Christ's death for us, in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by MARUTHOOR JOHN

CHRIST’S DEATH FOR US IN THE THEOLOGY OF HANS URS VON BALTHASAR

A dissertation submitted to the department of theology of St. Mary’s Malankara Seminary, Trivandrum, as a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the completion of the course in theology.

BY BRO. MARUTHOOR JOHN

DIRECTED BY REV.DR. JOLLY KARIMPIL

ST. MARY’S MALANKARA SEMINARY TRIVANDRUM 2015

PREFACE It is with heartfelt gratitude and satisfaction that I submit this dissertation on Christ’s Death for Us in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar to the department of theology of the St. Mary’s Malankara Major Seminary Trivandrum, as partial fulfilment of the academic requirements for the completion of the course in theology. For the accomplishment of this work, I am indebted to many. I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all those who helped me one way or another. First of all, I bow down before God with prayers of thanks for his love, grace and blessings which he showers on me especially during the preparation of this work. He endowed me with sufficient time and intelligence needed for this work. I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness and express my sincere thanks to Rev. Dr. Jolly Karimpil, the director of this thesis, for helping me and giving me his guidance and support during the preparation of this work. I extend my sincere thanks to very Rev. Dr. Daniel Manikulam, the Rector of the seminary, Rev. Dr. Cherian John Kottayil, dean of theology, professors, librarians, and all my friends, whose constant support and prayers helped me to complete this work. Once again I extend my sincere thanks to all.

St. Mary’s Malankara Major Seminary,

Bro. Maruthoor John

Trivandrum.

III Theology

14th February, 2015.

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE GENERAL INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE LIFE AND THEOLOGICAL METHOD OF HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Introduction

1.1. Life and Style of Hans Urs von Balthasar

1.1.1 A Brief Biographical Sketch

1.1.2 Major Influences

1.1.3 His Language Style and Theological Methodology

1.1.4 His Major Works

1.2. Some General Characteristic Features of Balthasar’s Theology

Conclusion

CHAPTER TWO CHRIST THE VICARIOUS REPRESENTATIVE Introduction

2.1 Christ’s Relationship to God the Father

2.1.1 Jesus’s Being as Being ‘From’ and Being ‘For’

2.1.1.1 Jesus - The Son

2.1.1.2 Jesus - The Word of God

2.1.1.3 Jesus - The One Sent Reveals the Sender

2.1.2 The Theology of Incarnation and the Theology of Cross 2

2.1.3 The God of Biblical Faith is God for Us 2.2 Christ the Vicarious Representative

24 25

2.2.1 The Concept of Representation and Substitution: A Linguistic Analysis

2.2.2 Idea of Vicarious Representation in Balthasar

2.2.3 Christ’s Vicarious Representation

Conclusion

CHAPTER THREE CHRIST’S DEATH FOR US Introduction

3.1 Christ’s Total Self Gift Manifested on Cross

3.2 Christ’s Filial Obedience

3.2.1 The Filial Freedom of Jesus in Relation to the Father

3.2.2 The Filial Freedom as Obedience

3.2.3 Jesus’ Obedience as Self Handing-Over

3.3 Christ’s Solidarity with the Sinners Manifested in His Descent into Sheol 35 3.4 God’s Love Revealed in Christ’s Death for Us

3.5 Death has been Transformed in Christ’s Death for Us

3.6 The Christian Dies into the Death of Christ

Conclusion

GENERAL CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Jesus’s suffering, passion, cross and death stand at the centre of Christianity. Sometimes we are even faced with the question that what is the connection between Jesus’s death on Calvary and our death. Jesus died to save us not only from sin and death but also to make us the adoptive sons of his Father. In this way, Jesus’s death is a “way for us to God’s heart”.1 The word incarnated to take us up to his Father. He died to transform our death. Our death in Christ offers us a life with Christ and eternal happiness. Theological reflections on death of Christ started from the very inception of the church. The reflections on Christ’s death gained much interests in both Catholic and Protestant circles. Many, including modern theologians, reflected the subject matter and commented on it in many ways. Hans Urs von Balthasar, who is very prominent as “a modern ignatian theologian,” 2 is one among those theologians. Considering his thoughts on Christ’s vicarious representation and filial obedience he has offered unique contribution. He starts his theology with two questions: who Christ is? And what Christ does? His voluminous writings deal with the whole Christian mystery which is seen as a complex reality. This dissertation is an attempt to study this great Christian theologian and his theological reflections regarding Christ’s death. Apart from a general introduction and general conclusion, this dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is a background study that employs a historico – theological method. The remaining two chapters follow an expository – analytical method. The underlying motive of the first chapter is to bring out the milieu in which Balthasar’s theology evolved, which is crucial to a proper understanding of his theology. Therefore we will draw a biographical sketch and discuss major

J. DALRYMPLE, Living in the Richness of the Cross (USA: Ave Maria Press, 1994) 72.

B. DAVIES, “Balthasar: A Biographical Sketch” (Introduction), in J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar (England: Cassel Publishers, 1992) 1. 4

influences on the author and his theological method. Then we will be able to better appreciate his theological understanding of Christ’s death for us. The second chapter discusses the vicarious representation of Christ in detail. There we come across a link between the theology of incarnation and that of cross. Jesus was born to take up the cross and to represent us before God. His vicarious suffering reveals the endless love of God towards us. Being Christians our existence is essentially a participation in the being from - for of Jesus Christ. In the third chapter we mainly focus on Christ’s death for us. There we analyse Balthasar’s reflections on Christ’s filial obedience to his father, solidarity with sinners and the answer on why the Son of God became man? For Balthasar total self-giving of Christ is the expression of his filial obedience.

CHAPTER ONE LIFE AND THEOLOGICAL METHOD OF HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Introduction Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) was an eminent Swiss catholic theologian and the author of many theological works. He was also the spiritual leader of a religious community in Basel, Switzerland. He is reckoned as the only Catholic theologian who avoided partiality and “assembled the whole picture of theological knowledge.” Such a great theologian will be studied in depth in this chapter. This study includes a brief biographical sketch, major influences on his theology, his language style and theological methodology, major works and general characteristic features of his theology. This introductory chapter will thus help to understand why Balthasar is regarded as one of the greatest Christian thinkers who deal with the whole Christian mysteries.

1.1 Life and Style of Hans Urs von Balthasar 1.1.1 A Brief Biographical Sketch Hans Urs von Balthasar was born in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1905. “His name is virtually synonymous with Catholicism in Swiss history". 3 He was a very self-consciously catholic author. He was educated by both Benedictines and Jesuits, and then in 1983 began a university education. He acquired degrees from four universities, namely, Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Zurich. In 1929, from Zurich University he earned doctorates in German literature and philosophy.4 Next year he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Feldkirch. After the novitiate he

A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale (Trans. O.P. NICHOLS AIDEN) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990) 1.

