Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: Balthasar's Negative Theology of Revelation

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: Balthasar's Negative Theology of Revelation
Author(s): Steffen Lsel and Mark D. Jordan

Source: The Journal of Religion, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 586-616
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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Love Divine, All Loves Excelling:
Balthasar's Negative Theology of
Revelation*
Steffen Lisel / Emory University
In his famous Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther issues a clarion c

for a theology of the cross. This theologia crucis shall cover more than jus
one particular aspect of Christian theology. It shall be, as Walther v
Loewenich observes, "the distinctive mark of all theology" and a theol
in accordance with the gospel.' More specifically, it shall be a theolo
based on God's revelation on the cross sub contraria specie (under the c
tradictory form) which supersedes the Neoplatonic emanation mode
medieval scholasticism. "Non ille digne Theologus dicitur," Luther co
tends, "qui invisibilia Dei per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspicit,
qui visibilia et posteriora Dei per passiones et crucem conspecta intel
ligit."2 In Luther's view, it is impossible for sinners to recognize God
rectly, that is, through the mediation of the visible works of creation. Al
though natural theology is a human possibility, sin renders ineffectiv
natural knowledge of the Creator. Sinners misuse their knowledge o
God for the purpose of their own self-glorification. Luther therefore
natural theology a theology of glory, and he urges Christians to reject
Instead they should look to God's self-revelation sub contrario (under c
* For helpful comments and editorial assistance, I am thankful to Ms. Amy Carr. M
thanks go also to Prof. Mark D. Jordan for his help with the Latin translations.
Walther von Loewenich, Luther's Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (M
neapolis: Augsburg, 1976), p. 17.
2 Martin Luther, "Disputatio Heidelbergae habita" (1518), in his Werke: Kritische Ges
tausgabe (Weimar: B6hlau, 1883), 1:354, 17-20. See Harold J. Grimm, ed., Luther's Wo
vol. 31, Career of the Reformer: I, Helmut T. Lehmann, general ed. (Philadelphia: Muhlenb
Press, 1957), p. 40: "That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks u
the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things w
actually happened [Rom. 1:20]. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who co
prehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross
also Alister E. McGrath, Luther's Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthro
(Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 161-75.
? 2002 by The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.
0022-4189/2002/8204-0004$10.00
586
Balthasar's Negative Theology
tradiction) in Christ's passion and cross. In a sinful world, God wants to be

recognized exclusively in the crucified Christ. By showing us only God's
backside (cf. Exod. 33:18 ff), God effectively undermines human pride.3
In a radically different theological landscape, Reformed theologian
Karl Barth describes the disagreement between the Reformation and Ro-
man Catholicism in a similarly fundamental way. For Barth, as for Luther,
the crucial ecumenical disagreement lies not in any particular theological
locus but, rather, in the whole approach to theology. Barth rejects what
he calls the Catholic formal principle, namely, the doctrine of the analogy
of being (analogia entis).4 While Luther questions the theological legiti-
macy of philosophical deductions from the being of creation to the Being
of God, Barth objects against subsuming both God and the world under
a common concept, namely, the term "Being." "I regard the analogia entis
as the invention of Antichrist," he contends, "and I believe that because
of it it is impossible ever to become a Roman Catholic, all other reasons
for not doing so being to my mind short-sighted and trivial."5 Barth's
charge against Roman Catholic theology culminates in what fellow Swiss
theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar aptly calls the "laying hands on
God."6 In Barth's view, the analogia entis subsumes both God and the
world under the term "Being" and thus claims a knowledge of God,
which is far beyond the reach of the finite and sinful creature. Instead of
waiting obediently for God's self-revelation, humankind attempts to get
a grip on God. For Barth, the analogy of being becomes thus the episte-
mological expression of human sin.
More recently, Lutheran theologian Eberhard Juingel has attacked the
doctrine of the analogy of being again, albeit for a different reason.
Jingel criticizes the analogia entis not for its emphasis on the ontological
similarities between God and the world but, rather, on the contrary for
its claim that there is an ever greater dissimilarity between the two. In an
important essay on the hiddenness of God, he claims that the doctrine of
the analogy of being and its negative theology of the ever more incompre-
hensible God fails to differentiate between the hidden and the revealed
God.' Juingel traces the problem of this doctrine back to a lack of differen-
3 See Loewenich, p. 19.

4 In his evaluation of the importance of this doctrine for Catholic theology, Barth followed
Catholic fundamental theologian Erich Przywara. See Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Meta-
physik: Ur-Struktur und All-Rhythmus (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962).
5 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, pt. 1, ed. G. W. Bromi-
ley and T. E Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), p. xiii.
6 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans.
Edward T. Oakes (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), p. 52.
7 See Eberhard Jiingel, "Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos: Eine Kurzformel vom verborgenen
Gott-im AnschluB an Luther interpretiert," in his Entsprechungen: Gott- Wahrheit-Mensch:
Theologische Erorterungen (Mtinchen: Kaiser, 1980), pp. 202-51, here pp. 247-48.
587
tiation between God's general hiddenness in the history of the world (in
sua maiestate [in his majesty]) and God's specific concealment in God's rev-
elation (sub contraria specie). He points out that the doctrine of the analogy
of being interprets God's "precise" concealment sub contrario on the cross
as just another form of God's "absolute" hiddenness in the creation of the
world and divine governance of the world's history. For Jiingel, the belief
that semper maior dissimilitudo in tanta similitudine (there is always greater
unlikeness in any degree of likeness) between God and the world presup-
poses another hidden God above, behind, and beyond the God who re-
vealed God's self in Jesus Christ. Such an assumption, he argues, under-
mines the believer's confidence that Jesus Christ both promised and
guaranteed our salvation once and for all. It puts into question the defin-
itiveness of God's self-revelation on the cross and thus threatens its sal-
vific character.8
Hans Urs von Balthasar, perhaps more than any other Roman Catholic
theologian of the twentieth century, has taken up the Protestant challenge
to Roman Catholic theology. Balthasar's multifaceted theological enter-
prise is an ongoing dialogue with Reformation theology in general and
Karl Barth's in particular.9 Balthasar conceives his theology and its
method explicitly as an answer to the Reformation's charge that Roman
Catholic theology attempts to master God by integrating God into an all-
encompassing human system of thought. In light of this critique, this
Catholic theologian asks, "whether the totality of the specifically Catholi
doctrines, the Catholic 'Plus,' clearly and indisputably represent the mani
festation of a principle that is itself clearly and unavoidably a violation o
grace, an attempt to control God, and is thus clearly and unequivocally
objective 'sin.''"o Little surprise that Balthasar does not think this to be
the case. In fact, throughout his own theological oeuvre he reveals him-
self as a fervent defender of the analogy of being. And yet, in response
to the Protestant charges, he fundamentally reformulates this doctrin
within the context of a theological aesthetics with a distinctly christologi
cal emphasis. He integrates the analogy of being within the analogy of
faith through an intrinsicist model of nature and grace, according to
8 See ibid., pp. 248-49, and Eberhard Juingel, God as the Mystery of the World: On the
Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism, trans.
Darrell L. Guder (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 261-81.
9 With the help of prayers and penitentiary exercises by his mystic friend Adrienne von
Speyr and a series of ten lectures on Barth's theology for the Gesellschaft ffir christlich
Kultur (Society of Christian Culture), held in Barth's presence and later published, Baltha
sar actually hoped to convert Barth to Roman Catholicism. See Elio Guerriero, Hans
Urs von Balthasar: Eine Monographie, trans. Carl Franz Miller (Einsiedeln and Freiburg:
Johannes Verlag, 1993), p. 107.
o10 Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, p. 53.
588
which the order of creation (and thus the analogy of being) is oriented
toward the ontologically prior order of grace (and thus the analogy of
faith)."
In this essay, I investigate Balthasar's christomorphic construal of di-
vine revelation, his reinterpretation of the analogy of being within the
framework of a theological aesthetic, and his portrayal of God's ever
greater incomprehensibility to the world. Through my analysis, I argue
that Balthasar is successful in incorporating Jtingel's critique of the anal-
ogy of being into his Catholic theology of the cross, thus safeguarding
the certitude of our faith in God's salvific self-revelation on the cross. My
argument shall proceed in several steps. First, I present the philosophical
foundations of Balthasar's epistemology, namely, his Thomistic theory of
perception and its two key concepts "form" and "splendor." I show how
Balthasar makes use of this aesthetic theory of human perception for a
theological epistemology and discuss his concept of revelation as form
and its perception through the light of faith. In a second section, I inves-
tigate how Balthasar conceives of the hidden character of God's revelation
sub contrario on the cross. I focus on Balthasar's dialectical understanding
of God's simultaneous manifestness and hiddenness in creation, the his-
tory of Israel, the incarnation, and finally on the cross. My aim here is to
show how Balthasar develops a negative theology of revelation, which
avoids the temptation to master God, while respecting the certainty of
God's revealedness to the world. In a third and final section of this essay,
however, I raise some critical questions to Balthasar's theology. My focus
will be on what I see as the lack of a critical edge in Balthasar's theology
of the cross, first because of his all too continuous scheme of divine revela-
tion throughout the economy of salvation and, second, because of Baltha-
sar's seemingly undialectical construal of divine revelation and its human
perception, which exposes his theology of revelation to the danger of
Christian triumphalism.
" Already in his exposition and discussion of Barth's theology in The Theology ofKarl Barth,
Balthasar had argued that his christocentric construal of the analogy of being corresponds
to Barth's understanding of the analogy of faith. This thesis sparked a controversial debate
within Protestant theology. See Grover Foley, "The Catholic Critics of Karl Barth: In Out-
line and Analysis," Scottish Journal of Theology 14 (1961): 136-55; Walter Kreck, "Analogia
Fidei oder Analogia Entis," in Antwort, Festschrift Karl Barth (Zollikon-Ztirich: Theo-
logischer Verlag Zirich, 1956), pp. 272-86; Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Zur Bedeutung des An-
alogiegedankens bei Karl Barth: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Urs von Balthasar," Theo-
logische Literatur Zeitschrift 78 (1953), cols. 17-24; George Hunzinger, How to Read Karl Barth:
The Shape of His Theology (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 6-9.
Jiingel, God as the Mystery of the World, pp. 261-98, provides a Protestant critique of Baltha-
sar's Protestant critics.
589
FORM RADIATES LIGHT: EPISTEMOLOGY AS THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS
Balthasar's Thomistic Aesthetic Theory
Balthasar develops his theological epistemology within th

