B
Bulbasaur05
Guest
(In response to me defending his writings)
You champion him because authorities have told you he is a holy man. That’s Modernism. Balthasar is a Humanist who attracts Modernists. His writings are Modernistic. He trades relativisms and discards absolutes, especially Medieval absolutes (which are still, I assure you, our absolutes).
“But now that the world has become spherical, there is no longer any place from which one’s gaze can take in everything; one must set oneself in motion: the only way to explore the land of truth is by changing one’s standpoint.”
“The land of truth”. You probably like that very much. You probably think that’s deep. Theology is about logic. It is a science. Poetry that pretends to be theology is beneath contempt. Perhaps Balthasar has provided dilettantes who can’t get the hang of syllogisms a way to participate, but we don’t have to take them too seriously, do we?
“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves” is an essay in which Balthasar begins by damning the Fathers of the Church with faint praise, then he deconstructs the historical basis behind their writings, and finally he throws them under the bus. He tells us that while we can use the Fathers of the Church as a useful icon, their writings are “distorted by any rationalization” that “covered up” the “unadulterated fountain”. Why read ancient texts (maybe in Latin!) when you can sit back with a cool glass of Balthasar and enjoy the “primitive tradition” (echoes of Calvin?) from the “unadulterated fountain” (certainly Protestant).
“It is important to know that this feeling of a ‘double truth’, which usually comes on precisely the best and most enthusiastic students, is not the sign of something improper. The two perspectives that split apart here can no more be made to coincide with one another than can divine and human truth, Church and world, or the divine and the human natures in Christ and the manner of knowledge proper to each of these natures in him. The Christian is charged absolutely to bear this tension and extension, but also increasingly to bring it under control and to clear a path for himself through it.”
For a true Christian, of course, such a thing is impossible. There can be no contradiction between divine and human truth. Any idea, system of ideas, religion, or intellectual discipline which runs contrary to the revealed Gospel of Christ is simply false.
Perhaps you have been hypnotized by Balthasar’s gratuitous use of poetic imagery and dense metaphors. I have noticed that many people when they can’t understand someone simply cheer (when they are an approved source) or jeer (when the current winds are against).*
I want to respond precisely, truthfully, goodly, and theologically beautifully, but I am not sure how. He comes off as having a reactive manipulative agenda since is putting so many words in people’s mouths and misinterpreting Balthasar so often.
This same person also doesn’t consider anything after Vat II to be truly Catholic…so there is that…I am not how I can reason theologic with a person in that place.
- It is Newspeak in that he speaks in a flowery code. In fact, he speaks like a Gnostic. He gives poetry to the poets, and dissatisfaction to the dissenters. All the intellectuals have lined up behind him, and you count yourself among them.
You champion him because authorities have told you he is a holy man. That’s Modernism. Balthasar is a Humanist who attracts Modernists. His writings are Modernistic. He trades relativisms and discards absolutes, especially Medieval absolutes (which are still, I assure you, our absolutes).
“But now that the world has become spherical, there is no longer any place from which one’s gaze can take in everything; one must set oneself in motion: the only way to explore the land of truth is by changing one’s standpoint.”
“The land of truth”. You probably like that very much. You probably think that’s deep. Theology is about logic. It is a science. Poetry that pretends to be theology is beneath contempt. Perhaps Balthasar has provided dilettantes who can’t get the hang of syllogisms a way to participate, but we don’t have to take them too seriously, do we?
“The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves” is an essay in which Balthasar begins by damning the Fathers of the Church with faint praise, then he deconstructs the historical basis behind their writings, and finally he throws them under the bus. He tells us that while we can use the Fathers of the Church as a useful icon, their writings are “distorted by any rationalization” that “covered up” the “unadulterated fountain”. Why read ancient texts (maybe in Latin!) when you can sit back with a cool glass of Balthasar and enjoy the “primitive tradition” (echoes of Calvin?) from the “unadulterated fountain” (certainly Protestant).
“It is important to know that this feeling of a ‘double truth’, which usually comes on precisely the best and most enthusiastic students, is not the sign of something improper. The two perspectives that split apart here can no more be made to coincide with one another than can divine and human truth, Church and world, or the divine and the human natures in Christ and the manner of knowledge proper to each of these natures in him. The Christian is charged absolutely to bear this tension and extension, but also increasingly to bring it under control and to clear a path for himself through it.”
For a true Christian, of course, such a thing is impossible. There can be no contradiction between divine and human truth. Any idea, system of ideas, religion, or intellectual discipline which runs contrary to the revealed Gospel of Christ is simply false.
Perhaps you have been hypnotized by Balthasar’s gratuitous use of poetic imagery and dense metaphors. I have noticed that many people when they can’t understand someone simply cheer (when they are an approved source) or jeer (when the current winds are against).*
I want to respond precisely, truthfully, goodly, and theologically beautifully, but I am not sure how. He comes off as having a reactive manipulative agenda since is putting so many words in people’s mouths and misinterpreting Balthasar so often.
This same person also doesn’t consider anything after Vat II to be truly Catholic…so there is that…I am not how I can reason theologic with a person in that place.