The Sacramentality of the World and the Mystery of FreedomEbook PDF
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Reader of Origen
Elisa Zocchi
Cite this publication as
Elisa Zocchi, The Sacramentality of the World and the Mystery of Freedom
Ebook PDF (2021), Aschendorff Verlag, Münster, ISBN: 9783402137420
Ebook PDF (2021), Aschendorff Verlag, Münster, ISBN: 9783402137420
Descripción / Abstract
Hans Urs von Balthasar’s interest for Origen can be placed within the movement of Ressourcement: until the very end of his life, the Swiss theologian declares his preference for the Alexandrian, among the Church Fathers. This book offers the first in-depth study of the Alexandrian’s presence in the life of Balthasar. This is achieved not only considering his two specific books on Origen, Spirit and Fire and Le Mysterion d'Origène, but also analyzing specific Origenian ideas that played a decisive role in shaping Balthasar’s own theological building.
The book starts from a reconstruction of the context that brought Balthasar to study the Fathers and of the main polemical references in his interpretation, specifically facing the challenges posed by such movements as Neo-Scholasticism and the Idealistic interpretation of Neoplatonism. Balthasar’s study of Origen emerges not as a disinterested, ahistorical reading, but rather as connected to the main issues facing 20th-century Catholic theology. The task of a historical reconstruction is accomplished also through to the analysis of theologians who played a fundamental role in Balthasar’s interpretation of Origen: Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Karl Barth. The book moves then to analyzing the main theological elements traceable in the relationship between Origen and Balthasar: Eros, spiritual senses, freedom, and universal salvation. Throughout these ideas, Balthasar’s attitude towards Origen emerges as dynamic and multifaceted. Against the charge of uncritical retrieval, his approach can be schematically understood with the help of five categories: silence, critique, enthusiasm, appreciation, and inspiration. Each category is approached and explained in correspondence with certain works within Balthasar’s corpus. This dynamic approach to Origen, united to a familiarity with the Fathers that Lubac called “connaturality”, makes Balthasar an example of the possibility of rethinking the role of the Church Fathers today
The book starts from a reconstruction of the context that brought Balthasar to study the Fathers and of the main polemical references in his interpretation, specifically facing the challenges posed by such movements as Neo-Scholasticism and the Idealistic interpretation of Neoplatonism. Balthasar’s study of Origen emerges not as a disinterested, ahistorical reading, but rather as connected to the main issues facing 20th-century Catholic theology. The task of a historical reconstruction is accomplished also through to the analysis of theologians who played a fundamental role in Balthasar’s interpretation of Origen: Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Karl Barth. The book moves then to analyzing the main theological elements traceable in the relationship between Origen and Balthasar: Eros, spiritual senses, freedom, and universal salvation. Throughout these ideas, Balthasar’s attitude towards Origen emerges as dynamic and multifaceted. Against the charge of uncritical retrieval, his approach can be schematically understood with the help of five categories: silence, critique, enthusiasm, appreciation, and inspiration. Each category is approached and explained in correspondence with certain works within Balthasar’s corpus. This dynamic approach to Origen, united to a familiarity with the Fathers that Lubac called “connaturality”, makes Balthasar an example of the possibility of rethinking the role of the Church Fathers today
Índice
- Titlepage
- Preface
- Content
- INTRODUCTION
- Section 1: ORIGEN AND THE 20TH CENTURY
- I. Balthasar among Many: Origen’s Reception
- II. Balthasar’s Silences
- III. Balthasar’s Enthusiasm for Origen
- IV. Why Origen? The Issues behind Enthusiasm: against Neo-Scholasticism
- V. Balthasar’s Critiques of Origen
- VI. Why this Origen? The Issues behind the Critiques: against Idealistic Neoplatonism
- Section 2: BALTHASAR’S APPRECIATION OF ORIGEN
- 1. The Transparency of the World
- 2. The Third Way
- I. The Dignity of Eros: Origen’s Contribution to the Nature-Grace Controversy
- 1. Desire in Spirit and Fire
- 2. Desire in Origen’s Cosmology: the Cosmic Adventure of the Soul
- 3. Towards Sacramental Ontology: the “Objective Promise” in Balthasar’s Theology
- 4. A Unique Symbol: the Mystical Marriage
- 5. The Bridal Relation of Nature and Grace
- II. The Spiritual Senses: Origen’s Contribution to the Faith-Reason Controversy
- 1. The Spiritual Senses in Balthasar’s Works
- 2. Why the Spiritual Senses?
- 3. The Spiritual Body
- 4. Balthasar’s Interpretation of Origen’s Spiritual Senses
- 5. Analogy and Presence
- 6. Beyond the Opposition: from Aesthetics to Dramatic
- 7. Origen and Balthasar: Continuity and Discontinuity
- 8. The Fruit of the Doctrine of the Spiritual Senses
- III. Exitus-Reditus: Origen’s Contribution to the Freedom-Determinism Controversy
- 1. Origen’s Cosmology of Freedom
- 2. A First Explanation: Freedom and Grace in Spirit and Fire
- 3. A Different Approach to the Problem: Origen in Theo-Drama 2
- 4. Movement and Freedom
- 5. “Der wahre Kern”
- 6. The Roots of Freedom
- 7. An Exemplar Case: the Fifth Book of the Commentary on Romans
- 8. Indifference or Indifferentia?
- 9. The Law of Love
- IV. Conclusive Remarks: At the Core of the Tension within Balthasar’s Appreciation of Origen
- 1. Titanism and Pantheism
- 2. Analogia Entis, Analogia Libertatis
- 3. A Way out of the Tension: Origen’s “großartiger heilsgeschichtlicher Trinitarismus”
- 4. Kenosis and Freedom: Some Considerations
- V. Balthasar’s Inspiration: Apocatastasis
- 1. Apocatastasis in Origen
- 2. Apocatastasis in Spirit and Fire
- 3. Voices on Universal Salvation
- 4. Balthasar’s Development of Universal Salvation
- 5. Holy Saturday
- 6. Origen and Balthasar: Similarity and Dissimilarities
- 7. Barth and Origen
- CONCLUSION
- 1. Harvesting the Seed
- 2. The Fathers Today?
- List of Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- INDEXES
- Origen
- Names
- Subjects