One of the on-going thoughts that I have had in my engagement with Roman Catholic theology has been the issue of Christocentricism or the lack thereof in much Roman Catholic theology. Now certainly there are some great exceptions to this such as the magnificent work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and those who follow him (though of course Balthasar has Barth to thank for his particularly Christocentric focus at least in my view). In fact at this very moment I’m reading and reviewing an excellent book by Fr. Robert Barron entitled
though it is not not an official dogma is clearly an acceptable theological articulation of the role of Mary in our redemption according to a great many Catholic theologians including the late Pope John Paul II.
The point I wish to make about this is simply that such language seems to imply that Christ is not our redeemer in an absolutely singular sense. While there are doubtless a great many qualifications that could helpfully be made by those more competent in Catholic theology there is a fairly clear trajectory within that tradition which sees there being a great many other modalities of mediation alongside of and in relation to Christ which belong to the essence of Christian salvation. As such it seems that there is a paucity of Christocentrism within the Catholic tradition. What is at the “center” in much Catholic theology is not simply Christ but rather “the whole” of which Christ is the apex the source and the summit but with which he himself is not identical.
Moreover another crucial emphasis in Roman Catholic ecclesiology is the way in which salvific encounter with Christ is eccleiastically mediated both through the sacraments and hierarchy of the church. Again it is the
This is what I refer to in inquiring about the ability of Catholicism to be inherently Christocentric. It seems that consistently - though perhaps not inevitably - the Catholic “whole” threatens to absorb the Christological singularity and unsurpassability.
This bears on the issue of protestants converting to Roman Catholicism and to my own specific attractions to that tradition. Consistently people who I speak to who have converted to Roman Catholicism have done so for reasons relating to “the whole”. There is a wholeness and richness to the Catholic tradition in all its historical continuity and visible structure. For me personally and for those I know it is the seeking of this ecclesial wholeness with its sense of history certainty and belonging that draws most people from protestantism to Catholicism. And these are all in my view legitimate reasons for such a conversion (though I don’t know if they are sufficient); however the question I have goes to whether or not there is a specifically C
My point in all this is not to judge the motives or reasons why people find themselves coming to the Catholic church rather it is simply to say that any reasons I can come up with for converting are not really Christological ones. They stem more from a desire to find a church that has all the right things than from a desire to simply follow the Jew from Nazareth. Perhaps that’s just me but in most conversion-to-Catholicism stories I encounter. I rarely hear “My encounter with Christ drove me to the Catholic church”; rather I tend to hear “I longed more than anything to find the true church.” In contrast for the many Catholics who convert to some form of evangelical Christianity the reasoning is almost exclusively Christocentric. To put the matter in a far too simplistic but still I think somewhat accurate way people seem to leave protestantism to find the true church while people seem to leave Catholicism to find Christ. If nothing else this should be quite disturbing to both protestants and Catholics. For myself it is perhaps the biggest reason why I cannot really entertain the idea of converting to Catholicism. I just can’t find a Christocentric reason to do it.
I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that your references to “Christocentrism” in this post make very little if any sense to me. It seems to be a signifier without a signified. The encounter with Christ is inseparable from the encounter with Christ as the head of the Church. Christ as the needy. Christ as our neighbor etc. Mediation is a fact of our existence in time and in a fallen world. “For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Hill. “Christocentricism” is a term that describes theologies and church traditions that are centered on the person of Jesus Christ. A Christocentric theology is one in which we are constantly referring back to Christ his life death and resurrection.
Mediation is indeed inevitable (depending on how we define it) but the question is whether or not Christ alone is the mediator between God and humanity or whether there are other modes of mediation say between us and Christ or between us and God. Theologies which see such other mediators as central to Christian salvation and experience I take to be less Christocentric.
“The point I wish to make about this is simply that such language seems to imply that Christ is not our redeemer in an absolutely singular sense. While there are doubtless a great many qualifications that could helpfully be made by those more competent in Catholic theology there is a fairly clear trajectory within that tradition which sees there being a great many other modalities of mediation alongside of and in relation to Christ which belong to the essence of Christian salvation.”
