ABSTRACT Love Itself is Understanding: Balthasar, Truth, and the Saints Matthew A. Moser, Ph.D. Mentor: Peter M. Candler, Jr., Ph.D. This study examines the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar on the post-Scholastic separation between dogmatic theology and the spirituality of Church, which he describes as the loss of the saints. Balthasar conceives of this separation as a shattering of truth — the “living exposition of theory in practice and of knowledge carried into action.” The consequence of this shattering is the impoverishment of both divine and creaturely truth. This dissertation identifies Balthasar’s attempt to overcome this divorce between theology and spirituality as a driving theme of his Theo-Logic by arguing that the “truth of Being” — divine and creaturely — is most fundamentally the love revealed by Jesus Christ, and is therefore best known by the saints. Balthasar’s attempted re-integration of speculative theology and spirituality through his theology of the saints serves as his critical response to the metaphysics of German Idealism that elevated thought over love, and, by so doing, lost the transcendental properties of Being: beauty, goodness, and truth. Balthasar constructively responds to this problem by re-appropriating the ancient and medieval spiritual tradition of the saints, as interpreted through his own theological master, Ignatius of Loyola, to develop a trinitarian and Christological ontology and a corresponding pneumatological epistemology, as expressed through the lives, and especially the prayers, of the saints. This project will follow the structure and rhythm of Balthasar’s Theo-Logic in elaborating the initiatory movement of his account of truth: phenomenological, Christological, and pneumatological. In each of these, truth is consistently expressed as and known through dialogue — through the rhythm of expression and response, donation and receptivity, kenosis and obedience. Dialogicality is the rhythm of love, and hence the proper form of truth. It is for this reason, we shall argue, that Balthasar’s account of truth requires the saints as those whose lives are fundamentally dialogical insofar as they are constituted by prayer. Page bearing signature kept on file in the Graduate School Copyright © 2013 by Matthew A. Moser All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................ 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 7 DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER ONE ................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 Balthasar and the Saints ............................................................................................................... 1 Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Procedure .................................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 17 Saints, Truth, and Theology ....................................................................................................... 17 The Theology of the Saints ........................................................................................................ 17 The Loss of the Saints ................................................................................................................ 35 CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................... 65 Truth and Love ........................................................................................................................... 65 Intellect and Love ....................................................................................................................... 65 Freedom and Mystery ................................................................................................................. 92 Knowledge as Love .................................................................................................................. 104 CHAPTER FOUR ........................................................................................................... 120 “I am the Truth” ....................................................................................................................... 120 Christ and Truth ........................................................................................................................ 120 Truth ......................................................................................................................................... 123 Love .......................................................................................................................................... 145 CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................................ 174 Love Itself is Understanding .................................................................................................... 174 Spirit and the Saints .................................................................................................................. 174 The Spirit of Truth .................................................................................................................... 177 The Saintly Form of Knowledge .............................................................................................. 199 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 214 CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................................... 215 A Theology of the Saints? ........................................................................................................ 215 Saints and Truth ........................................................................................................................ 215 The Critic and the Critique ....................................................................................................... 216 The Performance of Prayer ....................................................................................................... 225 Enlarging the Cathedrals .......................................................................................................... 244 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... 249 v ABBREVIATIONS GL 1 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 1, Seeing the Form. GL 2 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 2, Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles. GL 3 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 3, Studies in Theological Style: Lay Styles. GL 4 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 4, The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity. GL 5 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 5, The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age. GL 7 The Glory of the Lord. Vol. 7, Theology: The New Covenant. TD 2 Theo-Drama. Vol. 2, Dramatis Personae: Man in God. TD 3 Theo-Drama. Vol. 3, Dramatis Personae: Persons in Christ. TD 5 Theo-Drama. Vol. 5, The Last Act. TL 1 Theo-Logic. Vol. 1, Truth of the World. TL 2 Theo-Logic. Vol. 2, Truth of God. TL 3 Theo-Logic. Vol. 3, The Spirit of Truth. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My sincerest thanks first to my director and friend, Peter Candler, not only for his patient and thoughtful mentorship of this project, but also for the consistent reminder that I could not write on prayer without praying, that I could only be a theologian insofar as I was striving toward sanctity. Though he would probably deny such a claim, his mentorship was as much spiritual direction as it was academic, and I am the better for it. Second, to Ralph Wood, in whose class I first discovered Balthasar, and who has been a source of encouragement and challenge since my first interview at Baylor. Third, to Phil Donnelly who, despite his taxing schedule, took on the extra — and last minute — burden of reading this dissertation. Each of these men have in their own way reminded me that theology must be done in and with the Church, that there is no theology outside of prayer, and that the vocations professor and priest may not be as exclusive as is common assumed. And to those whose love, friendship, and wisdom were living-giving throughout the last six years of this Ph.D., I’m afraid I have only inadequate words with which to offer my gratitude. Mom, for her Christ-like self-giving; Dad and Jeanette, for support and encouragement; Rob, Wendy, Ryan, and Jordan for laughs; Gram and Gramps for being a model of what love can be. Thank you to the Drinklings (David and Molly; Dan and Carrie; KC and Elisa; Jenny and Eric; Will; Courtenay and Sara), for being the form of true friendship; for keeping my speculative mind grounded in the concrete practices of the Christian life; for a thousand conversations that formed me as a friend, as a vii theologian, and spurred me on toward sanctity. To the folks at Dichotomy Coffee and Spirits (Carole, Cody, Brett, Mike,