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Love Alone is Credible
In Hans Urs von Balthasar's masterwork, The Glory of the Lord, the great theologian used the term "theological aesthetic" to describe what he believed to be the most accurate method of interpreting the concept of divine love, as opposed to approaches founded on historical or scientific grounds. In this newly translated book, von Balthasar delves deeper into this exploration of what love means, what comprises the divine love of God, and how we must become lovers of God in the footsteps of saints like Francis de Sales, John of the Cross and Therese of Lisieux. Love Alone Is Credible brings a fresh perspective on an oftexplored subject. This scholarly work is a deeply insightful and profound theological meditation that serves to both deepen and inform the faith of the believer.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
About the author
Hans Urs von Balthasar
389 books263 followersHans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th century.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. While Rahner offered a progressive, accommodating position on modernity and Lonergan worked out a philosophy of history that sought to critically appropriate modernity, Balthasar resisted the reductionism and human focus of modernity, wanting Christianity to challenge modern sensibilities.
Balthasar is very eclectic in his approach, sources, and interests and remains difficult to categorize. An example of his eclecticism was his long study and conversation with the influential Reformed Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. While Rahner offered a progressive, accommodating position on modernity and Lonergan worked out a philosophy of history that sought to critically appropriate modernity, Balthasar resisted the reductionism and human focus of modernity, wanting Christianity to challenge modern sensibilities.
Balthasar is very eclectic in his approach, sources, and interests and remains difficult to categorize. An example of his eclecticism was his long study and conversation with the influential Reformed Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
June 3, 2024
Okay, okay, I get the hype around von Balthasar now! Oh my word. Love alone might be credible but this book is incredible.
The first few chapters push everything but love out of the way, showing what von Balthasar sees as the failures of anthropological methods of religious interpretation, and show the supremacy of love in God's being and actions. It's worth trucking through those passages to make it to the luminous second half.
I kept thinking of Till We Have Faces, published 7 years before Love Alone Is Credible. Would that Lewis could have engaged with this segment of von Balthasar--but in a way he did, in that novel. The two speak to each other across time, space, and language through their focus on love.
von Balthasar has been on my radar for ages, and I'm so glad I finally caught on to his brilliance through this book, and I look forward to reading more.
-----
"Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them." (12)
"After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child's smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child....God interprets himself to man as love in the same way: he radiates love, which kindles the light of love in the heart of man, and it is precisely this light that allows man to perceive this, the absolute Love." (76, citing 2 Cor 4:6)
"If the prodigal son has not believed that the father's love was already there waiting for him, he would not have been able to make his journey home--even if his father's love welcomes him in a way he never would have dreamed of. The decisive thing is that the sinner has heard of a love that could be, and really is, there for him; he is not the one who has to bring himself into line with God; God has always already seen in him, the loveless sinner, a beloved child and has looked upon him and conferred dignity upon him in the light of this love." (103)
"It is in them [the saints] that Christian love becomes credible; they are the poor sinners' guiding stars. But every one of them wishes to point completely away from himself and toward love." (120)
"...if we view creation with the eyes of love, then we will understand it, despite all the evidence that seems to point to the absence of love in the world." (143)
"The sign of the God who empties himself into humanity, death, and abandonment by God, shows us why God came forth from himself, indeed descended below himself, as creator of the world: it corresponds to his absolute being and essence to reveal himself in his unfathomable and absolutely uncompelled freedom as inexhaustible love. This love is not the absolute Good beyond being, but is the depth and height, the length and breadth of being itself." (145)
"...Scripture as a whole is nevertheless only a witness to the concrete incarnate God, who interprets himself in relation to the absolute love of God." (148)
"...through revelation we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it has already seen the love offered to it by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross." (150)
The first few chapters push everything but love out of the way, showing what von Balthasar sees as the failures of anthropological methods of religious interpretation, and show the supremacy of love in God's being and actions. It's worth trucking through those passages to make it to the luminous second half.
I kept thinking of Till We Have Faces, published 7 years before Love Alone Is Credible. Would that Lewis could have engaged with this segment of von Balthasar--but in a way he did, in that novel. The two speak to each other across time, space, and language through their focus on love.
von Balthasar has been on my radar for ages, and I'm so glad I finally caught on to his brilliance through this book, and I look forward to reading more.
-----
"Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them." (12)
"After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child's smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child....God interprets himself to man as love in the same way: he radiates love, which kindles the light of love in the heart of man, and it is precisely this light that allows man to perceive this, the absolute Love." (76, citing 2 Cor 4:6)
"If the prodigal son has not believed that the father's love was already there waiting for him, he would not have been able to make his journey home--even if his father's love welcomes him in a way he never would have dreamed of. The decisive thing is that the sinner has heard of a love that could be, and really is, there for him; he is not the one who has to bring himself into line with God; God has always already seen in him, the loveless sinner, a beloved child and has looked upon him and conferred dignity upon him in the light of this love." (103)
"It is in them [the saints] that Christian love becomes credible; they are the poor sinners' guiding stars. But every one of them wishes to point completely away from himself and toward love." (120)
"...if we view creation with the eyes of love, then we will understand it, despite all the evidence that seems to point to the absence of love in the world." (143)
"The sign of the God who empties himself into humanity, death, and abandonment by God, shows us why God came forth from himself, indeed descended below himself, as creator of the world: it corresponds to his absolute being and essence to reveal himself in his unfathomable and absolutely uncompelled freedom as inexhaustible love. This love is not the absolute Good beyond being, but is the depth and height, the length and breadth of being itself." (145)
"...Scripture as a whole is nevertheless only a witness to the concrete incarnate God, who interprets himself in relation to the absolute love of God." (148)
"...through revelation we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it has already seen the love offered to it by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross." (150)
May 15, 2022
“It is not possible that Christ could have written books (“about” something, whether about himself, about God, or about his teaching); the book “about” him must concern the trans-action between him and the man whom he has encountered, addressed, and redeemed in love. This means that the level on which his Holy Spirit expresses himself (in the letter), must necessarily itself be “in the spirit” (of the love of revelation and the love of faith), in order to be “objective” at all. To put it another way, the site from which love can be observed and generated cannot itself He outside of love (in the “pure logicity” of so-called science); it can He only there, where the matter itself lies—namely, in the drama of love. No exegesis can dispense with this fundamental principle to the extent that it wishes to do justice to its subject matter.”
I know lots of Christians who elevate the Bible about God. I mean, to be fair, they would disagree that is what they do. But they talk of the Bible in all the ways we ought to talk about God (God as revealed as Father, Son and Spirit, btw).
I get it, they want a book they can hold on to. They want the comfort of quoting chapter and verse in any and every situation. Experience of God can be imagined, but a book can be held. Besides, how do we know about Jesus without the book? The book is the final authority.
I grew up learning this. But I have learned to love the Bible for what it is and its kind of a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess nonetheless. The Bible can be made to say anything you like. My friends who practically worship the Bible certainly are opposed to slavery - even though the way they interpret scripture is exactly like those who endorsed slavery. And they’d never use violence to promote the faith. Even though violence has been a part of the Christian tradition (and its not gone; read Gorski and Perry’s The Flag and the Cross).
