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Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory #2
Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory
The first volume of this series surveyed the great world dramatists to gather concepts and ideas to apply to the real stage, which is the universe God has made and centered into himself as an actor. This volume describes the actors, the dramatis personae. This is his theological anthropology concerning man, his freedom and destiny in the light of biblical revelation. Von Balthasar is concerned here with the dramatic character of existence as a whole, approaching the topic through a consideration of the various conditions and situations of mankind as a drama that involves both the Creator and his creatures.
546 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 20, 2013
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About the author
Hans Urs von Balthasar
436 books314 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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May 20, 2017
I'll let a few quotes from the book itself stand in for my review... I'll never get tired of von Balthasar's wring.
On the incarnation and the freedom of God's love for man:
On the emptiness of the postmodern concept of freedom:
The book as a whole is an extended meditation on the intersection of infinite divine freedom with finite human freedom; how God does not compel man, and man can't compel God; and how God calls man without ravishing him, and man can respond to God without being possessed by Him.
On the incarnation and the freedom of God's love for man:
Since God, the Absolute, is essentially "above" and can only encounter his creature by freely bending down to the later's level; and moreover, in this inclination, absolute love cannot gain anything for itself but condescends freely and for nothing, it follows that the descent is primary in the whole incarnational movement.... The descent goes from the act of incarnation right down to the obedience unto death, death on a cross (Phil 2:8), and continues downward in the descent into hell in solidarity with all those who are lost to time. It goes farther: from the obedience of the Cross to the atomizing of his bodily being, shared out in the Eucharist.
On the emptiness of the postmodern concept of freedom:
Here, at last, the gratis quality of the divine self-giving in Christ, this eternally overflowing love, is perverted into meaningless superfluity and hence absurdity. Where dependent being, which is nothingness, aspires to self-sufficiency, there can only be contradiction, the contradiction in which being's being consists in negating, in the freedom to put a question mark over everything. This means that every positive, loving relationship to one's fellow man, who represents an attack on my freedom, is fundamentally and finally destroyed.
The book as a whole is an extended meditation on the intersection of infinite divine freedom with finite human freedom; how God does not compel man, and man can't compel God; and how God calls man without ravishing him, and man can respond to God without being possessed by Him.
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