An introduction to von Balthasar's The Glory of the Lord

An introduction to von Balthasar's TheGlory Lord Michael Waldstein Von Balthasar's work has a great underlying unity, because it always circles around a central light: the glory of God's triune love as expressed in the form of Jesus. For a long time English readers have been aware of the towering figure of Hans Urs von Balthasar. The publication of the first three volumes of his The Glory of the Lord is thus a long awaited event.1 Now that the language barrier is beginning to 1Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics: Vol. I: Seeing the Form, tr. by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, ed. by Joseph Fessio, S.J. and John Riches (San Francisco: Ignatius; New York: Crossroad, 1982); von Balthasar's doctrine of theological perception: aesthetics in the sense of a doctrine of aisthesis = perception. Vol. II: Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, tr. by Andrew Louth, Francis Me Donagh and Brian Me Neil, C.R.V.; ed. by John Riches (San Francisco: Ignatius; New York: Crossroad, 1984); monographs on theologians who have in various ways stressed the aesthetic dimension of revelation: Irenaeus, Augustine, Denys the Areopagite, Anselm and Bonaventure. Vol. Ill: Studies in Theological Styles: Lay Styles, tr. by Andrew Louth, John Saward, Martin Simon and Rowan Williams; ed. by John Riches (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986); further monographs: Dante, St. John of the Cross, Pascal, Hamann, Soloviev, Hopkins and Peguy. Four volumes have not yet been translated: Vol. IV: The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity traces God's glory in the literary-philosophical sphere through authors from Homer to Thomas Aquinas. Communio 14 (Spring, 1987). © 1987 by Commurtio: International Catholic Review

von Balthasar's The Glory of the Lord

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fall, however, other barriers are appearing: the sheer magni tude of The Glory of the Lord, its overwhelming wealth and intricacy, the difficulty of its highly developed language, often reminiscent of the German idealist tradition . . . . Is there a guiding thread to lead one through this maze? Is there an organic center which holds all of it together? 1. The twofold center a. Ignatius In 1929 von Balthasar was working on a monumen tal survey of modern German intellectual history which grew out of his dissertation in German literature.2 The goal of modern German thought which emerged from his survey ^ "seemed to lie in a subjectivity absolutely positing itself, identifying itself with God, continually circling about itself and grounded only in itself."3 That same year, von Balthasar took an Ignatian retreat (after which he joined the Jesuit order). It is here that the center of his work is to be sought:*fhrough Christ, God addresses us with the free call of his love. We can only-' receive this call in gratitude as the call of an other, and answer it in obedience, to the greater glory of God. "If anywhere, this is

Vol. V: The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age continues vol. IV into the modern period and concludes with von Balthasar's own philosophical synthesis on God's glory. Vol. VI: Theology: The Old Covenant treats of God's glory as manifested in the Old Covenant. Vol. VII: Theology: The New Covenant continues with God's glory as revealed by Christ. Von Balthasar planned an eighth volume which was to enter into an extensive dialogue with Protestant and Orthodox theology and to discuss questions of Christian art. It has not come out yet. The Glory of the Lord as a whole is the first part of a great trilogy in which von Balthasar approaches Christian revelation under the aspect of its beauty (The Glory of the Lord), goodness (Theodramatik, five volumes) and truth (Theologik, three volumes). 2Hans Urs von Balthasar, Apokalypse der deutschen Seek: Studien zu einer Lehre von letzten Haltungen, 3 vols. (Salzburg: Pustet, 1937-39). 3Medard Kehl, “Hans Urs von Balthasar: A Portrait," in The von Balthasar Reader, ed. by Kehl and Werner Loser, ed. and trans. by Fred Lawrence and Robert J. Daly (New York: Crossroad, 1982) pp. 3-54; here p. 12. Kehl's essay’ is a superb introduction to von Balthasar.

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where Christian joy liesClf anywhere, this is where it becomes clear what being a Christian means in its origin: listening for the Word that calls us and becoming free for the answer that is expected of us."4 X Von Balthasar's entire theological output can be understood as an attempt to unfold this center. In The Glory of the Lord he unfolds it by asking: How is God's love manifested to us? What is the structure and nature of our perception of it? How can this love be recognized in its objectivity, its objective glory? The key to Christian self-understanding, to Christian theology, lies ■meither in a revealed wisdom which surpasses the religious knowl edge of the world (to the greater knowledge of divine things)'fior in man as a personal and social being (to the greater perfection of man and the progress of the human race). Ht lies only in the selfglorification'■of God's love (to the greater glory of God's love). In the Old Testament this glory is the presence of Janweh's lofty majesty in his covenant (and, mediated by the covenant, the presence of this majesty in the whole world). In the New Testament this glory shows itself as the love of God in Christ which descends "to the end" (John 13:1) of death and night. [Here lies] the intention of my work. The J Glory of the Lord. . . . What I call "aesthetics" in this work is thus a purely theological enterprise, namely [an account of] the receiving, the perception possible only in faith, of the glory of God's most free love as it reveals itself to us.5

4Hans Urs von Balthasar, Rechenschaft 1965 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1965) p. 8. 5Hans Urs von Balthasar, Glaubhaft ist nur Liebe 4th ed. (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1975) p. 5-6. ". . . there is a parallel between [our theological aesthetics] and the phenomenological method of Scheler, inas much as this method aims at allowing the object to give itself purely. However, the bracketing of existence is out of the question in theology. Not the philosophical absence of interest found in pure vision (epoche as apatheia for gnosis) can be intended, but only that Christian indiferencia (Ignatius) which is the only method or attitude for receiving God's love in its 'absence of interest,' in its absoluteness, its having its purpose in itself." Glaubhaft ist nur Liebe, pp. 6-7. "Why is the first part of our synthesis called The Glory of the Lord (Herrlichkeit)? Because the first thing we should be concerned with is to apprehend the revelation of God, and God can only be recognized by his lordship (Herr-heit), his lofty splendor (Hehr-heit), by that which Israel calls kabod and the New Testament calls doxa. This means that God does not primarily come as a teacher for us ("true") nor as a redeemer who is oriented to a purpose for us ("good"); but he comes in order to show himself, the glory of his eternal triune love, and to lavish the rays of this love in that "absence of interest" which genuine love shares with genuine beauty. The world was