Cf. A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 1. 6

studied philosophy at Pullach, near Munich in between 1931 and 1933. He then went on to study theology at Fourviere, near Lyon. In 1936, he was ordained as a priest. After his ordination he served as associative editor of the German Jesuits’ cultural review from 1937 to 1939. In 1940 Jesuits sent him to Basle as a chaplain to the university. While in Basle, Balthasar could observe the unfolding of the third Reich- whose ideology he believed to be a distorted form of Christian apocalyptic and the fulfillment of his own youthful ideas about the role of the eschatology theme in the German imagination-and Adrienne von Speyer, a convert to Catholicism and a visionary who was to write an ecstatic commentary on the fourth gospel.5 In 1947, the motu proprio provida mater ecclesia created the possibility of Ignatian secular institute. Balthasar then proposed to his superiors that he and Adrienne von Speyer together might found such an institute with in the Society of Jesus. As a result of their refusal of the proposal of Balthasar, he left Jesuits and Society of Jesus to devote himself entirely to the Ignatian secular institute. After 1950, von Balthasar immersed himself in writing, in lecturing, in giving the spiritual exercises and in serving the community of Ignatian secular institute. Such ministry put his theology to the test of reality. “In 1969, Balthasar was appointed by Pope Paul VI to the international theological commission and after that he was drawn increasingly into the service of the church’s teaching office”.6 In 1984 Pope John Paul II awarded him ‘the Paul VI prize’ for his services to theology. “In his last years, he applied for re-admission to the Society of Jesus. But his request was denied”.7 In 1988 Pope John Paul II announced him as a cardinal. But, due to continuous illness he died on 26 June 1988, two days

Cf. A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 1.

A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 2.

A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 3. 7

before the official ceremony was to take place. His remains are buried in the family grave under the cloister of Lucerne Cathedral.8

1.1.2 Major Influences Hans Urs von Balthasar was one of the most prolific, original and wideranging theologians of the twentieth century and he is now finally coming to the prominence he deserves. But because of his daring speculations; about the meaning of Christ’s descent in to hell after crucifixion, and because he draws so many resources for his theology from literature, drama and philosophy, Balthasar has never been an easily categorized thinker. He even proclaims catholic Christianity in a new way: in terms of love expressed as beauty, goodness and truth.9 Balthasar certainly agrees with the four ‘last things’ which are in the tradition of western Christianity. Those four last things are namely, death, judgment, heaven and hell. He even says “God is the last thing of the creature: gained, he is heaven; lost he is hell; testing, judgment; purifying, purgatory”. 10 He says Christ is one “governing center”11 of a Trinitarian eschatology into which the anthropological themes of death, judgment and final destiny must be integrated. A decisive formative factor up on Balthasar’s theology was his encounter at Lyons with Henry de Lubac. The faculty of Lyons nurtured in Balthasar a love for the fathers of church which promoted him to undertake several significant studies such as that devoted to Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the confessor. In the theologies of Balthasar, universalism: universal saving will of God, remains as an abiding concern, and the interpretation of descent of Christ in to hell became one of the building blocks of his theological edifice. A second decisive

Cf. A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 3.

Cf. A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 4.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh (Trans. A.V. Little Dale and Alexander (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989) 260.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 19. 8

influence upon Balthasar was the Jesuit philosopher Erich Prazywara (18891972). It is Prazywara who shaped Balthasar’s philosophical enquiry. The key philosophical idea of Prazywara which made an impression up on Balthasar was that of the analogy of being which Prazywara regarded as the key principle of interpretation in catholic thinking. Influenced by this analogy of being Balthasar says “for all the similarity between God and the creature there exist an evergreater dissimilarity”. This principle became a cardinal point in the discussions of Balthasar with the great protestant champion of neo- orthodoxy, Karl Barth (1886-1968). For Barth, all knowledge of God is derived from Christ. Balthasar was attracted by this Christo-centrism of Barth and sought to interpret his theology in a favorable light. Integrating the analogy of being in to the analogy of faith. Balthasar says “analogy of being was a necessary pre-supposition for the analogy of faith. Another feature of Barth’s theology which influenced Balthasar was his emphasis up on the humiliation of the son in the incarnation and the paschal mystery. In short, though Balthasar was inspired by the fathers teaching on the universal saving will of God it is Barth’s theology and the above mentioned feature which confirmed Balthasar’s instincts in this direction.12 Other major influences up on Balthasar were the influences of Adrienne Von Speyer, whom he accompanied in her journey to the Catholic Church, and theological and spiritual influence of Ignatius of Loyola. Some of the theological impulses which he inherited from Adrienne von Speyer are, 1. Christ’s descent into hell shows his solidarity with the abandoned 2. Jesus’s Sonship as obedience to the point of powerless identification with the God forsaken. 3. Faith as like the receptivity of Mary, virginity as spiritual fruitfulness for the world, personhood as unique sending from God.13

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar (England: Cassel Publishers, 1992) 4 - 5.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 5 - 6. 9

These impulses become important interpretive principles of Christian doctrines in the theology of Balthasar. Balthasar’s entire theological project was developed under the guiding inspiration of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. Ignition desire to find God in all things inspired Balthasar and that is seen in his works.

1.1.3 His Language Style and Theological Methodology Reading any work of Hans Urs von Balthasar is like a falling into a bright ocean where the most familiar truths and events of faith are usually hidden from our vision. He never discusses theology as the modern theologians do. They discuss it in a friendly informal style as they have the fullest knowledge through their studies. This style of them quickly wearies the reader. But Balthasar through his language and style invites each reader to enter into his own untiring contemplation of the mysteries of faith. His is a theology that not only derives from prayer and leads back to prayer, but one whose natural element and very lifeblood is prayer. He doesn’t construct propositions and theses to provide us with a theological “method of approach”, rather, he teaches us to see what he sees and to love what he loves and to ask why? A certain great genius and a titanic effort are needed to compress and comprehend great richness of the theology of Balthasar into great simplicity because of his language style and theological methodology. In the theologies of Balthasar we can find a ‘concentric vision’. By this we mean that he never treats a subject in isolation from all those other subjects which are naturally bound to it, but sees them as interacting concentric circles, distinct yet inseparable and springing from a common center. The unity of the paschal mystery is certainly the determining source of this vision and in extending this principle of concentric unity to all the mysteries of faith, he is not merely trying to be methodologically consistent or original, but is exhibiting his

theological obedience to the actual manner which reflects the very interior nature of God himself and a manner which God has chosen to redeem man.14 If we say in one sentence, all the characteristics that which make Balthasar’s work so distinctive and valuable are breadth of vision, loveliness of style and an intuitive contemplative passion that which allows him to “pray intellectually and think cordially”.15

1.1.4 His Major Works Hans Urs von Balthasar is important as a modern Ignatian theologian, along with Karl Rahner, but as readers will quickly discover Balthasar’s voluminous writings like the writings of all one greatest Christian thinkers, deal with the whole Christian mystery seen as a complex totality. The significance of scripture, the notion of creation the nature and purpose of people, the meaning of faith, the nature and work of Christ are the all topics on which Balthasar has written.16 “It is sometimes said that Balthasar’s theological writings are so elitist and faith centered that it has nothing to say to those outside the church.” 17 He even unfolds the theological nature of the divine beauty in and through his seven volumes of The Glory of the Lord. A complete bibliography of von Balthasar’s works can be found in Hans Urs von Balthasar: Biblio Graphie 1925-1990 (ed. Comelia Capol) (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1990). The works listed below are of Balthasar’s which are appeared thus far in English. Christian Meditation, The Christian State of Life, Church and World, Convergences: to the Sources of the Christian Mystery, Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? , Does Jesus Know Us? Do We Know Him? , Elizabeth of Dijon, Elucidations, Engagement with God, First Glance at Adrienne von Speyer, The 14

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland, 10.

