Balthasar's Trilogy: Reader's Guides

Acknowledgements



Abbreviations



Chapter 1 Context and Introduction



1.1 Introduction

1.2 His life and times



Chapter 2 Key Influences on von Balthasar's Trilogy



2.1 Henri de Lubac and his rediscovery of the Fathers

2.2 Erich Przywara and the analogy of being

2.3 Karl Barth; christocentrism and the analogy of faith

2.4 Adrienne von Speyr and the role of religious experience

Chapter 3 The Glory of the Lord



3.1 Seeing the Form

3.2 Studies in Theological Style: Clerical and Lay Styles

3.3 The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity and in the Modern Age

3.4 Theology: the Old and new Covenant

Chapter 4 Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory



4.1 Prolegomena

4.2 Dramatis Personae: Man in God

4.3 Dramatis Personae: Persons in Christ

4.4 The Action
4.5 The Last Act



Chapter 5 Theo-Logic



5.1 Truth of the World

5.2 Truth of God

5.3 The Spirit of Truth



Chapter 6 Reception and Further Reading



6.1 Epilogue

6.2 The Key Influences on von Balthasar

6.3 Reception of von Balthasar's Trilogy

6.4 Further reading of von Balthasar

6.5 Further reading about von Balthasar



Bibliography

Here we have an excellent introduction to one of the most significant intellectual achievements of the twentieth century, namely Hans-Urs von Balthasar's trilogy on the transcendentals of being: beauty, goodness and truth. In that massive work the Swiss Catholic theologian unfolded the themes of God's glory and its appearance, God's dramatic history with the world and human participation in it, God's cosmic design and the ways of its revelation and human discovery. Now at three interlocking levels -- that of the present book itself, that of its subject's writings, and that of the range of philosophers, theologians and artists whom von Balthasar attended to -- readers will find themselves drawn into engagement with the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Readers struggling with the daunting task of getting to grips with Hans Urs von Balthasar's vast and sometimes rather amorphous oeuvre will welcome this wonderfully brief and clear map of his Trilogy. Stephen Wigley sets Balthasar's magnum opus in context, offers an analysis of the key influences on it, and even guides us through the growing thicket of secondary literature surrounding it, but above all he lays out a concise, sympathetic summary of the Trilogy, something which is to be found nowhere else in a single volume.