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b. Goethe Balthasar's work has a second center connected with the name G oethef'lt is the counterpart of the theological center on the literary-philosophical plane. A good way of bring ing this center into focus is to draw a contrast between von Balthasar and Karl Rahner.67 In 1939 Rahner and I peacefully worked out a plan for a dogmatic theology (above Innsbruck, on the Zenzenhof) which later became Mystenum Salutis. But in fact our starting-points were always differ ent. There is a book by Simmel which is called Kant und Goethe. Rahner has chosen Kant or, if you will, Fichte, the transcendental approach. And I have chosen Goethe, my field being German literature. The form (Gestalt), the indissolubly unique, organic, devel oping form (Gestalt)—I am thinking of Goethe's poem Die Metamor phose der Pflanzen—this form (Gestalt) which Kant does not know what to do with, even in his aesthetics . . . Of course, it is not easy to introduce this concept of form (Gestalt) into theology. I have at tempted to do so. I have attempted to see Christianity or the figure (Gestalt) of Christ as a form (Gestalt), and together with Christ also his Church. One can walk around a figure (Gestalt) and see it from various sides. One always sees something different and yet still the same thing. This is why I do not believe in pluralism, by which Rahner in nis pessimism is convinced. I believe in catholicity . . 7 I will return later to the concept of Gestalt. At this point let me focus on a more basic issue, the difference betw een Rahner's transcendental approach and von Balthasar's more ''objective^' Goethean approach. Karl Rahner stands in the philosophical tradition initiated by Marechal which attem pts to mediate Thomistic metaphysics with the philosophy of Spirit developed by Ger-

created for the sake of God's glorv. and by it and for its sake it was also redeemed." Rechenschaft, p. 27. 6Cf. Manfred Lochbrunner, Analogia Caritatis: Darstellung und Deutung der Theologie Hans Urs von Balthasars (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), pp. 113-132 for a collection of texts in which von Balthasar speaks about Rahner. 7Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Geist und Feuer," Herder Korrespondenz 30 (1976), p. 75; Lochbrunner, Analogia Caritatis, p. 129. For a more differentiated view, cf. a little later in the same interview: "As for Rahner, he used his transcendental method more and more loosely and relatively, that is, by admitting, for example, intersubjectivity and the dialogical principle, etc. I would say, the less systematic he is, the more I like him. As he himself has recently stressed, he does not want to be a systematician." "Geist und Feuer," p. 76.

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man idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel). From the very beginning, von Balthasar has been sceptical toward this “transcendental Thomism." With Goethe and traditional Scholastic metaphys ics his emphasis is more on the “objective/'8 Already in 1939, in a review of Rahner's Geist in Welt, he wrote. If one surveys Geist in Welt as a whole, one sees that Fichte's ethos of a spirit which hovers between world/matter and God is moderated. It is transformed into an ethos in which the human person is appointed a place of obedient listening in the world as the place of revelation. A consequence [of this moderation of Fichte's ethos] would have to be be a stronger turn to an “objective" metaphysics. Since the purpose of Geist in Welt is to elucidate the metaphysics of finite knowledge in Thomas Aquinas, the book could not offer this complementary objective metaphysics. However, due to the strong preference for the transcendental structure of the subject, in which alone Being itself, above categorical being, is given, the book's method tends to absorb such an objective metaphysics into itself. Already Marechal's "Point of Departure of Metaphysics" was always on the verge of putting itself in the place of metaphysics.9

^ An approach to the philosophical center of von Balthasar's work in terms of his insistence on “objectivity"" does not yet reach its inner generative point which lies in the experience of beauty. For von Balthasar, beauty is not a “cultural" decoration surrounding “serious" reality. It is, rath er, the primary and central “face" of serious reality as it graciously discloses itself. When another being discloses itself to me, I become aware of an interior space which expresses itself in an outward form (Gestalt). From a mysterious depth upon which I cannot close my grasp, the other comes to appear. The paradigmatic case of such depth is the free self-revelation of persons as an aspect of freely given love. ^ Here lies the deepest cause of aesthetic pleasure. It lies in the perception (Greek: aisthesis) of a radiance from within which shapes the outward medium of expression into a unified and intelligible form (Gestalt). In terms of this experience of beauty, of the experience of an objective depth that graciously opens itself for me, of an objective light which breaks into my

8Cf. Kehl, "Hans Urs von Balthasar: A Portrait," pp. 18-21. 9Hans Urs von Balthasar, Review of Johannes B. Lotz, Sein und Wert and Rahner, Geist in Welt, ZKTh 63 (1939) pp. 377-378; Lochbrunner, Analogia Caritatis, pp. 115-117.


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spiritual space as permanently other than myself, one can understand why von Balthasar insists on the primacy of an “objective" metaphysics and is sceptical about the transcen dental doctrine of knowledge.10 Let me unfold this twofold center, beginning this time with Goethe. 2. Principles of a philosophical aesthetics a. The polarity of expression and form Like Aristotle, Goethe builds up his philosophy of nature by reflecting on living beings. At all times there has been a desire in science to perceive living formations (Bildungen) as such, to grasp their outward visible ana tangible parts in their union (Zusammenhang), to receive them as intimations (Andeutungen) of something interior, and thus to succeed in seeing the whole. It need not be especially shown how closely this scientific desire is related to the impulses of art and imitation. One finds thus in the development of art, knowledge and science numer ous attempts to establish and develop a doctrine which we want to call morphology.11

One of Goethe's main intentions in his morphology is to counteract the merely atomistic way of looking at nature. His concept of form (morphe, Gestalt) insists not merely on the common point that the perceptible union of parts in a whole is more and something different than a mere summation of parts.