of a theological aesthetics. A theological perspective on
in Jesus Christ and its human perception, he argues, m
clude a discussion of its truth and goodness, but also of
order to describe the beauty of divine revelation and process
recognition, Balthasar uses the traditional categories of p
thetics, in particular those of Thomas Aquinas.'2
According to Balthasar's Thomistic aesthetic theory, an
recognition is defined by two aspects: its form (Gestalt, spec
its splendor (Glanz, splendor, lumen). The term "form" re
rior appearance of an existing object, which is perceptib
active intellect (intellectus agens). In contrast, the term "
the depth of Being (ens commune), which is present in
individual object and radiates from it. Form and splendor
with one another, insofar as a form is always "fundamen
appearing of a depth and a fullness that, in themselves an
sense, remain beyond both our reach and our vision."'" In
tology, the dialectical relationship between form and sp
from the distinction (Realdistinktion) between the essence (e
existence (esse) of a thing. Accordingly, Balthasar insist
exist by virtue of their participation in the totality of c
commune), without ever encompassing its totality. Being as s
vidual beings their existence (esse), insofar as they partic
ever, Being as such never exists in and of itself, that is,
pearance in individual beings; it exists only in their infin
Because all individual beings represent Being as such in
ual forms, they point to this common Being that is prese
ever, while common Being is always present in every ind
also remains hidden behind the particular object. The hi
Being gives every individual being a mysterious character
light. "We 'behold' the form," Balthasar contends, "but,
hold it, it is not as a detached form, rather in its unity
12 See Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aes
the Form, ed. Joseph Fessio and John Riches, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Mer
Ignatius Press; New York: Crossroad Publications, 1982), p. 125. Altho
both to Kant and Goethe in order to establish the need for a doctrine
of form, these authors are much less influential on the particular way th
ops his own aesthetic.
13 Ibid., p. 118.
590
that make their appearance in it. We see form as the splendour, as the
glory of Being. We are 'enraptured' by our contemplation of these depths
and are 'transported' to them. But... this never happens in such a way
that we leave the (horizontal) form behind us in order to plunge (verti-
cally) into the naked depths."'4 The depth, which appears in the splendor
of the individual being, is just as invisible in and of itself as Being itself.
Both are bound up inextricably with the formed existence of individual
beings. The human intellect can therefore grasp Being itself only through
its perception of individual objects.'5 Scholastically spoken, the active in-
tellect must engage in a conversio ad phantasma (turning toward the
sense-image).
Balthasar argues that our recognition of Being through the form of
individual objects is possible, only because we ourselves participate in the
depth of Being common to all beings. Our participation in the ens com-
mune gives us the light of being or of reason. This light is actually a recep-
tivity for the light, which radiates from other beings. With its help, the
active intellect perceives and recognizes objects. Our epistemological abil-
ity to know things thus results from our shared ontological communion
with the things we know. In short, knowing presupposes sharing in being,
what I would call "being in communion."
Balthasar's Theological Epistemology
Balthasar uses this Thomistic aesthetic theory, or "theory of vision," in

order to explain how we perceive God's revelation to the world.16 He con-
tends that it is useful and indeed necessary to employ this theory, because
the scriptures themselves call for it. As he puts it, "God's Incarnation per-
fects the whole ontology and aesthetics of created Being. The Incarnation
uses created Being at a new depth as a language and a means of expres-
sion for the divine Being and essence.""7 Balthasar looks to the Johannine
corpus in the New Testament, in particular the First Epistle of John, for
biblical support of his aesthetic understanding of revelation. These books,
he contends, portray revelation as an aesthetic event in two ways. First,
"the divine glory appears 'in the flesh' within one individual, absolutely
privileged, finite form."'" In other words, God's glory is revealed in Jesus
of Nazareth. For the biblical authors, faith can neither surpass nor spiri-
tualize this form. Second, "absolute Being itself makes its appearance"
'4 Ibid., p. 119.

'5 See ibid., p. 146.
'6 Ibid., p. 125.
'7 Ibid., p. 29.
18 Ibid., p. 233.
591
in this finite form.'9 God's self-revelation is not only a personal, but also
an ontological, event. As such, it becomes an "inner-worldly aesthetic
phenomenon," which theologians must describe in philosophical termi-
nology.20
Balthasar is aware that world-immanent structures of knowledge do
not apply univocally to our recognition of God's revelation. For him, our
knowledge of worldly things and our knowledge of divine things are only
analogous phenomena. He cautions the epistemological enthusiast: "God
is neither an 'existent' (subordinate to Being) nor 'Being' itself, as it mani-
fests and reveals itself essentially in everything that makes its appearance
in form."'21 Nonetheless, creation, reconciliation, and redemption repre-
sent "a genuine self-representation on [God's] part, a genuine unfolding
of [God's] self in the worldly stuff of nature, [humanity], and history."22
God reveals God's self through form: in nature, in history, and-insofar
as the human person is the being in whom the fullness of created being
"becomes fulfilled and comes into its own"-most of all in becoming a
human being.23 Although Balthasar's form of divine revelation is primar-
ily made up of the person of Jesus of Nazareth, it includes also the entire
salvation history, that is, God's promise in the Old Testament, its fulfill-
ment in the New Testament, and God's renewed promise in Jesus Christ.24
In particular, it includes the church, which prolongs and makes visible
the Son's glorification of the Father throughout world history.25 For Bal-
thasar, then, the form of revelation is a genuine expression of the infinite
God in the world.26
'9 Ibid. (my emphasis).

20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., p. 119.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., p. 171.
24 See ibid., pp. 30, 32.
25 See ibid., p. 211. For Balthasar, the church functions primarily as the mediation of the
divine form of revelation, most importantly through its own form as the Body and Bride of
Christ, but also through the eucharistic cult, the sacraments, the development of dogma,
and other forms of the church, such as the proclamation of the Word, the hierarchi-
cal ministry, the sphere of canon law, ecclesiastical discipline, and theology. See ibid.,
pp. 556-604.
26 In order to explain God's self-expression through form, Balthasar points to the beauty
both of art and of nature. He contends that it offers helpful analogies for how to conceive
of God's revelation. Just as an artist is essentially free in his or her artistic imagination,
Balthasar explains, so the self-revealing God is free to choose a particular form of revela-
tion. For Balthasar, though, God's self-revelation through form is also unlike an artist's self-
expression through a piece of art, because a human artifact does not necessarily reveal
anything about the artist himself or herself. In contrast, the form of God's revelation is
intrinsically related to who God is. On this point, the beauty of nature offers for Balthasar
an additional analogy for God's self-revelation, because God's creation bespeaks the Cre-
ator. See ibid., pp. 442-43.
592
Form: God from God
Balthasar contrasts his aesthetic understanding of God's revelation as

form with other concepts of revelation, which in his view portray the facts
of revelation as mere "signs." Balthasar explains that in contrast to a
form, a sign only points to a larger reality that lies "behind" it. A sign is
not a real and unsurpassable presence of whatever it signifies. Hence,
the facts of revelation, when understood as signs, only point to God; they
are not God's real presence in the world. For Balthasar, this misunder-
standing of revelation as a mere sign is bound to happen whenever one
considers revelation only under the aspects of its truth and goodness, but
not its beauty. In order to appreciate the beauty of God's revelation one
needs to consider it as form. In Balthasar's words, "The beautiful is above
all a form, and the light does not fall on this form from above or from
outside, rather it breaks forth from the form's interior. Species and lumen
in beauty are one."27 Put differently, only a theological epistemology that
portrays the facts of revelation as form can maintain that the facts of reve-
lation radiate the light of grace or faith themselves. Only a theological
aesthetic is able to argue persuasively that the Christ event itself has the
epistemological power to cause faith in us.
For Balthasar, the duality of form and splendor in Christ is analogous
to the inner-worldly dialectic between a particular being and the depth
of Being behind it. In Christ, God assumes a particular form in the world,
which becomes a divine appearance. God is fully present in this form,
and yet, the form points away from itself to the ever greater depth of
divine Being, which shines forth in it, giving it its divine splendor. As
Balthasar puts it, "what makes its appearance in Christ in no way presents
itself as a phainomenon of the One as opposed to the Many, but as the
becoming visible and experienceable of the God who in [God's] self is
triune."28 Christ is God incarnate, and yet, God is more than Christ. To
put it in terms ofJohn's Gospel, Jesus never points to himself. Rather, he
proclaims his heavenly Father and sends the Holy Spirit.29
In response to possible objections against his incarnational christology,
Balthasar contends that no philosophical reason obliges us to reject a
priori the possibility that God might reveal God's self in a particular hu-
man being. To deny God such an option would mean "either falling below
the level of ('natural') religion or dissolving that possibility in a scholastic,
27 Ibid., p. 151.
28 Ibid., p. 432.
29 Balthasar's christomorphic understanding of revelation thus necessitates a trinitarian
understanding of God. See ibid., pp. 430-31.
593
rationalistic manner."'3 Balthasar argues that the New Testament and,