A. NICHOLS, “Balthasar, his Christology and the Mystery of Easter” (Introduction), in H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 6.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 7.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 7. 11

Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, The God Question and Modern Man, The Heart of the World, In the Fullness of Faith: on the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mysteries, Love Alone, The way of Revelation, Man in History, Martin Buber and Christianity, Mary for Today, The Moment of Christian Witness, Mysterium Paschale, New Elucidations, The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, Prayer: A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen, Test Everything, Hold Fast to What is Good, Theo-drama Theological Dramatic Theory I: Prolegomen, Theodrama Theological Dramatic Theory II: Dramatis Personae: Man in God, Theology of Karl Barth, A Theology of History, Therese of Lisieu, A Story of a Mission, The Threefold Garland, Truth is Symphonic: Aspects of Christian Pluralism, You Crown the Year with Your Goodness: Sermons Through the Liturgical Year, The Way of the Cross, Who is a Christian? , The Word Made Flesh. Among these works “mysterium paschale is the most profound contemporary theology of the cross in the catholic tradition”.18

1.2. Some General Characteristic Features of Balthasar’s Theology Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological writings rank among the major theological achievements of our century. Being different from other theologies his is a continuous challenge to read and a continuing joy to remember. His writings show of his immense range of knowledge of universe, humankind and God. His is a kind of summa distilled from a variety of writings which span more than forty years of constant work. His volumes of theological writings serve as an excellent point of orientation for anyone to plunge in to the knowledge of God, man and universe. They restore aesthetics and contemplation to their rightful place in Christian theology. Like other theologians, armed with a remarkable knowledge of the theological and metaphysical traditions as well as

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 7. 12

of western letters, von Balthasar also shows how the biblical vision of the divine glory, revealed in the crucified and risen Christ and reflected in the great theologies of the Christian tradition, fulfills and transcends the perception of Being in western metaphysics. Through his theological writings Balthasar explores the nature of theology, the gap between theology and spirituality, the relation of action and contemplation, the roots of a genuinely universal ecumenism and the requirements of a fully developed eschatology. Balthasar’s writings are challenging in number and length. Anyone area of his publications would constitute a decent life’s work for a lesser man. In patristic he wrote accounts of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the confessor. In literature, he produced a major study of Bernanos as well as translations of Claudel, Peguy and Calderon. In philosophy he turned his thesis in to three massive tomes under the title apokalypse der deutchen seele.19 One major general characteristic feature of his theology is that, his theology presents the beautiful as the “forgotten transcendental”.20 For him the manner in which theology is to be written is Christological from the very beginning to the end.21

Conclusion Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the magisterial figures of contemporary theology, has had a long and productive career as a theologian and spiritual writer. He offers to the contemporary church a theology which has a unique capacity to generate insight into the central mysteries of Christian life and which brings with it an unequalled range of Christian culture. For him, theology is a “meditation between faith and revelation in which the infinite is fully expressed in the finite”22 and it is Christianity that which leads us to the affirmation that Being is love. “Being is the Trinitarian love of the Father and the Son in the Holy

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale , 3 - 4

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale , 4

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale , 4

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale , 4 13

Spiritâ&#x20AC;?.23 This chapter, as a whole, tries to explain the author of above mentioned theologies, i.e., von Balthasar. These explanations about Balthasar produce in us an extra ordinary eagerness to know of his theologies that which we are going to see in the next two chapters.

J. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 6 - 7 14

CHAPTER TWO CHRIST THE VICARIOUS REPRESENTATIVE Introduction We all know that there is a communion between God and His creatures. At once this communion was lost by the sin of man. Then there appeared a great chasm between God and man which man cannot take away. So Jesus Christ the second person of the trinity is sent to human world by the God himself to take away that great chasm. His vicarious representation then takes away the chasm and re-establishes the communion. This reestablishment of communion is called salvation and the history of that reestablishment is called salvation history. In order to explain how God brought about salvation of mankind in the person of Jesus Christ, Balthasar turns to the biblical themes of fatherhood – brotherhood - Sonship and vicarious representation. The first section of this chapter will consider his systematic writings on Christ’s relationship to God the Father. This section will help us to understand the vicarious representation of Christ which we shall examine in the second section. The entire existence of Jesus is ‘being from’ and ‘being for’. In the first section we deal Balthasar’s emphasis on the relative existence of Jesus in relation to the Father through the concepts ‘word’, ‘son’ and the ‘one sent’. For Balthasar, Christ’s ‘for’ existence is well expressed in the notion of vicarious representation.

2.1 Christ’s Relationship to God the Father In order to explain this point we must ask one question at first and that is, who is Christ? Balthasar’s answer to this question is both simple and classical. Affirming the classical formula given by the council of Chalcedon, Balthasar says Jesus is the divine person of the logos. But if then we ask, what is Jesus? He would say that “Jesus is God and Jesus is man”.24 But his manhood or personhood implies no limitation because of his being also as a divine person. 24

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 46. 15

Most important idea which we find in Balthasar is the fact that “the affirmation of Jesus’s full humanity implies that, as man, he exist as a creature in infinite distance from God…Without this distance of the creature from God it would be impossible for Jesus to pray… Jesus must stand as man in adoration before God”.25 Christ is the only one who address of God to us and the response of humanity to God. It is because of his being which is from God and for man. “He is both wort (word) and antwort (response) in unity”.26 Christ is the eternal Son of God; means Jesus has a divine origin and has a particular mission which is received from his Father himself.27 His particular mission was, in one sentence, to say ‘yes’ to God the Father where the humankind has the possibility of saying ‘no’. The fulfilment of all God’s promises find their ‘yes’ in Jesus (2 cor 1:18).28 “Jesus is also the eternal word of the Father, the word who took flesh in order to witness, represent and be, in the flesh, the truth and life of God”.29 “This word of the Father is primarily his Son, who speaks of the Father through the Holy Spirit”.30 This Son is the ‘one sent’ for the salvation of many and this ‘one sent’ reveals the sender. This ‘one sent’ is the one who was crucified for us instead of our crucifixion due to our sins. Christ’s filial obedience on the cross proves that he is the Son and the word of God and the one who is sent by the Father.

2.1.1 Jesus’s Being as Being ‘From’ and Being ‘For’ “Jesus Christ is the archetype and the accomplisher of the eschatological communion between God and creation.”31 This accomplisher and archetype is the word of God which is from God himself, and which journeys with us for our

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 47.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 50.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 48.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 145.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh (Trans. A.V. Little Dale and Alexander) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989) 2.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh, 2.

J. H. NICHOLAS, The Eschatology of Hans Urs von Balthasar: Being as Communion (New York: oxford university press, 2005) 91. 16

salvation.32 In other words, there is only one God but in this one God there are three persons. “The second person of the trinity became man at a particular moment in time,”33 for the salvation of humankind. Christ is man as well as he is God. “He is God because he is from God. He is man or he became man because he is for man”.34 As he is from God, in his ‘figure’ we see who and what God is. Christ is the ‘figure’ who reveals and expresses God in an absolute unique way. Jesus’s being from God and for man shows us the eternal love of God for us. A kind of God’s self-giving and self-emptying we see in his incarnation. Jesus’s being as being ‘from’ is eternal. There is an eternal relationship between Father, Holy spirit- who lives between the Father and the Son- and Son. But his being ‘for’, i.e., incarnation, affects this relationship. This is a mystery which humans never understand. By incarnation, ‘temporal’ life of Christ, i.e., the humanness of Christ became the center of their relationship.35 Balthasar’s Christology is based on the Johannine theology of the word which became flesh. He says, Jesus’s being is from the Father. Before and after of his being for man he is in the bosom of the Father. He descended from heaven for man so that man can ascend with him.36 “Jesus descends in to the flesh so that humanity can be elevated to share his divinity”. 37 Jesus was aware of his being as being from God. This awareness of his identity is intimately linked to his mission. “His Trinitarian identity is intimately bound up with his willingness to undertake the mission of the Father for the salvation of the world”.38 But being a being from God without being identified with sinful humanity his being for

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume I: Prologomena (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983) 105.