10Cf. the point made by von Balthasar in the context of a discussion of the perception of persons: "The understanding of other persons in its dialectic between grasping them and allowing for their freedom is the interpretation of something which breaks as a free manifestation into my spiritual space from beyond that entire space. And thus it lies always beyond 'categorical' and 'transcendental.' For this particular free 'you' there is no 'category' in the T; it cannot be subsumed under anything; I can only be open vis-a-vis it and wait how it will draw its original manifestation into my 'system of catego ries'." Hans Urs von Balthasar, Die Wahrheit ist symphonisch: Aspekte des christlichen Pluralismus (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1972), p. 28. “ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Die Absicht eingeleitet," quoted from Ferdinand Weinhandl, Das Vermdchtnis des Wanderers (Klosterneuburg: Stifterbibliothek, 1956), p. 19.

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This could be a purely positivistic concept of form, the merely external union of parts'/Rather, he sees the "outward visible and tangible" parts as united by something "interior," as manifestations of an original productive unity which expresses itself in them. At the foundations of his morphology Goethe posits thus a certain polarity, a certain unity-in-distinction of two poles: the pole of an inner core of being which expresses itself externally, and the jxjle of an external medium which is united by this expression: expression and form (Gestalt). '•''This polarity between expression and form is the foundation of von Balthasar's own philosophical aesthetics.1213 The nucleus of his aesthetics lies in the twofold thesis that all our knowledge is mediated by sensation and that it is not limited to sensation.’Sensible appearance comes first in any perception, but it does not exhaust the scope of known reality. There is a deeper level of being, e.g. another person as such, which lies ifi a sense "behind" sensible appearances. However, this deeper level of reality does not become manifest immedi ately. We cannot grasp other persons immediately, but we first grasp their sensible appearance^S till, even though inner reality is not immediately given, it manifests itself in and through the outer. We can grasp other persons in their appearance. Such manifestation implies that the outer, sensible appearance has significance (Bedeutung).14It is full of a meaning that brings the inner to light. Or, seen from the other side, such manifestation implies that the inner does not merely rest in itself, but expresses itself in the outer. Although it does not lie "nakedly" before our gaze, it translates itself into something seen. In this way one can say to someone "I can see you.” Our perception of other beings happens thus in a whole formed by exterior and interior inasmuch as the two are united in a process of expression. '■This unity can be seen from two sides, from the side of the inner depth which expresses itself (the "light" of expression), and from the side of the

12Von Balthasar first formulated his aesthetics in his work Wahrheit (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1947). Much of the material contained in Wahrheit is summarized or unfolded in The Glory of the Lord, vol. I. Von Balthasar recently republished Wahrheit with a new introduction as vol. 1 of his Theologik, thus underlining its enduring importance. 13Cf. Theologik, vol. I, pp. 145-152. 14Cf. Theologik, vol. I, pp. 152-153.


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external medium as united by this expression (the unified form. Gestalt). The beautiful is above all a form (Gestalt) and the light does not fall on this form from above and from outside, rather it breaks forth from the form's interior. Species and lumen in beauty are one, if the species truly merits that name (which does not designate any form whatever, but pleasing, radiant form.) Visible form not only 'points' to an invisible, unfathomable mystery; form is the apparition of this mystery, and reveals it while, naturally, at the same time protecting and veiling it. Both natural and artistic form has an exterior which appears ana an interior depth, both of which, however, are not separable in the form itself. The content (Gehalt) does not lie behind the form (Gestalt), but within it. Whoever is not capable of seeing and 'reading' the form will, by the same token, fail to perceive the content. Whoever is not illumined by the form will see no light in the content either.15

b. Heightened polarity and beauty The text just quoted contains several new ele ments; the concept of mystery with the related concepts of revealing and veiling, as well as the link between these and beauty. Let me unfold these elements by turning to a funda mental principle of Goethe's philosophy of nature, the princil5The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 151. It is very difficult to translate the German 'Gestalt'. The editors of The Glory of the Lord have chosen 'form', which is probably the best option. Still, there are difficulties of which the reader must be aware. 'Gestalt' can refer to the shape (either literally or in an extended sense) of a thing. This meaning is similar to that of 'form' (especially as developed in Aristotle's doctrine of morphe and in the Scholastic doctrine of forma). However, 'Gestalt' can also refer to entire beings. "The Gestalt of Jesus" can refer to "the Gestalt which is Jesus." This is the sense of 'Gestalt' most frequently intended by von Balthasar. For example. Seeing the Form, the first volume of The Glory of the Lord, discusses seeing the Gestalt of Jesus as a concrete historical Gestalt or figure, rather than as a mere formal aspect or principle. And so some translators prefer the term 'figure' which allows this concreteness more than does 'form'. The main disadvantage of 'figure', however, is that its roots in the philosophical tradition on which von Balthasar's concept of Gestalt depends (Aristotle, Goethe) are not as deep. There is a second source of confusion in the translation of ‘Gestalt’ as 'form'. In Goethe, Gestalt refers primarily to the outward, visible parts of a living being as these are united by an inner principle of unity. In Aristotle and Scholastic philosophy, on the other hand, form (especially substantial form) refers primarily to the inner principle of actuality which gives being and unity to material parts.

