BACK TO BALTHASAR

This will be the first foray into one of the controversial propositions of Hans Urs von Balthasar as expounded in his book Dare We Hope.

In the opening chapter Balthasar presents two theses that introduce the discussions to follow in his book.

1.

Balthasar presents several Bible passages referring to a Christian being under judgement and having to choose between good or evil, life or death, mercy and judgement. I leave it to the reader to read these passages.

James 2:13; Deuteronomy 30:15; Jeremiah 21:8; Proverbs 12:28 L X X; Matthew 7:13 f.; 2 Peter 2:15; Didache 1:1; Barnabas 18-20.

He then asks:

“The question is whether God, with respect to his plan of salvation, ultimately depends, and wants to depend, upon man's choice; or whether his freedom, which wills only salvation and is absolute, might not remain above things human, created and, therefore, relative."

 2.

"One can also approach this in another way, and we will see that Anselm does so: assuming that men can be divided into those who are just and those who are unjust, can one likewise, then, divide the divine qualities in such a way as to leave mercy on one side and (punitive) justice on the other? And since the two cannot, as on Calderon’s stage, enter into noble competition with each other, it will probably have to be as described in a Spanish work on dogmatics [De Novissimis, Jose F. Sagues]: 'a healing punishment issues from sheer mercy' (this probably refers to Purgatory); 'a vengeful punishment [poena vindicative] from pure justice, and this corresponds strictly to the offense' (this refers to hell). Thus, where God's mercy (which is obviously taken as finite here) wears thin, it remains for "pure justice" to exert itself. Now, since precisely this sort of assumption that divine qualities are finite is not acceptable, a dispute arises about whether one who is under judgment, as a Christian, can hope for all men.”

Quoting Balthasar, “I ventured to answer this affirmatively”. This begins a defense of his conclusion as well as the reasons his detractors disagree.

A Reflection on Judgement and Mercy

Abbey at Clairvaux

 Recently a friend of mine made a reference to the writings of St. Bernard as “old Catholic”. I as well can make that connection. Along those same lines a relative of mine was telling me of his and his wife's changing from attending the Catholic Mass to attending services at a Lutheran Church. He said he found the experience to be similar to the Catholic experience, but sort of “like Catholicism lite”. The appointment of a new Pastor at our parish also evoked responses from parishioners along similar lines. The emphasis in messaging was to a greater focus on our sinfulness and human weaknesses and to a lesser proclamation of the goodness of which humanity is capable. A return was made to some of the pre-Vatican II liturgical practices. Many fled to other parishes due to this change in messaging.

Most Christians will admit the truthfulness of the fact that we humans are all sinners. Some will make removal of these evil tendencies the center of their spiritual lives through penance and mortification. Perhaps this stems from the belief that only perfection will be worthy of salvation. Some will prefer to focus on the human capacity for good through the practice of virtue. The two approaches are seen in various degrees of emphasis in the people we live and share our lives with. On the spectrum of God’s certain judgement of us to God’s unfailing mercy for us, where does our practice lie?

Each of us must make a serious effort to answer this question. In Sermon 6 St. Bernard offers an interpretation of one who kisses the “spiritual feet” of God.

“However, I must not omit to speak of those spiritual feet of God to which the penitent’s first kiss, understood in a spiritual sense, ought to be directed. … it should not seem unreasonable to us to ascribe the feet to his humanity. Let us call one of these feet mercy, the other judgement. … With these very feet he finds his way into the souls of his lovers, tirelessly enlightening and searching the hearts and the loins of the faithful.” Ser 6:6-7

“There are two signs by which you may recognize such a one, for he cannot but bear upon him the imprint of these divine footsteps. These signs are fear and hope, the former presenting the imprint of judgement, the latter that of mercy. Truly, the Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them that hope in his mercy, for fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, hope the growth of wisdom. … It is clearly inexpedient to kiss the one without the other; a man who thinks only of the judgement will fall into the pit of despair, another who deceitfully flatters God’s mercy gives birth to a pernicious security.” Ser.6:8

The purpose of the above preamble is to say that St. Bernard, as old a Catholic as he is, presents in his Sermons on the Song of Songs a most balanced approach to good and evil. Frequently in the Sermons he reminds us of our capacity for sin and our need to clean up our act. He tells us that the effort to do so is a necessary condition if we ever hope to see God face to face and experience the ecstasy of His presence. The higher degree to which we can convert from our sinfulness to the exercise of virtue is indicative of the degree to which we can experience God.  He never despairs of our capacity to fight our sinfulness. Through the expression of Christian virtues, virtues that have been and always will be a part of Catholicism, we can elevate ourselves closer and closer to God until in life eternal we can experience him face to face.  

