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Although Christian prophecy has had a significant impact in the life of the church, it has received rather scarce theological elaboration. This is strange, for with Hans Urs von Balthasar one can rightly ask why God continues to provide prophetic revelations, when apparently they hardly need to be heeded by the church and theology. One of the reasons for the scarce theological elaboration of prophecy is that theology has been highly diversified and specialized in different sub-disciplines. Such necessary specialization constitutes a challenge for the unity of theology. It equally constitutes a challenge for Christian prophecy that calls for diversified theological treatment including dogmatic theology, fundamental theology, exegesis, church history, and mystical theology.

Revelation is complete with Christ but does not come to a close with him. There is a deep unity between the Christ event and its unfolding through the action of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. In this sense, Christianity is not a final but a preliminary stage between Christ's first and his last coming. This recognition is important for the understanding of the concept of tradition. Tradition should not be seen in the sense of traditional, but signifies a living reality in which Christ continues to unfold and actualize his truth in every new generation. Prophecy is one of the realizations of this dynamic actualization process. In fact, most of the instances in which revelation is actualized through time (Scripture, Magisterium, theology, dogma, pious traditions, liturgy) have been inspired by prophecy.

In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating such a theological vision—the chapter also attempts to locate the particular phenomena of postmodernism and deconstruction within the intersection of theology and narrative art. Balthasar anticipates the tendency of current critical theory to privilege and emphasize the amorphous breadth of both linguistic and cultural expression; and he anticipates the critical tension between those who read Catholicism as theological truth and those that might read Catholicism as a “fluctuating signifier,” as a cultural and/or literary text. Under this general theme, a dialog is opened with such diverse critics as William Lynch, Paul Giles, Michel De Certeau, and Jacques Derrida. Like them, Balthasar's theology plots a route for appreciating the aesthetic complexity and theological possibility of a broadly canvassed intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. However, Balthasar's program also defends the critical uniqueness of certain theological commitments (e.g., the transcendentals, the Incarnation, and the trinitarian structure of being) and looks to the arts to demonstrate the formal expression and aesthetic span of these phenomena. The chapter concludes with the proposition that it is the recognition of these essential questions that both challenge and aid the articulation of a Catholic imagination and that a turn to representative work in literature, poetry, and film will aid in such an articulation.

The chapter serves both as a brief biography of Balthasar and a protracted bibliography of his work. The consideration of Balthasar's monumental opus (The Glory of the Lord, Theo‐drama, and Theo‐logic) provides a critical “system” in which to read texts and begins to illustrate Balthasar's unique contribution to current discussions about the intersection between theology, history, philosophy, and narrative art. The chapter demonstrates that not only is Balthasar one of the most important Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, but also his work has practical contributions to make to discourses in critical theory. Like critical theory, Balthasar's work is theological, literary, anthropological, philosophical, psychological, political, and historical, which are critical theory's main components. In the spirit of the ressourcement theology that shaped him, Balthasar is primarily interested in renewing attention to older sources in order to critique the idealistic excesses of modernity. In this sense, Balthasar reveals a postmodern temperament: he too is concerned with issues of language and difference, with aporia, with plurality, with surplus, and with horizons of meaning, to name a few. The difference between Balthasar and the majority of critical theorists resides in ontological and theological orientation: it is therefore a difference of imagination and of grammar. The chapter elaborates on these and other dynamic relationships.

Chapter 3 focuses on Balthasar's theological aesthetics as a well‐articulated critical methodology. Balthasar's fusion of aesthetics with history forges both a Christology and an analogy of being that is developed in light of that Christology. Balthasar urges us to “see the form [of Christ]” in all manner of being and experience—human activities, natural phenomena, and especially human works of art. “Seeing the form” becomes a central critical and theological hermeneutic; and the chapter cultivates a parallel between “seeing the form” and interpreting, broadly, the “word(s)” of narrative art. The first three sections of the chapter develop an aesthetics of a representative word (in this case, the term “hierarchy”); the last section is an application of what is gleaned from the first three upon Flannery O'Connor's “Revelation.” While a close reading of O'Connor's text serves as a literary exemplum of a Catholic imagination, other poets and authors who demonstrate a similar theological aesthetic are considered in order round out the discussion.

Chapter 4 isolates several essential aspects of Balthasar's theodramatic theory and discusses how they “play” in and through Lars von Trier's dramatic film Breaking the Waves (1996), the first installment of his Golden Heart trilogy. It is no coincidence that Balthasar places his theodramatic program precisely between his Aesthetics and Logic in order to emphasize the spatial centrality of God's dramatic action in, with, and through the world. In addition to examining theological mysteries (such as kenosis and the “events” of Holy Saturday), the chapter demonstrates more acutely the many contributions that Balthasar provides the contemporary religious critic. The chapter finds that the retrieval of this powerful relationship between theology and narrative art—between theological rhetoric and dramatic representation—is a main topic of Balthasar's Theodrama and that a serious study of the implications of his theodramatics bears ripe fruit for theorists of contemporary literature.