First. I understand the reservations about mediation and the language used to describe various mediatory elements in Catholicism. However while it may imply something unsettling taken out of context the fact is that “Christ is our redeemer in an absolutely singular sense” and this is something any Catholic would assent to. The reconciliation of this “tension” reveals or is ultimately drawn up in the absolutely central importance of “deification” (divine filiation theosis in Catholic and Orthodox thought. This was perhaps the central conceptual breakthrough in my own view of (and ultimately relation to) the Apostolic Churches. There’s really no way I could attempt to do it justice right now. The appearance of “mediation” is just the proliferation of God’s glory. That various “human” institutions or even the sacraments themselves can become for us channels of real grace does not diminish Christ’s glory or singularity but rather increases it as it proclaims the radical character of our redemption not as a mere rescue from the pains of Hell but as truly becoming a part of the life of God in the most full sense and to “know even as we are known.” I’ll quote a brief section from a recent Hart article in The New Atlantis:
“Theologically speaking the proper destiny of human beings is to be “glorified”—or “divinized”—in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to become “partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4) to be called “gods” (Psalm 82:6; John 10:34-36). This is the venerable doctrine of “theosis” or “deification,” the teaching that—to employ a lapidary formula of great antiquity—“God became man that man might become god”: that is to say in assuming human nature in the incarnation. Christ opened the path to union with the divine nature for all persons. From the time of the Church Fathers through the high Middle Ages this understanding of salvation was a commonplace of theology. Admittedly until recently it had somewhat disappeared from most Western articulations of the faith but in the East it has always enjoyed a somewhat greater prominence; and it stands at the very center of John Paul’s theology of the body. As he writes in Evangelium Vitae:
“Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase.”‘
As a tangent which may interest those who frequent this blog the article is actually about JPIIs theology of the body:
“That various “human” institutions or even the sacraments themselves can become for us channels of real grace does not diminish Christ’s glory or singularity but rather increases it as it proclaims the radical character of our redemption not as a mere rescue from the pains of Hell but as truly becoming a part of the life of God in the most full sense…”
I don’t in the least deny that institutions and practices can become channels of real grace. However. I think the lanaguge of “become” is absolutely essential to how we formulate the theological dynamics at work in such a statement. Such institutions and practices become such channels when Christ sovereignly comandeers them to be such. They are not in themselves posessors or dispensers of grace but rather empty vessels into which grace may sovereignly be poured.
I think this is a different perspective from the Catholic understanding of how divine grace subsists in and is irrevocably contained in certain elements of the church and its practices (ex opere operato etc.). It seems to say that these things in and of themselves mediate grace whereas I would say that these things become channels through which grace may flow through the unconstrained and free work of the Spirit of Christ. This is an important distinction.
I know what the word Christocentrism means in a general theological sense. My point is that Catholic theology properly understood is in fact unassailably Christocentric and that some of the claims you were making seemed to be distinctions without difference. The proliferation of mediatory elements in Catholic teaching (virtually all of which were firmly in place well before the Reformation and persist in the Eastern Church as well) is in fact only sensible with the most robust and radical kind of Christocentrism. It’s not really something I’m capable of giving a kind of reasoned discourse on at the moment so I’d have to ask your charity with my rhetoric. I say this all only as someone who has attempted to confront this question. Take it from me that to suggest that Roman Catholicism is somehow insufficiently Christocentric is crazy. Instead assume that it is in fact the paragon of Christocentrism and then attempt to integrate the details into that vision.
“I think this is a different perspective from the Catholic understanding of how divine grace subsists in and is irrevocably contained in certain elements of the church and its practices (ex opere operato etc.). It seems to say that these things in and of themselves mediate grace whereas I would say that these things become channels through which grace may flow through the unconstrained and free work of the Spirit of Christ. This is an important distinction.”
My response would be that is Christ is unable to render his creation sufficient for the mediation of his grace this his power is limited. Or stated otherwise by being a “vessel of grace” the creature cannot help but be transformed by it and participate in Christ’s salvific act hence mediating it in some sense. This is the essence of divinization. This basically traces out Protestant versus Catholic conceptions of grace and from my point of view the whole of Christian tradition. East and West stands against the theological innovations of some of the Reformers (and those who followed them) on this score.
“by being a “vessel of grace” the creature cannot help but be transformed by it and participate in Christ’s salvific act”
I just don’t think that’s the only option. By being a vessel of grace we don’t so much extend or complete Christ’s act of redeeming rather we recieve his redeption. Our “deification” is a purely passive pheonomenon in which we are not the ones saving but the ones being saved. Otherwise we are in some sense saving ourselves are we not?
