Love Alone Is Credible
Lucerne · 1963
H
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar
1905 CE–1988 CE · Modern · Lucerne
Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) was a Swiss Roman Catholic priest, theologian, and prolific author widely regarded as one of the most significant Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century. He studied literature, music, and philosophy before turning to theology, and was deeply shaped by his friendships with Karl Barth and the mystic Adrienne von Speyr. His monumental trilogy — the aesthetic Herrlichkeit (The Glory of the Lord), the dramatic Theodramatik (Theo-Drama), and the logical Theologik (Theo-Logic) — reconstructed systematic theology around the transcendentals of beauty, goodness, and truth as they converge in the person of Christ. He was a co-founder, with Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger, of the international Catholic journal Communio, and a key voice in ressourcement theology, recovering patristic and medieval sources against what he saw as post-Tridentine scholastic narrowing. Pope John Paul II appointed him a Cardinal in 1988, though von Balthasar died two days before the consistory.
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Stop 1 of 71905–1923Birthplace And Upbringing
LucerneSwitzerland
What they did here
Born on 12 August 1905 in Lucerne into a cultivated Catholic family, where he received his early formation in music, literature, and faith.
About Lucerne
Lucerne, a city in central Switzerland. It was the birthplace of the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905).
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Hans Urs von Balthasar’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Hans Urs von Balthasar’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.