We need a hermeneutical method. We do not have to look far - Jesus as the revelation of God’s love on the cross is it. If we’re Trinitarian, Jesus shows us what God is like. Jesus reveals God responds with love. All our theological reasoning flows from this event.
Or, as Balthasar titles this book, Love Alone is Credible.
Honestly, this book is tough. Certainly not as tough as Balthasar’s long tomes, which I’ve never and will never read (nothing against Balthasar but I’m an amateur and don’t have time or $$ for his long books). You can get the same idea from folks like Brian Zahnd and Chris Green and others, many of whom have learned from Balthasar.
But if you’re like me - someone who enjoys reading theology for fun, perhaps you model yourself an amateur theologian or you’re a lifelong Christian searching for depth - this one is for you.
The only other book by Balthasar (Hans, maybe I’ll call him Hans, its easier to type) I’ve read is Dare We Hope that All Men Shall Be Saved? He hints at universal reconciliation here as well:
“Thus, the Church is strictly enjoined to pray “for all men” (and as a result of which to see her prayer in this respect as meaningful and effective); and it is “good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved. . . . for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself over as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:1-6), who, raised up on the Cross, “will draw all men to himself” (Jn 12:32), because he has received there the “power over all flesh” (Jn 17:2), in order to be “a Savior of all men” (1 Tim 4:10), “in order to take away the sins of all” (Heb 9:28); “for the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men” (Tit 2:11), which is why the Church “looks to the advantage of all men, in order that they may be saved” (1 Cor 10:33). This is why Paul (Rom 5:15-21) can say that the balance between sin and grace, fear and hope, damnation and redemption, and Adam and Christ has been tilted in the favor of grace, and indeed so much so that (in relation to redemption) the mountain of sin stands before an inconceivable superabundance of redemption: not only have all been doomed to (the first and the second) death in Adam, while all have been freed from death in Christ, but the sins of all, which assault the innocent one and culminate in God’s murder, have brought an inexhaustible wealth of absolution down upon all. Thus: “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:32).
There’s a lot to chew on in this book but the main point is (it’s in the title!) Love alone is credible:
“Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed. This is the achievement, the “work” of faith: to recognize this absolute prius, which nothing else can surpass; to believe that there is such a thing as love, absolute love, and that there is nothing higher or greater than it; to believe against all the evidence of experience (“credere contra fidem” like “sperare contra spem”), against every “rational” concept of God, which thinks of him in terms of impassibility or, at best, totally pure goodness, but not in terms of this inconceivable and senseless act of love.”
This love is what others ought to notice:
“Christ’s apologetic, by contrast, can be summarized in the sentence: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). This, however, means demonstrating the truth of dogma: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me” (Jn 17:23). Love as deed: a deed that is as genuinely human (with a heavy emphasis on corporal works of mercy) as it is therefore genuinely divine (because it is granted by God’s patience and humility), and thus a deed that becomes effectively present through everything that happens in the Church (in the preaching and the Mass and the sacraments and the organization and canon law)—this is the “proof of spirit and power”. “
Sadly, “love” is most often the furthest thing from people’s minds when they think of Christians. We’re seen as power-hungry nationalists…okay, I’m going to keep my cynicism and anger at bay here.
How about another profound quote:
“Whoever does not come to know the face of God in contemplation will not recognize it in action, even when it reveals itself to him in the face of the oppressed and humiliated.”
That’s a good one!
My prayer is we would be reminded that God is Love, the cosmos is built on God’s love and we are called to love others. One more quote:
“The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian’s faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true: the mystery of being, revealed as absolute love, condescending to wash his creatures’ feet, and even their souls, taking upon himself all the confusion of guilt, all the God-directed hatred, all the accusations showered upon him with cudgels, all the disbelief that arrogantly covers up what he had revealed, all the mocking hostility that once and for all nailed down his inconceivable movement of self-abasement—in order to pardon his creature, before himself and the world. This is truly too much from the Good; nothing in the world would justify such a metaphysics, and therefore it cannot be justified by that individual sign called “Jesus of Nazareth”, which has so little historical evidence and is so difficult to decipher. To build such an extravagant building on such a fragile foundation would overstep all the limits of reason.”
I know lots of Christians who elevate the Bible about God. I mean, to be fair, they would disagree that is what they do. But they talk of the Bible in all the ways we ought to talk about God (God as revealed as Father, Son and Spirit, btw).
I get it, they want a book they can hold on to. They want the comfort of quoting chapter and verse in any and every situation. Experience of God can be imagined, but a book can be held. Besides, how do we know about Jesus without the book? The book is the final authority.
I grew up learning this. But I have learned to love the Bible for what it is and its kind of a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess nonetheless. The Bible can be made to say anything you like. My friends who practically worship the Bible certainly are opposed to slavery - even though the way they interpret scripture is exactly like those who endorsed slavery. And they’d never use violence to promote the faith. Even though violence has been a part of the Christian tradition (and its not gone; read Gorski and Perry’s The Flag and the Cross).
We need a hermeneutical method. We do not have to look far - Jesus as the revelation of God’s love on the cross is it. If we’re Trinitarian, Jesus shows us what God is like. Jesus reveals God responds with love. All our theological reasoning flows from this event.
Or, as Balthasar titles this book, Love Alone is Credible.
Honestly, this book is tough. Certainly not as tough as Balthasar’s long tomes, which I’ve never and will never read (nothing against Balthasar but I’m an amateur and don’t have time or $$ for his long books). You can get the same idea from folks like Brian Zahnd and Chris Green and others, many of whom have learned from Balthasar.
But if you’re like me - someone who enjoys reading theology for fun, perhaps you model yourself an amateur theologian or you’re a lifelong Christian searching for depth - this one is for you.
The only other book by Balthasar (Hans, maybe I’ll call him Hans, its easier to type) I’ve read is Dare We Hope that All Men Shall Be Saved? He hints at universal reconciliation here as well:
“Thus, the Church is strictly enjoined to pray “for all men” (and as a result of which to see her prayer in this respect as meaningful and effective); and it is “good and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved. . . . for there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself over as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:1-6), who, raised up on the Cross, “will draw all men to himself” (Jn 12:32), because he has received there the “power over all flesh” (Jn 17:2), in order to be “a Savior of all men” (1 Tim 4:10), “in order to take away the sins of all” (Heb 9:28); “for the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men” (Tit 2:11), which is why the Church “looks to the advantage of all men, in order that they may be saved” (1 Cor 10:33). This is why Paul (Rom 5:15-21) can say that the balance between sin and grace, fear and hope, damnation and redemption, and Adam and Christ has been tilted in the favor of grace, and indeed so much so that (in relation to redemption) the mountain of sin stands before an inconceivable superabundance of redemption: not only have all been doomed to (the first and the second) death in Adam, while all have been freed from death in Christ, but the sins of all, which assault the innocent one and culminate in God’s murder, have brought an inexhaustible wealth of absolution down upon all. Thus: “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:32).