Also. I understand that you have found your Catholic faith to be supremely Christocentric and I’m sure you have a great many good reasons experiences and arguments for that way of interpreting it. However. I think the point I made in my post goes to this issue. If Catholicism is so chrystal-clearly Christocentric then why is the dominant trend that people join the Catholic church to find the true church and people leave the Catholic church to find Christ?
I am trying to use a hermenutic of love in seeing the Christocentric elements of Catholicism (such as Balthasar and Barron who I mention). But when we’ve got Mary as a co-redeemer and all kinds of other mediators of grace in various dimensions. I just think that really isn’t Christocentric. Or at least you’d have to give me a different definition of what Christocentric means to you within the Catholic universe of discourse where you see it as being so prominent.
-”the dominant trend [is] that people join the Catholic church to find the true church and people leave the Catholic church to find Christ” I’d be charitable to call that anecdotal. Show me a person who left the Catholic Church to “find Christ” and ninety-nine times out of one hundred I’ll show you someone laughably ignorant of the faith they claim to be leaving behind. Show me the Robert Wilkens. Richard John Neuhauses. Russell Renoes. John Henry Newmans. Rene Girards. Edith Steins etc of the world who have left the Catholic Church to find Christ. The simple fact is that pious intelligent theologically literate people who actually understand Catholicism don’t leave it to find Christ whereas pious intelligent theologically literate people do in fact convert to Catholicism to find Him as the head of his Church. To suggest some kind of parity between the two phenomena is a stretch to say the least. There is no dominant trend of people leaving the Catholic Church and certainly not to find Christ elsewhere.
“I have a difficult time imagining a Christ that stands ‘over against the church’ in any sense.”
That is precisely the point of disagreement. Protestants seem to have a much more robust notion of the church - and every Christian - as simultaneously justified and sinful. Insofar as the church and every Christian is sinful - which is all that it / they can be on their own steam - Christ is ‘over against the Church’ and every Christian.
exactly that’s the problem isn’t it? There is to hijack a word. “perichoretic” relationship between the “head” and the “body” (church) in other words there is distinction held in the tension of inseparable relationship.
It seems Hill has indeed provided what He means by “christocentricism”=”ecclesiocentricism”. This is the point of Halden’s whole article as I’ve understood him.
All I can say to that is wow. And I also recommend that you read Rowan Williams’ excellent book Resurrection for more development of this theme. I think it’s essential for us to be able to understand how the Church is not identical with Jesus.
I hope you can get to say something more substantive later as well because if your throwaway lines about the only people who leave the Catholic church being a bunch of impious stupid and theologically illterate wackos are what you think the real situation is in the church then you clearly have a pretty myopic and well false impression.
The truth is that there are far more people converting from Catholicism to protestant Christianity than the other way round. But I guess that doesn’t matter because they’re all just a bunch of simpletons? You’re coping out here man.
This is a blog. Halden is trying to make a very reasonable point and yes his suggestion that people leave Catholicism to “find Christ” and join it to “find the Church” is anecdotal but none of us here is in a position to present hard statistical evidence on this intuition. I actually think it’s quite incisive and it matches my experience of converts from both directions - though that is anecdotal too. I don’t think you want your defense of Catholicism to rest on a kind of grotesque elitism as if only the opinions of the highly educated were relevant. Whenever any person converts their experience is significant regardless of their theological literacy.
Fascinating stuff here. I see your point and I think it is a good one. The one thing that leaps to mind as a Catholic defense against the charge of being too ecclesiocentric and insufficiently christocentric is that Christ founded the Church. The Church IS his will enacted in the world and as it mediates grace it is Christ’s mediation.
All I’m suggesting is that the witness provided by the conversion of exemplary Christians is overwhelmingly slanted in one direction which is at odds with the comparison you were attempting to make. Suggesting that one needs to leave the Catholic Church to find Christ is far more offensive than anything I have said but I’m trying to read charitably. I have also met many people estranged from the Catholic Church for one reason of another and in every case the estrangement was either due to a particular aspect of Catholic teaching that infringed on their lifestyle in some way or they were simply ignorant. I’m really not trying to slight anyone with that remark and certainly not Protestants generally speaking. I’m just speaking to my personal experience that criticisms of the Catholic Church from “former Catholics” are virtually always colocal with a concomitant ignorance.
As for my statement regarding Christ over against the Church my beef is with the relationship of “over against.” Does the husband stand over against his wife? Is this the essence of the marital metaphor? The two can be conceptually distinct without being “over against” one another.
