Hans Urs von Balthasar

“The Human Being as Person” was one of several readings written by Hans Urs von Balthasar, a theologian and Catholic priest of the 20th century, where he throughout the short reading mainly addresses the answer to one question: when is a human being considered, person? Balthasar begins this short reading by saying, “Let us begin with a very simple consideration which prescinds from all history of theology. It will teach us that we can do without the concept "person" much longer than we are accustomed to think.” In this passage, right from the beginning, he makes us think if we, humans, truly comprehend the meaning of person and also what would we do if we did not had a notion of what is a person is supposed to be like. He then, makes his initial point when he explains that on earth all living beings have a way of understanding and making sense of the word that surrounds them but at the same time, that way of understanding, is different for all beings or like Von Balthasar would say it, “that each one always possesses it in a unique and immediate way.”…

Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian born in Lucerne to a well-established family. Von Balthasar joined the Society of Jesus in 1929 upon the completion of his dissertation. At the leading of Henri de Lubac, von Balthasar studied Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor where he discovered a hope for the salvation of the world. During his time as a chaplain in Basle, von Balthasar met the protestant theologian Karl Barth, who would go on to become close friend and major…

Balthasar, Hans Urs Von, and Brian McNeil. Explorations in Theology: Creator Spirit. Vol. III. San Francisco, Calif: Ignatius, 1993. Print. In section II, chapters two and seven of Explorations in Theology: Creator Spirit, Balthasar provides us with a particular Johannine oriented pneumatology. The bulk of his argument seems to be situating the Holy Spirit within an understanding of the Holy Trinity, which establishes the Spirit as truly divine, rejecting any notions to just reduce the Holy…

In the introduction to Two Sisters in the Spirit, Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote: “the Church has received the promise of objective sanctity… that her divine mission is guaranteed until the end of time. But this in no way eliminates the obligatory vocation to subjective and personal sanctity, which is indeed the ultimate reason for her whole institutional and objective side.” This paper will delve into how Balthasar and Victoria Harrison, the author of “Personal Identity and Integration: Von…

Being Consumed helps Christians to understanding and criticising the globalised consumer economic situation of the present. It show cases how humanities economic structures of our present day are inadequate and faulty, and we as Christians need to question these systems and re-line ourselves to The Scripture and its principle. The author, William Cavanaugh, makes use of strong references to Christian resources, such as St. Augustine of Hippo and Hans Urs von Balthasar, to complete his augments…

continued by saying, “I ask myself: who is most important in theology and in the mystic of the Church: the apostles or Mary on the day of Pentecost? It's Mary! ...the Church is a woman! It's "la Chiesa" (in Italian), not "il Chiesa"...it's "la Chiesa" and the Church is the spouse of Christ… A Church doesn't exist without this feminine dimension, because she herself is feminine.” Gavin D’ Costa analyzed theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar’s work on the trinity, which highly influenced St. John…

another and still eat the same food, buy the same clothes, or even stay in the same hotel. Cavanaugh argues that the movement of large corporations into other cultures has had an effect on that culture by absorbing it into the universal. These cultures are losing their own individual differences and are becoming one universal culture created by the corporations. This also means that small communities are no longer treating each other as “brothers and sisters,” because these corporations are…

William T. Cavanaugh, a professor of theology at DePaul University whose passion is seen in political theology, economic ethics and ecclesiology has once again written an attention-grabbing book on economics. In “Being Consumed” the writer challenges Christians to put forward our values in the current economy. He does not give a black or white answer to matters such as the free market, consumerism, globalization, and scarcity rather succeed in unveiling what they are, what they portray to be,…

Christ is present through the word. Barth said that the church is the community which exists due to the response of the proclamation of the Word of God; the church exists due to the proclamation of the Good news. This said that the church was united with Christ, rather than an extension of Christ. The church is seen as an event rather than as an institution. Barth argues that the spirit empowers and renews the church. The spirit protects the church from falling into purely earthly ways of…