There’s a lot to chew on in this book but the main point is (it’s in the title!) Love alone is credible:
“Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed. This is the achievement, the “work” of faith: to recognize this absolute prius, which nothing else can surpass; to believe that there is such a thing as love, absolute love, and that there is nothing higher or greater than it; to believe against all the evidence of experience (“credere contra fidem” like “sperare contra spem”), against every “rational” concept of God, which thinks of him in terms of impassibility or, at best, totally pure goodness, but not in terms of this inconceivable and senseless act of love.”
This love is what others ought to notice:
“Christ’s apologetic, by contrast, can be summarized in the sentence: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). This, however, means demonstrating the truth of dogma: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me” (Jn 17:23). Love as deed: a deed that is as genuinely human (with a heavy emphasis on corporal works of mercy) as it is therefore genuinely divine (because it is granted by God’s patience and humility), and thus a deed that becomes effectively present through everything that happens in the Church (in the preaching and the Mass and the sacraments and the organization and canon law)—this is the “proof of spirit and power”. “
Sadly, “love” is most often the furthest thing from people’s minds when they think of Christians. We’re seen as power-hungry nationalists…okay, I’m going to keep my cynicism and anger at bay here.
How about another profound quote:
“Whoever does not come to know the face of God in contemplation will not recognize it in action, even when it reveals itself to him in the face of the oppressed and humiliated.”
That’s a good one!
My prayer is we would be reminded that God is Love, the cosmos is built on God’s love and we are called to love others. One more quote:
“The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian’s faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true: the mystery of being, revealed as absolute love, condescending to wash his creatures’ feet, and even their souls, taking upon himself all the confusion of guilt, all the God-directed hatred, all the accusations showered upon him with cudgels, all the disbelief that arrogantly covers up what he had revealed, all the mocking hostility that once and for all nailed down his inconceivable movement of self-abasement—in order to pardon his creature, before himself and the world. This is truly too much from the Good; nothing in the world would justify such a metaphysics, and therefore it cannot be justified by that individual sign called “Jesus of Nazareth”, which has so little historical evidence and is so difficult to decipher. To build such an extravagant building on such a fragile foundation would overstep all the limits of reason.”
January 29, 2011
Von Balthasar is not a light read. He requires so much concentration because his learning is so great and his language so full and the visions he provides of God so transcendent and so intimate at the same time that nothing can be rushed. I do fear I have rushed through this book. It begs to be reread, even as I look at it now to comment on it.
He begins asking "What is specifically Christian about Christianity?" The answers provided historically, first cosmological and then, after the Enlightenment, the anthropological, are limited. "For neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ; God's Word is unconditionally theo-logical, or, better, theo-pragmatic: what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf, a deed that interprets itself before man and for his sake (and only therefore to him and in him). What we intend to say about this deed in this book is that it is only credible as love - specifically, as God's own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God." And so follows a brief reflection on God's love and how that love works out in us, his church.
"It is only when we look the Crucified One in the eye that we recognize the abyss of selfishness - even of that which we are accustomed to call love."
"God's Spirit seeks a comprehensive answer from the whole of creation to God's loving Word in Christ and helps give birth to this answer through the most intense labor pains (Rom 8:19-27); God's love from below sighs for God's love from above, until the miracle of love brings about their perfect nuptial union (Rev 21:9f)."
He begins asking "What is specifically Christian about Christianity?" The answers provided historically, first cosmological and then, after the Enlightenment, the anthropological, are limited. "For neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ; God's Word is unconditionally theo-logical, or, better, theo-pragmatic: what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf, a deed that interprets itself before man and for his sake (and only therefore to him and in him). What we intend to say about this deed in this book is that it is only credible as love - specifically, as God's own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God." And so follows a brief reflection on God's love and how that love works out in us, his church.
"It is only when we look the Crucified One in the eye that we recognize the abyss of selfishness - even of that which we are accustomed to call love."
"God's Spirit seeks a comprehensive answer from the whole of creation to God's loving Word in Christ and helps give birth to this answer through the most intense labor pains (Rom 8:19-27); God's love from below sighs for God's love from above, until the miracle of love brings about their perfect nuptial union (Rev 21:9f)."
January 31, 2024
Goodness, what a book. Now this is how you write about theology; with words of fire. My copy of the book is littered with exclamation marks and passages to refer back to. I have spent (too) many years in Reformed theological circles which pitied those who used the word “love” to describe the Christian faith and were very much afraid of using that word to describe God. At the same time, I have also been in mainstream or Evangelical circles where the word “love” means little and so is diminished of its power. Not so with von Balthasar. He understands that at the very centre of our theology, our Saviour, our God, our faith practices, and our view of self is love, a love which pursues us, a love which is the basis of our fear of God (57), a love which reveals the heart of God, a love which is the foundation of our ethics. Indeed, this love is the heart of reality itself: “This love is not the absolute Good beyond being, but is the depth and height, the length and breadth of being itself” (145). May the way I convey God to others return again and again to this love.
January 9, 2024
A work of beauty. This book is brief but deceptively dense. I read a lot, but do not have the theological and philosophical background to easily absorb all of the arguments made in a book like this. In spite of my limitations, there were nonetheless moments in my reading that were truly exciting, exhilarating even. This book is clearly an invitation to an intellectual adventure. But it is much more than that: it is a book about sanctity. Von Balthasar beckons the theologian (or would-be theologian) to be first and foremost a saint.
Von Balthasar is calling for a radically Christo-centric approach to divine revelation. He spends a substantial part of the book outlining what he calls the "cosmological" and "anthropological" reductions -- essentially the temptation that has existed throughout the history of the Church to measure Christ by something else, either in history, cosmology, or in our own spiritual, moral, or psychological aspirations. Lots of his intellectual genealogy is very difficult to follow unless you are highly familiar with philosophical and theological history. As such, I struggled through these chapters, and will need to revisit them in the future. There are a series of interviews with Larry Chapp on Youtube that helped me to unpack some of the argument here. I highly recommend these for non-expert readers like myself.
Once you have waded through several chapters of philosophical and theological genealogy, the book really opens up in the second part. Von Balthasar's thesis as I understand it is that only God as love, as the self-giving and self-emptying Word in the person of Jesus Christ, is "credible" in the sense of justifying revelation. In other words, revelation cannot be justified by anything other than itself, expressed as trinitarian love. To attempt to make Jesus Christ "credible" by analogy, or by reference to history, cosmology, or human aspiration is a useful task insofar as it does help us approach a truth about Jesus, but ultimately misses the entire point of revelation's givenness -- and indeed can have the effect of taming it. Chapp points out that Jesus understood in this way doesn't "burst the wineskins."
This might seem somewhat obvious (and it is, if you are a faithful person immersed in the scriptures and in the lives of the saints, who understand this intuitively), but it is also a reversal of much popular spirituality and theology. Take for instance the common refrain that we should approach scripture by relating it to our "experience." This platitude could be understood as one very common example of the anthropological reduction, the assumption being that "experience" can and should serve as the interpretive norm for scripture. This can no doubt be a useful approach to scripture. It isn't wrong. But this approach does not allow it to be "revelation" as such. Divine revelation is not intelligible in light of human experience -- on the contrary, human experience is made intelligible and revealed in its fullness only in light of divine revelation -- something Vatican II affirmed in Gaudium et spes.