Above quotes taken from CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES: NUMBER FOUR - THE WORKS OF BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX Volume Two - Song of Songs I

The Second Kiss - The Kiss of the Hands

Once the fear of the Lord, that instills the need for penitence, and the hope, that the mercy of the Lord will prevail over that judgement, have been recognized, the lover of the Lord must find the means to persevere in his conversion. St. Bernard presents the gift of perseverance as “the kiss of the hands”.

from Sermon 3.3-5 The Kiss of the Hands

3. Though you have made a beginning by kissing the feet, you may not presume to rise at once by impulse to the kiss of the mouth; there is a step to be surmounted in between, an intervening kiss on the hand for which I offer the following explanation.

…  I recall that he who healed me said to me as he exercised his mercy: "Now you are well again, be sure not to sin any more, or something worse may happen to you.” Jn. 5:14   He, however, who gave me the grace to repent, must also give me the power to persevere, lest by repeating my sins I should end up by being worse than I was before.  Lk. 11:26 Woe to me then, repentant though I be, if he without whom I can do nothing should suddenly withdraw his supporting hand. I really mean nothing of myself I can achieve neither repentance nor perseverance.

4. I am now able to see what I must seek for and receive before I may hope to attain to a higher and holier state. Mt. 7:8 I do not wish to be suddenly on the heights, my desire is to advance by degrees.

….  It is a long and formidable leap from the foot to the mouth, a manner of approach that is not commendable. Consider for a moment: still tarnished as you are with the dust of sin, would you dare touch those sacred lips? Yesterday you were lifted from the mud, today you wish to encounter the glory of his face? No, his hand must be your guide to that end. First it must cleanse your stains, then it must raise you up. How raise you? By giving you the grace to dare to aspire. You wonder what this may be. I see it as the grace of the beauty of temperance and the fruits that befit repentance, the works of the religious man. These are the instruments that will lift you from the dunghill and cause your hopes to soar. On receiving such a grace then, you must kiss his hand, that is, you must give glory to his name, not to yourself. First of all you must glorify him because he has forgiven your sins, secondly because he has adorned you with virtues.

5. Once you have had this twofold experience of God's benevolence in these two kisses, you need no longer feel abashed in aspiring to a holier intimacy. Growth in grace brings expansion of confidence. You will love with greater ardor, and knock on the door with greater assurance, in order to gain what you perceive to be still wanting to you. ''The one who knocks will always have the door opened to him.”

 CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES: NUMBER FOUR - THE WORKS OF BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX Volume Two - Song of Songs I

The Three Kisses - The First - The kiss of the feet

Thus says the Lord: The heavens are my throne, the earth, my footstool. Is.66:1

The kiss of the Feet

“However, I must not omit to speak of those spiritual feet of God to which the penitent’s first kiss, understood in a spiritual sense, ought to be directed. … it should not seem unreasonable to us to ascribe the feet to his humanity. Let us call one of these feet mercy, the other judgement. … With these very feet he finds his way into the souls of his lovers, tirelessly enlightening and searching the hearts and the loins of the faithful.” Ser 6:6-7

“Happy is the man then whose soul the Lord Jesus once sets these feet of his. There are two signs by which you may recognize such a one, for he cannot but bear upon him the imprint of these divine footsteps. These signs are fear and hope, the former presenting the imprint of judgement, the latter that of mercy. Truly, the Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them that hope in his mercy, for fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, hope the growth of wisdom. … It is clearly inexpedient to kiss the one without the other; a man who thinks only of the judgement will fall into the pit of despair, another who deceitfully flatters God’s mercy gives birth to a pernicious security.” Ser.6:8