O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (New York: Cambridge university press, 1990) 11.

O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, 10.

Cf. O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, 14 15.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 44.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 44.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 45. 17

man cannot be actualised. So he identified himself with the sinful humanity and “assumes a sinful flesh”.39 In short, “Jesus becomes man so that he can die for us”.40 Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity plays a great role in between the being ‘from’ and being ‘for’. It is the “Holy Spirit who conveys the Son, as ‘seed of the Father’, in to the virgin’s womb”.41 Here arises a question that if he is for man, then why no normal human conception? The answer Balthasar gives is, even though Jesus is for man, he is also from God. Since he is from God he cannot totally give up his purity and holiness. So his Father himself selected a young girl who has holiness and purity and through her and Holy Spirit gave birth to his Son.42

2.1.1.1 Jesus - The Son Jesus is the Son of God, is a truth which every catholic proclaims many times in his daily proclamation of faith. We all agree that God is Father. It means that God has a child. “We transient creatures are not this child that God must have if he is to be called Father”43. We are many in number. So in order “to be called Father God must have a single, only begotten Son”.44 That Son is Jesus Christ whom we proclaim so, every day. We call him Son, and not daughter, because he appeared in the world as male and will continue the same even at the end of times. “He appeared as male in order to represent to us the authority of the fruitful Fatherly origin”.45 Jesus “knows that he is God’s Son and where he comes from. His origin is from Father and everything he sees and does bears

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 45.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990) 46.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 47- 48.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 37.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 37. 18

witness to the fact that he lives out of this origin”. 46 In our creed we speak of Jesus as God’s only Son. It is because of his “eternal emergence out of the Father”.47 Since he is emerged from the Father he reveals and expresses the Father.48 Jesus is not only God’s son but also God the Son. The obedience which we find in his earthly life with his Father is a sign of a Son’s loving unity of will with the Father. It is only in the light and figure of Son that we can know anything of the Father.49 Being God’s Son, Jesus came to this world in order to “translate the divine distance Father - Son in to the Christian distance God - Man”.50 Translation of such a distance was the will of his own Father. What Jesus then did is “he just lived and fulfilled the will of his Father to the last, in some unimaginable way”.51 Thinking of the coming of this Son in to this world, Balthasar is of the view that the Son of the Father allows himself to be born into the human womb i.e., the womb of Mary, and so the heavens are opened and reveal the three fold life in God in a new way. Father sends his own eternal Son through the Holy Spirit who accomplishes the will of the Father and bears the Son to where this will can be fulfilled “on earth as it is in heaven”.52 From the very moment of conception itself Mary the mother of Jesus was also aware of two things that she owes this child not to any husband but to God alone and she is not used by God as a mere instrument i.e., she is not considered as a pipe from the well through which God’s gift has flowed. God the Father and Mary the mother together are

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 45.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 38.

O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, 10.

Cf. O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, 10.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 47.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Convergences: The Source of Christian Mystery (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1969) 90.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland (Trans. L. Erasmo- Merik) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1978) 27 - 28. 19

the source of Jesus’s Sonship in this world even though he is eternally the Son of God alone.53 As an answer to the question that why God sends his only Son to save the humanity, Balthasar says, God can save humanity only through his Son because “he created humanity in the Son”.54 Without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3). Hence if the humanity or the world is to be ‘saved’ and ‘judged’ it can be done only through the Son, concretely through his cross. Except Son there is no any other way for Father to speak in human terms. Similarly humans also have no other way except Son to speak to the Father.55

2.1.1.2 Jesus - The Word of God For the people of the Old Testament time “scripture was the word of God that bears witness to God”.56 But for the New Testament people “Jesus is the eternal word of the Father”.57 Word of God in the scripture is the word of revelation. The word of revelation is the God himself in the mode of action. This action of Word of God is fully revealed in the fullness of time. That fully revealed word of God is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In short, “the word of revelation is primarily the Son who speaks of the Father through the Holy Spirit”.58 This word is eternally with God. “Since God has in himself the eternal word that expresses him eternally, he is most certainly expressible and since this very word has taken human form and expresses in human acts and words what it is in God, it is capable of being understood by men”.59 This word is “not some kind of mechanical reproduction of the Father…for this reason the translation of the divine word in to a human word is itself, through the Son, sovereign and free,

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland, 44.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 39.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 38 - 39.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh, 2.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh, 19. 20

and not verifiable other than in the Son himself”.60 Jesus himself says that ‘I am the truth. No man comes to the Father but by me’. Therefore faith is accepting Jesus as a divine Word who is incarnated in the human form.61 Everything in the life of this incarnate Word; his life, acts, passion, resurrection is the expression and manifestation of God in the language of a created being. Jesus is the word of the Father and archetype of every self-expression of God -by expression Balthasar does not mean that Christ is a mere re-duplication of the Father, rather Christ is personally other than the Father. Now the question arises, if Jesus is the word of God for the salvation of all, who actually suffers, Christ or God? Balthasar answers this question as follows: we should not consider word of God and Jesus as two different realities because they are one. So the suffering of Word is the suffering of Jesus. Christ’s suffering is truly the suffering of God. Because it is God himself who gives flesh and blood to his own word in order to suffer on the cross for the salvation of human race. God suffers not for him but for the entire humanity. Considering the resurrection of the word of God, then Balthasar is of the view that the resurrected word of God is wholly divine and holy human. Humanity which God took to salvate human race has taken back into the heavenly sphere so that no distance separates it from him.62

2.1.1.3 Jesus - The One Sent Reveals the Sender The Holy God destined man to become holy and blameless, so that man might partake in the life of the triune God. “Man is destined and chosen before the foundation of the world to be blessed…with every spiritual blessing, so that he might stand holy and blameless before his creator ‘in the beloved’”.63 But man went away from God’s plan and got immersed in sin. Seeing the problems which man faces then and the inability of man to liberate himself from the

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh, 20.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Explorations in Theology, volume I: The Word Made Flesh, 20.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Man in History: A Theological Study, 285.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 12. 21

bondage of sin, the merciful God sent his own Son to save him through his blood. This sending act of Father reveals his eternal love for man.64 In this sense Jesus the one who is sent reveals the Father the one who send. By sending his Son, God himself “becomes the measure of man”.65 God reveals his Son to the entire humanity so that all humanity may come to him through his Son. Each and every act of Son reveals his Father and gives glorification to his Father.

For

Balthasar, Christ through his serving and washing the feet of his disciples, reveals his Father and manifests his own supreme glory. According to Balthasar, in sending of the Son, Father has a mission and the main content of that mission is cross. Sin has created “an unbridgeable chasm”67 between the human race and God. Since it is impossible for humanity to repair the damage done by sin and since God is faithful to his covenant love, God comes to our rescue in and through his Son. In brief, God sent his only Son in this world for he loved us (Jn 3:16).