It is my experience that the people who understand this intuitively are those with a simple faith. Those who love Jesus, and who love their neighbor. Those who struggle in life, who struggle with sin, and who turn to Jesus in full awareness of their own poverty.
This is a difficult book, yes, but what it points us to is something accessible to anybody: to the faith of the saints, to those who love.
Von Balthasar is calling for a radically Christo-centric approach to divine revelation. He spends a substantial part of the book outlining what he calls the "cosmological" and "anthropological" reductions -- essentially the temptation that has existed throughout the history of the Church to measure Christ by something else, either in history, cosmology, or in our own spiritual, moral, or psychological aspirations. Lots of his intellectual genealogy is very difficult to follow unless you are highly familiar with philosophical and theological history. As such, I struggled through these chapters, and will need to revisit them in the future. There are a series of interviews with Larry Chapp on Youtube that helped me to unpack some of the argument here. I highly recommend these for non-expert readers like myself.
Once you have waded through several chapters of philosophical and theological genealogy, the book really opens up in the second part. Von Balthasar's thesis as I understand it is that only God as love, as the self-giving and self-emptying Word in the person of Jesus Christ, is "credible" in the sense of justifying revelation. In other words, revelation cannot be justified by anything other than itself, expressed as trinitarian love. To attempt to make Jesus Christ "credible" by analogy, or by reference to history, cosmology, or human aspiration is a useful task insofar as it does help us approach a truth about Jesus, but ultimately misses the entire point of revelation's givenness -- and indeed can have the effect of taming it. Chapp points out that Jesus understood in this way doesn't "burst the wineskins."
This might seem somewhat obvious (and it is, if you are a faithful person immersed in the scriptures and in the lives of the saints, who understand this intuitively), but it is also a reversal of much popular spirituality and theology. Take for instance the common refrain that we should approach scripture by relating it to our "experience." This platitude could be understood as one very common example of the anthropological reduction, the assumption being that "experience" can and should serve as the interpretive norm for scripture. This can no doubt be a useful approach to scripture. It isn't wrong. But this approach does not allow it to be "revelation" as such. Divine revelation is not intelligible in light of human experience -- on the contrary, human experience is made intelligible and revealed in its fullness only in light of divine revelation -- something Vatican II affirmed in Gaudium et spes.
It is my experience that the people who understand this intuitively are those with a simple faith. Those who love Jesus, and who love their neighbor. Those who struggle in life, who struggle with sin, and who turn to Jesus in full awareness of their own poverty.
This is a difficult book, yes, but what it points us to is something accessible to anybody: to the faith of the saints, to those who love.
Read
October 29, 2020I had to read each chapter twice to understand this book but boy was it worth it
July 25, 2015
"For neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ; God's Word is unconditionally theo-logical, or, better, theo-pragmatic: what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf, a deed that interprets itself before man and for his sake (and only therefore to him and in him). What we intend to say about this deed in this book is that it is only credible as love - specifically, as God's own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God."
This is a quote from this amazing work. This book needs to be read slowly and then read again. What a powerful thought that the manifestation of God's glory is seen in His love.
It is only in gazing into the eyes of the crucified One that we see what true love really is and how selfish what we usually call love is.
This is a book reflecting on God's love and how it it works itself out in the life of the church as a manifestation of His presence. There is much here that I have yet to grasp and I need to read this book again...and again.
This is a quote from this amazing work. This book needs to be read slowly and then read again. What a powerful thought that the manifestation of God's glory is seen in His love.
It is only in gazing into the eyes of the crucified One that we see what true love really is and how selfish what we usually call love is.
This is a book reflecting on God's love and how it it works itself out in the life of the church as a manifestation of His presence. There is much here that I have yet to grasp and I need to read this book again...and again.
October 22, 2014
This was the first book of Von Balthasar's that I've read, and I absolutely loved it. He retains the flair and rhetorical power of his friend Karl Barth without having to sacrifice things like free will, nature, and a general revelation the way that Barth does. His thesis in the book is that in the modern era when both the natural world and the human experience are not seen by the bulk of humanity as overtly theological our only credible appeal to the world comes through love. His exploration of love and beauty as the means and the content of divine revelation is powerful and compelling. The book is short and fairly accessible (especially if one can grab hold of the concepts rather than the figures discussed in the opening two chapters). Highly Recommended.
June 16, 2020
Many truths are laid down which surround and “converge” upon the ultimate leap into love. This was the first Balthasar book I read when I read it a few years ago. He is pretty well versed in the history of philosophy, mostly Western, as well as the history of Christian theology and the Bible, and despite his learning he manages to never fall into scholarly verbiage. (I say this less so out of my response to this particular book and much more so from his Glory of the Lord volumes.) He always has a direct purpose even when I don’t know exactly where he is going. He also has a level of devotion which has an encouraging effect. The encouragement is not the same as my experiences with reading canonized saints’ writings, but he trends in that direction.
June 11, 2013
Excellent -- "Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed" (p. 101). Really a very beautiful book, in content and in simple style. What is Christian about Christianity? What is the logos of Christianity. In this book Balthazar embarks on an effort to answer these questions, discovering his answer far away from the moralities and psychologies of modern theology, and instead in the infinite economy of love flowing from the cross. This book is worth reading in the same way that everything Balthazar wrote is worth reading.
May 10, 2015
It took almost three years to read this little book. Sometimes it was line by line; often word by word, over and over. Cardinal von Balthasar writes densely. He had read everything, thought about everything, written about everything. This small volume is his synthesis. It stuns. It humbles. It leads you down unimagined paths. One can never think the same way about God and the world after this. So many page corners are folded over to reread and rethink. I am in awe of his scholarship and his faith. The only appropriate response is silence.
December 29, 2017
"Nevertheless, through revelation we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it has already seen the love offered to it by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross.
Love does not come to man “from outside” because the human spirit is tied to the senses, but because love exists only between persons, a fact that every philosophy tends to forget. God, who is for us the Wholly-Other, appears only in the place of the other, in the “sacrament of our brother”."
HUvB
Love does not come to man “from outside” because the human spirit is tied to the senses, but because love exists only between persons, a fact that every philosophy tends to forget. God, who is for us the Wholly-Other, appears only in the place of the other, in the “sacrament of our brother”."
HUvB
August 29, 2024
In no way can I fully capture the depth of this small yet mighty piece of theology—I nearly gave up after the first chapter—but I will describe a line of reasoning I interpreted as the essential core of the text to elucidate its value in this short review. In an effort at full disclosure here, I must say that I teach Religious Studies and am a lapsed Catholic and current Humanist chaplain. Those facts may give you an idea of how I am reading this text; I appreciate its eloquence and theory while distancing myself from it in my belief.