The kind of rhetorical glibness that would suggest I’m claiming that “christocentrism = ecclesiocentrism” is really unnecessary and offensive. I have a thick skin and I can obviously dish it out (usually unintentionally) but the conclusion has already been assumed if that is one’s reaction. If that’s the kind of rhetorical charity I can hope for here there’s no point in my saying anything further.
“That is precisely the point of disagreement. Protestants seem to have a much more robust notion of the church - and every Christian - as simultaneously justified and sinful. Insofar as the church and every Christian is sinful - which is all that it / they can be on their own steam - Christ is ‘over against the Church’ and every Christian.”
Protestants don’t actually have a “more robust notion of the church… as simultaneously justified and sinful.” Thinking that Catholics somehow don’t understand that the church is sinful is ignorance. It cannot be put any other way. What differs is the theology of justification and sanctification between Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox) and some Protestants. It revolves around this issue of divinization and I can’t stress the centrality of it to even the earliest Christianity. I realize that’s not a compelling argument but I’m just not equipped to try to flesh it out.
I also want to add that it is somewhat absurd that the Catholic church being unwilling to refer to Protestant denominations as “churches” merits enumeration as a “thesis” and yet calling the Catholic Church “not Christocentric” (to not be Christocentric is to not be Christian) and suggesting that one might better find Christ elsewhere is considered a trivial statement.
Any gross elitism is unintended. I still stand my statements regarding the nature and frequency of conversions and am confident that they are generally speaking born out in the culture at large. There is certainly not a kind of hard and fast rule that can be applied to the phenomenon. I’m just saying that for the potential Catholic convert there is a list of unequivocal spiritual luminaries far too long to list that one can see oneself as following and the same is simply not true for the opposite situation.
Well then don’t eat and run and make such glib assertions the kind which engendered my response to you. What am I to think beyond what you asserted with that anecdote? I don’t know you. I don’t know how you might flesh out your assertion so all I have to go on is what you asserted. And if that’s it then by way of appearance what you said implied “no distinction.” And since I’m not the only one who assumed as much then I would just say you invited a “glib response.”
You are right the heavier issue that divides “us” is articulation on justification/sanctification; of course what informs this distinction is tied to our disparate Christological/Ecclesiological understandings so I guess we’ve come full circle.
Hill. I think you misconstrue what I mean by Christocentric. What I’m talking about is a theological quality of constantly focusing on Christ on refering all theological questions and ecclesial practices back to him. It is in no way a statment of the same order as “Christian”.
There have been many theologians who I don’t take to be christocentric who were surely Christians. The same is true for all manner of churches.
Facing the option of ‘conversion’ to Catholicism quite regularly myself (how could one not studying at Notre Dame?) my reasons for doing so would be overwhelmingly Christocentric: based on my encounter with and judgment by Christ in every mass under the form of the Eucharist (which simultaneous blessing and judgment I long for but cannot estranged receive) or the priestly blessing or indeed the homily. The robust doctrine of mediation in this context eucharistic or priestly seems to me to increase Catholic worship’s Christocentric character rather than deny it since Christ is shown to be truly present with us.
against our sins and the source of our faith. In contrast my Mennonite community’s high Christocentrism without a real principle of sacramentality means that Christ is
anymore present in and through the congregation without any real separation which makes it not less but more difficult to know Christ’s judgment over against us. In my own experience with Mennonites then a thorough Christocentrism almost can’t avoid being reduced to a community-centeredness. If I ever became Catholic. I would do it for the touch and taste of Christ. For what it’s worth one counter-anecdote.
All that said thanks for this wonderfully illuminating post. It helps to put in order a tension I’ve been feeling for quite a while especially on the level of formal ecclesiology. And it would probably be an interesting way to capture some of the central differences between von Balthasar and Barth!
“If Catholicism is so chrystal-clearly Christocentric then why is the dominant trend that people join the Catholic church to find the true church and people leave the Catholic church to find Christ?”
Is this in fact the dominant trend? This seems anecdotal. What is the spiritual status of the typical Rome-ward convert vis-a-vis that of the outward bound traffic?
I think you would need to find two people of similar spiritual education who know what they are leaving and why in order to make any comparison.
