Any attempt to interpret history as a whole, if it is not to succumb to gnostic myth, must posit some subject which works in and reveals itself in the whole of history and which is at the same time [the belief in] a being capable of providing general norms. —Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theology of History

Well, the hook is baited when Fr. von Balthasar goes on to write, “This [being] can only be either God himself—but he does not require history in order to communicate himself to himself—or man; but he, insofar as he is a free, acting subject, is always some one, particular individual who plainly cannot dominate history as a whole” (12).

If I might, then:

It would be impossible for one person to raise himself to such a level as to dominate history as a whole unless that person “is” an only begotten,

That in turn would mean God binding himself into one absolutely unique man into whom God became humbly himself and whose human nature is, as Fr. von Balthasar writes, “totally monopolized by the redeeming action of God.”

And this occurs in what we know of as history as theology, and a “theological drama” with something of a synonym: “theological aesthetics.” With these terms in mind, Fr. von Balthasar argues that what we know as the general human horizon of historical interpretation is transcended into theological dramatic theory and in which the dramatic personae are God and man made in the image of God with the whole action taking place on the heaven and earth stage. For Fr. von Balthasar the proof is biblical and introduced as if with an opening curtain-rising prologue: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” realms one might say and what is usually understood as primeval cosmological history ending with the sublime story of Noah and preceding the history of salvation that begins with Abraham. Here the drama enlarges into the “theo-drama realm” of what might best understood as a Christian mystery play.

The problem now, however, in our own time, is whether such a drama with individual and personal figures can assert itself in a meaningful and meditative way or is our reality too far removed from that biblical world?

One should hasten to add that with this “theo-drama” the good Father does not have in mind either Kant or Hegel, the twin pillars of modern philosophy, the latter of whom of course attempted to dominate and master history through reason.

I read once that the term “historicism” has not been adequately explored the last two centuries although “new historicism,” with its own theory, is now an “in vogue field of study” and used as a means to understand the thought of Popper, among a few others. It’s more likely that usage began with debates among political economists centered around whether economic theory had made itself too dependent upon economic history. ^[1]

I wonder, too, whether the term has not become, oh, depreciatory since it involves numerous conjectures as to the appropriate use of historical knowledge and the kinds of questions addressed to such knowledge since “historicism” now owns an analogue with “psychologism” which then gives the study of history a sort of symmetry with psychology which would leave, or does leave, some historians aghast since the analogue lacks legitimate authority—to some

And by definition, “psychologism” depends not only on actual behavior but also potential behavior since a particular behavioral disposition can be used to predict a future behavioral disposition.

As an alternative I’m thinking here of colleagues back at my college who pride themselves on being narrative historians who tend to perceive history in “artful” story form and for whom the narrative focuses on what has happened. Some would say that doing so reduces history into little cubby holes doing an injustice to history. More to the point, however, is that narrative history tends to stress what was or is consequential in history and lays stress on the narrative historian’s argument for moral conclusions.

But then I do I have a good friend who is a free market political economist and whose “historicism” makes his economic theory fundamentally dependent upon economic history. I have sweetly suggested that such might be an inappropriate use of historical knowledge and fostered by attempts to extend the social science methods of a particular discipline into history’s province but in which that discipline lacks legitimate authority.

There are questions regarding history that economic theory cannot answer.

It’s analogue again might be “psychologism” which is another way to appraise cultural traditions and a basis for “judging” cultural values providing whether one becomes “woke.”

In short, both “historicism” and “psychologism” have become polemical which brings into question methodologies and discerning questions as to how, for example, nineteenth century thought compares to twentieth century thought and if there are differences what were or are the inflection points? If I, for example again, am an advocate of Croce’s idealism in which all of history is the self-development of the human spirit, well, life and reality are nothing but the ever-changing manifestations of the human spirit.^[2]

But I hasten to add that I am not.

And it’s a bit radical what with the pervasiveness of change and how much of that change results in “pseudo-knowledge.” And with all the deviant meanings and a subsequent conclusion that it all depends upon “belief.”

With that word in mind, a sort of synonym for “faith,” I own a modest familiarity with the work of Reinhold Niebuhr and his Faith and History and his “realistic” theology in which he argues that redemption is not for history but only for individuals who confess their rebelliousness against God.

I hasten to add that I am more likely than not a Niebuhrian.