Balthasar sets the stage for describing a “third way” of meeting God as Christ in a relationship of divine love by first describing how theology (like the historical critical method) has divorced the essential nature of Christianity from its dogmas in such a way that what we receive in theological instruction is a mere set of beliefs/practices. Reason intervenes here as well to understand a loss of affective connection to a series of creeds and codes. Humanity has situated itself as the center of the universe in understanding the function of reason to perceive God in post-Enlightenment theologies (part of the Anthropological Reduction). However, reason/philosophy and the subjective experience of human life cannot entirely account for the truth and efficacy of the Christian revelation. There is another way that Balthazar wants us to consider, his “Third Way.”
This third way is nothing new; Christianity as the matrix for mediating divine love through the subjective personhood of Christ is pulpit-level stuff. However, Balthazar enters his mode of aesthetic theology more deeply. It relies upon the recognition of the Otherness of God reaching through the person of Christ in humanity to imbue our relationship with God with a wholly other form of all-encompassing love. This is a Platonic Form of Love Balthasar envisions as the zenith of Christianity we need to recover.
Love as Eros, necessarily fails and weakens over time as our creature-desires are thwarted or merely wane. Living in a constant state of love is not the norm,
“The sphere of ordinary existence, the place where people interact, contains at best a middle position to which life and self-interest, love and nonlove, temper each other” (64).
Balthasar takes it as a given that humanity recognizes the limits of our love, its conditional nature, its fleeting temporality, and its inability to “meet the demand of any law of love” (66). These lesser forms of love—even a humanistic love for all human beings stemming from a realization that we share in a common humanity—Balthazar deems “creaturely love” and juxtaposes it with God’s Love as he moves into chapter 5; creaturely love is “nonlove” (73). For me, this is a hard pill to swallow even theologically since all love must assuredly contain at least a degree of Divine Love if we are going to follow in the footsteps of degrees ala Platonic Forms that theologians love to utilize when defining things/emotions/ideas as types.
Ultimately, Balthasar—unsurprisingly—points us to Love as Form; the form here (or formula?) is the Cross framed as Christ’s “fiat” to God as the highest form of Love to which all other forms (deeds, ideals, faith, etc.) aspire (125-128). This form is the “love, which brings…ultimate perfection” (128). This self-sacrificing—specifically Christ’s self-sacrificing—Love is the zenith of Christian faith, the summation and pinnacle of the Hebrew Scriptures, the foundation of Paul’s teaching in the Epistles, and is greater than the “final form toward which all the religions and philosophies progress” because those are only “human” (129-132). The Christian form of Love is God’s Form arising from “the cosmic order…the natural harmony of all the parts of the cosmos,” essentially, Being itself (133). This is why we can reflexively say, “God IS Love” because all of Being is Love for Balthasar, “Christian love…is God’s final word about himself and also about the world” (139). Forget the project of negative theology for this theologian, God can be solidly identified as a Love beyond our comprehension but which is revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
I don’t know what I expected from this book. At times, I thought Balthasar simply rambled and united subjective observations into scripture haphazardly. I saw depth without clarity here. Or perhaps it is clear to those who fully invest their faith in the cosmic mystery of Christian faith? I came away thinking that this work aimed to provide 10-cent verbiage to your typical Sunday Mass preaching that I received growing up Catholic: “God is Love and it’s hard to understand but Jesus’s crucifixion reveals it.” I wanted more from this.
One thing I enjoyed most was Balthasar’s sudden shift to the age-old philosophical question, “Why in fact is there something rather than nothing?” (143). Here, he posits a theistic, non-Catholic entry point to the idea of God as Love: if there is no absolute being, why would anything exist? If there is an absolute being and it is “sufficient” unto itself, why is there anything/something, either? He posits that an expression and relationship of divine love can be the only explanation for why an absolute being would consider manifesting reality at all since an actor (absolute being) necessarily requires an object (humanity) to exist for some purpose (in this case, to bestow love onto). This is the most fascinating page of this little book for me.
For the Catholic who needs no convincing of the rightness of their theology, this is a sledgehammer on Love as the central tenet of Christianity via the death and resurrection of Christ. For the lapsed Catholic, seeker, spiritual non-religious, or comparative religion researcher, this is an interesting, scripture-based, interpretation of the Christian mythos with heavily westernized philosophical reasoning. This is as “in-group” as it gets for the outsider seeking to approach Catholic theology.
Balthasar sets the stage for describing a “third way” of meeting God as Christ in a relationship of divine love by first describing how theology (like the historical critical method) has divorced the essential nature of Christianity from its dogmas in such a way that what we receive in theological instruction is a mere set of beliefs/practices. Reason intervenes here as well to understand a loss of affective connection to a series of creeds and codes. Humanity has situated itself as the center of the universe in understanding the function of reason to perceive God in post-Enlightenment theologies (part of the Anthropological Reduction). However, reason/philosophy and the subjective experience of human life cannot entirely account for the truth and efficacy of the Christian revelation. There is another way that Balthazar wants us to consider, his “Third Way.”
This third way is nothing new; Christianity as the matrix for mediating divine love through the subjective personhood of Christ is pulpit-level stuff. However, Balthazar enters his mode of aesthetic theology more deeply. It relies upon the recognition of the Otherness of God reaching through the person of Christ in humanity to imbue our relationship with God with a wholly other form of all-encompassing love. This is a Platonic Form of Love Balthasar envisions as the zenith of Christianity we need to recover.
Love as Eros, necessarily fails and weakens over time as our creature-desires are thwarted or merely wane. Living in a constant state of love is not the norm,
“The sphere of ordinary existence, the place where people interact, contains at best a middle position to which life and self-interest, love and nonlove, temper each other” (64).
Balthasar takes it as a given that humanity recognizes the limits of our love, its conditional nature, its fleeting temporality, and its inability to “meet the demand of any law of love” (66). These lesser forms of love—even a humanistic love for all human beings stemming from a realization that we share in a common humanity—Balthazar deems “creaturely love” and juxtaposes it with God’s Love as he moves into chapter 5; creaturely love is “nonlove” (73). For me, this is a hard pill to swallow even theologically since all love must assuredly contain at least a degree of Divine Love if we are going to follow in the footsteps of degrees ala Platonic Forms that theologians love to utilize when defining things/emotions/ideas as types.
Ultimately, Balthasar—unsurprisingly—points us to Love as Form; the form here (or formula?) is the Cross framed as Christ’s “fiat” to God as the highest form of Love to which all other forms (deeds, ideals, faith, etc.) aspire (125-128). This form is the “love, which brings…ultimate perfection” (128). This self-sacrificing—specifically Christ’s self-sacrificing—Love is the zenith of Christian faith, the summation and pinnacle of the Hebrew Scriptures, the foundation of Paul’s teaching in the Epistles, and is greater than the “final form toward which all the religions and philosophies progress” because those are only “human” (129-132). The Christian form of Love is God’s Form arising from “the cosmic order…the natural harmony of all the parts of the cosmos,” essentially, Being itself (133). This is why we can reflexively say, “God IS Love” because all of Being is Love for Balthasar, “Christian love…is God’s final word about himself and also about the world” (139). Forget the project of negative theology for this theologian, God can be solidly identified as a Love beyond our comprehension but which is revealed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
I don’t know what I expected from this book. At times, I thought Balthasar simply rambled and united subjective observations into scripture haphazardly. I saw depth without clarity here. Or perhaps it is clear to those who fully invest their faith in the cosmic mystery of Christian faith? I came away thinking that this work aimed to provide 10-cent verbiage to your typical Sunday Mass preaching that I received growing up Catholic: “God is Love and it’s hard to understand but Jesus’s crucifixion reveals it.” I wanted more from this.
