Abstract
Students of theology are sometimes encouraged to choose between great theologians in an “either/or” fashion. This is contrary to the theological method both of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Balthasar writes in My Work: In Retrospect that his mission in the Church is to be in constant dialogue with multiple notable thinkers from all the stages of the long history of the Church. He avoids theological polarizations. These are often “arbitrary rigid lines” in the greater scheme of the constellation of the communion of saints.
Bearing this in mind, the reader of Balthasar cannot interpret it as a condemnation when Balthasar does not grant Aquinas the exclusivity that Catholic theology tends to give him. Even though Balthasar considers High Scholasticism a rationalization of theology, he accepts it as a necessary phase in the development of doctrine. For example, when comparing Dante to Aquinas, Balthasar says of the latter that he was more of a philosopher than a theologian. This cannot overshadow Balthasar’s praise of Aquinas for his clear and intelligible ordering of the created world in relation to God. Balthasar considers the doctrine of the real distinction to be the culmination of all Christian philosophy. As Nichols shows in this book, Balthasar is incomprehensible without the Angelic Doctor. Similarly, the reader of Aquinas should remain open to other theological voices. Nichols encourages all of us to “test everything” and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). The term “Thomist” has carried many different meanings. Perhaps those scholars who define the term as a style of thinking in light of a sacred tradition are the closest to achieving the compatibility and complementarity of two great thinkers.
To perform this synthesis, Nichols divides the book into two large sections. The first is a combination of three chapters that correspond to the three volumes of Balthasar’s Trilogy. The second deals with several topics in dogmatic and pastoral theology. The seven chapters are preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. Each chapter summarizes Balthasar’s thought and then compares it with that of Aquinas.
In “The Trilogy: Theological Aesthetics” (chapter 2), Nichols explains the overall pattern of the Trilogy, commenting on the differences between it and Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (ST). The structural integrity and order of the ST is subservient to the aim of providing pedagogic aid for future teachers of beginning theological students (38). Balthasar, by contrast, as he mentions in the Prologue, considers metaphysics the most fitting entry point to Christian Revelation. This suggests a strong continuity and fulfilment of finite being in God. For instance, the eros that moves the Trinity to create and redeem its creation is manifested analogously in the eros of created beings for the supernatural. The same way that natural beauty moves us, the divine glory revealed in the crucified Christ also provokes rapture and issues a call to conversion. Nichols compares this to the Thomistic notion of the eyes of faith attending raptly on Christ, which involves an “apprehension of divine beauty” (43).
Chapter 3 examines Balthasar’s theological dramatics. The encounter with the divine glory is never for Balthasar something static or complacent. Instead, it is always experienced as a call to action: where beauty ends, worship begins. The believer understands that he must freely choose to lay down his life to perform the divine will of God in his personal mission and discipleship. Through this voluntary consent, the Christian is integrated into the Church, Christ’s Mystical Body. Through the sacraments and vocation, the Christian participates in the objective model of sanctity of the Mary-Church and her fiat (p. 79). Nichols finds a similarity here with Aquinas’ presentation of theology as sacred doctrine. It implies an indissoluble unity in the economy of salvation of the Trinity-Christ-Church. Contemporary scholars of Aquinas, as well as Aquinas himself in his commentary of the Apostle’s Creed, support Balthasar’s interpretation (p. 70).
The next chapter deals with Balthasar’s theological logic. Here Balthasar explains that truth is a historical reality, without implying any relativism or historicism. This approach was common to other ressourcement theologians such as Marie-Dominique Chenu. They argued that no theologian, even Aquinas, should be studied dissociated from historical context. Truth is in fact manifested through an immanent process. Moreover, Nichols explains that Balthasar, along with Aquinas (interpreted through Étienne Gibson), considers being a marvellous excess. The truth of the world is left suspended in a constant openness to God and a paradoxical knowability in mystery. The paradox waits for the reconciliation in Jesus Christ (p. 105). On the controversial topic of the analogia entis, Nichols sides with Norris Clarke’s definition of causal participation in Aquinas as a productive explanation of Christ’s exemplarism as the key to all reality. The different uses of analogy are explained further in the Conclusion. Nichols also mentions in this chapter that the divine logic, manifested in the Trinitarian event of love, finally unfolds in the Holy Spirit (p. 117).
“Doctrine: God, Christ and Human Salvation” (chapter 5) is perhaps the most contentious chapter. Balthasar does not trace the vestiges of the Trinity in creation down to triadic structures (as it is said Augustine does), but he argues that being resembles the Trinity in so far as it participates analogously in the form of love (e.g. Thomists Gustav Siewerth or Ferdinand Ulrich). The relationship to the Other is subsistent in the Trinity. The fact that there is such a relationship between the hypostases does not represent a deficiency (p. 125), but rather the relationality constitutive of divine simplicity. It also manifests the superabundant majesty of the divine that freely elevates finite being to participation into the divine life. This is revealed in the Trinitarian Son. The life of Christ is one of perfect obedience to the mission of the Father, even to the extent of total abasement in the Paschal Mystery. Thus, Jesus marks the way that every Christian must follow in the Spirit, from the Incarnation to the Cross and even to the silence of Holy Saturday (p. 143). Balthasar’s use of the Trinity to explicate the first gift of creation and the second gift of redemption is not contrary to Aquinas” teaching. Aquinas argues that the knowledge of the divine persons is necessary to think rightly about creation and also to “give us a true notion of the salvation of mankind” (ST Ia, q. 32, a. 1 ad 3). We can thus say that the Trinity and salvation history coincide in the mission of Christ. Aquinas says that the Son is the “visible of the Father” and shows that “Christ, by the efficient and exemplar causality of his life, death and resurrection, can be the “way” that takes human beings to the Father’s house” (p. 136).