here, again, particularly the Johannine corpus, transcends the logical
possibilities of philosophical ontology by combining both ontological and
personal categories. For John, the incarnation of the divine Son is an
expression of the divine love, and the form of Christ is identical with the
light of divine love. As Balthasar explains, "This self-diffusing love is the
Light, the Truth, and both of these refer to the same thing: the reality
which, to its very foundation, is transparent both to itself and to all who
come to behold it."'31 At the same time, Balthasar contends, the author of
the Fourth Gospel understands the revelation of Being in personal terms.
Therefore he rejects the move beyond the individual form of Christ to
any form of absolute knowledge. Balthasar here detects a stark contrast
between biblical thinking and Hegel's Idealistic philosophy, which ulti-
mately transcends the finite in favor of the Absolute.
Following the lead of John's Gospel, Balthasar describes the human
perception of God with both personal and ontological categories. Faith is
a personal act of love from one person to another, and it is a transpersonal
act of our love of Being. As believers we not only love a personal God,
but we yearn for union with the divine Being. However, the analogy's
proviso of an ever greater dissimilarity applies. The believer's love for
God is similar, yet also ever more dissimilar to the love between two hu-
man beings. When looking at Christ as the form of revelation, Balthasar
contends, "the trinitarian God who reveals [God's] self in the Son-is not
an 'existent' who, along with creatures, falls univocally under the cate-
gory of personality: it becomes obvious to the believer that the analogy's
ever greater dissimilarity also cuts through the concept of person."32
Moreover, the Christian concept of God also transcends pantheism, by
"join[ing] together what in human terms is eternally incompatible: love
for one existent is conjoined with love for Being itself."33
If it is true that we cannot perceive the divine depth of Being in the
world other than through the appearance of revelation, then our recogni-
tion of God is inseparably bound to the form of Christ. Only in perceiving
Christ as the form of revelation can we recognize the trinitarian depth of
the Godhead. Balthasar finds this christomorphic nature of our recogni-
tion of God guaranteed once and for all by the events of Easter morning.
Jesus' resurrection from the dead gives eternal validity to God's triune
self-revelation through this one particular human being. The resurrec-
30so Ibid., p. 185.

31 Ibid., p. 235.
32 Ibid., p. 195.
* Ibid., p. 193.
594
tion and glorification of the crucified Son renders it impossible for us to

overcome the aesthetic way of revelation with a higher form of philoso-
phy or gnosis. As Balthasar argues, "The 'formless' Father is not the ter-
minus of all the world's ways in the sense that, after reaching him, the
'formed' Son has been surpassed."34 In other words, our recognition of
God can no longer abstract from God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ. We
cannot transcend the christological form to reach the invisible and hid-
den God in God's self.
Splendor: Light from Light
We have seen above that Balthasar's understanding of God's revelation to

the world is christomorphic. Jesus Christ is the form in which God be-
comes present in and makes God's self available to the world. At this point,
we might ask how humankind may actually recognize the divine form
of revelation as a real appearance of God. Balthasar answers that ou
perception of the form of revelation requires more than our natural abil
ity to perceive forms as such. Remember: already in the realm of world
immanent knowledge, an act of recognition presupposes the participa-
tion of both the knowing subject and the known object in their common
Being. The active intellect possesses the light of being or reason, because
both we and the things we know are. We share our being with the thing
we know. For Balthasar, our knowledge of God is analogous to this knowl
edge of worldly objects. We can recognize the divine form of revelation
we participate in the divine depth of Being, which radiates from the form
of revelation. Put in theological terms, we know Christ to be the Son of
God if we share the Holy Spirit and take part in God's triune life.35 We
can see with the eyes of faith, if we have the light of grace.
As a firm believer in the ancient ecclesial dictum "lex orandi, lex
credendi," Balthasar quotes the preface from the Roman Catholic Christ-
mas liturgy to get his point across: "Quia per incarnati Verbi mysterium
nova mentis nostrae oculis lux tuae claritatis infulsit: ut dum visibiliter
Deum cognoscimus, per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur."36 For
Balthasar, this means: in, with, and through the incarnation, we receive
a "new light" that enables us to recognize the incarnate God, who in turn
moves us to love the invisible God. Note that the Christmas preface
speaks of our vision. For Balthasar, this liturgical talk of vision is not only
4 Ibid., p. 252; see ibid., p. 124.

5 See ibid., pp. 153-54.
36 Christmas preface, quoted in ibid., pp. 119-20: "Because through the mystery of the
incarnate Word the new light of your brightness has shone onto the eyes of our mind; that
knowing God visibly, we might be snatched up by this into the love of invisible things."
595
a metaphorical statement. Rather, it emphasizes that those who believe

truly see Jesus Christ for who he is, namely, the Son of God. Faith, for
Balthasar, is not blind faith; it includes understanding. Here Balthasar
rejects what he believes to be Luther's irrationalist concept of faith. For
the Catholic theologian, God's revelation is not simply hidden incompre-
hensibly sub contraria specie. Rather, it is accessible and comprehensible
and therefore also transparent for the divine mystery in it. God's revela-
tion is no mere dialectic of contradiction. If there is a dialectic, it is only
the dialectic between the particular form of revelation and the infinite
divine depth that radiates from it.
According to Balthasar's theory of vision, then, we need the light of
grace to see and interpret the supernatural revelation of God. This light,
Balthasar contends, "will at the same time make seeing the form possible
and be itself seen along with the form.""'37 It gives us sight and "makes the
eye proportionate to" the object of faith.38 Only this inner light can evoke
in us a sufficient certainty of faith. In contrast, all exterior reasons for
faith must remain insufficient. We cannot deduce Jesus' divine Sonship
from visible signs that we could rationally analyze. Rather, faith springs
forth from the inward witness of God for the Son. In Balthasar's words,
"The Son of God, who in history witnesses to God and is witnessed to by
God, convinces us only because we have God's witness in ourselves.""39 For
Balthasar, the Aristotelian rule applies: the like can only be recognized
by the like. God can only be recognized by God.40 Balthasar argues that
the New Testament confirms this epistemological maxim. Here, only
those who believe in Jesus recognize him as the Son of God.41 The faithful
therefore need the light of grace. The Christ "from above" needs the
Spirit "from within."42
Although his discussion of the light of grace as a prerequisite of faith
might seem at first an apologetic move designed to account for unbelief
in the world, apologetics are far from Balthasar's mind. On the contrary,
he contends that God pours out the light of grace upon all of humanity.
This a priori reception of the light of grace is due to the aforementioned
primordial elevation of the order of creation through grace. Before the
beginning of time, Balthasar explains, God decided to pour out the Holy
Spirit into all human hearts. Through this divine act, the natural order
37 Ibid., p. 120.
38 Ibid., p. 176.
9 Ibid.
4o See ibid., p. 156.
4 See ibid., p. 153.
42 For a christology based on interior witness and mystical experience, see Mark A. McIn-
tosh, Christology from Within: Spirituality and the Incarnation in Hans Urs von Balthasar (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996).
596
turned into a supernatural one. All human beings thus possess the light
of grace, which enables them to recognize the divine form of revelation.
If everybody has the light of faith, why do not all human beings recog-
nize the divine form of revelation? Balthasar answers that the light of
faith is always bound to the appearance of God that corresponds to it.
The light of faith can only become effective when a person perceives the
form of God's revelation in the world.43 The inner light must be reflected
by the outer form, if faith is to develop. The Christ from above must
complement the Spirit from within. Faith requires both the inward gift
of the Holy Spirit and the outer form of Jesus the Christ. Inner and outer
light of grace in faith must be one.44
Balthasar here points out an analogy between the light of faith and the
light of reason. Just as the light of faith radiates from a form extra nos, so
does the light of reason. Neither one is in our own possession. As we saw
before, the light of reason is not simply a part of the human person's
rational nature, "but rather his [or her] openness to the light of Being
itself which illumines him [or her]."45 Our active intellect receives the light
of Being from its object. Hence, the object enables its own perception.
Analogously, the form of revelation enables us to perceive it for what it
is. There is, however, also an ever greater dissimilarity between the light
of faith and the light of reason. We recognize worldly objects because we
share the light of Being with the object from which it radiates. We recog-
nize the divine form of revelation, however, only because Christ gra-
ciously shares the light of grace, which allows us to see with the eyes of
faith. As Balthasar puts it, "The light of being envelops both subject and
object, and, in the act of cognition, it becomes the overarching identity
between the two. The light of faith stems from the object which, revealing
itself to the subject, draws it out beyond itself (otherwise it would not be
faith) into the sphere of the object."46 Hence faith-in contrast to rea-
son-is a divine gift, never a human possibility. Jesus Christ is not only
the form of revelation. He also radiates the light of revelation, which be-
comes in us the light of faith and thus enables us to believe. Thefides quae
creditur (faith that is believed) causes the fides qua creditur (faith through
which it is believed).
Although faith is a divine gift, it originates in an act of natural reason-
ing. Here, another scholastic axiom holds true for Balthasar: "Gratia non
4 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 179.