2.1.2 The Theology of Incarnation and the Theology of Cross Many of the “contemporary theologians choose Christological method from below; beginning with the humanity of Jesus whereas, Balthasar chooses a method from above”.68 His Christology includes mainly two points. They are, 1. The Word descended from heaven 2. The Word descended so that men and women can ascend with him. The first point refers to incarnation. Till now, no one except Jesus came from heaven and entered into heaven. Jesus himself tells that ‘no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man’ (Jn. 3:13). Jesus is the eternal Son of God. Incarnation does not make any change in that relationship. Man’s bondage to sin - as a result of his disobedience to the 64

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 12.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 14.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 11.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 79.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 79. 22

commandment of God - could not be taken away by man himself. So God’s Son incarnated, suffered and died in man’s place and took away the bondage. Therefore, incarnation is for human salvation. For Balthasar, incarnation and kenosis form a harmonious unity. The incarnation can only be understood in the light of kenosis which means self-empting. Considering the kenosis of the eternal Logos, Balthasar argues that it is not the subject who changes but the condition of the subject. “The subject remains as the eternal Logos. But in the act of the incarnation the divine Logos denies himself i.e., its glory and assumes the form of a slave”.69 In the OT context it is unimaginable to conceive of God’s glory as revealed in humiliation. But in the NT, doctrine of kenosis points to a new understanding of God’s being not as infinite power but as infinite love. Each of the persons in the trinity is self-empting in relation to the other persons.70 God the Father does not exist without God the Son and vice versa. Son responds to the Father through his self-empting on the cross. So incarnation can be understood only in the light of kenosis i.e., the self- empting of Christ on the cross.71 Cross is the sign of man’s salvation and it exposes the depths of the divine love. God loves the world unimaginably so that he gave up his own Son on the cross for the salvation of the world. On the cross all men are freed from death and the grace is given for the redemption.72 Since Jesus’s life is the proclamation of God’s saving mercy to sinners, his death on the cross is its supreme manifestation. Cross is also the sign of God’s faithfulness to the broken covenant.73 “God not only wanted to assume our flesh, but he also wanted to assume the condition of a sinner,”74 and the sufferings of a sinner. So he suffers and dies on the cross through his Son as a sinner - without being touched by any

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 45 - 46.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 46.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 44 - 46.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 80.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 82 - 83.

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 79. 23

sin - and makes a turning point in the history. “On the cross sins of the entire humanity is blotted out and the eternal life is made available for men and women”.75 Those who believe in Christ and on his cross will personalise that eternal life by passing out from the darkness to the light. The failure to believe in Christ and on cross is condemnation. So Christ and his cross is a crisis to the world in objective terms and this crisis becomes real for each individual based on his or her decision of faith.76 If we do not look on the cross with the eyes which seeks God’s love, the cross may be a meaningless one for us. Because cross is the “overflow of God’s eternal love for man”.77

2.1.3 The God of Biblical Faith Is God for Us On the basis of what the bible has, to say about God and human history, we can summarize that from the very beginning of the human history God is for us. He creates humans and establishes a covenant. Later “Yahweh and his people are seen to stand over against each other”.78 As they went away from God they have gone under the captivities of many. Seeing their sufferings at last God himself liberates them from captivities and leads to a land of prosperity. Then the prophets are called from among themselves and they “set forth an ever more concrete understanding of how the covenant is to be lived”.79 As they lived the covenant a new relationship is made among God and man. Since then heaven and earth were two poles of the one created world and God was “one who is above the world”.80 But through this new relationship heaven and earth join together and He lives with us. For living with us and to make us His sons He

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 83.

Cf. J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 83.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 76.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume III: Dramatis Personae (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983) 473.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume III: Dramatis Personae, 473.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume III: Dramatis Personae, 473. 24

became man in His Son, suffers and dies on the cross for our sins. 81 Balthasar says regarding this suffering of God that, as far as when he meditates on this sufferings of Son of God for him, he realizes a fact that God wills to be with him, for him, and in him.82 He understands from his thorough reading of the holy Bible that “man is in his essence one who is in need of God,”83 and it is from God he receives all gifts. He then widens his idea of God by saying, Christians experience God as God of love, God who communicates himself, God who as Father sends the eternal Son to take up the pains of man for his salvation.84 From the words of Balthasar we can conclude that, for him God of biblical faith is completely a God for us.

2.2 Christ the Vicarious Representative Balthasar explores the ‘for’ existence of Christ by employing the notion of vicarious representation. Today this idea has become unfamiliar and almost unintelligible, at least for some, because of its lost concreteness which it once had in the salvation history. Its linguistic advantage is that it is more abstract than any titles like King and Lord: because it is not already appropriated and filled out with images. Therefore it is seemed easier to take up this term again and to test the weight of its meaning which will bear in an age very different in outlook. In the course of dogmatic history, this term has been overloaded and is already in danger of collapsing under the weight of its meanings. The doctrine of representation has a specific place in dogmas. It is included among the church’s traditional statements about the office and work of Christ. It is dealt within the context of the doctrine of the restoration of communion, with God in Jesus Christ. Moreover it is within the doctrine of Christ’s priestly office that the

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume III: Dramatis Personae, 473- 475

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Glory of the Lord, volume II: A Theological Aesthetics (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983) 2.

83 84

H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Glory of the Lord, volume IV: A Theological Aesthetics, 50. Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Glory of the Lord, volume IV: A Theological Aesthetics, 305 - 306. 25

doctrine of Christ’s representation is dealt with. Christ died instead of us for our sins. Representatively he reconciled us to God and revealed God’s prevenient grace towards us. Christ is then seemed as a redeemer. But then, what is precisely Christ’s vicarious representativeness? It is the Christ’s representativeness of us before God and of God before or among us.85

2.2.1 The Concept of Representation and Substitution: A Linguistic Analysis The word representation means the act of presenting somebody or something in a particular way. “To represent some one means to take responsibilities for him temporarily, while he is on leave or ill. It is regarded as a temporary expedient”.86 It also means to stand instead of somebody. But representing never means occupying the place of somebody permanently. An advocate represents his client and his interests in the court but he never replaces his client. “A representative doesn’t put himself in the other person’s place completely and absolutely”.87 A representative makes clear that he appears, on behalf of and in the name of the other person. A guardian doesn’t replace the Father, he simply represents him. If anyone replaces somebody permanently, then it is called substitution.88 In substitution what is replaced is treated as unavailable, useless, or dead. Substitution demands total permanence, not merely a temporary status. The replacement re-presents the other person completely and unconditionally. He acts in his own name, not in the name of the one he replaces. What is then replaced no longer has a name, no one even remembers it. In short, what is

Cf. S. DOROTHEE, Christ the Representative: An Essay in the Theology after the ‘Death of God’ (Scotland: SCM Press, 1967) 13-16.

