List of Hans Urs von Balthasar Quotes

The Work With Which We Embark On This First Volume Of A Series Of Theological Studies Is A Work With Which The Philosophical Person Does Not Begin, But Rather Concludes.

To Be Sure, The Response Of Faith To Revelation, Which God Grants To The Creature He Chooses And Moves With His Love, Occurs In Such A Way That It Is Truly The Creature That Provides The Response, With Its Own Nature And Its Natural Powers Of Love.

One Can Understand Nothing Of Christ Without The Mystery Of The Trinity, Nothing Of The Church Without Faith In The Divinity And Humanity Of Christ, Nothing Of The Sacraments Without The Bridal Mystery Between Christian Life Without Christian Faith. Thus, The Present Sermons Revolve Around The Same Center--the Inexhaustible Mystery Of The One Indivisible Faith.

If God Wishes To Reveal The Love That He Harbors For The World, This Love Has To Be Something That The World Can Recognize, In Spite Of, Or In Fact In, Its Being Wholly Other.

The First Attempt At A Response: There Must Have Been A Fall, A Decline, And The Road To Salvation Can Only Be The Return Of The Sensible Finite Into The Intelligible Infinite.

We Are Not Only Interested In Those Aspects Of The Mystery Of The Roman Catholic Church Which Set Her Apart From The Other Christian Communities, But Also To Show How Often They Are Central Beliefs By Describing What Is Specifically Catholic In Such A Way That The Partner In Dialogue Can See, Even From His Own Standpoint, The Inner Consistency.

Prior To An Individual's Encounter With The Love Of God At A Particular Time In History, However, There Has To Be Another, More Fundamental And Archetypal Encounter, Which Belongs To The Conditions Of Possibility Of The Appearance Of Divine Love To Man.

Her (mary's) Son First Had To Be The Child Of The Father In Order Then To Become Man And Be Capable Of Taking Up On His Shoulders The Burden Of A Guilty World.

No One Should Think He Can Quickly Dispose Of Questions Posed Here Offhandedly. It Was Precisely Because Writers Were In The Habit During The Time Of The Reformation Of Theologizing With A Hammer That The Split In The Church Became Irreparable. And To Work At Overcoming This Split Means Much Effort. Only The Patient Need Apply.

Consequently, Christian Meditation Is Entirely Trinitarian And At The Same Time Entirely Human. In Order To Find God, No One Need Reject Being Human Personally Or Socially, But In Order To Find God All Must See The World And Themselves In The Holy Spirit As They Are In God's Sight.

It Is, Finally, A Word Is Untimely In Three Different Senses, And Bearing It As One's Treasure Will Not Win One Anyone's Favours; One Rather Risks Finding Oneself Outside Everyone's Camp... Beauty Is The Word That Shall Be Our First.

But The Issue Is Not Only Life And Death But Our Existence Before God And Our Being Judged By Him. All Of Us Were Sinners Before Him And Worthy Of Condemnation.