44 For a comparison of Balthasar's concept of the light of faith, which is given to all human
beings, and Karl Rahner's concept of the supernatural existential and the anonymous
Christians, see Lucas Lamadrid, "Anonymous or Analogous Christians? Rahner and von
Balthasar on Naming the Non-Christian," Modern Theology 11 (1995): 363-84.
45 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 165.
46 Ibid., p. 181.
597
destruit, sed supponit et perfecit naturam" (Grace does not destroy na-
ture, but adds to and perfects it).47 Faith is God's work in us, Balthasar
explains, and yet it builds on our natural ability to see. Natural reason
can decipher in the divine form of revelation a whole range of inner pro-
portions and harmonies. These observations prompt the question of God.
Yet, while the act of faith presupposes rational knowledge, it cannot be
reduced to reason. The recognition of the form of revelation through
reason is only initial, partial, and insufficient. In the encounter with
Christ, more questions remain open to reason than are actually an-
swered. We can recognize at last, though, that only faith provides us with
the necessary answers. Therefore, we must ask the question of faith.
Freedom of the Will and Bondage of the Eye
What, then, is the role of human freedom in the act of faith? If the form
of revelation and the light of grace work together to produce aesthetic
evidence for the believer, faith would seem to be a gift of Christ and the
Holy Spirit. Can it also be a free act of the human person? Balthasar
says yes. Ever again, he emphasizes the role of human freedom in our
relationship to and with God. In fact, Balthasar conceives of the history of
salvation as a monumental interplay between human and divine freedom.
Faith is first and foremost the human person's free response to God.48
Whenever the divine light of grace shines onto a person, he or she re-
ceives the freedom to respond to the grace offered. It is indeed the "crite-
rion for the authenticity of the self-revealing form" that it attempts to
elicit a free answer.49
Although faith is our free response to God's self-revelation, human

freedom is not a freedom of choice. We cannot choose to believe or not
to believe. Our freedom is merely passive or negative: we can choose to
either accept the Holy Spirit moving us to believe or else to close our-
selves off against God's grace in sin. In other words, human freedom is
the freedom not to believe. It is the freedom to reject the objective and
subjective evidence of revelation, nothing more. Balthasar seems to agree
with Augustine's verdict that human freedom after the Fall consists only
in the freedom to sin (posse peccare). Justifying faith, then, is caused en-
tirely and exclusively by the grace of God or, more specifically, by the
shining beauty of Christ and the eye-opening work of the Holy Spirit.
The freedom of the will is limited by the bondage of the eye. Faith is not
a human work but, rather, God's grace at work in us.
47 For this axiom, see Erich Przywara, "Der Grundsatz 'Gratia non destruit, sed supponit
et perfecit naturam: Eine ideengeschichtliche Interpretation," Scholastik 17 (1942): 178-86.
48 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, pp. 141-42, 157.
49 Ibid., p. 482.
598
Another observation supports our Augustinian reading of Balthasar's

concept of freedom. Balthasar contends that faith is not a one-time-gift,
which would ever become a habit or a possession of the believer. Rather,
faith remains an ever newly actualized gift. As he puts it, "the power that
in the first place makes his synthesising act [faith] possible resides in Jesus
Christ ... , in whom the Christian can believe only in such a way that
Jesus Christ helps his unbelief. It is not that Christ simply facilitates the
initium fidei [beginning and starting-point of faith]; by his prompting;
rather he bestows faith on the believer in such a way that the centre per-
manently remains in Christ."50 Because faith is caused by the ongoing
flow of light from the object of faith, believers remain dependent on God's
grace from beginning to end. Grace enables human beings to perceive
the light of revelation. Grace radiates forth from the form of revelation
and causes their actual acceptance of the light, which shines forth from
Christ. Faith, then, is perpetually a gift of grace. And as such it is certainly
nothing to boast about. In a formulation that would qualify for any ecu-
menical pronouncement on the nature of the Christian faith, Balthasar
warns us that "even if I knew that God had granted me faith as an infused
gift, I could never be certain that I had received this faith in the manner
God expects from me."''5
Interestingly enough, Balthasar is well aware that his understanding
of faith comes close to the Reformation's. He demarcates the supposed
differences all the more, warning his readers against a Melanchthonian
misunderstanding of his concept of faith. "This should not be interpreted
in the extreme extrinsicist Protestant sense," he claims, "as if faith and
the justification proper to it remain 'external' to [the human person] and
can be 'imputed' to him [or her] only juridically. The participation be-
stowed by God, rather, is highly efficacious."52 Faith, for Balthasar, is an
effective gift, justification not merely a forensic reality.53 Faith renews a
person from inside out, or rather, from outside in.
Balthasar traces the efficacious nature of faith back to its trinitarian
roots. Faith is the believer's participation in the life of the Trinity. It allows
the believer to participate both in the Trinity's mutual self-giving love
and, more specifically, in the responsive freedom of the divine Son to his
50 Ibid., p. 179; my translation.

5' Ibid., p. 224.
52 Ibid., p. 181.
5 While Balthasar's efficacious concept of faith and justification differs from Melanch-
thon's concept of imputative or forensic justification, it corresponds to Luther's understand-
ing of justification by faith as an efficacious reality. See Paul Althaus, Die Theologie Martin
Luthers, 6th ed. (Gtitersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1983), pp. 48-65; Hans Georg Pohlmann, Recht-
fertigung: Die gegenwdrtige kontroverstheologische Problematik der Rechtfertigungslehre zwischen der
evangelisch-lutherischen und der rimisch-katholischen Kirche (Giitersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1971),
pp. 237-99.
599
eternal Father. Faith, then, is "the conscious side of grace," "connaturali-

tas," or "essential kinship" with God;54 it "iS participation in the free self-
disclosure of God's interior life and light,"55 or else "the gracious insertion
of the creature into the trinitarian act of begetting and giving birth
('co-naissance' with the Son from the Father)."56 Faith, in short, is a christo-
logical and a trinitarian inclusion of the believer in God.
While Balthasar here believes to differ greatly from the Reformation,
he discovers the trinitarian and christological dimensions of faith both
in the tradition and, more importantly, already in the Gospel of John.
Here, Balthasar points out, faith appears as the believer's participation in
the Son's answer to the Father (see John 5:36-37, 8:16-18). It never is
"a second, autonomous word existing alongside Christ's word."'57 Christ
is not only God's self-revelation to humankind. He also incarnates human-
ity's faithful response to God. The individual believer simply participates
in Christ's Yes to the Father.
Formless Light: Grace without Christ
If faith requires an encounter with the divine form of revelation, what

about those persons who do not receive knowledge of Christ? Has the
light of grace been poured out on them in vain? No, Balthasar claims,
because the light of grace can also fall "upon figures of the human imagi-
nation (myths) and speculation (philosophies)."58 Although in such cases
the light of grace misses its true object, it is not extinguished. Here, Bal-
thasar loosens the seemingly indissoluble connection between the inner
and outer light of faith. The inner light of faith continues to shine even
in the absence of the divine form of revelation.
Balthasar explains the enduring presence of the light of faith in the
absense of Christ by pointing to the duality of the (natural) religious and
the (supernatural) theological a priori. His argument presupposes his in-
trinsicist understanding of the relationship between nature and grace.
When God created the world, he contends, God bestowed on all human
beings an innate orientation toward the divine Creator, or what he calls a
religious a priori. Balthasar describes this religious a priori as the "ability
to understand all existents in the light of Being, which is analogous to
and hints to God."59 In the created order human beings can deduce the
existence of God from the existence of the world but cannot perceive
"4 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 162.

55 Ibid., p. 157.
56 Ibid., p. 162.
5v Ibid., p. 191.
58 Ibid., p. 156.
59 Ibid., p. 167.
600
God's essence. However, the world actually never existed as pure nature
(natura pura). At the moment of creation, God elevated human nature to
the order of redemption-an order that was ontologically prior to the
order of nature, as God's salvific will for humankind precedes God's deci-
sion to create the world. In a primordial act of free will, then, God poured
out grace on the creation. God thereby elevated the religious a priori to
what Balthasar calls the theological a priori. The light of reason was
joined immediately by the light of faith. In consequence, all human be-
ings have always been able to perceive God not only as principium etfinis
(beginning and end) of the world, but also-at least in part-in God's
divine Being.
For Balthasar, then, the various products of human religious experi-
ence, be it in non-Christian religion, philosophy, or in art, all result in
part from the working of divine grace in humanity. As he puts it, they
"more or less explicitly indicate an attitude of obedience toward the light
of the self-revealing God."60 The inner light of grace is not poured out
in vain on non-Christians, because it guides all who search for beauty,
goodness, and truth. Human myths, philosophies, and art possess a "par-
tial truth," Balthasar claims, which can lead to the self-disclosure of God
in Jesus Christ.61
Although Balthasar contends that all religious and nonreligious efforts
to search for beauty, goodness, and truth can reflect the light of grace, he
equally insists that the divine light fully illumines a person only when it
falls onto the divine form of revelation. Only Jesus Christ fully reflects
the interior light of faith. Every human person must search therefore for
this one and only form, which truly corresponds to the light of faith.'62
Non-Christian religion, philosophy, and art may well be products of a
genuine human search for God. Yet, in contrast to the christological form
of revelation, they are not "God's immediate self-witness in historical
form."'"63 Rather, all of them are marked by "obfuscations" of the divine
light of faith.64 Such obfuscations are ruled out only when the light of
faith and the form of revelation form an inner unity or, as Balthasar puts
it, when "the interior light of grace and faith confronts its only valid veri-
fication" in the form of Christ.65 Balthasar therefore draws a sharp con-
trast between the divine form of revelation and products of human religi-
osity. This contrast results from what Balthasar sees as both Christ's
complete interior correspondence in terms of form and his perfect fit in
60 Ibid., p. 168.
6' Ibid., p. 156.
62 See ibid., pp. 190-91. Balthasar here refers to John 1:45, 6:68-69, and 14:8.
63 Ibid., p. 168.
64 Ibid., p. 170.
65 Ibid., p. 171.
601
the global context of history. For Balthasar, only the divine form of revela-
tion offers objective, aesthetic evidence for itself. As he formulates point-
edly, only Christ "as a historical form, demands faith for himself."66
LIGHT DISPELS DARKNESS: THE EVER GREATER INCOMPREHENSIBILITY
OF GOD'S LOVE
We have seen so far how Balthasar develops his theologic