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pie of heightened polarity as one ascends in the hierarchy of being in nature.16 A plant is to some extent a form (Gestalt) which is united by an inner principle of unity. It puts forth members, keeps them in a certain order of function with each other, and moves them in harmony. Animals essentially deepen this self-governed unity by sensation, desire and the kind of self-movement made possible by them. They are thus in a completely new sense a unity from within and thus able to express themselves. A human being, finally, achieves selfpossession through reason and freedom on yet another level. Animals are still more passively expressed than expressing themselves. Human beings, by contrast, can freely express themselves (which implies that they can also, to some extent, hide themselves). As one ascends in the hierarchy of being in nature there is thus at the same time a greater distance and a greater union between interior and exterior. Thomas Aquinas, in complete convergence with Goethe, expresses the underlying principle as follows, “The more noble a form is, the more it dominates corporeal matter, is less immersed in it and exceeds it in its operation or power."17 Expressed in von Balthasar's terms: the polarity of expression and form is heightened as a polarity, that is, as a unity-in-distinction of two poles. The greater dominion of the inner leads to its greater unity with the outer, its greater presence in the outer, a greater power of expression. And yet, precisely in this dominion, the inner retains itself in its interiority and does not lose itself to the outer. Increasing exteriority in expression goes hand in hand with increasing interiority. In other words, light and mystery are directly proportional. There is an element of mystery present in the appearing of beings, and this element is not a

16Cf. the extensive discussion of this principle in Theologik, vol. I, pp. 84-107, the chapter entitled, "The Levels of Interiority." 17Summa theologica, I, q.76, a.l, c. Note the shift of perspective between Thomas's and Goethe's terminology mentioned above. Taking this shift into account one can rephrase Thomas's principle as follows: The higher a form (Gestalt) is, the more its inner ground (i.e., its 'form' in Thomas's terminol ogy) dominates it and retains itself as ground in its own inwardness. This Goethean reformulation explicitly brings in the aesthetic perspective (how a being is present in our perception) which is only implicit in Thomas's formulation.


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"beyond” of their appearing, a lack of appearing, but its permanent and even increasing inner characteristic.18 This element of radiance and mystery, von Balthasar argues, is closely connected with beauty. In the Aristotelian tradition, Albert the Great points to this connection when he describes beauty in nature as "the splendor of substantial form above material parts which are proportioned and given their limit [by this form], splendor formae substantialis supra partes materiae proportionatas et terminatas."19Von Balthasar develops this description in terms of the polarity of expression and form. The order of body and spirit in the world, or, more broadly, the order of external appearance in the material sphere and of an inwardness that appears (whether it be man's free rational spirit, or the animal soul, or the life-principle of plants, or an indefinable element of spontaneity in matter), establishes the mystery of beauty in an irresolvable paradox. For, what is manifested in a given manifestation is always, at the same time, the non-manifest. The soul expresses and represents itself in the living organism and yet, precisely in so doing, it has its being 'behind' the manifestation and, through this manifes tation, it builds for itself a cell, a husk, a containing cavity. To beauty belong not only the 'measure, number and weight' of the organised material, but also the 'energy' of the organising agent, which ex presses itself in form (gestalthaft) without losing itself to the external, and the 'glory' proper to being free and, still more deeply, proper to the ability to squander oneself in love. Along with the seen surface of the manifestation there is perceived the non-manifested depth: it is only this which lends to the phenomenon of the beautiful its enrapturing and overwhelming character . . . 20

18Cf. Theologik, vol. I, pp. 143-144; 153-156. 19Albert the Great, De Bono et Pulchro; quoted by von Balthasar in Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 1, 1 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1975), p. 348. Note again the shift in the use of 'form.' In von Balthasar's terms one would have to say: beauty in nature is linked with the splendor that shines through a form (Gestalt) from the inner unifying ground of that form. 20The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, pp. 441-442. In focusing on these two elements of the beautiful (Gestalt and expression) von Balthasar sees himself in continuity with the perennial tradition: "We may . . . distinguish and relate to each other . . . two elements in the beautiful which have traditionally controlled every aesthetic and which, with Thomas Aquinas, we could term species (or forma) and lumen (or splendor)—form (Gestalt) and splendor (Glanz). . . . We 'behold' the form (Gestalt); but, if we really behold it, it is not as a detached form, rather in its unity with the depths that make their appearance in it. We see form as the splendor, as the glory of Being. We are 'enraptured' by our contemplation of these depths and are 'transported' to

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c. The roots of beauty in the Trinity The basic principle of von Balthasar's aesthetics is thus "the polarity within beauty between 'form' and 'light'."21 For a full account of beauty, however, this polarity must be seen as flowing from something still more basic, namely, the link between being and love, a link which is ultimately ground ed in God who, as the Trinity, is eternal love. Here lies the central point of von Balthasar's aesthetics. ". . . every created being is a manifestation of itself (the more intensively, the higher it ranks): the representation of its own depths, the surface of its own ground, the word from its essential core."22 Beauty is founded upon this movement of expression from interior to exterior. This is not an accidental movement, but one which lies at the heart of every being: "Both things—light and measure—are correlative, and the ground is ground only in the manifestation, and there can be manifestation only as a manifestation of the ground."23 Why do things engage in this movement of expres sion? Why do things communicate themselves? Given that the movement of expression is not accidental to them, this question implies the more basic question why things are rather than not. The polarity of expression and form points thus to the polarity between essence and existence.24 In accounting for these po-

them. But, so long as we are dealing with the beautiful, this never happens in such a way that we leave the (horizontal) form behind us in order to plunge (vertically) into the naked depths." The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, pp. 117-119. To give merely one example from the tradition, von Balthasar's "light and form" correspond to the two terms which dominate Gerard Manley Hopkins's aesthetics, "instress" and "inscape." Cf. the monograph on Hopkins in The Glory of the Lord, vol. Ill, pp. 353-399. "Instress, as in-stress, im-pression, in-tention in existing beings, is used by Hopkins for both the object and the subject: things express their instress, their deep unique act, which establishes them, holds them together and holds them in tension, and there is required in the subject an answering stress . . . If instress refers to the power of a thing, then inscape refers to its form. What is intended is not a separate form, resting in itself, but a form released from its creative source and at the same time shaped and held by it, radiating from a focus . . . " The Glory of the Lord, vol. Ill, pp. 365-366. 21Theologik, vol. I, p. IX. ^The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 610. 23The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 610. 24Von Balthasar unfolds this polarity in his treatment of Thomas Aquinas in