One thing I enjoyed most was Balthasar’s sudden shift to the age-old philosophical question, “Why in fact is there something rather than nothing?” (143). Here, he posits a theistic, non-Catholic entry point to the idea of God as Love: if there is no absolute being, why would anything exist? If there is an absolute being and it is “sufficient” unto itself, why is there anything/something, either? He posits that an expression and relationship of divine love can be the only explanation for why an absolute being would consider manifesting reality at all since an actor (absolute being) necessarily requires an object (humanity) to exist for some purpose (in this case, to bestow love onto). This is the most fascinating page of this little book for me.
For the Catholic who needs no convincing of the rightness of their theology, this is a sledgehammer on Love as the central tenet of Christianity via the death and resurrection of Christ. For the lapsed Catholic, seeker, spiritual non-religious, or comparative religion researcher, this is an interesting, scripture-based, interpretation of the Christian mythos with heavily westernized philosophical reasoning. This is as “in-group” as it gets for the outsider seeking to approach Catholic theology.
January 22, 2024
Read this little guy for class, so not as in depth as I want, but boy, oh boy, was this stunning. Beautiful language and challenging applications which all point to a love that is beyond comprehension.
He used the phrase "kenotic love" both meaning the love Jesus displayed in his own kenosis but also that, although God's love is utterly incomprehensible, it too is emptied in such a way that it meets us where we are, and invites us in. Gorgeous.
He used the phrase "kenotic love" both meaning the love Jesus displayed in his own kenosis but also that, although God's love is utterly incomprehensible, it too is emptied in such a way that it meets us where we are, and invites us in. Gorgeous.
June 15, 2020
This is a book about love; specifically about God's love and particularly the fullest and highest demonstration and revelation of God's love in the event of Jesus of Nazareth. I express this ok but inadequate summary sentence because the title might lead you to expect anything or something other. This is an excellent book, and von Balthasar is qualified to write it. His writing at times may prove dense to the reader depending on one's acquaintance with the landscape and sweep of philosophy and theology, but there is plenty for the uninitiated and von Balthasar is a clear and competent writer and author. This is a book I will return to again and again because there is in it more to be caught--it's a very rich book full of light. And most of all, the Love Alone that is Credible.
January 3, 2014
This book is a sort of distillation of Von Balthasar's master work on divine aesthetics, particularly his first volume, "Theo-Logic". For those of us who are not able to devote the time to digest such a large set of works, this book is a wonderful substitute. However, I still had to read it twice to feel I had even the slightest ability to express verbally what I'd taken in. This book is a hearty meal – take it in slowly and savor it... you'll be back for seconds.
I'm not equipped to adequately give a brief summation, but I'll try:
From the first page, Von Balthasar sets out to answer the question: "What is specifically Christian about Christianity?" and I believe he does so with an artist's touch and a stunning display of erudition.
The title of the book is the answer to the above question and the ending point of his argument. Simply, God is LOVE. He is more than the definition of the word for He transcends definition. His Person, this Love that is both Word and Deed, appears to us as Wholly Other and calls Himself "Love". We begin to understand what this word, one we use often to describe a variety of feelings and actions, finally means in its wholeness through an interaction with this Absolute, inexhaustible, utterly gratuitous Love that is "always already" interpreting/revealing itself to us. The Father, in the great deed of Love, sends His Son, the Word, who continues the self-revealing deed of Love – emptying Himself in order to be completely obedient to the Father's Will.
This deed enables humanity to be saved, to perceive and then respond to the revelation. This study is a dive into "theological aesthetics" because it speaks of perceiving God much as we perceive beauty. Once perceived, who can but respond with awe and echoing love, in which we too empty ourselves and become wholly obedient to His Will (which, again, is Love). This is what gives us the truly Christian Hope that ALL things – men and nature – will be redeemed because the same Love which made them ALL out of it's overflow came to save ALL of them out of its continued overflow.
All spirituality must begin and end here, in a perception and response to the Word-Deed of Love which comes from the Father through Jesus and is interpreted to us by the Spirit. We cannot begin with the authority of Church leaders, teaching/preaching, or even Scripture, for all of these depend on human agents and are witnesses confirming the Truth of this Love. We must first seek a perception of this Love before we begin to try and unpack it.
In conclusion, it was here (at the deconstruction of spiritual authority) I found myself often frustrated because I felt it so impractical. That's it? We just need to "gain a vision of Jesus"? How? Where's the ten-step book for that?
But maybe that's the point: we are to look around us. This God who is Love has overflowed and in that overflow created (and redeemed) everything we see. So maybe the first place to look for Him is... everywhere. Yes, we see the tragedy and the terror, but we also see with a new sight, a redeemed sight. One that says God, out of His immense, overwhelming love, has "always already" been breaking into this world. If we see our fellow man and nature in that light, it would not take us long to gain this vision of God.
I'm not equipped to adequately give a brief summation, but I'll try:
From the first page, Von Balthasar sets out to answer the question: "What is specifically Christian about Christianity?" and I believe he does so with an artist's touch and a stunning display of erudition.
The title of the book is the answer to the above question and the ending point of his argument. Simply, God is LOVE. He is more than the definition of the word for He transcends definition. His Person, this Love that is both Word and Deed, appears to us as Wholly Other and calls Himself "Love". We begin to understand what this word, one we use often to describe a variety of feelings and actions, finally means in its wholeness through an interaction with this Absolute, inexhaustible, utterly gratuitous Love that is "always already" interpreting/revealing itself to us. The Father, in the great deed of Love, sends His Son, the Word, who continues the self-revealing deed of Love – emptying Himself in order to be completely obedient to the Father's Will.
This deed enables humanity to be saved, to perceive and then respond to the revelation. This study is a dive into "theological aesthetics" because it speaks of perceiving God much as we perceive beauty. Once perceived, who can but respond with awe and echoing love, in which we too empty ourselves and become wholly obedient to His Will (which, again, is Love). This is what gives us the truly Christian Hope that ALL things – men and nature – will be redeemed because the same Love which made them ALL out of it's overflow came to save ALL of them out of its continued overflow.
All spirituality must begin and end here, in a perception and response to the Word-Deed of Love which comes from the Father through Jesus and is interpreted to us by the Spirit. We cannot begin with the authority of Church leaders, teaching/preaching, or even Scripture, for all of these depend on human agents and are witnesses confirming the Truth of this Love. We must first seek a perception of this Love before we begin to try and unpack it.
In conclusion, it was here (at the deconstruction of spiritual authority) I found myself often frustrated because I felt it so impractical. That's it? We just need to "gain a vision of Jesus"? How? Where's the ten-step book for that?