as a theological aesthetic theory that builds upon the scho
of form and splendor. We are now in a good position to in
Balthasar interprets the hidden character of God's self-re
cross in the wider context of the divine economy of salva
need to comprehend first why Balthasar rejects Luther's t
lectic as an adequate method for a theology of the cross.
will look at how he relates manifestness and hiddenness in God's self-
revelation on the cross in his own theological enterprise.
The Protestant Dialectic
For Balthasar, theological dialectic is essentially the Protestant approach

to the cross. He traces it throughout the history of Reformation theolog
from Luther to Hegel, Kierkegaard, the early Barth, and up to Molt-
mann. When Protestant theologians argue that God is revealed on the
cross only sub contraria specie, Balthasar asks critically: "Is not this conceal-
ment the decisive revelation of the hidden God of anger and love?"''67
Balthasar maintains that the certainty of God's self-revelation on the cross
is at stake when Luther posits a deus absconditus over and above the deu
revelatus of the cross event. In particular, Balthasar fears that Luther and
other Reformation theologians take the second step before the first one
or, in other words, that they speak about sin, before ever discussing cre-
ation. Balthasar argues that it is necessary first to look at the nature of
God's revelation in and of itself, before one can look at the specific mo-
dality of God's revelation under the conditions of sin. By proceeding in
the opposite way, Protestant theologians presumably confuse the mode of
God's revelation with its substance. Because they attribute the hiddenness
of God's revelation to human sin, they run the risk of missing God's initial
66 Ibid., p. 168.
67 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 4, The Realm of
Metaphysics in Antiquity, ed. John Riches, trans. Brian McNeil, Andrew Louth, John Saward
Rowan Williams, and Oliver Davies (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), p. 38.
602
positive concealment in God's revelation even in the absence of sin (re-

moto peccato).68
Balthasar locates the problem of Protestant theology in its interpreta-
tion of the Christ event as a sign rather than a form. As we saw above,
such a symbolic interpretation cannot explain for him the presence of the
divine Being in the facts of revelation. Rather, it forces the believer to
leave behind the incarnate and crucified God in order to reach a hidden
God who remains concealed behind the cross. Balthasar discerns that the
Christ event offers "more than a Platonic economy of symbolic signs
which point beyond themselves to a spiritual reality."69 The crucified
Christ, he argues, "is unconditionally more than what Protestant dialec-
tics of whatever kind admits-whether, with Luther, we speak of the 'dis
guise' of the Word, or, with Kierkegaard, we understand his 'incognito
as a latere sub contrario [hiding under the contradictory] (and, therefore
as the crucifixion of the human senses), or as an alienation from self in
the Hegelian sense."'"7 Therefore, theology must solve the problem of th
apparent contradiction between God's glory and its appearance sub con
traria specie through an interpretation of the Christ event as the form o
revelation. Only such an interpretation within the framework of a theo
logical aesthetic ensures that theology neither abstracts from the Christ
event nor surpasses and transcends it through dialectic.
Balthasar, to be sure, admits that the triune God is ever greater than
the form of revelation and, hence, that God is hidden behind the cruci-
fied Son in an ever more incomprehensible way. Yet, he qualifies this
statement by arguing that understanding the Christ event as the true
form of God's revelation allows us also to see God's real presence in
Christ. For Balthasar, there simply is no deus nudus (naked God) or deus
absconditus (hidden God) behind the cross. The cruciform revelation of
68 It is not possible within the confines of this essay to discuss in depth Balthasar's charge
against Luther's theology of the cross. Luther scholars have pointed out that it is neither in
the early nor the late Luther's interest to put into doubt the definiteness and the certainty
of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. The early Luther speaks of the deus absconditus only a
the deus revelatus, who is revealed at the cross sub contraria specie. Here Luther's position is
quite similar to Balthasar's. Later in his life, Luther did indeed distinguish the deus revelatus
from the deus absconditus or deus nudus, who has completely concealed God's self to hu
mankind in the double predestination and divine providence over world history. Yet, even
here it is certainly not in Luther's interest to put into question the certainty of God's promis
(promissio). Rather, this God who is hidden in the divine providence over the history of the
world directs us to the revealed God, who has promised God's self to us in the divine wor
of promise. For an extended discussion of Balthasar's critique of Luther, see Steffen Losel
Kreuzwege: Ein dkumenisches Gespriich mit Hans Urs von Balthasar (Paderborn: Ferdinand
Sch6ningh, 2001), pp. 81-97.
70 Ibid.; my translation.
603
God does both: it offers us a real and unsurpassable knowledge of who

God is in God's self, and it confronts us with God's ever more incompre-
hensible hiddenness sub contraria specie.
A Catholic Dialectic
When Balthasar offers a portrayal of God's self-revelation in terms of a

theological aesthetic theory, he aims to provide a Catholic response to the
Protestant dialectic of contradiction. Against Luther's deus sub contrario
absconditus, he proposes a distinctly Catholic dialectic of divine mani-
festness and hiddenness, according to which God appears as increasingly
revealed in ever greater hiddenness. God is ever more incomprehensible,
not as such, however, but as the one increasingly revealed as divine love.
Balthasar's hidden God, then, is no other than the God who is revealed
as an ever more incomprehensibly loving God.
Balthasar thus admits to a true dialectic of the cross. And yet, this dia-
lectic is of a very different nature than in Luther's theology. It differs from
his Protestant dialectic insofar as it is continuous with the dialectic of
manifestness and concealment in prior forms of divine self-revelation.
Balthasar, the cross event is only the point where the divine dialectic
manifestness and concealment culminates. Prior to the crucifixion, B
thasar maintains, God is already dialectically revealed in the tension
tween the manifestness of the body and the hiddenness of the spirit, b
tween the creation (as an image and expression of a freely creating Go
and the Creator, and in the incarnation of the eternal God in a singl
privileged human being."7 Balthasar identifies analogies between God
self-revelation in all three of these domains, even if none of them can
deduced from the other ones. Let us look at each in turn.
Balthasar suggests that our knowledge of inner-worldly objects is sub-
ject to a dialectic between manifestness and concealment. As he puts it,
"concealment [is] to be found in every worldly revelation,""72 insofar as
the fullness of Being appears in every individual being only as its hidden
depth-dimension. As we saw above, we can know visible objects only be
cause we simultaneously perceive the invisible reality of ens commune be
hind them. Consequently, Balthasar contends, worldly (and thus also sci-
entific) knowledge is analogous to the knowledge of faith, for in both
cases knowing and believing intertwine.73
This tension between manifestness and concealment repeats itself in
the relationship between the creation and its Creator. Just as the plurality
71 See ibid., p. 441.

72 Ibid., p. 444.
73 See ibid., p. 446.
604
of individual beings points to their higher unity, so the nonidentity of

essence and existence of a particular being points to a prior identity. It
also reveals God to be a free Creator, since the nonidentity of essence and
existence implies that a being must not necessarily exist.74 Since God has
no need to create the world, creation points to the existence of a free God
without giving us any knowledge of who God is.75
The tension between God's manifestness and concealment, which is
present in the order of creation, deepens in the order of grace, even be-
fore the Fall into sin. Through grace God speaks to humankind in a new
way, even if the new divine word is still mediated through the created
order. What changes in the order of grace is that we can now gain knowl-
edge of God in God's self. However, we still do so by looking at the world.
As Balthasar formulates, "God's 'voice,' addressing Adam in paradise, is
not one sensory phenomenon among others but rather God's presence
through grace in the voices of nature and of the heart .... From Adam's
fides naturalis [natural faith] the way leads, without break or stumble, to
his fides supernaturalis [supernatural faith]: this is certainly afides ex auditu
74 We must note, though, that for Balthasar, our knowledge of God as Creator is not
necessarily a thematic knowledge. Although every human act of cognition and will presup-
poses the existence of God, this presupposition is only implicit and unthematic. A person is
not necessarily aware of his or her knowledge of God as the divine mystery. As Balthasar
says, "the finite spirit..,. experiences its 'absolute dependency' (in Augustine's and Schleier-
macher's sense) without being able to grasp what it is that it depends on" (ibid., pp. 450-51).
If God's existence is a part of our natural mode of knowing, Balthasar reasons, our natural
knowledge itself must be interpreted as a sort of faith. After all, every act of human reason-
ing presupposes the divine mystery as its principium etfinis. However, this natural knowledge
of God is merely an inchoate faith. It takes on the form of an obedient expectation of God's
self-revelation. We depend on God to reveal God's self, but we cannot force God to do so.
In scholastic terminology, we have a potentia oboedientialis for God's revelation, or, in Karl
Rahner's words, we are potential "hearers of the Word." As such, our natural existence and
knowledge are always marked by faith, even if we are not aware of it. This mark is the
reason why, once God reveals God's self, "God's Word really touches the creature at the
most intimate point of its self-transcending Being.... It is a word addressed to the primary
'indifference' of the Ecce Ancilla" (ibid., p. 451). We are predisposed for God's self-revelation,
so that we experience it as the fulfillment of our innermost yearning, when it actually
occurs.
75 For Balthasar, the presence of cosmological speculation in all

