Has Urs Von Balthasar And The Hope Of The Universe Of Salvation

Candace Smith

Enter name of the Instructor

Religion

August 6th, 2019.

Has Urs Von Balthasar and the hope of the universe of salvation

Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved is published by the renowned catholic publisher in San Francisco. This publishing house is named after the saint Ignatius Loyola which is highly revered among Christians. The Ignatius published the translated version of these two small books in the German language for the understanding of the German population. One book was published in 1986 and the other one was in 1987. For What May We Hope was the first book published by the Ignatius publishers and the second book was A Short Discussion on Hell. In essence, both literary works focused on the famous Swiss theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar who was known for his anguish, pain, and sufferings that remained highlighted in these two works.

It is no blinking the fact that pain remains the main focal point in these two books. The usual debate is discussed by the author against those opinions which are in contrast to bis own views. Besides, the author describes the other sides as totally absurd and ludicrous in nature and consider them mere parodies. Consider one case where he directs the criticism at those who think there are some people will not be forgiven and will forever be damned in this world. For the author, such people are “Infernalists [1] ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"ql84pPC9","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Von Balthasar, {\\i{}The Glory of the Lord})","plainCitation":"(Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":"LGjCiTah/6NzYSi9d","uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/QKKC3CA4"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/QKKC3CA4"],"itemData":{"id":1940,"type":"book","title":"The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7: Theology: The New Covenant","publisher":"Ignatius Press","volume":"7","source":"Google Scholar","title-short":"The Glory of the Lord","author":[{"family":"Von Balthasar","given":"Hans Urs"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1983"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord)”. This view is even explained by citing some of the people such the names of Saint Augustine, Gregory the Great, the famous Anslem, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and John Henry who belong to this category as per the opinion of the author. He is totally biased in the sense that these are some of the names that highly revered in the Christian community for their contribution.

Even the author von Balthasar finds further states that Saint Augustine has totally misunderstood the theological notions of western civilization and threw the dark shadow on its inherent nature. Due to this reason, the author directly points at Saint Augustine for its negative contributions in theology. Von Balthasar praises Augustine for his charity and his role as the “Father of the Western World” he then iterates that these great men did not much to as it was directed by the Gospel. So the great saint has left the “boulder Augustinian hell [4].”

As a result, this polemical debate impressed many in Germany. One modern theologian was termed traditionalist but in Germany, he became the leading light for right-wing people. All this commentary and feedback from von Balthasar are untypical and peculiar in nature, but they have their own underlying reasons. Originally, it is pain which is directing such views from the author. Von Balthasar indicated this severity of pain as well when he spoke about his thesis “cut to pieces, almost interminably in some German Journals [11].” His quote in the book "before me lies a related heap of angry letters, entreaties to return to the true Faith and so on...I am a heretic for refusing to accept a Church doctrine [12]” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"jirywyOR","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Von Balthasar, {\\i{}The Glory of the Lord})","plainCitation":"(Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":"LGjCiTah/6NzYSi9d","uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/QKKC3CA4"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/QKKC3CA4"],"itemData":{"id":1940,"type":"book","title":"The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7: Theology: The New Covenant","publisher":"Ignatius Press","volume":"7","source":"Google Scholar","title-short":"The Glory of the Lord","author":[{"family":"Von Balthasar","given":"Hans Urs"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1983"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord). Thus, taking pain into account, all this polemic is justified. Nevertheless, this is not directly related to the issue except the fact that the author felt intense about proving his thesis.

Furthermore, the thesis is found in the second book in which he denies his proposal of apokatastasis that everything will be saved eventually with the favor of God ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"UPdkDnb7","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Von Balthasar, {\\i{}The Glory of the Lord})","plainCitation":"(Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":1942,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/G3PNJZKY"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/s8f0QVnP/items/G3PNJZKY"],"itemData":{"id":1942,"type":"book","title":"The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7: Theology: The New Covenant","publisher":"Ignatius Press","volume":"7","source":"Google Scholar","title-short":"The Glory of the Lord","author":[{"family":"Von Balthasar","given":"Hans Urs"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1983"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord). This views had similarity with the Karl Bath, but Von even rejects it by calling it too “systematic.” Despite the fact that he rejected the theory of Apokatastasis, he is much vocal about the fact that there are or will be some people who eternally cursed, but he defends that everyone will be saved eternally and eventually. His thesis that” we all will be saved but live with the chances of the curse” is vague in nature. In this way, Tenor accounts for that all are saved. Moreover, it is also mentioned that synthesis is not probable on this matter as he is more focused on practice instead of a theoretical approach in his works.

Works Cited:

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Von Balthasar, Hans Urs. The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7: Theology: The New Covenant. Vol. 7, Ignatius Press, 1983.

---. The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 7: Theology: The New Covenant. Vol. 7, Ignatius Press, 1983.