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larities, no necessity can be found or posited. There is a most basic level of gratuitousness which founds the whole order of being in this world. It is a continuous wonder that the beings of this world exist. The same gratuitousness lies in the movement of their communication. In this way, being and its movement of expression is grounded in and permeated by gratuitous love. Here, von Balthasar argues, lies the deepest root of beauty. At this point the question arises " . . . whether the structure of polarity [in the beings of this world] which seems to stress precisely the dissimilarity between the creature and the being of the Creator does not contain an element of positive similarity and comparability with God, due to its inner living character."*25Very cautiously, von Balthasar attempts to answer this question in the affirmative. The most beautiful aspect of the contingent being of this world, in its lack of identity between essence and existence, is the suspension, in itself and of all aspects in relation to each other, which embraces all justified and satisfying necessities. Must not this beauty be found in an incomprehensiole way, anew and differently, in God? If God creates a world without necessity and thus gives to it, together with its lack of necessity, something of the character of his own freedom and of the liberating power of giving, and if this lavish freedom deserves no other name than that of love, then what else could the "reason" be for God's being than love? Any other attempt to approach the "absolute" beyond the distinction between essence and existence would have to ascribe less to the "absolute" than to that which derives from it.26

As von Balthasar repeatedly stresses, "This is not an attempt to offer a deduction of the Trinity."27 But although the Trinity cannot be deduced from the aesthetic polarity present in creatures, it throws the decisive light on this polarity once it is revealed. The Father is ground; the Son is manifestation. The Father is content, the Son form—in the unique way shown by revelation. Here, too.

Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 1, 1, pp. 354-370, and in his own metaphysical synthesis which is built upon Thomas: Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 1, 2, pp. 943-983; cf. Theologik, vol. I, pp. 217-220. Cf. also the closely parallel discussion of the metaphysical aspects of Goethe's concept of Gestalt in Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 1, 1, pp. 31-32, in which von Balthasar interprets Goethe along the lines of Thomas's doctrine on esse. 25Theologik, vol. 1, p. IX. 26Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 2, 2, p. 965. 27The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 611.

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there is no ground without manifestation, no content without form. In the beautiful these two things are but one; they rest in one another; and whoever would perceive beauty must perceive this interrelation ever more deeply: "That you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father" (John 10:38, cf. 14:10,20) . . . The Son's expression of the Father in form is intimately related to the praise and '^glorification" (doxazein) which, in turn, is closely con nected to the act that ascribes to the Father his true worth and honours (timan) him as exalted Lord—in the same way that figure and splendour, form and light are one in the beautiful.28

3. Aspects of a theological aesthetics a. From philosophical to theological aesthetics The continuity between the philosophical and theo logical center of von Balthasar's work has already become evident to some extent: there is a series of connections which lead from his philosophical aesthetics (with its roots in a Goethean-Aristotelian philosophy of nature) to his Trinitarian theology. In fact, von Balthasar's theological aesthetics is founded on an analogy between the aesthetic contemplation of the beautiful and the perception of God's revelation in Christ. The first volume [of The Glory of the Lord] attempted to show that one both can and must consider the revelation of the living God, as the Christian understands it, not only from the point of view of its truth and goodness, but also from that of its ineffable beauty. If everything in the world that is beautiful and glorious is epihaneia, the radiance and splendor which breaks forth in expressive form from a veiled and yet mighty depth of being, then the event of the self-revelation of the

28The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, pp. 611-612. Von Balthasar's view on the trinitarian foundation of aesthetics is very close to Bonaventure. Cf. the monograph on Bonaventure in The Glory of the Lord, vol. II, pp. 260-362, esp. pp. 282-308. For Bonaventure " . . . the created world expresses God because at the origin God expresses himself and because, when he wishes to express himself outwardly, he wishes to make for himself a perfect expression in the God-man Jesus: thus every worldly expression is a foreshadowing, an image, material directed to this end. The cause that makes all things possible is therefore God's Trinity, in which the relationship of expression is located in the absolute being of God." The Glory of the Lord, vol. II, p. 283. "Bonaventure's concept of beauty (even when considered as 'exactness', as aequalitas numerosa) is always deployed in the framework of an ontology of expression (considered as the fecundity, self-abandon, love of being itself)." The Glory of the Lord, vol. II, p. 287.