But it’s not surprising. Years of attempts have been made to find some means to master the meaning of history—at least, as we like to say, in theory.

Consider for a moment the Enlightenment notion of progress, an idea, a belief, which in turn rejected what had characterized human communities throughout history. The problem that emerges is the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, between established beliefs and innovation.

As for innovation, belief in progress was supported by optimism in the the scientific method which would provide guides to progress which were less concerned with discoveries and more with the science of reason and the self-corrective methods of science. Which doesn’t sound like much unless progress incorporates the rejection of absolutes.

And lest I forget, political philosophy morphs into political science.

The consequences are again profound, characterized by the belief in a slow and at times uneven historical tendency akin to a domestication of society.

As for domestication, call it social and moral progress, touchstones that exemplify the successful solution to specific problems.

Or so some might say.

Any movement to the opposite direction would be at the cost of progress and raised eyebrows by progressives.

Which leaves one very large question open: Can history be mastered vis-a-vis the scientific method which suggests certain experimental processes which would guarantee predictable outcomes? And if so, wouldn’t this method provide formulations not tainted by religious, political, or philosophical values? If so, history is a science in the sense that it pursues its own techniques to determine (1) the facts and (2) the interpretation of those facts.

History would then move from being an art to a social science or even a natural science as with physics and chemistry or more likely biology with an emphasis on evolutionary theory.

The method, then? Analyze evidence, interpret, and reconstruct the past.

Most of this is absurd largely since history deals with events that have already happened and cannot be repeated, not even in the movies.

That and there’s very little office space available in the natural sciences building but lacking windows.

No forecasting in other words unless the historian adopts the method of the folks on the weather channel with large screens and lots of dramatic hoopla.

But there is this issue, too: the periodization of world history which has served generations of college students as a way to organize and systematize knowledge. The old argument is that without this basis history would be nothing more than scattered events without a framework to help us understand the past.

Enter the world of the anthology historians, experts of various stripe and what are known as “headnotes.”

And from a secular point of view, it allows students to study and compare developments over time and characterizing the central features of one time period and how it differs from others.

So we slice world history into convenient segments for practical reasons but careful study suggests that a period’s ending is often arbitrary. Because St. Augustine dies at a certain moment in time does not necessarily mean that the classical period ends and the medieval period begins the day after.

But then this tidbit: Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London for provoking Queen Elizabeth, which is something we all know he should not have done since it’s not good to provoke the Queen.

What to do with so much time on his hands? Begin writing The History of the World from Genesis to the Roman Conquest of Macedon. He intended more but was released in 1614 which is four years prior to his execution in 1618 and the end to his own history with thanks to the executioner’s ax.

Of one thing we can be certain: the man had moxie.

An interesting book even if long-winded, but absent what is called these days the “true historical spirit.”

What’s the alternative?

Some Notes on St. Irenaeus, and A Few Introductory Notes From Fr. von Balthasar

I suspect the good second-century theologian, bishop, martyr and recently declared 37th Doctor of the Church and an intellectual figure who would have declared modern historicism a heresy especially since he devoted much of his life to a denunciation of a plethora of heresies. What he did embrace was an understanding of history as a unity of salvation history with the Bible as the coherent testimony. There’s a term one might employ to define the prominent feature of his understanding of history: theo-drama.

It’s a term the good Doctor might have used in arguing against what he calls the unreal fantasies of the false gnosis.^[3] He goes on to argue that history is a unity which he also calls an economy and all of which manifests itself with the “true gnosis” defined as knowledge of spiritual mysteries.

Fr. von Balthsador then makes the enthusiastic point that “Irenaeus is positively inebriated” with this “theo-dramatic” notion of the unity of all mankind that has been achieved by Christ’s Resurrection and the perfection of the world in and through God.

Applying that definition to the Bible leads to the conclusion that the Bible is an organic unity beginning with the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden forward to the Incarnation and the eschatological person and work of Christ, and the eventual summing of all things with the Resurrection. What was once cursed at the beginning will become un-cursed at the end as when the angel shows St. John the tree of life on the other side of the water of life—the tree with twelve kinds of fruit, and the leaves for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed.

All of this lies in Irenaeus’ view of human freedom which is essentially a developing view. As man matures he must undergo the testing experience of the unnatural alienation from God in order to, through obedience, to reach an understanding of the Good, the love of God. Suffering is needed for man to reach an inner maturity and a redeemed relationship with God.

