Balthasar and Anxiety

Balthasar and Anxiety
Author: John R. Cihak
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2011-10-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567628175

This study offers a theological response to the problem of anxiety from the point of view of Hans Urs von Balthasar. It is a systematic presentation, analysis and development of Balthasar's original theology of anxiety found in his only work on the subject, Der Christ und die Angst. The study takes a thematic approach based upon the four types of analysis found in Der Christ und die Angst: phenomenological, anthropological, theological and ecclesial. These four approaches to the topic correspond to the phenomenon, origins, redemption and transformation of anxiety. Through this thematic approach, Balthasar's thought is examined in relation to some of the important figures on anxiety. The phenomenon of anxiety is presented in relation to modern psychiatry. The examination of anxiety's origins places him in dialogue with Kierkegaard on anxiety from discursive reasoning and Freud on anxiety from ego-consciousness. The redemption of anxiety places Balthasar in relation to Aquinas in order to clarify Balthasar's interpretation and to show its significance in the theological tradition. The transformation of anxiety places our author in dialogue with Luther on the shape of anxiety in the Christian life. The final chapter begins to unravel the construct of anxiety, with a brief exploration of how it is transformed in the Church according to Balthasar, something he had never explicitly developed. The influence of Bernanos on Balthasar's thought is felt throughout the study. The entire study is framed by the two Gardens wherein transpire the most significant events concerning anxiety for Balthasar: the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane.

Balthasar and Prayer

Balthasar and Prayer
Author: Travis LaCouter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2021-12-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567701905

This study renders an original and constructive Catholic theology of prayer drawing on the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988). Travis LaCouter explores the trinitarian, Christological, ecclesial, anthropological, and eschatological dimensions of prayer in Balthasar's theology, and shows how these combine to give a powerful account of prayer's proper theological scope and purpose. There is also a critical dimension of prayer which is arguably underdeveloped in some of Balthasar's key texts, but which LaCouter shows to have significant dialogical potential with contemporary accounts of parrhesia since Foucault. This approach demonstrates the centrality of prayer to Balthasar's entire theological system and does so in a way which itself constitutes an exercise in Catholic systematics. This study is also distinctive for establishing a method of proceeding through Balthasar's sprawling oeuvre (and the similarly vast secondary literature) by arguing for three “categories” of texts in Balthasar's writings and, separately, three “waves” of Balthasar readers. Thus, this study is a resource not just for those interested in prayer but for anyone interested in reading Balthasar today.

The Christian and Anxiety

The Christian and Anxiety
Author: Hans Urs Von Balthasar
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2011-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1681494698

From Luther to Kierkegaard, from Heidegger to Sartre, the theme of anguish has dominated both philosophy and spiritual theology. In our ""societies of depression"" where individuals confront their own loneliness, this theme has recently regained its intensity. In these dense and luminous pages, he is not content merely to show how much this feeling is profoundly inscribed in the heart and the word of God-from the Psalms to the Gospels-but he enters into intimate dialogue with contemporary thought and in particular its existentialist expression. For Balthasar, the Christian faith does not offer a ready made response, but is simultaneously a journey through the torment of the cross and the liberation from fear by the gift of grace. In the wake of a Bernanos, or a P覵y, Balthasar emphasizes how much confidence in God leads to a hope which is inexhaustible.

Catholic Theology After Kierkegaard

Catholic Theology After Kierkegaard
Author: Joshua Furnal
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2016
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198754671

Although he is not always recognized as such, Soren Kierkegaard has been an important ally for Catholic theologians in the early twentieth century. Moreover, understanding this relationship and its origins offers valuable resources and insights to contemporary Catholic theology. Of course, there are some negative preconceptions to overcome. Historically, some Catholic readers have been suspicious of Kierkegaard, viewing him as an irrational Protestant irreconcilably at odds with Catholic thought. Nevertheless, the favorable mention of Kierkegaard in John Paul II's Fides et Ratio is an indication that Kierkegaard's writings are not so easily dismissed. Catholic Theology after Kierkegaard investigates the writings of emblematic Catholic thinkers in the twentieth century to assess their substantial engagement with Kierkegaard's writings. Joshua Furnal argues that Kierkegaard's writings have stimulated reform and renewal in twentieth-century Catholic theology, and should continue to do so today. To demonstrate Kierkegaard's relevance in pre-conciliar Catholic theology, Furnal examines the wider evidence of a Catholic reception of Kierkegaard in the early twentieth century--looking specifically at influential figures like Theodor Haecker, Romano Guardini, Erich Przywara, and other Roman Catholic thinkers that are typically associated with the ressourcement movement. In particular, Furnal focuses upon the writings of Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the Italian Thomist, Cornelio Fabro as representative entry points.