“But you know what a teacher experience is; no longer of judgement alone or mercy alone, but of mercy and judgement I will sing to you, O Lord. I shall never forget your precepts, mercy and judgement will be the theme of my songs in the house of my pilgrimage, until one day when mercy triumphs over judgement, my wretchedness will cease to smart, and my heart, silent no longer, will sing to you. It will be the end of sorrow.” Ser. 6:9

CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES: NUMBER FOUR - THE WORKS OF BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX Volume Two - Song of Songs I

A Dialectic Between Sin and Hell

In the following from Prayer, Balthasar quotes a relatively obscure Cardinal Bona. Giovanni Bona (1609-1674) was an Italian Cistercian, cardinal, liturgist and devotional author. One can only be amazed at Balthasar's depth and range of knowledge of the western canon and Church leaders through the ages. Cardinal Bona responds to the mystery confronted when one contemplates God's infinite mercy and at the same time his just judgement.
Balthasar does make it clear that there can be no uncertainty regarding our sinfulness and our deserving of the just judgement of God. We have no defense. "Yet at the same time, if my faith and love are alive and genuine, I simply cannot accept my personal condemnation from the mouth of God, for the Son, Love himself, has borne it on my behalf."

from pp. 300 – 301

There is a dialectic to be maintained in the contemplation of hell. We see it in the Son's being forsaken by God and in his descent into the darkness of Hades. In the Son who bears, not his own sins, but mine, I glimpse the terrible severity of the fathers judgment -- for who but the Son really knows what it means to be forsaken by the Father? It is my "journey into hell" that I observed him undertake, a journey which, God knows, I have deserved. I cannot dissociate myself from it in my contemplation. I cannot nurture the secret sense of having saved my own skin because my Friend, my Beloved, Eternal Love himself, has taken the rap in my place. That would be absolute lovelessness, crass egoism, cold heart…. All the sinner can do, contemplating the judgment pronounced upon his own sin, is simply to be there while his case is heard, to be there just as he is, the sinner who wasn't there when he was needed, who betrayed the Lord like Judas and denied him like Peter and fled like the others;… And so is bound to consent to the Judge's sentence and the Victim's cry of abandonment: Yes, that is the truth, that is what I have deserved.

The dialectic of this contemplation consists in this: because he believes (that what is involved is the redemption of the world and his own redemption), because he loves (and hence cannot dissociate himself from the Son), the believer must accept the Father's sentence of condemnation upon the sinner (i.e., upon himself). The very faith and love which go to make this contemplation also submit to the Father’s judgment. Naturally faith and love you expect from the Father nothing but what is good; they themselves are graces flowing from the completed redemption and resurrection. But their expectation of everything that is good actually includes saying Yes to their own just condemnation. God would be right to condemn them. He was right to forsake the Son who was carrying my sin, who embodied my sin. And yet it is really faith and love, and they alone, who conduct this contemplation; faced with redemption from hell -- the process which alone proves that there is such a thing as faith, as love -- they admit that we are worthy of damnation. Yet at the same time, if my faith and love are alive and genuine, I simply cannot accept my personal condemnation from the mouth of God, for the Son, Love himself, has borne it on my behalf. What the holy Cardinal Bona made bold to say is a thoroughly Christian affirmation, essential to the theology of faith and love:

"O Lord, in thee I have trusted: let me never be put to shame. And if an angel from heaven were to assure me that I had been cast out from thy sight, I would not believe him. Even if thou thyself, O God Most High, wert to say that thou hadst damned me for all eternity, I would not listen to thy words. Pardon me, O Lord, but I would not believe thee. For even if thou slayest me and bringest me down to hell, I will still hope in thee for ever" (Via compendia ad Deum, c.12, decas 9).

There is no other way of reflecting upon grave sin and its penalty but this. Worldly reason will find the double truth unintelligible, but for faith it is quite clear: there is no alternative. For where the vitality of faith and love (which springs from the Lord's resurrection) breaks through, we cannot be under the dominion of the fear of hell.