This unfolding in story form thus begins dramatically with the creation of humanity and the invitation to participate in an intimate relation with God and God’s essential unity. The good saint likens this to something organic in which God creates but also “intends” to draw all things back to himself including, of course, humanity which was represented covenantally with the first Adam who when he fell in the Garden all of humanity fell with his disobedience which colors all of life until the Ten Commandment Covenants are placed in the midst of our living.

And so this is history, is it not?

Thus, dramatically, such a Garden of Eden story is an “origin” moment in history, the theology portion which we understand intended by God to illustrate the rule of faith and the rule of obedience but without, say, a creed. It would not be difficult, however, to assume that in those intimate Garden of Eden moments God was “confirming and forming” Adam into the mystery of faith and obedience which does not mean domination or the automatic response of a slave or a puppet. Obedience is, rather, the pre-eminent virtue at the heart of sanctity. Adam was intended to be the model of perfect obedience and “formed” in turn by love flowing to God and love returning from God to Adam.

In the Garden of Eden “theo-drama,” then, there are at the beginning when God makes Adam no boundaries and “life” was sketched out to be lived in the presence of God who approached our first parents in a sort of rhythm which would continue so long as Adam and Eve were obedient, and to be just a bit facetious, woke in the morning and raised no fuss.

Everything was good if not very good!

Some Notes on “Theo-Aesthetics”

The good saint and 37th Doctor was in some respects also introducing what became known as “theological aesthetics,” which one might carefully suggest is concerned with the imagination and thus the senses and with prevalent themes such as the idea of beauty, sublimity, the vision of God, Adam and Eve in the garden, the image of Christ and so on.

The above from Lucas Cranach the Elder is an example and from roughly six centuries ago with numerous dramatic vignettes.

I should mention that for Fr. von Balthasar, theological aesthetics was not a contradiction. He argued that when the term began to be used the reference was to a theory of beautiful forms, with the notion in mind that when theology united itself to visible forms it acquired an aesthetic quality. This introduced an interesting problem when Fr. von Balthasar notes that theology had moved over time in an opposite direction: theology had become too satisfied with a rational interpretation of Scripture which in time had neglected the “form” of the Annunciation and the Incarnation thus doing injustice to revelation itself as Christians have concretely received.

And then this: the “form” becomes reduced to a mere sign pointing to a mystery that lies entirely beyond it.

Pointedly then, there was a shift in meaning from the “form” itself to a method of perceiving during which the human subject achieves a temporary harmony with the perceived subject by endowing it with its own interiority, a sort of short-lived union in which form becomes spiritually transparent. ^[4]

The problem Fr. von Balthasar needed to address, however, was whether such an aesthetic had become basically no different from Matthew Arnold’s impressionistic subjectivity or for that matter the “art for art’s” sake argument.

Such Fr. von Balthasar noted was the modern predicament against which he defended an earlier theory of aesthetics by revitalizing a more holistic concept of theological aesthetics. Beauty is what breaks forth from the form itself and not from the subject’s perception of it. Beauty is a transcendental quality belonging to “Being” itself and the opposite of modern aesthetics which has lost its ontological significance. ^[5]

Given the Cranach painting as an example, here I should mention in a bit more detail Fr. von Balthasar’s Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, volume II, Dramatis Personae: Man and God.

The point is to consider heaven and earth as a sort of stage with stories pre-Christian first, the Ancient World, and then the advance in historical time to the Incarnation and a new reality, a new rhythm of intimacy.

It’s an extraordinary book with an Irenaeus-type of theodicy preceding what will be implemented by St. Augustine and the Latin fathers but it owns a different conception of the fall of man prevalent, however, among the many Greek fathers.

To what purpose?

As we know, Augustine argued that before the fall Adam lived in a state of original righteousness and the first sin was a turning of a wholly good being toward evil.

Compare this argument then with St. Irenaeus, who thought of Adam more as a child than a mature responsible adult. He stands, therefore, at the beginning of a long process of development created indeed in the image of God but yet to be brought into the likeness of God. To say “brought” is to suggest that the original intimacy between Adam and God was again a “process” of Adam being “confirmed and formed”; that process is dependent once again on “obedience” His fall was thus seen less as something disastrous and more as a delay in his “confirmation and formation.” Such was further complicated because Adam, and for that matter all of us who in our own stages of formation need greater help than would otherwise have been required.^[6]

And the three key words here again are “confirmed,” “formed,” and “obedience.”

