Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Notion of Person

Journal Title: Studia Gilsoniana - Year 2019, Vol 8, Issue 2

Abstract

The author outlines how Hans Urs von Balthasar, via his interpretations of Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas, approaches the understanding of the word “person.” He notes that Balthasar believes that “the word ‘person’ . . . receives its special dignity in history when it is illuminated by the unique theological meaning,” the God-man Jesus Christ. The author then discusses Balthasar’s: (1) incarnational metaphysics, (2) distinction between person and being, (3) difference between philosophical and theological personhood, (4) division between person and conscious subject, (5) correlation between person and intersubjectivity, (6) idea of the personalizing address of God, and (7) understanding of Jesus Christ as the archetypal Person.

Authors and Affiliations

Edward Ray

Keywords

Related Articles

ARISTOTLE AND THE POSTMODERN WORLD

With the support of recent scholarship the author proposes an understanding of the Aristotelian Corpus inspired by the biological works. He points out that this understanding is bound up with other current philosophical...

Civilization in The Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The author considers the problem of civilization. He defines civilization as a determinate form of man’s group life, or man’s culture in its social dimension. According to the author, a plurality of civilizations is gene...

THE PLACE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE CONTEMPORARY PARADIGM FOR THE PRACTICE OF SCIENCE

The article is intended to present arguments for the cultivation of philosophy as “sapiential” or wisdom-oriented knowledge whereby human knowledge is realized most fully. The author claims, first, that philosophy has in...

Aquinas’s Fourth Way of Demonstrating God’s Existence: From Virtual Quantum Gradations of Perfection (Inequality in Beauty) of Forms Existing within a Real Genus

The chief aim of this article is to show that St. Thomas Aquinas’s Fourth Way of demonstrating God’s existence can only be made precisely intelligible by comprehending it as a real, generic whole in light of its specific...

Memorial Eulogy: Max Weismann—One of God’s Great Ideas

This paper is the eulogy which was delivered by Dr. Peter A. Redpath (Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas) on the occasion of the funeral of Ronald “Max” Weismann (1936–2017) on 06 May 2017 at St. John...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP594781
  • DOI 10.26385/SG.080215
  • Views 173
  • Downloads 0

How To Cite

Edward Ray (2019). Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Notion of Person. Studia Gilsoniana, 8(2), 319-349. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-594781