But maybe that's the point: we are to look around us. This God who is Love has overflowed and in that overflow created (and redeemed) everything we see. So maybe the first place to look for Him is... everywhere. Yes, we see the tragedy and the terror, but we also see with a new sight, a redeemed sight. One that says God, out of His immense, overwhelming love, has "always already" been breaking into this world. If we see our fellow man and nature in that light, it would not take us long to gain this vision of God.
September 20, 2019
Here is a thing worth mentioning: the cover photograph is of "Sacred Heart of Jesus," "An image scratched on the wall at Auschwitz." Which is to say, the stakes are pretty high for the credibility Balthasar is talking about.
The first two chapters of the book are "The Cosmological Reduction" and "The Anthropological Reduction," which is to say that this book is over my head. But pleasantly so; this isn't a joker trying to obfuscate the fact that he doesn't quite know what he's talking about, it's one quite impressive mind talking on a very high level to specialists in a field (and translated from a language) that I don't know. Mental push ups. And I do think I understand both the history of theology and the issues at hand (Christology, apologetics, hermeneutics) better for having read it.
From a guy who is extremely hard to paraphrase, and whose unit of communication appears to be the full paragraph and nothing less, here are two representative quotes which I find haunting and cool:
It is only when we look the Crucified One in the eye that we recognize the abyss of selfishness--even of that which we are accustomed to call love. When the question is most seriously put to us, we say No where Christ, out of love, said Yes, and in our nonlove, we say Yes without a second thought to Jesus' bearing of our sins...
The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian's faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true: the mystery of being, revealed as absolute love, condescending to wash his creatures' feet, and even their souls...
The first two chapters of the book are "The Cosmological Reduction" and "The Anthropological Reduction," which is to say that this book is over my head. But pleasantly so; this isn't a joker trying to obfuscate the fact that he doesn't quite know what he's talking about, it's one quite impressive mind talking on a very high level to specialists in a field (and translated from a language) that I don't know. Mental push ups. And I do think I understand both the history of theology and the issues at hand (Christology, apologetics, hermeneutics) better for having read it.
From a guy who is extremely hard to paraphrase, and whose unit of communication appears to be the full paragraph and nothing less, here are two representative quotes which I find haunting and cool:
It is only when we look the Crucified One in the eye that we recognize the abyss of selfishness--even of that which we are accustomed to call love. When the question is most seriously put to us, we say No where Christ, out of love, said Yes, and in our nonlove, we say Yes without a second thought to Jesus' bearing of our sins...
The first thing that must strike a non-Christian about the Christian's faith is that it obviously presumes far too much. It is too good to be true: the mystery of being, revealed as absolute love, condescending to wash his creatures' feet, and even their souls...
July 25, 2015
Love Alone Is Credible
For neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ; God's Word is unconditionally theo-logical, or, better, theo-pragmatic: what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf, a deed that interprets itself before man and for his sake (and only therefore to him and in him). What we intend to say about this deed in this book is that it is only credible as love - specifically, as God's own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God."
This is a quote from this amazing work. This book needs to be read slowly and then read again. What a powerful thought that the manifestation of God's glory is seen in His love.
It is only in gazing into the eyes of the crucified One that we see what true love really is and how selfish what we usually call love is.
This is a book reflecting on God's love and how it it works itself out in the life of the church as a manifestation of His presence. There is much here that I have yet to grasp and I need to read this book again...and again.
For neither the world as a whole nor man in particular can provide the measure for what God wishes to say to man in Christ; God's Word is unconditionally theo-logical, or, better, theo-pragmatic: what God wishes to say to man is a deed on his behalf, a deed that interprets itself before man and for his sake (and only therefore to him and in him). What we intend to say about this deed in this book is that it is only credible as love - specifically, as God's own love, the manifestation of which is the glory of God."
This is a quote from this amazing work. This book needs to be read slowly and then read again. What a powerful thought that the manifestation of God's glory is seen in His love.
It is only in gazing into the eyes of the crucified One that we see what true love really is and how selfish what we usually call love is.
This is a book reflecting on God's love and how it it works itself out in the life of the church as a manifestation of His presence. There is much here that I have yet to grasp and I need to read this book again...and again.
December 16, 2009
Incredible -- but dense -- book by Balthasar. This book is so filled with wisdom and light.
July 21, 2016
This is my third or fourth time reading this book, and each time I revisit it new things jump out at me literally on every page. Absolutely astounding.
September 3, 2016
I think 7/8 of this went over my head, but the eighth that I did absorb was absolutely brilliant
March 13, 2017
I lack the philosophy background to truly appreciate this book. I'd like to try again in a few years.
September 23, 2022
“Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.”
March 26, 2021
For many Christians, God’s love begins as the infinite Affirmation, in the portrait of the prodigal son joyfully received by the father, in the expression of compassion, friendship, sacrifice. It is erotic, as it intends to consume, it is filial, as it intends to commune. From wherever they have wandered, the individual first knows to return to God’s love, because God put the return deep within the individual, and at their return, the individual finds joy and peace and laughter and community and purpose and spiritual experience.
But then time passes, and the individual begins to dwell on the nature of this Love and finds that at one point God’s love was found in the infinite Affirmation but now it is in the infinite Negation. For where is God’s love? It cannot be localized in any experience nor in any particularity; not in wealth, not in popularity, not in success, not in marriage, not in human approval, not in knowledge, not in status, not in ministry, not in religion, not in scripture, not in spiritual experience, not in piety. For if this is the criterion of God’s love, the destitute, the sinner, the oppressed, the infertile, the lonely, the impoverished, the failure, the uneducated, have every reason to panic. There is no human measuring line that could conceivably quantify the love of God, for it cannot be found here on earth, and every measuring line would exclude an Other. But God’s love is still there, as many men, as many saints testify; and it is now found in the infinite Negation; by silence, prayer, surrender, solitude, existential dread, and death.
It is in the infinite Negation that the great impossibility is found. The great impossibility being that any individual can believe that they are loved, truly, as themselves, for who they are, as an existence. For standing in opposition to any knowledge of divine love is the whole fury of existential dread; self-hatred, loneliness, anxiety, despair, fear, suffering, rejection, sexism, classicism, racism, the tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis, the despots and the dictators, the cancer and coronavirus, the potentiality of an eternal hell. This existential dread is the fear of death, and the fear of death is what compels us to sin (Heb 2:15). This is all of mankind’s inherent condition, for we all stand under this existential dread, carrying with us the leering bite of rejection and failure and the apparent meaninglessness of the pain that accompanies this life. But, the great impossibility, which in Christ, is the great possibility, is to stand and see this all; to see this clearly and affirm anyway that God is love and He loves all men, and so the individual should love all men, for we are all Christ’s siblings. When the infinite impossibility becomes the infinite possibility is life’s great miracle, for now the burden is lifted, and life is easy, and all the little stupid odious things that made one full of shame and anxiety and lonely are gone. This is the great existential journey that all are meant to take for the duration of their lives, no matter the brevity, no matter the monotony, no matter the horror.