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hidden, the utterly free and sovereign God in the forms of this world, in word and history, and finally in the human form itself, will itself form an analogy to that worldly beauty, however far it outstrips it.29

In drawing this analogy, von Balthasar is careful to guard himself against two main misunderstandings. A first misunderstanding would be to see the enterprise of a theolog ical aesthetics as an enterprise which involves an "aesthetic" attitude, i.e., the non-committed attitude of a mere spectator or "aesthete" who misses the immediate existential demands of revelation. God's advent as Lord of the world and its history can only release the most prodigious drama, which indeed it already contains within itself; there can be here no question of simply perceiving, contemplating. . . . It is an act in which God utterly freely makes himself present as he commits to the fray the last divine ana human depths and ventures of love.30

It would also be a misunderstanding to conceive of the philosophical categories of ground and appearance, expres sion and form, as univocal categories under which the revela tion of God in Jesus falls as a special case. God cannot be contained in this way under any philosophical category. . . . the living God is neither an "existent" (subordinate to Being) nor "Being" itself, as it manifests and reveals itself essentially in every thing that makes its appearance in form. Protestant theology, there fore, has been wholly right consistently to reject the application to Biblical revelation of the schema inherited from pre-Christian, and especially Greek, philosophy, a schema that distinguished between a "ground of Being5' and an ''appearance of Being.' 31

Even in this world, however, the aesthetic schema of expression and form is not univocal. The expressions of free beings in words and deeds are structured differently than the expressions of plants or animals. A further analogical applica tion of the schema to God's revelation is thus to some extent prepared. Still, the concrete content of the categories of a theological aesthetics must be taken from revelation itself.

29The Glory of the Lord, vol. II, p. 11; translation slightly altered. x The Glory of the Lord, vol. II, pp. 12-13. 31The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 119.

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Unity of nature, distinction of persons: this formula . . . reminds us above all that in Christ the one, concrete, divine nature becomes revealed and manifested in the world, precisely where this revelation is given as a sending and a being sent, a remaining in the background and a coming into the foreground, a remaining above and a descend ing and re-ascending. God's nature reveals itself in this twofoldness, and this in turn points further to something identical in the line of distinction, to something third which unites the sender and the sent in a living way [the Holy Spirit], The one God who is invisible by nature, appears, but not in the manner to which we are accustomed with worldly reality, namely, that the same being, identical to itself (which may also be a person), appears while not appearing and enters visibility while at the same time remaining a ground that rests in itself. Rather, the one invisible God appears in such a way that this polarity reveals itself to us as a personal relationship within God's very nature.32

In this text von Balthasar stresses that the catego ries of a theological aesthetics must, at root, be trinitarian categories: "sending and being sent, remaining above and descending-reascending." These are characteristically Johannine categories. And, indeed, the Gospel of John is the most central New Testament text in von Balthasar's theology. The Ignatian starting-point of his theology mentioned above took on an increasingly Johannine form, due, above all, to the influence of Adrienne von Speyr.33 In her commentary on John, von Speyr writes: In his nature God is the Trinity. For this reason he can only reveal himself in a trinitarian way. Revelation is always something living, something personal; and so it must be trinitarian. That God can reveal himself ana wants to reveal himself to the world presupposes a living unity between God and the world which is founded upon the living unity of the Spirit between Father and Son. In his revelation, Goa steps forth from his silence and beginning and reveals himself to us in his Word. He not merely speaks on his part, but he is understood by us: and this is the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the source of all living union. God's revelation is thus entirely trinitarian, and the Good News speaks of nothing but the Trinity. From one end of the the Gospel to the other, the one and only content of the word of God

32The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, p. 609; translation slightly altered. 33"It was Adrienne who showed the fulfilling way from Ignatius to John and who thus laid the foundation of most of my writings since 1940. Her work and mine cannot be separated, neither psychologically nor philologically—two halves of a whole which has as its center a single foundation." Rechenschaft, p. 35.


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is the Trinity, just as the Trinity is also the one and only content of creation.34

Basing himself on this central intuition, von Balthasar approaches the form (Gestalt) of Jesus time after time and from many angles to plumb its trinitarian depths. What follows is an attempt to give a schematic sketch of some of the most important aspects. b. Key to a Johannine Christology: The obedience of the Son In his trinitarian reading of the form of Jesus, von Balthasar focuses in particular on three features of this form: claim, poverty and abandonment, as united by the central Johannine theme of the mission or obedience of Jesus.35 The claims of the Johannine Jesus are unique in their intensity: "Amen, Amen, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Such claims are examples of a "formal constant"36 which runs through the whole Gospel. In his miracles, in the authority of his preaching, Jesus possesses a tone of lordship comparable only to the absolute "I am" of God in the Old Testament. Yet, at the same time, he is characterized by a radical humility and poverty: "I do not seek my own glory . . . If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing" (8:50,54). The Johannine Jesus is thus a profoundly paradoxical figure: he puts forward an absolute "I", which is the prerogative of God's glory in what seems to be a complete renunciation of such glory. A traditional avenue for resolving this paradox is to read one line of texts as applying to Jesus in his divinity, the other as applying to him in his humanity. In his divinity Jesus immediately speaks with the divine "self" of God in the Old Testament; in his humanity he is humble and does not seek his glory. Thomas Aquinas, for example, writes: Did Christ seek his glory from men? It seems not, for he says, "I do not seek my own glory." In answer: Only God can seek nis glory

34Adrienne von Speyr, Johannes, vol. I: Das Wort wird Fleisch (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1949), pp. 28-29; this passage is taken from Adrienne von Speyr's comments on John 1:2. 3SCf. Herrlichkeit, vol. HI, 2, 2, pp. 105-149. 36Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 2, 2, p. 113.