My two cents worth of comments:1) You rightly note that Balthasar owes his Christocentrism to Barth but Barth is NOT the only influence on Balthasar here. Equally important would be his immersion in the thinking of the Church Fathers…2) Balthasar did note that Barth tended toward a “Christological constriction” and I think he is correct. Such a constriction disallows any true theodrama. We are the objects of God’s salvific activity in and through Christ. The relative autonomy of the creature/sinner must be maintained if the interplay between absolute divine freedom and relative human freedom is to make sense.3) It was the burden of Balthasar’s book on Barth to show that Catholic Theology all the way up to the 1950s was Christocentric and he makes various citations to the effect. I am under the impression that the post-Theology of Karl Barth book shows how Catholic Theology has become even more Christocentric through the years.4) Enlightening is your distinction between solus Christus and totus Christus. But then again. I do not see why this should be an either/or thing. In the matter of the efficient cause of salvation. Solus Christus it is. But in the case of instrumental cause totus Christus it is. Here some scholastic distinctions actually help. Put another way the Catholic penchant for mediations does need to be Christologically evaluated and warranted.5) Biblical images of the Church are many. Balthasar loves to speak of the Church not only as “Body of Christ” but also as “Bride of Christ” implying an over-againstness that makes possible interaction.6) Perhaps the Catholic-Protestant divide then is a mental thing. Catholics tend to hold on to the “both/and” (and therefore analogy makes sense) while Protestants tend to hold on to the “either/or” (and therefore a more dialectical kind of thinking comes to the fore).7) Finally theology is a rich and diverse activity. There are times when a “solus Christus” approach becomes necessary but there are times when a “totus Christus” thinking is called for. I tend to think that much depends on the actual and concrete cultural situation the Christian finds herself in… Benedict’s fear of relativism pushes him in a “solus Christus” so that for example a Christian theology of religions must not be afraid to assert this in the face of the plurality of religions. We who find ourselves having to live and work in Asia do see that a “totus Christus” approach helps very much in making Jesus Christ known and heard in this part of the world.
Could you perhaps comment on what is lacking in the Evangelical Protestant church that causes some people to feel that it is not the “true Church”. Can you suggest any changes that would make the Protestant Church feel more like the true Church but still retain it’s Christ centered focus.
It also seems the the earliest Christian churches were much different in their liturgy than either modern Catholic or Protestant Churches. So perhaps in some sense neither Catholic or Protestant Churches function like the earliest Church.
I’ll add my “voice” to the chorus of those thanking you for a point well made. The tension you point out and the discussion it has produced is enlightening.
I appreciate Tony’s points especially #7; there is an alternating relationship between the emphases on solus Christus and totus Christus. However. I find the original tension is highlighted once again especially as related to Protestant concerns when I use different terminology to frame it. I think that the issue of contention isn’t mediation itself (i e. solus vs totus) but rather what kind of mediation.
In my own reflection. I find the tension to be between conditional and unconditional mediation. The former would emphasize subjective qualities in individual and communities (e g. sincerity fidelity charity etc.) and confessions (e g.. “I believe…”) whereas the latter would emphasize absolute structures offices and historical continuity. I believe it is this unconditionality and absoluteness that comprises the functional lack of Christ’s “over againstness” in Catholicism.
So does Eucharist mediate Christ’s presence and blessing? I think we can agree on that. But our disagreement over what makes Eucharist valid reveals what type of mediation and thus what kind of Christ-centeredness each side is talking about.
1) exactly: what kind of mediation… but perhaps here there is a need to bring Irenaeus’ “two hands” theology into play to consider as well a pneumatological horizon that completes a christocentric focus. Christ and the Spirit the one always with the other certainly in asking what kind of mediation the church is and what kinds of mediation the church offers by way of life and practice christocentrism can degenerate into a christomonism…
2) there is perhaps a tendency in a Christocentric focus a la Barth to overemphasize the eschatological fulfilment of every mediation to the point of overly relativizing the mediation itself.
3) since we live in the in-between times in the “already but not yet” of our salvation then it should be a matter of discernment of spirits whether structures of authority and community are Christologically and ecclesiologically undersigned mediations (like the sacraments).
I’m sorry to see the conversation devolve earlier. I think there is misunderstanding on both sides neither really to the point. The question is whether Catholicism is Christocentric.
I think. Halden. Catholicism is quite Christocentric but not in a way obvious for Protestants. Only the Catholic Church could have produced Balthasar. The point to be made here is something akin to Graham Ward’s “Displaced Body of Jesus Christ.” An analogy is the difference between analog and digital. In analog a displacement (a copy) entails a small amount of decay as well. In digital the replication is in principle exact. So also the giving of Christ into the institutions is not a devolution of Christ. In the Catholic Church. Christ is everywhere.