The concept and purpose need to be understood as links in a chain that cannot be broken. Thus even to this day if we consider our existence truthfully we have to conclude that we cannot control countless things that are laid upon us. We know these things from experience and which we cannot look upon with disinterest.

What we biblically learn in this “theo-drama” and “theo-aesthetics” of history is God’s request for obedience which in the most general way is to render an agreement that to be obedient is to render and adjust one’s life to the Lord’s commandment to love and with which the life we live gains a remarkably new appearance.

St. Irenaeus finds that obedience and the commandment to love in Mary’s person which so staged is the essential “theo-drama” and “theo-aesethetic” form of love and thus an essential component of a theologically coherent story of life in obedience.

And the numerous biblical dramatic personages in this “theo-drama” which plays out again as if on a stage and over to the very pointed moment in time with the Annunciation, to the time of the Incarnation, to the time of Jesus’ birth, to the time in which he must have been a baby stumbling around, to the times in which he must have hugged his mother’s knees, to the times in which he must have snuggled in his father’s lap, to when Jesus is in the Temple and to the time in which he begins his divine work. If such were staged, the dramatic action that would exist between Mary and Jesus would scene-by-scene illustrate Mary as the person intimately “confirming and forming” Jesus who through “obedience” becomes revealed as the long hoped-for Messiah.

Fr. von Balthasar will call this “A Theology of History.”

A Slim But Very Fine Book by Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar

Which might seem a paradox created by two of those four words, theology and history, but becomes less so when theology is understood or defined from the standpoint of revelation. Having so noted, revelation is a dramatic event and pointing to an understanding that history is dramatic with dramatis personae and with Christ as the center and the fullest revelation of God in history.

Thus, if history is to have any meaning Jesus is the norm by which all history ought to be interpreted only by forming and confirming our lives with him does our own history become purposeful and with the additional note that history is not just the past but is continuously with us.

Turn we then in more detail to Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s magisterial A Theology of History for the best of all possible help.

And who asks the question:

How could the historical events in the Bible be understood theologically wherein literal historical events should be understood as eschatological?

And how could the “historicism” of the Apostle Paul and his belief create a new humanity in Christ, but also divide history into three groups, first with the Old Testament Covenants, second with the Assumption, the Incarnation, the Cross and then with the New Covenant?

In other words, what if all of history is the result of God’s “theo-aesthetic” and “theo-dramatic” plan?

Fr. von Balthasar defines his approach as if such were a metaphor drawn from the theater, one that is closely bound up with life’s reality. God, of course, has the chief role, albeit God has already staged the drama with Christ the hero, and the divine Spirit as director. “In the theo-drama, furthermore, man is startled out of his spectator’s seat and dragged onto the ‘stage.’”

What we realize, then, is how the drama reflects the dramatic character of existence in the light of biblical revelation. Fr. von Balthasar is cautious, however, in noting that he is not viewing man’s concept of God as found in the mythological view in which “gods” are embroiled in the world drama, those “gods” mutable. Interestingly he cites Blessed Saint Newman who writes that Christianity is a supernatural story, practically a stage play. It tells us who the author is by telling what he has done.” As far as dramatic theory, then, Fr. von Balthasar implies that such staging unveils the heart God revealing and taking place through the course of the history of mankind.

And in which we play our parts along with Hamlet, too.

What’s interesting here is Fr. von Balthasar’s argument that the “drama” is not to be an examination of individual characters and textual literature but through a consideration of the various conditions and situations of mankind which he argues is a shared quality or essence.

Consider for a moment, however, a structure in three stages in which dramatic personages are introduced. Call that first stage the point of departure. For a second stage the course of action and the third stage, well, the final play.

And such is an historical structure, is it not?

It’s not enough, however, simply to read the play’s program notes and with the first stage as a point of departure read Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, or the more wearying stories of the patriarchs. At the most, the sequencing will tell us little about the dramatic action. The person sitting in the middle of the theater will glean very little about the drama’s content unless that person is aware that the stage play is understood as God telling what he has done.

Having said that, what’s suggested is not a philosophy of history but a theology of history which argues that the meaning of history is in Christ. This then argues that as God Jesus is the universal norm for all humanity; but as God stands outside of history. As God-man, Christ became unique within history.