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without sin (sine vitio). A man, by contrast, should not seek his own glory from men, but rather the glory of God. Thus Christ, as God, fittingly sought his glory, and, as man, he sought the glory of God in himself.37

This avenue, however, cannot do justice to all aspects of Johannine Christology. Commenting on the phrase, “The Son can do nothing of himself" (John 5:19), Ernst Haenchen writes: Therein lies, of course, the one great problem connected with Johan nine Christology: we are so easily tempted (as are the Jews in the Gospel of John) to see in Jesus the one who seeks his own and who is really a god striding over the earth. That would be blasphemy for the Evangelist: only because Jesus exists solely for God, because he raises no claim on his own behalf, does he offer an undistorted image of the Father. The Jews claim that he makes himself equal with God. He makes himself of equal rank with God, and since there can only be one God, Jesus replaces him. Such a misunderstanding has also ap peared in various forms of Christian piety. But the Evangelist sees things differently. Since Jesus does what he sees the Father doing and only that, believers are able to see the Father in him. It follows that "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). That is the dialectic of Johannine Christology.38

Thomas Aquinas himself makes a very similar point when he develops a second avenue for reading "subordinationist" texts in John: According to Augustine, there is another way of understanding the passages which seem to imply a lesser status (minoritas) in the Son, although in fact they do not. One can refer them to the origin of the Son from the Father. For although the Son is equal to the Father in all things, nevertheless he has this from the Father by eternal generation. . . . Thus "The Son can do nothing of himself" (John 5:19) does not imply inequality, because this text speaks about the relation [of generation], while equality and inequality have to do with quantity.39

37Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Joannis Lectura (Turin: Marietti, 1952), p. 126; n. 669. 38Ernst Haenchen, John: A Commentary, vol. I (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) p. 254; translation slightly altered. 39Aquinas, Super Joannem, p. 140, n. 747 and 749. Cf. Thomas's comments on “The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28): “One can say, according to Hilary, that the Father is greater than the Son even in his divinity, and nevertheless the Son is not less, but equal. For the Father is greater, not in


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Von Balthasar unfolds this avenue by focusing on the Johannine texts which speak about the obedience of Jesus. "It is my food to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work" (John 4:34). " . . . so that the world might know that I love the Father and that I act as the Father commanded me" (John 14:31). Jesus speaks his "I am" never apart from, but only in, his obedience to his Father. His "I am" is thus not simply identical with the divine "I am" heard in the Old Testament, but it is transparent to it. It belongs to Jesus as the Son, that is, in relation to the Father. Jesus completely rejects the self-glorification and self-radiance of someone who "comes in his own name." "I have come in the name of my Father" (John 5:43). And he sees his innermost truth in this transparence toward the Father: "He who speaks of his own authority seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and there is no injustice in him" (John 7:18). Hence Jesus, in his mission, does not primarily reveal and glorify himself as God; as the Son, he is transparent to the deepest mystery, the Father. The unity of claim and poverty in Jesus' obedience is in some respects similar to the structure of prophetic mission. A prophet also combines the features of claim and poverty. They express his obedience to God and they are both intensi fied the more he offers himself as a transparent medium to God. But a particular prophet is only one among many possible instruments of God and thus there is a certain time at which he first receives his mission. In both of these respects the form (Gestalt) of Jesus is different. His transparence as the Son is not one among other cases of transparence, but it is unique and all-encompassing: "He who has seen me has seen the Father. . . . No one can come to the Father except through me" (John 14:9,6). And thus he does not receive his identity as the one who is sent at a certain point in time. He simply is the one who has "come to do the will of him who sent him." In other power, eternity and greatness, but by the auctoritas of the one who gives and who is the origin. For the Father receives nothing from another, while the Son receives his nature, if I may speak in this way, from the Father through eternal generation. Thus the Father, who gives, is greater, and yet the Son is not less, but equal, because he receives everything the Father has." Super Joannem, p. 370, n. 1971. Cf. the succinct formulation of the underlying principle by Hilary, “Films nihil habet nisi natum, The Son has nothing except as born." Quoted in Super Joannem, p. 148, n. 782.

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words, in Jesus, as opposed to a prophet, there is no distinction between self and function, between his existence as a particular person and his mission. He does not enter into a filial relation, but is Son by nature.40 The principle of resolving the Johannine paradox of Jesus' claim and poverty is thus an interpretation of his obedience as the obedience proper to the eternal Son.41 c. The glory of the Lord The account of the form of Jesus in terms of claim and poverty as expressions of his filial obedience remains on an abstract level if one does not introduce the third main articu lation of this form, Jesus' abandonment to death. Jesus' obedi ence has a forward thrust: it is an obedience which expresses itself in a "descent" (John 3:13, 6:38) of the Son from the glory which he "had with the Father" (John 17:5); and its aim is to "accomplish the Father's work" 0ohn 4:13) in the "hour" (John 12:23,27; 13:1), the hour of both death and glorification, which consists in "bearing the sin of the world" (John 1:29) in the abandonment to death on the Cross. Von Balthasar understands this "bearing the sin of the world" as substitution in a very radical sense. At the same time he is careful to avoid certain extreme positions held by Luther and Calvin. In no way can substitution be understood merely as a work which outweighs sin by the purity of its merit while being separated from

40On the form of Jesus versus that of prophets, cf. The Glory of the Lord, vol. I, pp. 185-186; 322-323; 468-470. 4TIn his treatise on the Trinity, Thomas Aquinas poses the following objection; The Son is lesser than the Father, because, he obeys the Father, "I act as the Father commanded me" (John 14:31). In his response, Thomas argues, "The commandment of the Father can be referred to the same [i.e., to the fact that everything in the Son is in him by communication from the Father]. From eternity the Father gave to the Son the knowledge and will of things to be done by generating him." Summa theologiae, 1, q.42, a.6 ad2. Cf. the discussion of this point in Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Christian State of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1983), pp. 35-37; 77-79. "The Son proceeds from the Father and is sent by him into the world. Because as a person he is in all things the identical likeness of the divine archetype, he finds his full expression in being like the Father in intellect and will. The Son's love is not less divine, less absolute, than that of the Father, yet it has the inner form of mission, of service, of 'obedience'." The Christian State of Life, p. 77.

