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Von Balthasar and the Problem of Being

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

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The ‘question of Being’ is in a sense deeply against the spirit of the age since the rise of hermeneutics has substantially led to the eclipse of a traditional metaphysics of the self and the world. The central role of ontology in the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar therefore makes him appear as a figure who is deeply against the grain of much current thinking, and who stands as a bulwark in defence of traditional, or classical, perspectives.

We can trace two primary sources for the role of Being in von Balthasar’s theology. The first is Martin Heidegger, whose vocabulary of Seinsvergessenheit (‘forgetfulness of Being’) sounds throughout von Balthasar’s discussions of Being. The very centrality of Being and of the Ontological Difference (which von Balthasar reads as a thomistic real distinction), is a sign of von Balthasar’s debt to the German philosopher, even if he proves highly critical of many aspects of the heideggerian project in its particularity.’ By far the more important influence is that of Thomas Aquinas, who is discussed in a section from the fourth volume of the English translation (The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity) and again in the fifth (The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modem Age). According to von Balthasar, ‘what Thomas does is to use beauty to define being’. This is a resonant statement indeed, since, to a not inconsiderable extent, it holds also for von Balthasar himself and the whole of his Herrlichkeit project. Time and again during these central volumes, von Balthasar will return to the theme of Being as that which governs the most fundamental aspects of aesthetics, philosophy and theology, as well as the understanding of the human and the grounding of human experience.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Von Balthasar's view generally is that ‘Heidegger represents an attempt to retrieve the classical and Christian form of metaphysical love, as detached readiness for the call of Being; but this attempt must fail, because he projects the fourth distinction into the second and thus turns the oscillation of Being and human existence, which should remain open and pointing beyond itself, into the fixed and indissoluble form of a sphinx, before which and for which man cannot live and love.’ (Vol. 5,643).

2 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Glory of the Lord, vols. 1‐7, Edinburgh: T& TClark, 1982‐9CrossRefGoogle Scholar1. Here vol. 4, The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity, 1989,407.

3 Ibid., 404.

4 Ibid., 404.

5 Ibid., 403.

6 Ibid., 406.

7 Ibid., 405‐6.

8 Cf. vol. 5, The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age, 1991, 598.

9 Vol. 1, Discerning the Form, 1982,407.

10 Vol. 5,597.

11 Ibid., 621. Von Balthasar also argues that Being for Heidegger hardens into a formal necessity and is thus incompatible with a liberating and grace‐filled freedom (ibid., 625)

12 Ibid., 598.

13 Ibid., 626‐627.

14 Ibid., 627.

15 Ibid., 22.

16 Ibid., 627.

17 Ibid., 648.

18 Ibid., 646.

19 Ibid., 648.

20 Ibid, 656.

21 Ibid., 635.

22 Ibid., 631

23 Milbank, John, Theology and Social Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1990, 251Google Scholar.

24 Von Balthasar, vol. 5,648 and cf. 656.

25 Ibid., 627.

26 Ibid., 23.