eng., 57).

47 Ibid., 26 (Eng., 59).

48 Ibid., 31 (Eng., 65–66).

49 Ibid., 36 (Eng., 73).

50 Ibid., 37 (Eng., 74).

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., 36–37 (Eng., 73).

53 Ibid., 37 (Eng., 74).

54 Ibid., 38 (Eng.,75).

55 Ibid., 42 (Eng., 81).

56 Ibid. (Eng., 82).

57 Ibid., 43 (Eng., 82).

58 Ibid. (Eng., 83).

59 Ibid., 45–46 (Eng., 86).

60 Ibid., 26 (Eng., 58).

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., 32 (Eng., 67).

63 Ibid., 33 (Eng., 68).

64 Ibid., 47 (Eng., 88).

65 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Prayer, trans. Harrison, Graham (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986)Google Scholar. See especially Chapter One: The Necessity of Contemplation.

66 See Allers, The Psychology of Character, 348.

67 Ibid., 346.

68 Balthasar, CA, 48–49 (Eng., 90).

69 Ibid., 49 (Eng., 90)

70 Ibid., 95 (Eng., 154).

71 Ibid., 87 (Eng.., 142–143).

72 Ibid., 95 (Eng., 154).