And for the glory of God who gives life.

So much, however, has been an obstacle to thought, including the rational systems of philosophy and the astrological systems which have survived among the superstitious today. Apart from that, the rational systems of philosophy which led from Hegel to Marx and dialectical materialism offered or offers no real solution to our problems but has rather subjected historical events to what Fr. von Balthasar calls “a tyranny of mechanical processes governed by abstract laws.”

And supplanted or taken the place of the old essences and a much freer system of teleological law.

If so, what kind teleological thinking does Fr. von Balthasar offer?

Some idea or law that reveals itself in the whole of history.

And which in his introduction to his purposeful treatise where he makes the argument that at the structural level of being, and by being he means “essence,” among all persons metaphysical essence is identical. And when we conceive of that “essence” in its historical realization it can only unfold in the form of a “common destiny for all the persons who constitute it.”

All the persons….

To which he adds, forcefully, that “each person, even the idiot and the still born child, has exactly the same share in the metaphysical essence of man however different the degree of development.”

More so, no individual can raise himself above others to the point of domination without metaphysically endangering and deposing the humanity of others.

Many have tried and many, many more have suffered.

If secular history, including the “historicism” discussed at the onset of this article, becomes the rule of thumb it becomes difficult for speculative reason to arrive at the pre-eminence of Adam in relation to his descendants which becomes so difficult to believe that each man is Adam and each therefore shares in the “original falling away from God and in the common guilt.”

With that bit of mystery in mind, Fr. von Balthasar makes the argument that the Incarnate Christ, the Son of God’s work, became the culmination of Old Testament history. In other words, with the Incarnation in mind, Christ’s appearance in history became the summing up of all history and all humanity, and his victory over the Cross was the solution to the dilemma imposed upon all mankind as pronounced in Genesis, when that barrier of death was levied.

Which is an exegetical sentence, is it not?

The intimate participation with God in the Garden is regained in history by whoever wishes to participate in this spirit with the man Jesus himself. This leads to the barrier of death destroyed with the Resurrection.

Fr. von Balthasar is prescient on this issue when he writes that the proper origin of the theology of the church, which informs history, was entrusted to John and to the wisdom of Mary, the two combining to become the prototype of the whole theology of the church and for this honored and adored.

And by prototype, John is the disciple of a form of love penetrating most deeply into the mysteries of Jesus as God-man and Mary the prototype of obedience. Both combining to touch the heart of the world with an extraordinary spirituality.

As for historical/theological evidence Fr. von Balthasar cites the Gospel of John 19: 26-27 and the moment in which Jesus, on the Cross, says to Mary, “Woman, here is your son” and to the disciple John, “Here is your mother.”

From that moment John took Mary into his home, and the home became the church and a place of contemplative prayer.

The significance suggests that a new community of faith is about to take root with John and Mary as the theological nucleus. Of course, there’s controversy by historians of Christianity but Fr. von Balthasar asserts the existence of such a small in-home nucleus that cultivated such a devotion to Jesus as the definitive revelation of God’s salvific will along with the unique spiritual value of Mary.

The controversy that emerges arises from arguments that the Gospel of John and the Epistles were not written by John but by a series of other scribes.

What can we add to this?

A certain kind temporality and what Fr. von Balthasar calls “Christ’s mode of time” and his patience and obedience, and a bit of surmising what Jesus was doing between the ages of, oh, 12 and let’s say, 30, those years preceding his ministry.

First of all, is it wise to refer to Mary as the greatest theologian of all times? Fr. von Balthasar thinks just so.

Turn we for a bit to Luke 2: 41-52 and approach the text not only as an exegesis but also meditation.

Consider for a moment the “theologically” dramatic moment when the young, 12-year-old Jesus, teaches in the Temple which incidentally occurs during the Passover.

When we read, we approach the text not only as exegesis but also meditation. We interpret as fact that Jesus is teaching universal truths with an understanding beyond the teachers surrounding him but without the Cross and without the Eucharist—topics to be added during his manhood some 18 historical years later.

But the testimony is that of the Father and all of this verified in time and the historical existence of Jesus who presents in the temple a special and unique logic or what Fr. von Balthasar calls “christologic,” and special to Jesus—even at age 12—and the beginning of what will come his special mission.

It’s “dramatic” and “aesthetic.”