fact just as much as the biblical wisdom tradition does. He claims tha
the fact that the world was created. Furthermore, they acknowle
mankind to know God in God's self. Balthasar concludes that the
necessarily resorts to silence when faced with the mysterious hi
world. For Balthasar this hiddenness of God in creation is not a t
God reveals God's self through the creatureliness of the world at
order of creation has been elevated to the order of redemption
salvation therefore allows us to deduce some knowledge of God's B
the order of creation has always been elevated to the order of gr
therefore never been a natura pura, we can never know concretely w
of God's revelation in the world is due to our natural or our supe
God. The distinction is only of a theoretical nature. See ibid., p. 4
605
[faith from hearing] but which comes, however, not from a word that is
spoken to him externally, but rather per inspirationem internam
[through an internal inspiration]."'76 While humankind could have theo-
retically known God only as the absolutely hidden Creator before God
elevated our nature to a state of grace, humanity in the state of grace can
now have an interior perception of God's own Being. This observation
has only formal significance. In our fallen world, Balthasar claims, it is
impossible to say what such knowledge of God's Being would have en-
tailed (beyond the mere knowledge of the existence of the divine mystery
as such), had there not been the Fall.
This caveat draws our attention to the significance of the Fall for theo-
logical epistemology. Balthasar argues that the arrival of sin in the world
essentially disrupts the continuity of our ever-deepening perception of
God in the order of nature elevated through grace. First and foremost,
sin changes the mode of our perception of revelation. Adam perceived
the voice of God in paradise through an inner inspiration, even if it was
mediated externally through creation. Prior to the Fall, Balthasar argues,
"the Being of the world is the locus and the vessel of God's inspiration by
grace.""77 After the Fall, this is no longer the case. The Fall turns this locutio
interna (internal speaking) into a locutio externa (external speaking). Sin
results in "the 'exteriorisation' of the revelation of grace."'"78 Now, first the
Law and the prophets (in the Old Covenant) and later the incarnate and
ecclesial word (in the New Covenant) mediate the Word of God. For Bal-
thasar, this change in the God-world relationship has a "penitential char-
acter"79 to it, even if the locutio externa is by no means "a substitute for
revelation or an emergency measure on God's part."'8 Balthasar main-
tains that the revelation of Christ is a positive and indeed continuous
fulfillment of God's revelation in creation and the Old Covenant, even if
it culminates in his death on the cross.
Although for Balthasar sin constitutes a definite break in the mode of
how we know God, a certain continuity in God's self-revelation remains
even after the Fall. The dialectic between manifestness and hiddenness
in God's revelation still deepens. In God's revelation to Israel, God reveals
God's self in an unprecedented way, and yet, God remains ever more hid-
den and incomprehensible.81 This is even more the case when God be-
comes human. In the incarnation, Balthasar contends, God assumes a
new and completely different presence in the world, insofar as God "uses
76 Ibid., p. 452; my translation in brackets.

77 Ibid.; my translation in brackets.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid., p. 453.
81 Ibid., p. 456.
606
created Being at a new depth as a language and a means of expression

for the divine Being and essence."82 Here both God's manifestness and
God's hiddenness to the world culminate. Their dialectic is far greater
than the dialectic between freedom of the human spirit and its self-
expression through a human body, or the ever-deepening dialectic of
God's self-revelation to Israel. The incarnate Son reveals the Father in
the form of a slave, not only on the cross, but already in the manger
Balthasar puts it, "the incarnation of the Word means the most extr
manifestness within the deepest concealment. It is manifestness be
here God is explained to [humankind] by no means other than [the
selves].... But it is concealment because the translation of God's abso
lutely unique, absolute, and infinite Being into the ever more dissim
almost arbitrary and hopelessly relativised reality of one individual
man being] in the crowd from the outset appears to be an undertak
condemned to failure.""83 In other words, both God's manifestness
God's hiddenness culminate in the incarnation, because the true iden
of the Son of God is concealed behind the form of the Everyma
the eyes of the world, there is nothing extraordinary about the carpe
from Galilee.
Balthasar contends that we must grasp this fundamental tension be-
tween the hidden and the revealed in the incarnation, before we can go
on to reflect about the special modus of God's hiddenness on the cross.
He agrees with Luther that human sin prompts God to hide the Son's
divine glory on the cross.84 If it was not for our sin, the Son of God would
not have needed to reveal God's love in the hiddenness of the cross in the
first place. Nonetheless, the revelation of the cross is no mere dialectical
contradiction for Balthasar. "If the particular mode is taken to be the
substance," he contends, "then everything dissolves into a pure dialectic
of contradictions: the form is destroyed and faith becomes the pure opac-
ity of the credo quia absurdum [I believe because it is absurd]."85 For Baltha-
sar, then, the cross truly reveals God. When the Son of God carries the
sin of the world to the cross, this act of substitutionary suffering is a func-
tion of the divine love. What looks like the opposite of beauty is but a
perfect expression of God's glorious love. As Balthasar puts it: "His bear-
ing of the world's sin (Jn 1.29), his being made sin for us (2 Cor 5.21) is
understandable only as a function of the glory of love, before and after
and, therefore, also during his descent into darkness: what we have be-
fore us is pure glory, and even though it is really a concealment and really
82 Ibid., p. 29.
83 Ibid., p. 457.
84 See ibid., p. 522.
85 Ibid., p. 460; my translation in brackets.
607
an entering into darkness (embracing even the descent into hell), it is

always but a function of its opposite. What is more, for the believer who
sees it is the appearance of the opposite."'s6 In other words, as a revelation
of God's love, Christ's suffering is not simply a contradiction to the divine
Being but, rather, an analogous expression of it. Balthasar speaks of God's
glory as "latens ET APPARENS sub contrario (quae sub his figuris vere
latitas) [hidden and revealed under the contradictory (which is true hid-
denness under these figurings)]."87 Although the cross signifies for Bal-
thasar the end of all worldly aesthetic, it also "marks the decisive emer-
gence of the divine aesthetic."88 In his words, the cross is not "God's 'self-
alienation' (as if the God who is comprehensible in [God's] self were here
doing something incomprehensible and thereby [God's] self became in-
comprehensible-or vice versa), but the appearance, conditioned by the
world's guilt, of the God who in [God's] self is incomprehensible in [God's]
love for the world."89
To summarize: in response to the theological dialectic of the Reforma-
tion Balthasar speaks of a threefold revelation of God in ever greater
concealment. He identifies both the similarities among all three modes
of God's revelation to the world and the ever greater dissimilarity. The
analogies between the various forms of God's revelation lead him to claim
a continuity between "a philosophical 'negative' theology" and "a 'nega-
tive theology' within the theology of revelation."90 For Balthasar, such a
negative theology of revelation signifies that God's incomprehensibility is
not a negative limitation of our knowledge of God. Rather, it is a positive,
enduring, and eschatological quality of the knowledge of faith. As he puts
it, God's ever greater incomprehensibility is not "a negative determina-
tion of what one does not know, but rather a positive and almost 'seen'
and understood property of [the God] whom one knows.""' Balthasar re-
minds us repeatedly of Augustine's famous dictum: "si comprehendis,
non est Deus" (if you understand, it is not God).92 In the open-ended
economy of salvation, God increasingly reveals God's self in ever-growing
concealment. Therefore, God's self-revelation on the cross shows us God
as God is, and theology can proceed with analogical inferences from the
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.; my translation in brackets.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., p. 462. The influence of Johannine eschatology on Balthasar's interpretation of
Good Friday is easily evident when Balthasar claims that the humiliation of the Son is in
and of itself the glorification of both Father and Son. For Balthasar, as for the Fourth Gos-
pel, Christ's resurrection from the dead only serves as a confirmation of what happened
already on the cross (see ibid., pp. 613-14).
90 Ibid., p. 461.
91 Ibid., p. 186.
92 Quoted in ibid., pp. 186 and 450.
608
cross event to God's eternal Being. It is crucial, however, that we never

abstract the glory of God's eternal Being from God's appearance on earth.
Balthasar therefore cautions that "in trying to perceive God's own beauty
and glory from the beauty of [God's] manner of appearing, we must nei-
ther simply equate the two ... nor ought we to attempt to discover God's
beauty by a mere causal inference from the beauty of God's epiphany, for
such an inference would leave this epiphany behind. We must, rather, make
good our excessus to God [in God's] self with a theologia negativa which
never detaches itself from the basis in a theologia positiva."93 To put it dif-
ferently, the ever more incomprehensible God behind the cross is ulti-
mately and eschatologically none other than the crucified God. There is
simply no other, hidden God behind the God revealed as Love on the
cross.
With this distinctive negative theology of revelation

guishes himself from those radical interpretations of
ing that extend the maior dissimilitudo between God and
the created order to the hypostatic union. Balthasar is
pitfalls that Eberhard Jingel identified in the theolog
important footnote in the second volume of his Theol
Jiingel that the tradition of negative theology creates
a theology of revelation based on the Christ event.95
candid a few pages earlier, when he criticizes his for
Przywara. According to the latter's Aristotelian interpr
mulation of the Fourth Lateran Council, Balthasar cla
mankind relate to one another allo pros allo [different
In Balthasar's view, such an interpretation falsely app
the ever greater dissimilarity of Creator and creation
natural similarity between God and humankind in the
As Balthasar comments, "It seems difficult to compreh
be possible to come up with a christology given such
of analogy."''96 Here Balthasar discerns (not unlike Jtin
93 Ibid.
94 Note that Balthasar defends even Pseudo-Dionysios against the

negative theology. In Balthasar's view, the father of Christian neg
conceives of the christological revelation with the categories of a t
Balthasar's quite uncommon re-reading of Pseudo-Dionysios, see Ha
The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 2, Studies in Theologica
John Riches, trans. Andrew Louth, Francis McDonagh, and Brian M
Ignatius Press; New York: Crossroad, 1984), pp. 144-210.
95 See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theologik, vol. 2, Wahrheit Gottes (Ein
lag, 1985), pp. 247-48, n. 3.
96 Ibid., p. 87, n. 16 (my translation). See also Hans Urs von Baltha
logical Dramatic Theory, vol. 3, The Dramatis Personae: The Person in Ch
rison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 220-21, n. 51. Balt
that Przywara's understanding of the doctrine of analogy relies on
609
an interpretation of the Fourth Lateran Council's doctrine of analogy un-