S. DOROTHEE, Christ the Representative: An Essay in the Theology After the ‘Death of God’, 20.

Cf. S. DOROTHEE, Christ the Representative: An Essay in the Theology After the ‘Death of God’, 19 - 20. 26

represented is not a dead thing but someone who is alive but unavailable, or ill, or incapacitated or inactive or incapable whereas what is substituted is no longer living and unavailable for ever. This distinction between representation and substitution is disappearing today by the current linguistic usages with the extensions of their meanings. This disappearance indicates the existence of a depersonalized world in which things and persons can be arbitrarily interchanged. Every man is irreplaceable because every man is unique. Denial of one’s irreplaceability is the denial of one’s own dignity. As long as one is living with his habits, weaknesses, and excellences he is irreplaceable. “Substitution is a final exchange of dead impersonal or depersonalized being whereas representation is the provisional intervention of persons on behalf of persons”.89

2.2.2 Idea of Vicarious Representation in Balthasar Hans Urs von Balthasar uses the theological category of stellvertretung90 to explain the mission of Christ. For him, “only the notion of Christ ‘vicariously representing’ sinful mankind before God can capture the essential meaning of the mystery of the cross”.91 Before developing his own understanding of ‘vicarious representation’, Balthasar draws attention to the satisfaction theory of Anselm. He demonstrates a positive assessment of Anselm’s theory in which the “fundamental requirements of justice intrinsic to personal dignity, both divine and human, and the latter’s recognition that the entire work of Christ is completely the result of God’s merciful love”.92 Balthasar’s concept of ‘vicarious representation’ is different from that of the Luther and Anselm. Luther sees

S. DOROTHEE, Christ the Representative: An Essay in the Theology After the ‘Death of God’, 23.

In the theological field this term means that one or few can act for the salvation of many. In theological language this term’s meaning is expressed with the terms vicariousness and solidarity.

R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar (ROME: GREGORIAN, 2000), 98.

R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, 99. 27

Christ as experiencing the wrath of God in the sense that Christ experiences the eternal damnation of the Father. In being punished and plunged into hell, Christ undergoes the judgment of God on sin. For Luther, Christ identifies himself with the sinful humanity to the extent that he is condemned by God in its place.93 On the other hand Anselm does not pay sufficient attention to the “saving action of Christ in terms of the patristic notion of the “exchange” between Christ and sinners, as well as “Christ’s coming into contact with sins of others”.94 Luther actually tried to overcome the extrinsicness of ‘vicarious representation’ in Anselm, but he went to the other extreme and proposed a radical soteriology. Here, in this situation, Balthasar attempts, a third way as a solution that is, “…to consider the vicarious representation of Christ in behalf of sinful humanity in relation to Christ’s ‘existence in kenosis. In the event of incarnation, the second person of the trinity assumes sinful human nature, and enters in to a kenotic state in order to accomplish the mission which is the eternal free decision of the trinity”.95

2.2.3 Christ’s Vicarious Representation In Balthasar’s understanding of vicarious representation of Christ we find a central fact that “through Christ’s representation of sinners in the paschal mystery God has objectively placed mankind in a new situation”.96 Balthasar ratifies the significance of Christ’s death ‘in our place’ (substitution), which gives weight to the exclusive and objective character of Christ’s atoning death. Christ does something for us on the cross that we are not capable of doing ourselves. He also affirms the idea of the Son’s standing ‘on our behalf’ (representation) before the Father in obedience, which takes in to consideration

Cf. R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, 100- 101.

R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, 99.

R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, 101.

R. PESARCHICK, The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ: According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, 102. 28

the inclusive dimension of the Son’s atoning death. For him, Christ freely allows himself to be ‘handed over’ and he ‘exchanges place’ with sinful mankind so that we have been liberated from the bondage of sin and consequently the lost freedom has been restored. God sends his son but son also hands him over; surrenders in obedience.

Conclusion More than reaffirming the basic faiths of Catholicism, Balthasar gives reasonable evidences to those faiths through his writings. For him Christ is the figure who reveals and expresses God to us in an absolute and unique way. Christ is the only one who can represent us before God. For that he emptied himself and became equal to us, lived among us, suffered more than a human being can, for the whole humankind and died on the cross. In other words he was born to die. The notion of vicarious representation does justice and gives meaning and value to the New Testament and to the total scope of the mission of Christ. ‘Vicarious representation’ of Christ is not a radical substitution, where Jesus is understood as damned in place of sinners, a position which is indefensible. Jesus represents each and every individual before his Father. He became man in order to represent us vicariously before God. He is truly the Son and the word of God. We, humans are also His sons. Then, naturally, there arises a question that, Is there any difference between these sonships? Yes there is difference; Christ is His only one eternal Son where as we are His adoptive sons. We all are adopted by God, in and through the vicarious representation of Christ.

CHAPTER THREE CHRIST’S DEATH FOR US Introduction After reading the second chapter anyone who has reason can ask meaningfully a question that why the Son of God became man, in order to act or to die? Many of the church fathers, for example, Tertullian, Gregory of Nyssa, Leo the great are of the opinion that “he was born in order to be able to die”. 97 Their reason for saying that was, the more he acted in life the failure of his acts were more. The more he championed in love, the more clearly he was rejected. But, “through his death on the cross he became the most formative figure in the world history”.98 Why so? The answer may be: because, his entire earthly action from the very beginning resulted in total self-surrender to his heavenly Father and this self-surrender reached its climax on the cross.99 This whole chapter is a study on the Christ’s death for us, his filial obedience to his Father and his solidarity with the sinners.

3.1 Christ’s Total Self Gift Manifested on Cross The whole life of Jesus should be understood as a journey to the cross, says Balthasar in his writing Mysterium Paschale. What he said is absolutely true, because every acts, not only acts but also words of Jesus, announce the cross which Jesus had to take up for the whole humanity. Christ was actually giving himself totally as a gift to his mission. His mission was nothing other than cross. From the very moment of his incarnation he was sealed to his death on the cross. That was the specialty of his mission. Since he was sinless, his acceptance of the dying on the cross was not a personal punishment given to him by the Father,

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery (Philadelphia: Fortress press, 1985) 25.

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery, 25.

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery, 25. 30

but a free and spontaneous gift, of him, of his own self, to the will of his Father for the salvation of the whole humanity. ‘No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to take it up again (Jn 10:18). This total self-gift of himself is revealed and manifested even in a minute second of his death on the cross.100 “As man, he is, before God, a servant; as bearer of a sinful nature he is destined to an accursed death, whereas the eternal Son, he remains free in his gift of self”.101 The cross which Christ accepted from human kind is the same cross of which from all eternity he told his Father that he was ready to bear that in freedom and in love. It was not the humans who placed their sins on his shoulders but it was him who had freely taken up on himself our sins. If it was not so, everything which he suffered then would have otherwise been in vain.102 He offered himself to the Father in the Holy Spirit, in order “to bring the work of creation to completion on the cross”.103 His total self-gift on the cross opened for us the new way to God the Father. His death on the cross is therefore a “turning point, a transition, and a Passover”.104 On the cross he not only offers himself but also offers or gives what he has as his own to others; he entrusts Mary to the disciple as disciple’s mother and the disciple to Mary as her son.105 If we accept these points; Christ gave himself, as a self-gift on the cross, for the salvation of all the humanity, there arises an important question that, why then Jesus cried on the cross, or why then Jesus asks his Father that ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me’? (Mt 27:46). Balthasar answers this question in the following way; Jesus is fully divine and fully human. Being a fully human person, Jesus cries on the cross and asks to Father, ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me’? Sufferings to which he offered himself as a

100

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 90.

101

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 90.

102

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Way of The Cross (England; St. Paul Publications, 1990) 12.

103

H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland, 101.

104

H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland, 103.