At this moment in time and in the Temple there is in history a special dramatic and aesthetic concordance “between prophecy and fulfillment.” And what Jesus is teaching might be described as organizing Old Testament revelation into an organic whole which in turn is his own life story.

Add to this the fact that Joseph and Mary have traveled for a day among relatives and friends. They return to Jerusalem to look for Jesus and after three days find him in the Temple among the teachers all of whom were again astounded at his understanding.

Fr. von Balthasar would again refer to the moment as a “theo-drama” during which Jesus had become aware that Old Testament history is his history which is being made known in the manner in which he conducts a profound biblical exegesis as if it were springing forth from the intimate life of God himself yet with the humility of spirit that would grow in the time Jesus spends with his mother growing in wisdom and stature.

Meditation then will help the reader of those verses in Luke to understand that what will follow, as Fr. von Balthasar writes, “the wonderful work to be done by the Messiah and which the Christ will show that the whole line of development in the history of salvation has been and now will be ordered directly toward himself as the meaning which fulfills it, and thus forms the whole of his existence.”

What’s beginning to happen in history is akin to what the theologian Henri de Lubac calls “The Great Fact,” and in which the “content” of the Old Testament is at long last being ordered in time around the “Christ” who makes The Old Testament mystery intelligible and unified but also amplified by the knowledge of Christ’s heart, an exceptional gift that will become the whole “trinitarian” church and a Christian religion different from all other religions. ^[7]

So, unlike the versions of historicism stated earlier in this essay, Fr. von Balthasar’s work, following what was articulated by Irenaeus, delineates the soteriological and eschatological dramatic redemptive history, and does so aesthetically.

And he does so as we read in the pages of that magisterial A Theology of History by Fr. von Balthasar and which focuses on Christ’s actual historical existence.

Christ’s Time And Human Time

Chapter One surveys “Christ’s Mode of Time” which begins with the words from the Gospel of John which give form to Jesus’ existence and essence: “It is the will of him who sent me, not my own, that I have come down from heaven to do.”

And to be done in time and in history.

What he is to do and what he will able to speak about comes not from his own authority but from the Father which suggests a rising toward what Fr. von Balthasar refers to as a rising toward a tremendous un-predicated “I am.”

If such would ever have changed, Jesus would have ceased to be the Father’s son and unable to enrich our lives with the Spirit of the Logos and the Spirit of obedience.

But this had to first “dawn” as in the “Temple,” and then develop naturally as part of his human life, a life with his mother those 18 years, and his openness to his mother’s spirit, and a mode of perception which Fr. von Balthasar refers to as a “hypostatic union.” This takes time, born as it was from her, and as we know to this day as the eternal source of all love which is not self-seeking.

And which is history, is it not?

Christ’s existence dramatically portrays his loving obedience to the Father to the moment in time during which on the Cross, and when suspended those suffering hours between heaven and earth during which he reintegrates our fallen time narrated in Genesis to our reintegration with God’s time. During those actual hours in time, his eternal Trinitarian life is dramatically and aesthetically centered around a form in which all creation and history take place—the Cross.

Grace as Bringing Forth History

Fr. von Balthasar’s second chapter is titled “The Inclusion of History within the life of Christ.” Likely the key words here are history within the life. His point can be summarized by suggesting that God the Father entered in the Old Testament into a covenant with the Hebrew people but which he intended to fulfill through the Incarnation of his Son.

The consequence?

The truth and truthfulness of God would finally be entrusted and fulfilled in the life of a man upon whose fidelity will bring forth salvation and redemption. The provision, however, is to understand that with the Old Testament, the word of God was already in the world, even if the world was seeing the word as with a half-light, which was, however, a hint in advance of the shape which would be displayed sharp and clear with the Incarnation.

Some might thus understand that with the life of Christ in time the Law and the Prophets are being left behind as belonging to the past; but again, the Old Testament past is not the past for Christ but contains a defining historical pattern for his earthly life and from which he cannot depart and is not free to choose one way or the other. The past therefore creates a unified course in Christ’s life which is to be the totality of a unified historical course in this life: i.e., the fulfillment of the whole Law and the Prophets.

Here’s Fr. von Balthasar with more detail as to how Christ’s life is like actions played and every step he takes dramatically reveals (and aesthetically) his Christological form:

He is not only the New Covenant realized; he has to realize it step by step. On the one hand, it will almost be as though his whole existence were the filling in of a figure already drawn in dotted lines, as though the Son of Man received the Law and the Prophets like a man being given his own biography to read as he sets out in life….That biography of himself which he learns from sacred history is an account of him, not preceding him. Even if one could show a man photographs of himself taken twenty years later they would not determine his course in life; they follow him, not he them (54/55).