von Balthasar’s The Glory of the Lord

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the darkness of sin (the undeserved death of Jesus: Anselm, Karl Rahner). In no way, on the other hand, can one interpret it as an identification of the crucified with the actual "no" of sin itself (which, according to Luther, rises up in Jesus and must be choked down by him). The manner in which Christ experiences the darkness of the state of sin cannot be identical with the manner in which sinners (who hate God) would have to experience it (if they were not saved from it by him). Still, the darkness experienced by Jesus is deeper and darker than theirs, because it happens in the depth of the relations of the divine hypostases of which no creature has as much as an inkling.42

It would be a fundamental misunderstanding to see the Cross of Jesus as a vindictive venting of divine wrath on an innocent victim. This misunderstanding can be overcome if one sees the Cross of Jesus in every respect as the appearing of the glory of God's love in this world.43 Such a "seeing the form (Gestalt)”of the Cross can be unfolded in three steps: (1) In Jesus' descent to his "hour" in final aban donment to the working of the Father, the whole weight and thrust (Hebrew, kabod = weight, glory) of God's rejection of sin is embraced by the far greater weight and thrust of God's love: It is embraced by the love of the Father who "so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16), and by the love of the Son who "loved his own" in such a way that he "loved them to the end" (John 13:1), to the end of "bearing the sin of the world" (John 1:29). In this way, and this is the central thesis of The Glory of the Lord, the Cross is the final expression of God's glory in the world. It reveals God's majesty as a majesty of gratu itous, self-abandoning love. God's majesty, as expressed in the mission of Jesus, lies in the completeness, one might almost say, the recklessness, with which God gives himself for the salvation of the world. God effectively pours himself out in complete weakness. And this weakness is the most effective 42Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theodramatik, vol. Ill (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1980), pp. 312-313. Cf. the passage in Thomas Aquinas where he argues that the pain suffered by Christ in his passion is greater than all other pain: "First, on account of the cause of this pain . . . For the cause of interior pain were the sins of the whole human race for which Christ atoned by suffering, which is why is ascribed these sins to himself, as it were, (quasi sibi adscribit), as when he says in Psalm 21:2, "[My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, far from] the words of my sins (verba delictorum meorum)." Summa theologiae, III, q.46, a.6, c. 43Herrlichkeit, vol. Ill, 2, 2, pp. 192-193.

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penetration of God's light into the darkest corners of creation. "In that God serves and washes the feet of his creatures, he reveals his innermost divine depth and shows his final glory."44 (2) A further step is necessary to see the root of this glory. The Cross is not only the expression and realization of God's love of the world. The mission of the Son is primarily a function of the love of the Father in which he wishes to let all the redeemed creation take its place in the Son, "The Father loves the Son and has given everything into his hand" (John 3:35). And it is a function of the love of the Son for the Father in which he goes to the end to restore the world to his Father, "so that the world may know that I love the Father and that I act as the Father commanded me" (John 14:31). There is a striking text which unites these two points: "The Father loves me, because I lay down my life" (John 10:17). This text becomes intelligible once one sees that in the Cross of Jesus his mission reaches its fullness, and that this mission is nothing else than an expression of his eternal identity as the beloved Son. (3) Still a further step is necessary if God's life is truly eternal life and thus not bound to creation and the drama of redemption for its realization. The final root of the majesty of love which is expressed in the mission of Jesus, the final root of the glory of the Lord, lies in God himself. It lies in the fact that God is eternally Father, and thus a God who does not cling to his divinity, but exists only as the one from whom the Son proceeds. This complete relationality and fluidity of the Father is the ultimate foundation of the mission of Jesus. "God's self-abandoment in the Incarnation has its ontic ground of possibility in God's eternal self-abandonment, his threepersonal gift of self."45 The ultimate mystery, then, which is manifested and made present in the Cross of Christ is the Trinity, the fact that God is eternal and absolute love: God is God only as the Father who gives himself eternally and completely to the Son, as the Son, who eternally receives himself in this gift and returns himself to the glorification of the

44Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Mysterium Paschale," in Mysterium Salutis, vol. 111,2, ed. by Johannes Feiner and Magnus Lohrer (Einsiedeln, Benziger, 1970), p. 133. 45//Mysterium Paschale," p. 147.


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Father, and as the Spirit, who is the seal and witness of this unity of love. This final step is not a step away from the drama of Jesus' mission into an abstract "Greek” essence above this drama. The glory of God manifested in the Cross of Christ is not a new glory: "Now, Father, glorify me with the glory which 1 had with you before the world was" (John 17:5). The primal drama, and this is the central thesis of von Balthasar's Theodramatik, occurs eternally in God's inner life. It is meaningless to call this drama, which is superior to all time, "static," "abstract," or "closed in itself," in the opinion that it receives its movement and color only in the passage through sin, Cross, and hell. This is hubris and an excessive estimate of created freedom. . . . Rather, we must say that the "emptying" of the Father's heart in generating the Son includes and surpasses every drama between God and a world, because a world can only have its place within the distinction between Father and Son which is held open and bridged by the Spirit.46

4. Conclusion In all its wealth and complexity, von Balthasar's work has a great underlying unity, because it always circles around a central light: the glory of God's triune love as expressed in the form (Gestalt) of Jesus. From the deepest of all mysteries, the Father, this glory proceeds as the wellspring of all that is. The beauty of creatures can only be a distant echo of this procession of the Son as image and splendor of the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. The polarity of expression and form in earthly beauty thus points back to the central trinitarian light. In Jesus, finally, the whole is recapitulated: an earthly form becomes the vessel of God's glory. In this way, the twofold center of von Balthasar's work is really one center: the Trinity. If one keeps this center in mind, one has a key for reading The Glory of the Lord. The more one enters into this immensely rich work, the more one will realize that this key is, as it were, the whole content of the treasury unlocked by it. □

46Theodramatik, vol. Ill, p. 304. Author's address: 2 Peabody Terrace, Apt. 709, Cambridge, MA 02138.