Chapter 5 presents a reading of David Lodge's novel Therapy (1995) in light of Balthasar's Theo‐logic. Lodge does well to illustrate that the erasure of God that preoccupies postmodern consciousness significantly affects contemporary conceptions about “subject formation” and “people in relation.” Lodge develops these themes by constructing a narrative that mirrors both the theological trajectory of Balthasar's tripartite program and the existential progression identified by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard—namely, the aesthetic, ethical, and religious “stages” of human experience. Importantly, a close consideration of Kierkegaard's stages reveals a direct analogy with the transcendentals, which, in turn, illuminates one of the many reasons why Balthasar admired Kierkegaard and why Lodge's novel is a fertile literary example of Balthasar's Theologic. By a close consideration of the triadic structure of being presented by a variety of sources, the chapter begins to discern how God's logic—how human logic—exists in a trinitarian dynamic.

Chapter 6 provides a short synthesis of the book. Balthasar's program challenges us to first “see the form” in the world, but also to see the Beautiful, the Good, and the True at work in a broad variety of narrative art. The book finds that, while Balthasar presents us with some practical directives that aid in elucidating the presence and veracity of such a vision, the Catholic imagination proposed does not have a monopoly on such tendencies. At minimum, the examination of the Catholic imagination helps recover the legitimate place of a “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. One conclusion posited is that the careful restoration of the theological imagination to discourses in meaning will aid in reestablishing “a theology of criticism,” that is, the kind of criticism that cultivates a more inclusive array of epistemologies. Another conclusion is that many aspects of postmodern critical thought are helping develop a more grounded—and interdisciplinary—theology of language.

This chapter examines some additional barriers to the fruitful use of aesthetics in theodicy: those arising from unhelpful ways of understanding aesthetics. After arguing against some prevalent problems within aesthetic theory, it offers an account of Christian aesthetics that draws on the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Frank Burch Brown, which allows for aesthetics to offer insight into theological tasks such as theodicy.

This chapter shows that Hans Urs von Balthasar and Marie-Dominique Chenu were particularly insistent on the goodness of the created order. Their sacramental approach highlighted the ‘downward’ direction of grace, and they were more insistent than de Lubac and Bouillard on the autonomy of the created order. Balthasar's reading of Irenaeus, Denys, and Maximus regarded analogy of being as the key to their theology, a doctrine Balthasar also defended in dialogue with Karl Barth. At the same time, Balthasar had deep appreciation for Barth's starting-point in Christology. The sacramental character of Chenu's theology stemmed from his focus on theology as contemplation and from his reliance on Denys's symbolism. At the same time, Chenu's accentuation of the autonomy of the created order and his positive evaluation of the desacralizing that set in during the High Middle Ages meant that his sacramental ontology was not always consistent.

This chapter argues that despite various subsequent alterations and expansions, the core of the parable of the Last Judgment does go back to Jesus himself. It stresses (with John Meier 1980) “the stunning universalism” of the story, and once again, it rejects the traditional interpretation of the words “Depart from me, you cursed” in terms of an everlasting “hell.” It highlights the profound transformation that eschatology has undergone in the last few decades, from prediction to warning and appeal. It discusses the symbolic language of both the Old and the New Testaments, drawing, again, on the writings of the seventh‐century mystic Isaac the Syrian, the Orthodox theologian Sergii Bulgakov, the Protestant theologian Juergen Moltmann and the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion on how the interpretation of Karl Barth’s theological development has been dominated by Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book, Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie (1951) for over forty years. It identifies three studies that have challenged von Balthasar’s thesis: Eberhard Jüngel’s ‘Von der Dialektik zur Analogie’, Ingrid Spieckermann’s Gotteserkenntnis, and Michael Beintker’s Die Dialektik in der’dialektischen Theologie. A new paradigm for interpreting Barth’s development is then presented.

This chapter explores how an understanding of credit might be brought to bear on one of William Shakespeare's most misunderstood plays, The Merchant of Venice. The ‘pound of flesh’ bond story, has come, through its compelling portrayal of the Jew Shylock, to dominate the play. Shylock is the star part, and the play's treatment of Jews, anti-Jewish prejudice, and toleration is usually held up as its most significant feature, focusing critical attention on Shylock-related topics: usury and the law. Inspired by the onstage court scene, the play's longest, critics have interpreted Shylock's battle with Balthasar/Portia as relating to different legal systems, Shylock's contractual literalism versus Portia's merciful equity, a legal battle that is then mapped onto the play's pitting of (Jewish) usury versus (Christian) charity. In truth, the play presents a far more complex understanding of the interactions between finance and the law, and between various different monetary dealings of the early modern world.

This chapter argues that nouvelle théologie was characterized by a sacramental sensibility that offered to the modern world a theological recovery of mystery and that this sensibility comes to the fore particularly in the understanding of truth as developed by theologians such as Henri Bouillard, Marie‐Dominique Chenu, Louis Charlier, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. This sacramental view of truth expanded the traditional Thomist doctrine of ‘analogy of being’ (analogia entis) from the area of ontology to that of epistemology. Just as one could say that creaturely being participated in God's being, so also creaturely truth participated in God's truth; at the same time, both divine being and divine truth infinitely transcended human being and human truth. A sacramental or analogical view of truth enabled the nouveaux théologiens to avoid the univocity and extrincisism of neo‐Thomism as well as the equivocity and relativism of Modernism.