The next chapter deals with eschatology, ecclesiology and theological ethics. Nichols demonstrates that eschatology is deeply important for both thinkers. He rejects mundane and immanentist eschatology that he refers to as “theologies of progress.” Eschatology is a second gift of grace. In Aquinas, the emphasis is placed on the act of faith as the inchoatio gloriae, the first participation in the glory “in which beatitude consists” (p. 145). For Balthasar, the key is that gratia non destruit naturam, sed elevat et perficit naturam. In ecclesiology, Aquinas does not have a fully developed understanding of the Church as a sacrament, as defined in Lumen Gentium. He defines the Church as the “congregation of the faithful.” This implies, for Nichols, that the Church is a Body and that it is animated by the Spirit. In this regard, Balthasar explains that the form of the Church is Christ himself. The mystery of the Church can be explained with many types. The Marian Church is “a pure form which is legible and comprehensible” (p. 154). The Petrine Church exemplifies the sacraments. Nichols finds a similitude between the two theologians on this topic. Aquinas’ insistence that the Eucharist is the “central sacramental act” embodying the “whole of the sacramental economy” (p. 158) is analogous to Balthasar’s notion of the “eucharistic surrender of the Son” to the Father made eternal in the Spirit (p. 159). In addition, Nichols argues that Aquinas emphasizes the eudaimonistic Aristotelian overflowing dynamics of ethics realized in eternal life. Balthasar stresses that there is already a not-yet-fulfilled eschatological dimension in trans-natural ethical activity (p. 166). This does not apply to natural ethics (such as the natural law or cardinal virtues) but to the theological virtues: the sanctifying grace that has a Christological and Trinitarian dimension (p. 161).
In the next chapter, Nichols explores the spirituality of the two authors by way of several themes. Balthasar’s innovations in spirituality are several. First, he rejects hard distinctions between the active and contemplative life. He proposes, in a characteristically Ignatian move, an activity in contemplation. One example of this is the climactic moment of the Cross where the action of self-surrender is absolute obedience to the will of the Father (p. 195). This is the charism of Adrienne von Speyr’s and Balthasar’s secular institute, the Community of Saint John. Second, Balthasar’s treatise, Thomas und die Charismatiker, attempts to justify the possibility of prophetic and charismatic graces adjusting Aquinas’ teaching. The consciousness of the mystic can be enlarged without disrupting the order of the real. Nonetheless, these graces are only charismatic when framed in the objective universal mission of the Church of Christ (p. 186). Otherwise, as Aquinas says, they can become a private affair. “The illuminating sun is more sublime than the illuminated body” (p. 178).
Chapter 8, “Underlying principles of Balthasar’s theology,” summarizes the form of Balthasar’s philosophical and theological project. He was not a systematic theologian, and it is hard to point out a precise blueprint. However, Nichols sides with Adrian Walker in emphasizing the centrality of love in the thought of Balthasar. Christian love is the first principle of theology and the key to the revelation of triune love in Christ. It is also the category that gathers the transcendental properties of being around the universal metaphysical return to the First Cause (p. 200). The ultimate achievement of Balthasar is to show that there is already a grammar in human beings that analogously prepares them for the unique event of the “ultimate mystery of God’s kenosis in Christ”: they must move in grace from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion (p. 206). This communicability and generosity of the divine can only be framed as totum gratia. God is love.
In the Conclusion, Nichols highlights Balthasar’s interpretation of the analogy of being. This concept also works as a summary of the book. In the second chapter, human beauty is analogous to the divine glory. In the third chapter, human freedom and ethics become the analogy of charity whereby the Son is obedient to the mission of the Father. In the fourth chapter, philosophical metaphysics is transcended in the analogy of truth. Faith transposes reason as the criterion for truth. In sum, these three properties of being correspond to three different modes in which revelation is presented as well as to three different fulfilments of created reality. The three properties of being find their unity in Jesus Christ, who is pre-eminently the concrete analogy of being. In other words, Christ is the fulfilment of the analogy of being (p. 217). This may remind us of Bonaventure’s exemplarism. With him, the whole of the Christian life (states of life, spirituality and mission) can finally be gathered into bouquets around the centre of the God-Man. Nichols does not ignore this. After all, he suggests to the academic community a future book titled “Balthasar for Bonaventurians” (p. 211). The primary message of the book is to show that a “Balthasarian” revolution of theology is only possible if it is a continuation of Aquinas.
Aidan Nichols’ ground-breaking book is a culmination of his numerous books on Balthasar’s thought. It may seem a bit dense if the reader is not already familiar with the ideas of Balthasar. It would have benefitted from a better integration of the Trilogy and the other theological books and articles by Balthasar. Nonetheless, the book is a perfect introduction of Balthasar for Thomists. Anyone interested in Balthasar, or willing to give Balthasar a try, especially graduate students in theology, should read this book.