The Forty Days: And After—The Gulf Is Lovingly Bridged

Chapter three is titled “Christ the Norm of History.” Fr. von Balthasar adds to his continuing argument that Christ, in recapitulating Old Testament history, becomes the “norm” of that history. This brings to consideration a difficult problem: how that norm is to be applied. Here it’s not enough to say that God’s Son led an existence in time and history and fulfilled the will of the Father. His existence in time and history needs to be modified, or as Fr. von Balthasar notes, results in a point of departure from the individual historical existence of Christ, which must become so universalized as to become the immediate norm of every individual existence.

But how?

“This universalizing is, in a special way, an action of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who will guide us into all truth (82).

Fr. Von Balthasar then presciently states that this carving out of time the life of Jesus is an also an interpretation of the life of the Father which gives form and force to an unfailingly valid norm, a process involving an interconnection and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

When he turns his attention to the “Forty Days,” Fr. von Balthasar notes that these are days in which the risen Christ showed himself on earth to his disciples and belong not only to his earthly time but also his eternal time during which his time with his disciples is continue, but the intimacy with them is renewed. The meetings have all the ease and naturalness of human relationships as is the case with the meeting on the Road to Emmaus but with the interesting provision that the risen Christ is not a spirit but tangible flesh and blood. Any possible prejudice is ruled out by the touching, hearing, eating and prove that his time is not divorced or estranged from our time but is also in a unique way ordinary, straightforward, and continuous.

And the meetings are “theo-dramatic” and “theo-aesthetic,” which one might find in the dramatic scene with doubting Thomas or the picnic on the shores of Lake Tiberius. Jesus breathes on them and they are sensibly touched.

Fr. von Balthasar adds that this time together, this time of give and take, of question and answer, are dramatic scenes in which the immutable eternal is drawn into mutable time and in genuine companionship.

What we also perceive in action and reaction, cause and effect, is that Jesus “acts” as if he wants to leave but allows himself to be prevailed to stay, tarrying awhile, at least until the last time on the Mount of Olives in which he cannot be prevailed to tarry.

The time of the Forty Days is time in the most genuine and real sense possible. But, as Fr. von Balthasar adds, no longer dedicated to death but to resurrection time, from servitude to sovereignty.

Here’s Fr. von Balthasar’s point: Christ’s time is not divorced from our time but in an ordinary way continuous with our time, Christ having promised to be with us always (85).

So the Forty Days, then, according to Fr. von Balthasar, are days of genuine time and are also the beginning of the Church’s time which intends to take the eternalized life of Christ transformed in to his Resurrection and what we can share even unto the consummation of the world (Matthew 28-20).

It’s a good chapter in which Fr. von Balthasar supports his “theology of history” by remarking that by interpreting history with Christ as the actual historical norm the results are from fulfillment to promise and from promise to fulfillment during the span of which Christ’s performance within history is a ‘theo-dramatic” act which involves the totality of history as eschaton.

 And then this “theo-dramatic” remark.

Christ does not do this from some point outside and above history but does it within actual historical moments. Furthermore, during the Forty Days Christ interprets the life he lived on earth and inaugurates the coming life of the Church as one and the same as when he lived on earth.

History Under The Norm Of Christ

Turn we then to the last chapter titled “History under the Norm of Christ. Two subchapters are special in importance: “Sacred History within Secular History” and “History and Progress.”

Fr. von Balthasar’s argument here is that the history of Israel is a twofold story throughout the centuries. There is the secular history in which the Hebrew people are embedded in the Greek and then into the Pan-Hellenic world of universal reason.

There’s an issue here, he notes, and that is whether the secular history which runs concurrently with the sacred history of Israel bears any resemblance, precisely as history to the “fullness of time.”

Here he remark that the consequence would be “one” history and which introduces something into the history of revelation that is just not there. Which does not mean, however, that Christianity should be indifferent to the mutations history.^[8]

And then this: “Are not all these ‘nations’ traced back to the name and kindred of Abraham; and is not world history still, in Abraham, despite all estrangements a family history?”

