Hans Urs von Balthasar

Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

The work with which we embark on this first volume of a series of theological studies is a work with which the…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

The Holy Spirit knows what a particular age's most pressing need is far better than men with their programs.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

There is a moment when the interior light of the "eyes of faith" becomes one with the exterior light that shines from…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Faith means the fundamental response to the love that has offered itself up for me. It thus becomes clear that faith is…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Hell is to be contemplated strictly as a matter which concerns me alone. As part of the spiritual life it belongs behind…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.

— Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Above all we must not wish to cling to our suffering. Suffering surely deepens us and enhances our person, but we must…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

The inner reality of love can be recognized only by love.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

To be a child means to owe one's existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

There is much in Christianity which can be subjected to exact analysis. But the ultimate things are shrouded in the silent mysteries…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

“For all his gentleness and humility unto death on the Cross, God does not relinquish his attribute of being judge and consuming…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

The saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Wonder-the enthusiastic ardor for the sublimity of being, for its worthiness to be an object of knowledge-promises to become the point of…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

What the Father gives is the capacity to be a self, freedom, and thus autonomy, but an autonomy which can be understood…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Her (Mary's) Son first had to be the Child of the Father in order then to become man and be capable of…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

“He is not pestered by the banal desires common to all men; he is tempted by the greatest, the most momentous, messianic…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar

Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and…

— Hans Urs von Balthasar