dermines the ultimate character of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. This
is why he rejects all interpretations of the facts of revelation "in a Plato-
nising Catholic sense or in a criticistic Protestant manner" as mere signs,
rather than from an aesthetic vantage point as form."7
It should be clear from his remarks about Przywara that Balthasar's
own interpretation of God's ever greater incomprehensibility does not in-
tend to put into question the certainty of God's self-revelation in Christ.
More important, our analysis of his understanding of the deus semper maior
(the God who is always greater) in the larger context of a theological aes-
thetics has shown that Balthasar successfully safeguards the definitiveness
of God's christomorphic self-revelation. In Balthasar's theological aes-
thetic, the form of Christ crucified is the real presence of God. Although
the God revealed on the cross is ever more incomprehensible, the divine
incomprehensibility does not jeopardize the certitude of faith. For Baltha-
sar, God is ever more mysterious not as a God whom we do not know but,
rather, as a God revealed as love. To borrow the words of Charles Wesley's
hymn, the ever greater incomprehensibility of God is but the incompre-
hensibility of a "Love Divine" that is "All Loves Excelling."
ANALOGIA CRUCIS?
I have set out in this essay to investigate Balthasar's theology

especially as it relates to his theological epistemology. In par
analyzed how Balthasar conceives of God's self-disclosure in
the Fourth Lateran Council's official text. Up to the thirty-first edition o

zinger, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et
C. Bannwart et I. B. Umberg denno ed. C. Rahner, 31st ed. (Freiburg: Herde
the official text read as follows: "inter creatorem et creaturam non potest
notari, quin inter eos maior sit dissimilitudo notanda" (however great the
be noticed between Creator and creature, the unlikeness to be noticed is gr
ever, in the thirty-second edition of Denzinger (Heinrich Denzinger, Enchirid
definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, quod primum ed. H. D
funditus retractavit auxit notulis ornavit A. Schonmetzler, 32d ed. [Freiburg:
no. 806), the word "tanta" was eliminated. Balthasar argues that this wor
was-supposedly-erroneously added to the council's official text, led Przyw
his radical negative theology, as it led Przywara to apply the proviso of a
dissimilarity not only to the natural but also to the supernatural similarity b
and creature. For Przywara's response to Balthasar's critique, see Erich Prz
analogia entis," in Przywara's In und Gegen: Stellungnahmen zur Zeit (Nirnbe
1955), pp. 277-81. If one follows Balthasar's argument on the crucial sign
word "tanta," one finds that the question of how to interpret the official
was reopened in 1991, when "tanta" was reinserted into the official text o
the thirty-seventh edition of Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum defin
rationum de rebus fidei et morum, quod emendavit, auxit, in linguam german
adiuvante Helmuto Hoping edidit Petrus Hinermann (Freiberg: Herder,
610
one sub contraria specie as an analogical revelation of the triune divine love.
I have shown that Balthasar's christocentric reformulation of the doctrine
of the analogy of being within the larger context of a theological aesthet-
ics does not undermine the certitude of the Christian faith in the defini-
tiveness of God's salvific revelation to the world in Christ. Moreover, I
have found Balthasar's portrayal of faith and reason to coincide with cen-
tral insights of Reformation theology-despite Balthasar's conviction to
the contrary. My investigation thus gives hope for a continued ecumenical
dialogue on the theology of the cross. In closing, I would like to point in
a direction where this dialogue should continue. To this end, I would like
to raise two critical observations about Balthasar's theology of revelation.
These focus on the effects that a theological epistemology should attri-
bute to sin for the human cognition of God. How, I ask, does sin affect
our exterior perception of the form of divine revelation and the specific
nature of God's self-concealment in the form of the crucified Christ?
First, I suggest a look at Balthasar's Catholic reformulation of Luther's
thesis that God is revealed in Jesus Christ sub contraria specie. We saw that
Balthasar agrees in principle with the Reformation that God's revelation
on the cross constitutes a revelation sub contraria specie that was necessi-
tated by human sin. Nonetheless, his own understanding of God's hid-
denness in revelation differs significantly from Luther's. Balthasar views
God's hiddenness on the cross merely as one aspect of an ever-deepening
concealment of God in what he calls the revelations of Being, of the Word,
and of human being (Menschoffenbarung). In Balthasar's theological aes-
thetics, the singular experience of Luther's deus absconditus who is re-
vealed sub contraria specie on the cross turns into a continuous pilgrimage
toward a deus semper magis revelatus et absconditus (the God who is always
more revealed and hidden).
In my view, this continuously deepening dialectic does not distinguish
adequately between what Eberhard Jtingel has called the "precise" hid-
denness of God in the crucified Christ and the "absolute" hiddenness of
God in the history of the world.98 Balthasar's threefold dialectic of man-
ifestness and concealment posits only one single form of divine hid-
denness, which deepens the more that God reveals God's self. At this
point, I contend that Balthasar's charge against Luther, namely, that the
Reformer turns the christological paradox into a "world formula," applies
to his own theology.99 While Luther, contrary to Balthasar's claim, does
distinguish between God's hiddenness in Christ and God's hiddenness in
the governance of the world and in the act of predestination, Balthasar
98 See Jungel, "Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos" (n. 7 above), pp. 247-51.
99 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, vol. 1, Prolegomena,
trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p. 161.
611
himself subsumes the staurological hiddenness of God under an all-

encompassing dialectical scheme of revelation and concealment.
Once subsumed under such a larger theological framework, God's pre-
cise hiddenness on the cross functions in my view quite differently than
it does in the New Testament. For example, in Pauline theology, the hid-
den character of God's self-revelation on the cross sub contraria specie (see
1 Cor. 1:22-23) constitutes God's judgment over human sin. For Paul, just
as for the Gospel ofJohn, the revelation of the cross is judgment or crisis
over the sin of humanity.'"00 Balthasar's threefold dialectic of manifestness
and concealment forfeits, however, this aspect of divine judgment that is
so crucial for the biblical interpretation of the cross. What in the bible is
the failure of all human attempts to know God turns, in Balthasar's theol-
ogy, into their culmination. To be sure, Balthasar admits that sin has
prompted an exteriorization of God's revelation. He also acknowledges
that God's glory is hidden on the cross due to human sin. Yet, these state-
ments are of little help, because Balthasar never emphasizes the critical
function of the cross with respect to human pride that results from God's
hiddenness. Interestingly enough, Balthasar's threefold scheme does not
even mention the revelation of the cross. Balthasar contents himself with
discussing the "revelation of human being" (Menschoffenbarung) as the ul-
timate divine self-revelation, thus subsuming the cross into the incarna-
tion. While the latter might very well be seen in continuity with the reve-
lation of Being and of the Word, such continuity seems impossible with
regard to the scandalon of the cross. As Walther von Loewenich has
pointed out, "the cross cannot be disposed of in an upper story of the
structure of thought."'0 The cross resists being subsumed into a larger
scheme of human knowledge of the divine. God's hiddenness on the cross
is not the culmination of human possibility, but its abyss.'"2
Such a claim does not imply that we need to dissolve God's self-
revelation to the world into an irrational dialectic of contradiction. Un-
derstanding the cross as the crisis of human possibility still permits th
perception of the form of revelation. A critical theology of the cross wi
100 For Paul's theology of the cross, see Hans Hibner, Biblische Theologie, vol. 2, Die Theo-
logie des Paulus und ihre neutestamentliche Wirkungsgeschichte (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
Ruprecht, 1993), p. 112; and Peter Stuhlmacher, "Eighteen Theses on Paul's Theology o
the Cross," in Stuhlmacher's Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theolog
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), pp. 155-68.
o101 Loewenich (n. 1 above), p. 27.
102 For Luther's understanding of the relationship between God's hiddenness on the cross
and human reason, see Jingel, "Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos," pp. 243-45, and "Di
Offenbarung der Verborgenheit Gottes: Ein Beitrag zum evangelischen Verstindnis d
g6ttlichen Wirkens," in J tngel's Wertlose Wahrheit: Zur Identitiit und Relevanz des christli
chen Glaubens: Theologische Erdrterungen, vol. 3 (Munich: Kaiser, 1990), pp. 163-82, her
pp. 166-67.
612
still regard Christ's bearing the sins of the world as a function of God's
glory of love.'03s Luther himself pointed out in his Heidelberg Disputation
that the hidden form of God's self-revelation is in fact a reliable revelation
of who God is. Likewise, as Eberhard Jiingel pointedly puts it, "The hid-
denness of God in the human existence of Jesus of Nazareth is not extrinsic
to what God is in God's self."'04 He concludes: "God's hiddenness under
the opposite ... therefore cannot mean that God contradicts God's self
in this precise hiddenness. Rather, it must mean that God corresponds t
God's self in this precise hiddenness." '05 Certainly, a theology of the cross
must insist on the criticism of human (religious) pride implied in the hid
denness of God's revelation sub contrario. Yet it need not deny that God's
revelation on the cross is a true and unsurpassable revelation of who God
is. Faith in the crucified God is indeed no irrational act (credo quia ab-
surdum), as Balthasar fears.'06 However, faith in the crucified God doe
call upon one to acknowledge God's judgment over the epistemological
possibilities of the sinner.
This leads to my second related critical point. We can see that Baltha-
sar's theology of the cross lacks such a critical perspective on human pos-
sibility, because the author fails to distinguish sufficiently between the
divine form of revelation and its human perception through the Chris
tian religion. It was Karl Barth's achievement in section 17 of his Church
Dogmatics to insist on this crucial distinction.'07 There Barth speaks abou
religion as a human phenomenon exclusively from the vantage point of
God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ. He argues that, when looked at from
the point of view of revelation, religion appears as "[humankind's] at-
tempts to justify and to sanctify [themselves] before a capricious and arbi-
trary picture of God."'"08 With the help of religion, human beings attempt
to reconcile themselves with God by utilizing their own human powers
Barth warns that such an attempt must necessarily fail. Humanity only
reconciles itself with an idol-a self-made and false God. Barth applies
this judgment not only to the non-Christian religions but also to Chris-
tianity, insofar as it is religion and hence a human phenomenon. Religion
for Barth, can never be true in and of itself.
'03 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 460.