The dialectic being discussed is very much like the Resurrection-Incarnation dialectic. Just as in incarnation. Catholicism’s ex opere operato is not a human construction but a divine ordinance. Christ in the freedom of his Spirit instituted certain sacraments (notably Baptism and Eucharist) which are sources of real grace regardless of the condition of the operator. In other words it is like incarnation. Christ’s free bondage to these institutions such that they are Christoform. The same could be said of apostolic succession creeds councils and the Magisterium in Catholicism. It is a free self-giving of Christ to these institutions that make them operative and authoritative. Thus they are Christocentric.
On the other hand once the Lordship of Christ in the institutions is forgotten (as is common in popular Catholicism). Halden’s comments go straight to the heart of the matter. The Spirit is always free to develop to augment even what has been decreed and established by the Spirit of Christ in a previous age. This is analogous to the surprise of the Resurrection and it is the power of Christ independent of the Church for which the Church must be ever watchful. When the Church lapses or if not lapse then stumbles. Christ judges his bride because he is not simply reducible to the Church. (This cannot be perichoretic in the sense of Trinitarian perichoresis because it is asymmetrical.) The truth of the Reformation is demonstrated not by the truth of the Reformers but by the Counter-Reformation. That the Church knew herself to be judged was implicit in this movement.
In other words. I think Halden’s comments are basically right but I do not think for all that we can really say the Catholic Church is not Christocentric.
I don’t dispute your points or Brian’s which are very well thought out. The question really is what sort of Christocentricism is appropriate to the logic of the gospel? Perhaps my questions would have been better put if I had phrased things in that manner. So many thanks to all who have entered into the discussion!
Touche with the Barth dig. No probably not without Barth much as without Luther there would have been no Counter-Reformation. Not an exact analogy. I do think that Balthasar takes Barth and even out does Barth here. Balthasar as a Roman Catholic makes the Church Christoform (and to a degree the whole order of being too) in a way Barth does not.
Anyway that’s another discussion. But yes. I think it is more of a question of what kind of Christocentrism. An interesting distinction between Barth and Balthasar (drawn out a little in Vanhoozer’s Drama of Doctrine) is while Barth writes about a Redetat (Word-Deed). Balthasar emphasizes a Tatwort (Deed-Word). Although from one perspective they come to the same thing. I think the order of these two should not be underestimated. It is no surprise then that Protestants should preference Christ in the Word and Catholics should preference Christ in the Deed while both camps uphold Christ in both. I do wonder if Protestants tend not to see Christ in Catholicism because they are more focussed on proclamation witness confession whereas Catholics are more focussed on sacrament obedience habits. (And vice versa of course.)
To counterbalance the notion that Balthasar got all of his theology from Karl Barth… There’s an Orthodox reviewer on Amazon who claims that Balthasar got all of his ideas from Eastern Patristic sources. Also the impact of Jesuit formation and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola should not be underestimated nor his longtime association with Adrienne von Speyr (who uses the term co-redemptorix in her book Handmaid of the Lord). I needn’t mention German romantic poetry. Henri de Lubac and others either…
Exactly. Frederick. Barthians of course would love to think that Balthasar took ALL of his Christocentrism from Barth but that’s plainly false. The implication seems to be that before there was Barth or before there was Luther and Calvin. Christocentrism was largely dead… A deep and thorough knowledge of the history of doctrine and theology should dispel such reductionist day-dreaming.
Just done rereading these comments to the topic of Catholicism and Christocentrism… Too much is made of Barth’s influence on Balthasar in the area of Christocentrism. Noting that Balthasar himself never tired of acknowledging his theological debts to Barth. I am nevertheless amused by attempts to make Barth the overwhelming influence in this regard. People forget that Balthasar was schooled in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius… Ignatian Christocentrism it could be argued was a deeper influence on Balthasarian Christocentrism precisely because the Exercises mediate an EXPERIENCE of Jesus Christ in PRAYER. For anybody who knows Balthasar therefore. “knowing” Christ was never an abstract mental thing; in fact never simply a scriptural thing unaccompanied by the life of prayer the liturgy the sacraments etc… One sometimes gets the impression that Barthian Christocentrism is a purely scriptural thing unmediated by anything that touches the human… Perhaps an appeal here therefore: where is the equivalent of the Ignatian Exercises in Protestant spiritualities? It is interesting to note Methodist interest in the Ignatian Exercises…
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