Therefore, Saint Paul’s prayers are not for healing, or contextual success, or a change in circumstances, but consist of the miracle of mankind overcoming this divine impossibility to receive the love of God with faith, (pistis; the individual’s quiet steady loyal way of life as a response to this love), even as all of existence throws its entire force to convince men that they are damned and alone and unlovable. Our hearts condemn us, but He is greater than our heart. (1 John 3:20) For this reason, the great man prays that although we see and know this horror, that despite this, we see and know the multidimensional nature of God’s love, its breadth and width and height and depth, expressed by His life and death and resurrection, and then and only then, will we be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:17-21)
And now, the sinners and outcasts and oppressed and despised and disobedient can rest with calm for the heart of God reaches out to them too, knowing that as we insult Him and his creation, “that we know not what we do,” that like confused children, there is a veil of ignorance as we defile the earth. (Ephesians 4:18) We just do not know. In our own perverse way, we are trying our best. But to us, even us, the love of God is there.
Love alone is credible. Love begins our journey, Love carries us through, and Love is where we arrive at. So that finally, together, as one corporate humanity, our souls may find rest and we can see and know and love and worship, as we commune, create, and reign with the Divine, finally One, as our Lord prayed. (John 17) This is all that matters, this is why we are human, this is the leverage point by which all of existence, all of history tips. For all else is vanity, all else is meaningless, but because love alone is credible, everything matters, everything has meaning.
But then time passes, and the individual begins to dwell on the nature of this Love and finds that at one point God’s love was found in the infinite Affirmation but now it is in the infinite Negation. For where is God’s love? It cannot be localized in any experience nor in any particularity; not in wealth, not in popularity, not in success, not in marriage, not in human approval, not in knowledge, not in status, not in ministry, not in religion, not in scripture, not in spiritual experience, not in piety. For if this is the criterion of God’s love, the destitute, the sinner, the oppressed, the infertile, the lonely, the impoverished, the failure, the uneducated, have every reason to panic. There is no human measuring line that could conceivably quantify the love of God, for it cannot be found here on earth, and every measuring line would exclude an Other. But God’s love is still there, as many men, as many saints testify; and it is now found in the infinite Negation; by silence, prayer, surrender, solitude, existential dread, and death.
It is in the infinite Negation that the great impossibility is found. The great impossibility being that any individual can believe that they are loved, truly, as themselves, for who they are, as an existence. For standing in opposition to any knowledge of divine love is the whole fury of existential dread; self-hatred, loneliness, anxiety, despair, fear, suffering, rejection, sexism, classicism, racism, the tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis, the despots and the dictators, the cancer and coronavirus, the potentiality of an eternal hell. This existential dread is the fear of death, and the fear of death is what compels us to sin (Heb 2:15). This is all of mankind’s inherent condition, for we all stand under this existential dread, carrying with us the leering bite of rejection and failure and the apparent meaninglessness of the pain that accompanies this life. But, the great impossibility, which in Christ, is the great possibility, is to stand and see this all; to see this clearly and affirm anyway that God is love and He loves all men, and so the individual should love all men, for we are all Christ’s siblings. When the infinite impossibility becomes the infinite possibility is life’s great miracle, for now the burden is lifted, and life is easy, and all the little stupid odious things that made one full of shame and anxiety and lonely are gone. This is the great existential journey that all are meant to take for the duration of their lives, no matter the brevity, no matter the monotony, no matter the horror.
Therefore, Saint Paul’s prayers are not for healing, or contextual success, or a change in circumstances, but consist of the miracle of mankind overcoming this divine impossibility to receive the love of God with faith, (pistis; the individual’s quiet steady loyal way of life as a response to this love), even as all of existence throws its entire force to convince men that they are damned and alone and unlovable. Our hearts condemn us, but He is greater than our heart. (1 John 3:20) For this reason, the great man prays that although we see and know this horror, that despite this, we see and know the multidimensional nature of God’s love, its breadth and width and height and depth, expressed by His life and death and resurrection, and then and only then, will we be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:17-21)
And now, the sinners and outcasts and oppressed and despised and disobedient can rest with calm for the heart of God reaches out to them too, knowing that as we insult Him and his creation, “that we know not what we do,” that like confused children, there is a veil of ignorance as we defile the earth. (Ephesians 4:18) We just do not know. In our own perverse way, we are trying our best. But to us, even us, the love of God is there.
Love alone is credible. Love begins our journey, Love carries us through, and Love is where we arrive at. So that finally, together, as one corporate humanity, our souls may find rest and we can see and know and love and worship, as we commune, create, and reign with the Divine, finally One, as our Lord prayed. (John 17) This is all that matters, this is why we are human, this is the leverage point by which all of existence, all of history tips. For all else is vanity, all else is meaningless, but because love alone is credible, everything matters, everything has meaning.
January 24, 2021
One of the best theological books I have ever read about the subject of love and its connection to Triune God of the christian religion. A deep understanding from Balthasar's behalf about how the divine love comes as a raft and offering the salvation to humanity through the salvific actions of Jesus Christ. Although sometimes the language used by the great theologian is not easily comprehensible by a person who has not an adequate theological or even philosophical backround, I think that everyone can understand the notion of Balthasar's thinking and faith; a faith rooted deep on this love and the relationship between man and God, established by the Cross.
February 17, 2021
If you've not read any Balthasar, start with Love Alone Is Credible, a work he wrote as a summary of his entire project and one which gets at all the major topics you would face in his wider collection. However, beware, Balthasar is a force, requiring extensive philosophical knowledge with a fair ammount of stock theological Latin phrases. His book Unless You Become Like This Child is the easiest read, so perhaps for the more tentative or humble, that might be the better book to start with. There is much to learn from Balthasar, and I'm barely on my way, but his Christological focus and his attention to both church history and the world of literature make for stimulating reading!
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December 6, 2022Excellent insights proving his thesis. The one disagreement I had was his conclusion that it is necessary to believe that Christ died in expiation for our sins. The argument there was not well developed - or the translation was poor. For me, it is the Resurrection (& Apostles' martyrdom) that is the PROOF of the love on the Cross. Pharisees, for example - who were not witnesses to the Resurrection - would not see His crucifixion that way, but as an expiation for his own sin.
May 30, 2017
I gave this 4 stars because I'm not actually sure what Balthasar argued. Many places along the way, I outlined paragraphs that were outstanding. However, it was hard for me to follow him from cover to cover. Much more so than his little Theology of History. Perhaps if o were smarter I could follow him more easily and give this 5 stars.
January 4, 2022
Небольшая книга Бальтазара, притворяющаяся обманчиво удобной точкой входа в его теологию. На самом же деле там вас встретит концентрированный хайдеггерианский язык, наложенный на богатейшую традицию католической экзегезы, которую, разумеется, вам никто пояснять не будет. Поэтому, если вас вдруг заинтересовала фигура Бальтазара, то лучше начать с первого тома его Богословской эстетики.
February 21, 2024
The opening chapters are a bit of the obtuse, continuously-referencing-German-philosophers version of Balthasar, but this short and slightly laborious on-ramp leads to a truly incredible reflection on love as Wholly-Other being the heart of Christian revelation. Love is beyond what we've hitherto known, beyond what we are capable of alone, is the nature of He who created us, and is His destination for us. We cannot 'organize' love, love wishes to 'organize' us. Tremendous.
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