Kierkegaard's Influence on Theology

Kierkegaard's Influence on Theology
Author: Jon Stewart
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2012
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781409444800

Tome III explores the reception of Kierkegaard's thought in the Catholic and Jewish theological traditions. In the 1920s Kierkegaard's intellectual and spiritual legacy became widely discussed in the Catholic Hochland Circle, whose members included Theodor Haecker, Romano Guardini, Alois Dempf and Peter Wust. Another key figure of the mid-war years was the prolific Jesuit author Erich Przywara. The second part of Tome III focuses on the reception of Kierkegaard's thought in the Jewish theological tradition, introducing the reader to authors who significantly shaped Jewish religious thought both in the United States and in Israel.

Be Not Anxious

Be Not Anxious
Author: Allan Hugh Cole
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2008-10-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0802863108

"As Allan Cole knows firsthand, both personally and pastorally, Christians are not immune from anxiety, and many believers go to their church leaders for support and solace. This helpful book draws on narrative approaches to theology and counseling to suggest how pastoral caregivers may effectively minister to anxious persons." "Be Not Anxious provides pastors and other caregivers with a basic understanding of anxiety, including how to identify those suffering from it and how to get at what is making them anxious. Cole focuses both on cognitive-based methods and on common faith practices - church membership, frequent worship, prayer, Bible reading, service, and confession - showing how these may provide relief from anxiety. By addressing the roles of both psychiatry and ministry as co-liberators from anxiety, he leads the pastor and the faith community in helping disquieted souls to find rest."--BOOK JACKET.

The Discovery of Anxiousness

The Discovery of Anxiousness
Author: Joana Serrado
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2023-12-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 383946532X

Are anxiety or dread negative stages before freedom, a confrontation with humans' own mortality and finitude? Joana Serrado inaugurates anxiousness as a category of mystical knowledge in this innovative historical and philosophical study. Based on the life and mystical writings of Joana de Jesus, a Cistercian nun, intellectual disciple of Teresa of Avila, this study shows the cultural embeddedness of anxiousness: a feeling akin to the Portuguese term »saudade« (yearning, Sehnsucht). A mystical project that reshapes feminist principles of autonomy, agency and desire.

Against the Titans

Against the Titans
Author: Peter Nguyen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-07-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 197870478X

Modern history has been marked by the emergence of the figure of the titan, who yearns for self-mastery in the face of death and who denounces modernity’s tendency to reduce the individual to the lockstep of need and gratification. But what of those few who rejected the impulses of the titan, those militant desires to exert supremacy over all? The story recounted in Against the Titans: The Theology of the Martyrdom of Alfred Delp examines one martyr’s rejection of the titan’s perversion of heroism and sacrifice. The life of Delp, a Jesuit priest, embodied a Christian theology of martyrdom, articulated over against a virile fundamentalism that rejected divine sovereignty. As Peter Nguyen, S.J., shows, Delp opposed Ernst Jünger’s active nihilism by revealing a more authentic and no less demanding existence, one that came not from acquiring self-mastery, but rather from an emptying out of self — an indiferencia, an unselving — through a radical dependence upon God.

The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin

The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditary Sin
Author: Søren Kierkegaard
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2014-03-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 087140771X

The first new translation of Kierkegaard's masterwork in a generation brings to vivid life this essential work of modern philosophy. Brilliantly synthesizing human insights with Christian dogma, Soren Kierkegaard presented, in 1844, The Concept of Anxiety as a landmark "psychological deliberation," suggesting that our only hope in overcoming anxiety was not through "powder and pills" but by embracing it with open arms. While Kierkegaard's Danish prose is surprisingly rich, previous translations—the most recent in 1980—have marginalized the work with alternately florid or slavishly wooden language. With a vibrancy never seen before in English, Alastair Hannay, the world's foremost Kierkegaard scholar, has finally re-created its natural rhythm, eager that this overlooked classic will be revivified as the seminal work of existentialism and moral psychology that it is. From The Concept of Anxiety: "And no Grand Inquisitor has such frightful torments in readiness as has anxiety, and no secret agent knows as cunningly how to attack the suspect in his weakest moment, or to make so seductive the trap in which he will be snared; and no discerning judge understands how to examine, yes, exanimate the accused as does anxiety, which never lets him go, not in diversion, not in noise, not at work, not by day, not by night."

Volume 19, Tome VI: Kierkegaard Bibliography

Volume 19, Tome VI: Kierkegaard Bibliography
Author: Peter Šajda
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2017-03-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351653628

The long tradition of Kierkegaard studies has made it impossible for individual scholars to have a complete overview of the vast field of Kierkegaard research. The large and ever increasing number of publications on Kierkegaard in the languages of the world can be simply bewildering even for experienced scholars. The present work constitutes a systematic bibliography which aims to help students and researchers navigate the seemingly endless mass of publications. The goal has been to create the most exhaustive bibliography of Kierkegaard literature possible, and thus the bibliography is not limited to any specific time period but instead spans the entire history of Kierkegaard studies.