105

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Way of The Cross, 52 - 54. 31

self-gift really pains him. Out of that pain he cries and asks. 106 The question which he asked come from the pain of his heart. He came to this world in order to save his people, he lived among them as one who is for them, but they did not accept him. They even abandoned him on the cross. He called many as his disciples, three are chosen to remain close to him, but they also rejected him. Being a human these all pained him. So Jesus asks his Father as a Jew asks his Yahweh when in suffering, ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me’? 107 Father did not answer his question. But “visits his wrath on the Son who vicariously represents sinners, and so…allows the Son to experience the full suffering of sin, up to and including God forsakenness”.108

3.2 Christ’s Filial Obedience “A ‘key lens’ through which Balthasar views the sacrifice of Christ is the notion of obedience”.109 This theme really expresses the relationship between the Son and his heavenly Father. In Balthasar’s theology he is of the opinion that Christ’s self-sacrifice on the cross expresses God’s love for the world. The Father gives himself totally in love to the Son, whose entire being is a response to that gift of love. Even though Jesus “appears as the ‘no’ of sin,”110 being incarnate Son of God he “is the ‘yes’ to the Father”.111 This ‘yes’ of the Son to the Father’s will is the expression of Son’s total obedience to his Father. Death of Jesus, the second person in the trinity, on the cross is an eternal decision of the trinity made before time. What then Jesus did is, he, being the second person of the trinity, obeys and welcomes whole heartedly the decision of other two persons in the trinity in his earthly life. All three persons of the trinity has only one decision, because even though they are three they are one. 106

Cf. H.U. von BALTHASAR, The Way of The Cross, 53.

107

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 81.

108

Cf. M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist (Trubner: Kegan Paul, 1920) 211 212.

109

M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 199.

110

M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 212.

111

M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 212. 32

They are one in love. The above mentioned obedience of the Son is also the work of this love.112

3.2.1 The Filial Freedom of Jesus in Relation to the Father From the last words of Jesus on the cross one may conclude that Jesus is totally forsaken and abandoned on the cross by the Father. But the truth is, “in the wrathful alienation of the economy Father and the Son are closer than ever”.113 It is through the blood of Christ only, Father can save the world. Because of this reason Father keeps silence on the cross. The Son offers himself, for the world, out of his love to the Father. “Because of the unity of the divine will of the Father and the Son, the Father too is offering himself for the salvation of the world in offering his Son”.114 The life of Son is one which proceeds from the original love of the Father and returns to the Father in grateful self-surrender. This grateful self-surrender was not an obligation to the Son, Jesus Christ. But it was an obligation that, one should suffer and die vicariously instead of the human kind for the salvation of the human kind. Being a second person of the trinity, Son has the divine freedom in its fuller sense and being a fully human person Christ also has the human freedom in its fuller sense. So Father allows the Son to decide of his own self surrendering. Being an obedient and loving Son to the Father, Jesus says nothing other than ‘yes’. Jesus out of his freedom freely chooses the cross which he has to take up on his shoulders in order to take up his Father’s people to his Father’s right side, with him. It is the infinite free selfgiving of the Son which makes the reality of incarnation possible, as well as the reality of redemption. For Balthasar, the freedom of Christ is not a freedom which is different from that of God, because he is the Son of God. The Father has nothing different from the Son and vice versa. Jesus himself says, whatever I have, I have from my Father. I and my Father are one.

112

Cf. M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 212.

113

M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 212.

114

M. LANDRIEUX, From the Trinity to the Eucharist, 212. 33

3.2.2 The Filial Freedom as Obedience “The drama of the passion, by which the whole humanity is saved is the drama between the Father and the Son”.115 This drama is also of the filial freedom of obedience. Son has freedom to say ‘yes’ to his Father’s will. In the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross we can find Jesus as an obedient Son. “His obedience touches the heart of the Father more deeply than the sin of the world”.116Therefore, according to Balthasar, “we can find a wound, which is of obedience of his Son, in the Father”.117 For him, Philippians 2:1f speaks of Christ’s obedience to the cross. Eternal Son’s obedience is higher than one’s obedience to an order or command. It is an obedience to Son’s own love to Father. So, out of his love towards Father, Son uses his freedom as an obedience to his Father’s will.118 “Christ’s entire earthly actions from the beginning resulted in total self-surrender to his heavenly Father”.119 Jesus did this self-surrendering by making use of his freedom. This self-surrendering reached its climax on the cross. Jesus even said in his earthly life that, he did not come to do his will, but rather the will of the one who had sent him. The will of the one who had sent him was nothing other than the shedding of blood and death of the one who was sent, for the salvation of many. So this shedding of the blood and the death of the Son prove that his freedom is obedience; an obedience to his own Father’s will, an obedience to his own love towards his Father.120

3.2.3 Jesus’ Obedience as Self Handing-Over As a result of Jesus’s obedience to his Father’s will, he handed over himself into the human hands thereby to take up the humans into the hands of his Father. Here ‘Self-handing over’ of Jesus means “his freely laying down of

115

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 110.

116

O’GERARD, The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, 33.

117

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 89.

118

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 89.

119

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery, 25.

120

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery, 25 - 26. 34

his own life, that is, the active disposal of himself”.121 He lets himself to be disposed of. It is evident from his own words at the moment of his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane that, ‘It is enough. The hour has come; the Son of man is handed over into the hands of sinners’ (Mk 14:41). But the handing over of Jesus finds its concrete realization through the actions of Judas, Pilate and the Jewish people who cried out to crucify him. Balthasar is of the view that “the ultimate handing over of Jesus has its origin in the Trinitarian decision of the Father to send the Son to save the human race from the abyss of sins”.122 Paul expresses the same idea but radically when he says God did not spare his only begotten Son but handed him over our sake (Romans 8:32). “Although Jesus says ‘yes’ to this being handed over, we must not rob this paradidonai123 of its horrifying effect”.124 Scriptures express this dimension with the following words. 1. Power of darkness (Lk 22:53) 2. Night (Jn 13:30) According to Balthasar “Jesus is delivered into the yawning chasm of sin in which the blackness of loneliness prevails. In this night all vision is taken away”.125 For him the only thing which is left to Jesus then is the “relentless and blind obedience”.126

3.3 Christ’s Solidarity with the Sinners Manifested in His Descent into Sheol We all know that in between the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday there was a great silence, silence of Holy Saturday. If Good Friday represents Jesus’s active self-surrendering “holy Saturday symbolizes his identification with us even to the depths of the absolute helplessness of the sinners in the 121

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 81.

122

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 82.

123

Paradidonai is the Greek word which means to hand over.

124

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 82.

125

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 84.

126

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 84. 35

Sheol.127 Jesus is no longer able to do anything, he can be merely be with us in the solidarity of the powerlessness of the sinner”.128 Death is not a partial event. “It is a happening which affects the whole person. It is a situation which signifies … the abandonment of all spontaneous activities and passive activities”.129 Jesus was really dead, because he really became a man as we are. This is what we proclaim in our creed. “On earth he was in solidarity with the living”130. So, that solidarity must be continued in the tomb also. Therefore ‘he is in solidarity with the dead”.131 Each human being lies in his own tomb as a separated body. In the case of Jesus the word descendare, to descent, is used to mean his solidarity with those human beings who lays in their own tombs. Descending here means “going to the dead”. 132 For Balthasar, Christ’s going to the dead is evidenced by I peter 4:6. There we read as ‘he went and preached to the spirits in prison’. Christ actively suffered and brought redemption by the cross for all the people: living and dead. So Christ expresses his solidarity with the sinners. We have often spoken of the deep gap between the living God and the dead sinner. Balthasar “frequently refers this gap as a hiatus”.133 He is of the view that “Jesus radically identifies with us sinners, he is not able to leap over the hiatus”.134 Jesus goes down into the hiatus itself and in such a way that the hiatus becomes part of the victory. “Our salvation does not consist in escape from death nor in life on the other side of death. Rather the victory passes through the

127

Sheol is an Old Testament term to denote hell. It is a state after death where there is total loneliness and total abandonment. It is the loss of all kinds of relationships.