In the second of these subchapters, Fr. von Balthasar considers whether history over time broadens out and into cosmic history but equally to that of the visionaries of the Apocalypse.

At this point his theology of history questions whether that broadening out isn’t an argument for hell’s diverse beasts raising their heads to God’s heaven and levying war on the encampments of saints; those powers are hostile to God but opposed by positive forces symbolized by the four horsemen which are implanted into history by God as an answer to the sin of the world and when they appear will blaze trails by which God can and will come to rule even in fallen history.

What is this other than Christian faith which rides victorious through the whole of historical existence?

And although not fixed at certain moments in secular time, sacred history with the spirit of the church represents a superabundance of light which the powers of darkness can scarcely bear.

And here Fr. von Balthasar reaches the conclusion to his theology of history by arguing that in ancient time the powers of darkness correspond to the veiling of faith. With the Incarnation order comes in the person Christ who as man has lived and experienced human history and knows it and bears it within him.

Summing Up, Then, But in Place of a Conclusion

As the reader nears the final pages of A Theology of History, Fr. von Balthasar writes that if Christ is the norm of history, then what is history like under the norm of Christ?

And thus the longest chapter in this very fine book and with the argument that “theo-aestheticlly” and “theo-dramatically” there can be no discussion of history unless there’s an acknowledgement that as measured by the norm, and judged by the norm, what has always been thought of as “accomplishment” is through the norm.

History thus finds its Judge in him and no other place.

Is there somewhere in Jesus’ words that might be considered a benevolent glance of approval or which might allow all of us or some remnant to share in the uniqueness?

About this Fr. von Balthasar is unabashed: “Not a trace.”

None of us can arrive at a complete state of perfection.

Such might sound as if life is permeated by pessimism, but Fr. von Balthasar is quick to add that human nature can be touched by the graciousness of Christ in his uniqueness which can liberate us from secular history, from the drudgery of sin and the sin-conditioned subjection to the cycle of life and death.

Which means subordinating the “form” of our experience to that of Christ which also means our secular being “broken open toward God in faith and prayer.” It’s history at it most fulfilled.

And it’s not historicism but the foundation of sacred history and without such the New Covenant is impossible and even nonsensical.

So writes Hans Urs von Balthasar in the concluding pages of A Theology of History. What began in Genesis dramatically and aesthetically as a disobedience can be purged, but which also argues that there’s also no reason why Christianity should be indifferent to historicism’s mutations of history.

One might pray in the ordinary mean time for an age of the Holy Spirit in which some great saint would arise to aid in solving the pressing problems of secular history which are with us daily. The Christian truth is always there and always available to assist albeit situated as Fr. von Balthasar argues beyond the plans of progressivism.

And to remember that as a man Jesus lived and experienced human history as we do, and likely at its worst and knows it and again bears it within him. But to be the definitive Incarnate God-man, Christ must express God’s own form, which in turn is the historical norm and our way to salvation.

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Notes:

^[1] Briefly, Popper argues that the application of the laws of the natural sciences can lead to the prediction of such events as eclipses; thus knowledge of the laws of history should also lead to the prediction of future social phenomena and yield precise conditional predictions but only if the historian distinguishes between laws and trends.

^[2] Croce was an idealist philosopher who argued that history should be written by philosophers; from that notion he set forward a view that history is philosophy “in motion” and that there is no real cosmic design in history and that to argue for such is to commit a farce.

^[3] See Fr. von Balthasar’s Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theology, volume II, Dramatis Personae: God and Man, 140.

^[4] Interestingly on this issue Fr. von Balthasar is quoting Plotinus with good familiarity.

^[5] For a good summary of Fr. von Balthasar’s “theo-aesthetics” consults Wolfgang Treitler’s “True Foundations of Authentic Theology” in Hans Urs von Balthasar His life and Work.

^[6] So, having said such, we should note the differences between the Latin fathers and the Greek fathers and of course Calvin: to wit, Adam,’s fall from a height of original righteousness and into the depth of sin and depravity. Whether the story is historical or pre-historical or a mythological story depends upon with whom one might be speaking.

^[7] For more on this, consult Scripture and the Tradition where Lubac states that Christ is the Master of both the first testament and the second.

^[8] Fr. von Balthasar cautions here that we should not circumscribe sacred and secular history as one history as did Hegel.

The featured image is “The Garden of Eden” (1530), by Lucas Cranach the Elder, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.