'04 Jingel, "Die Offenbarung der Verborgenheit Gottes," p. 171 (my translation).
'05 Ibid. (my translation).
'06 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 460.
107 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, The Doctrine of the Word of God, pt. 2, ed.
G. W. Bromiley and T. E Torrance, trans. G. T Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh
T. 8c T Clark; New York: Scribner's, 1956), sec. 17, pp. 280-361. Compare critically Wolf-
hart Pannenberg, "Religion und Religionen: Theologische Erwaigungen zu den Prinzipien
eines Dialoges mit den Weltreligionen," in Dialog aus der Mitte christlicher Theologie, ed. An-
dreas Bsteh (Modling: Verlag St. Gabriel, 1987), pp. 179-96.
108 Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 280.
613
What complicates the picture for Barth is the fact that God's self-
revelation to humankind is necessarily mediated through human reli-
gion. Barth insists that it is actually the nature of God's incarnation that
revelation becomes a human and thus ambiguous reality. God reveals
God's self to the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and through
the church's proclamation of the good news. God's revelation and human
religion are inseparably connected. Barth's negative verdict on religion
is thus not his last word on Christianity. God's revelation is always also
"Christendom" and hence religion, that is, a human reality and possibil-
ity. Although religion as a human product can never be true in and of
itself, it can become true religion through an exterior act of divine
grace.'"9 As Christianity is the one human religion in which God's revela-
tion becomes "incarnate," Barth regards it as a dialectical phenomenon,
as simul iustus et peccator. It is an expression of human unbelief, when
looked at in and of itself. However, it is also "true religion,"'" because
God allows it to be such through a divine act, which Barth explicates as
"creation," "election," "justification," and "sanctification.""' God does not
apply God's destructive verdict on religion to Christianity, Barth con-
tends, because God uses Christianity to reveal God's self to humanity.
By distinguishing between God's revelation and its human perception
or mediation through religion, Barth introduces the need for a critical
perspective on Christianity. In my view, such a distinction and its ensuing
critical view of Christianity are insufficiently developed in Balthasar's
concept of the form of revelation. To be sure, Balthasar's distinction be-
tween the perfect form of revelation and the manifold creations of human
religious imagination in human religion, philosophy, and art mirrors
Barth's distinction between divine revelation and the products of human
religion. However, while Barth applies this distinction between God's
revelation and its human perception only to Christianity, Balthasar seems
to limit this ambiguity within divine and human interaction to non-
Christian religions, philosophy, and art. While Barth cannot appreciate
non-Christian religions as anything but human and sinful activities (at
least in sec. 17 of the Church Dogmatics), Balthasar does not sufficiently
address the question of Christianity's own potentially corruptible percep-
tion of divine revelation."2
109 See ibid., pp. 325-26.

10 Ibid., p. 325.
"' Ibid., pp. 346-57.
"2 Barth modified his view of non-Christian religions in Church Dogmatics, vol. 4,
The Doctrine of Redemption, pt. 3, 1st half, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans.
G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. 8& T. Clark, 1961), sec. 69, 2, pp. 38-165. For Barth's concept
of religion, see Reinhard Bernhardt, Der Absolutheitsanspruch des Christentums: Von der Auf-
klidrung bis zur Pluralistischen Religionstheologie (Gitersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1990), pp. 149-73.
614
Balthasar's dual approach to religion refuses to cast a purely negative

verdict on human religion as a mere expression of human unbelief. It
allows Christians to appreciate aspects of truth, goodness, and beauty in
non-Christian religion, philosophy, and art. Nevertheless, Balthasar's own
dual approach to religion seems in need of further development insofar
as it does not adequately allow for a critical perspective on Christianity-
an ability to perceive Christianity itself as an ever more ambiguous phe-
nomenon of human religion. In my view, it is necessary to admit that both
in Christianity and in other religions God and human beings are at work.
As Balthasar rightly points out, all religions reflect the divine light of
grace, even if not all do so in the same way. However-and here, I con-
tend, Balthasar's theology of the form of revelation is lacking-all reli-
gions are also human products. They are all corpora permixta, that is, they
are all made up of an ambiguous amalgam of perceptions and mispercep-
tions of this divine light. In other words, they all reveal some decree of
obfuscations. Hence, all religions, including Christianity, are in need of
a constant critical perspective."3 Balthasar's theological aesthetic raises
questions because it seems to assume an unbroken human capacity to
perceive the divine form of revelation.'l4 This undialectical and hence
uncritical portrayal of the divine form of revelation prevents a clear dis-
tinction between God's active act of revealing and our passive act of per-
ceiving. Such a distinction, however, seems necessary in light of human
sin. Here, Barth and Luther are right to emphasize the corrupting effects
of the Fall. Christian theology, I contend, must maintain a dialectic be-
tween God's self-revelation on the cross sub contraria specie and its human
reception through the Christian religion, at least if it wishes to avoid a
Christian triumphalism of the cross. In my view, Balthasar's undialectical
construal of the divine form of revelation ignores the necessary distinc-
tion between God's revelation and its human reception and thus stands
in danger of forfeiting the critical capacity of God's self-revelation on the
cross vis-i-vis all human possibility and pride.
Despite this shortcoming Balthasar's negative theology of revelation
"3 It is questionable whether such a critical perspective can actually be formulated from
the vantage point of God's revelation itself, or whether a neutral criterion is needed, such as
the philosophical idea of the Absolute. On this question, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic
Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 1:172-87.
114 The dialectic between the divine form of revelation and its human perception calls for
a discussion of Balthasar's understanding of the relationship between revelation on the one
hand and scripture and tradition on the other. In particular, it raises the question of the
fallibility or infallibility of the church's perception, doctrinal definition, and mediation of
God's revelation. The confines of this essay do not permit for such an extended discussion.
For the importance of the church in mediating the divine form of revelation, see Larry S.
Chapp, The God Who Speaks: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theology of Revelation (San Francisco:
International Scholars, 1996), pp. 191-214.
615
marks a significant progress in the ecumenical dialogue on the epistemo-

logical implications of a theology of the cross. Balthasar preserves the
ever greater incomprehensibility of God and thus avoids laying epistemo-
logical hands on God. Moreover, he maintains the definitiveness of God's
salvific self-revelation in Jesus Christ and thus safeguards Christian certi-
tude in our redemption. On both accounts, Balthasar integrates the Ref-
ormation's concerns into a Catholic negative theology of revelation. He
also forges new ground for ecumenical dialogue by inviting us to conceive
of the forgotten beauty of God's revelation with the help of a theological
aesthetics. I therefore suggest that we adopt Balthasar's aesthetical ap-
proach to revelation, even if we should not ignore the effects of sin on
our perception of the divine form of revelation. By focusing on the un-
avoidable dialectic of our own perception of God's revelation to the world,
we come to appreciate ever more the Love Divine that truly is all loves ex-
celling.
616

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: Balthasar&#39;s Negative Theology of Revelation

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Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: Balthasar's Negative Theology of Revelation

Author(s): Steffen Lsel and Mark D. Jordan

Steffen Lisel / Emory University

In his famous Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther issues a clarion c

tradiction) in Christ's passion and cross. In a sinful world, God wants to be

3 See Loewenich, p. 19.

FORM RADIATES LIGHT: EPISTEMOLOGY AS THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS

Balthasar's Thomistic Aesthetic Theory

Balthasar develops his theological epistemology within th

Balthasar's Theological Epistemology

Balthasar uses this Thomistic aesthetic theory, or "theory of vision," in

'4 Ibid., p. 119.

'9 Ibid. (my emphasis).

Form: God from God

Balthasar contrasts his aesthetic understanding of God's revelation as

rationalistic manner."'3 Balthasar argues that the New Testament and,

30so Ibid., p. 185.

tion and glorification of the crucified Son renders it impossible for us to

Splendor: Light from Light

We have seen above that Balthasar's understanding of God's revelation to

4 Ibid., p. 252; see ibid., p. 124.

a metaphorical statement. Rather, it emphasizes that those who believe

4 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 179.

Freedom of the Will and Bondage of the Eye

Although faith is our free response to God's self-revelation, human

Another observation supports our Augustinian reading of Balthasar's

50 Ibid., p. 179; my translation.

eternal Father. Faith, then, is "the conscious side of grace," "connaturali-

Formless Light: Grace without Christ

If faith requires an encounter with the divine form of revelation, what

"4 Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 162.

LIGHT DISPELS DARKNESS: THE EVER GREATER INCOMPREHENSIBILITY

We have seen so far how Balthasar develops his theologic

The Protestant Dialectic

For Balthasar, theological dialectic is essentially the Protestant approach

positive concealment in God's revelation even in the absence of sin (re-

God does both: it offers us a real and unsurpassable knowledge of who

When Balthasar offers a portrayal of God's self-revelation in terms of a

71 See ibid., p. 441.

of individual beings points to their higher unity, so the nonidentity of

75 For Balthasar, the presence of cosmological speculation in all

76 Ibid., p. 452; my translation in brackets.

created Being at a new depth as a language and a means of expression

an entering into darkness (embracing even the descent into hell), it is

cross event to God's eternal Being. It is crucial, however, that we never

With this distinctive negative theology of revelation

94 Note that Balthasar defends even Pseudo-Dionysios against the

an interpretation of the Fourth Lateran Council's doctrine of analogy un-

I have set out in this essay to investigate Balthasar's theology

the Fourth Lateran Council's official text. Up to the thirty-first edition o

himself subsumes the staurological hiddenness of God under an all-

'03 See Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, vol. 1, p. 460.

109 See ibid., pp. 325-26.

Balthasar's dual approach to religion refuses to cast a purely negative

marks a significant progress in the ecumenical dialogue on the epistemo-

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