The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
The work with which we embark on this first volume of a series of theological studies is a work with which the philosophical person… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
The Holy Spirit knows what a particular age's most pressing need is far better than men with their programs. — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be the return… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
There is a moment when the interior light of the "eyes of faith" becomes one with the exterior light that shines from Christ, and… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power. — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of us were… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
Faith means the fundamental response to the love that has offered itself up for me. It thus becomes clear that faith is ordered primarily… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
Hell is to be contemplated strictly as a matter which concerns me alone. As part of the spiritual life it belongs behind the 'closed door' of my own room. From the standpoint of living faith, I cannot fundamentally believe in anyone's damnation but my own; as far as my neighbor is concerned, the light of resurrection can never be so… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share
What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar Copy Share Image
Above all we must not wish to cling to our suffering. Suffering surely deepens us and enhances our person, but we must not desire… — Hans Urs von Balthasar Copy Share Image
