Ten Theology Books to Watch For – April 2020

The Trinitarian Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar: An Introduction

Brendan McInerny

U. of Notre Dame Press

Although scholarship has long recognized the centrality of the Trinity in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, no sustained treatment of this theme has been undertaken. In this insightful new study, Brendan McInerny fills this gap, situating Balthasar’s Trinitarian theology in conversation both with the wider Christian theological tradition and with his non-Christian intellectual contemporaries. Drawing from across Balthasar’s extensive body of works, McInerny argues that Balthasar’s vivid description of the immanent Trinity provides a way to speak of how “God is love” in himself, beyond his relationship to creatures. He then shows how Balthasar’s speculation into the immanent Trinity serves as the substructure of his theology of deification. For Balthasar, what we say about the inner life of God matters because we are called to share in that very life through Christ and the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. Finally, responding to the criticisms that Balthasar’s speculations into the inner life of God are without warrant, McInerny argues that Balthasar’s bold Trinitarian claims are actually a vehicle for apophatic theology. Balthasar’s vivid description of the triune God does not transgress the boundaries of theological discourse. Rather, it manifests God’s ever-greater incomprehensibility through verbal excess, oxymoron, and paradox.

Henri de Lubac and the Shaping of Modern Theology: A Reader

David Grummett

Ignatius Press

The French Jesuit Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) lived through the most pivotal events of twentieth-century Europe. He fought in the First World War, worked for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France, and observed the rise and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Being well acquainted with political theory and philosophy, he diagnosed the pathologies of modern materialist ideologies and presented a Christian alternative. Within the Church, too, de Lubac was a witness of his times. A leading ressourcement theologian, he brought patristic and medieval texts to bear on doctrinal questions. In the 1950s, he experienced internal exile within the Church, forbidden to publish theological writings. After de Lubac’s rehabilitation, however, Pope John XXIII asked him to serve as a consultant for the Second Vatican Council. In 1983 Pope John Paul II named him a cardinal. De Lubac’s theological writings are voluminous and wide-ranging, and this is the first time his most important texts have been combined into a single book. Annotated and arranged by theme, these passages address God, Christian faith, the Church, grace and nature, Scripture, the Eucharist, Buddhism, and the renewal of theology. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including some only recently made available, the introduction sheds new light on de Lubac’s work—its intellectual, social, and political contexts—and on his life, especially his later years. An extended postscript appraises the most important scholarship on de Lubac regarding the key themes covered by the texts.

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