Von Balthasar, Hans Urs

(1905–87)

   Theologian.

   Von Balthasar was born in Lucerne, Switzerland. He was educated in Vienna, Berlin and Zürich and he joined the Jesuit Order. He left the Jesuits in 1950 to form a secular institute and subsequently he directed his own publishing house. Early in his career he wrote a sympathetic study of the theology of Karl barth, but he is mainly remembered for his multi-volume study of theological aesthetics (in its English translation) The Glory of the Lord. In it he tried to demonstrate how the biblical vision of God’s glory, as revealed in the crucified and resurrected Jesus, reflects and goes beyond the traditional Western metaphysical concept of Being.

   H. von Balthasar, Why I am Still a Christian (1973);

   D. Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians, revised edition (1997);

   J. O’Donnell, Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1991).