128

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 85.

129

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 148.

130

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 149.

131

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 149.

132

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 149.

133

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 85.

134

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 85. 36

death”.135 The basic affirmation of Balthasar is that “Jesus’s descent among the dead means 1. His solidarity with the sinners, even at Sheol, up to Sheol. 2. Christ’s experience of the full reality of hell.”136 With those meanings Balthasar says, Jesus “entered into the helplessness of the sinner, and…was reduced to the utter lifelessness of the corpse”.137 In short, “Jesus freely bore our sins, on the cross he was confronted with the reality of sins in all its naked horror”138 and this solidarity of Christ with us the sinners is manifested even in his descent into Sheol.

3.4 God’s Love Revealed in Christ’s Death for Us The whole world is silenced before Calvary, when God’s living word is nailed by men in to deathly immobility. “It is the Father’s hour, when the eternal triune plan is executed to clear out all the refuse of the world’s sin by burning it in the fire of suffering love”.139 This fire of suffering love has burned eternally in God by Himself as the blazing passion of his Son for the eternal good. So Son of God incarnates, as a man who is equal to us, suffers and dies instead of us, for us. This suffering and death of Son of God reveal the majestic splendor of the love of God for the humanity. God is one but three in persons. So suffering of the one person is also the suffering of the other two persons in the trinity. ‘Christ suffers’ therefore means ‘Trinity suffers’, i.e., God suffers. God suffers for man because of his abundant love towards man. To explain why God suffers for his love, Balthasar gives an example of a family. He says, in a family husband suffers for his love towards his wife and children. If his wife comes across any kind of problem, that becomes husband’s problem too. He takes any risk to solve that problem. Likewise, the suffering of the human beings are also the suffering 135

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 85.

136

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 87.

137

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 87.

138

J. O’DONNEL, Hans Urs von Balthasar, 88.

139

H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Threefold Garland, 99. 37

of God. Because we all are his children, his loving creatures. So in order to take away our sufferings due to the bondage of sin God sends his own Son and suffers through him.

3.5 Death has been Transformed in Christ’s Death for Us We have already discussed in the second chapter that for Balthasar Jesus’s existence can be summarised in the word ‘for’. Jesus’s existence as the Son of God is an existence ‘from’ the Father ‘for’ the humanity. This ‘for’ of Jesus reaches its climax in his death on the cross. Death is the loss of relationships with God and man. But Jesus’s death re-establishes the lost relationship and communication between God and man. So we can say that death of Jesus has effected a significant change. It transforms our death. Balthasar is of the view that, till the death of Jesus death was something negative, evil, and a border line. But Christ’s death conquered death and has taken away the border line and raised us up to the right-side of God, with him. It is from the point of view of Jesus’s death on the cross only that the meaning and value of suffering, sickness, and death can be understood.140 Once death was an entrance to a kind of existence in silence but now it is an entrance to the place of praising God.141 Once death was called “an entrance to the underworld,”142 but Christ defeated that underworld by his death and now death is called “an entrance to heaven”. 143 It is then true that, our death is transformed by Christ’s death.

3.6 The Christian Dies into the Death of Christ After showing how Christ transforms the death through his own death, Balthasar attempts to show how a Christian dies in the death of Christ. Death and life after death are understood by Balthasar as something related to Jesus

140

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume I: Prologomena, 388 - 389.

141

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Theo-Drama:Theological Dramatic Theory, volume I: Prologomena, 369.

142

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 149 - 151.

143

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 170. 38

Christ144. He says “Christians are in Christ’s service and so, they may expect no other fate than Christ’s”.145 According to Balthasar the living will die with Christ in order to be resurrected with Christ. Christ transfigured humanity by his death on the cross. This transfiguration can be personalized by each and every individual when they die. But their dying must be a dying in Christ.146 “The death of a believer, is the incorporation of the soul in to the heavenly body, heavenly temple, and heavenly house of the risen humanity of Christ”.147 Who dies in Christ, he alone can only have this incorporation. So Christians die in to the death of Christ to personalize the death of Christ as a death which is for them. This is what is meant by Balthasar by saying a Christian finds himself in his relationship with Christ.148 A Christian is called to sacrifice himself as his master sacrificed himself on the cross. It is a kind of sharing the ‘kenosis ‘of Christ himself. The ‘kenosis’ of Christ is shared by each and every Christian at the very beginning of his or her Christian life, i.e., at the time of baptism. This kenosis or sacrificing together with Christ also understood as dying with Christ. This dying with Christ is actually a living with Christ or living in Christ; in the risen Christ. That means in order to live in Christ one has to die in Christ. We believe and confess that Christians live in Christ. They attain this life in Christ by their death in Christ; by their death in the death of Christ. Christian’s life is not only a participation in the resurrection of Christ but also that of in the death and suffering of Christ on the cross.149

144

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Mysterium Paschale, 170.

145

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Life out of Death: Meditations on the Easter Mystery, 61.

146

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, Word and Redemption (USA: Palm Publishers, 1964) 156.

147

H. U. von BALTHASAR, Word and Redemption, 156

148

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Christian State of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983) 212.

149

Cf. H. U. von BALTHASAR, The Christian State of Life, 220. 39

Conclusion Balthasarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Christology is Trinitarian, and the cross and resurrection constitute its decisive content. The submission of Christâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will to his Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s will reveals his love towards his Father. This love for his Father compels him to suffer and even to die on the cross for the sins of the world. If it is so, then he experienced solidarity with the sinners and with those who were in Sheol. His descent into Sheol itself is a redemptive activity and a part of the salvation history. His death transformed the death of every human being as an ascend in to the right-side of eternal Father and everyone who loves and proclaims Christ dies in to the death of Christ in order to have a life in Christ.

GENERAL CONCLUSION The Word, the second person of the Trinity is incarnated in our world to save our world. He incarnated to share his Sonship with us. Being the Son of God he lived with us, as one among us, to serve us. He suffered vicariously instead of us, for our sins. He died on the cross for the whole world. Christ’s death for us is theologically reflected by many theologians. Hans Urs von Balthasar, who is a magisterial figure of contemporary theology, was also one among those theologians. He explores the mystery of Christ’s death. This dissertation was a short study on the mystery of Christ’s death according to Balthasar. In the first chapter we examined who is Balthasar and what all things influenced his theological thoughts. Second and third chapter dealt with Christ’s vicarious representation and death for us. Christ vicariously represented us before God and God before us. He reconciled us to God and revealed God’s prevenient grace towards us. Christ did something for us on the cross that we were and are not capable of doing. He freely handed over himself into the hands of suffering and death to save the sinful mankind from the bondage of sin and to make humans the adoptive sons of god. To make us his Father’s sons Christ emptied himself. His solidarity with us is manifested even in his descent in to Sheol. He became equal to us, lived among us, suffered and died on the cross for our sins. In other words, he was born for us and he died for us.

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10.

, The Threefold Garland (Trans. L. Erasmo- Merik) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1978).

11.

, Convergences: The Source of Christian Mystery (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1969).

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, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, volume I: Prologomena (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983).

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14.

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