Essay on Balthasar: Love and Urs Von Balthasar

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Is Love Alone Credible?

Throughout Love Alone is Credible, Hans Urs Von Balthasar leads the reader in a step by step process to the conclusion that love alone, indeed, is credible. In chapter ten, Love as the Light of the World, Balthasar argues that no being would exist without love, and therefore, love alone is credible. Balthasar begins this chapter by discussing the role of life. “For the world wants to live and rise again before it dies, while the love of Christ wants to die in order to rise again in the form of God.” This idea of dying before living is Christ’s message and the “light of the world.” Balthasar points out that because Christ accepted death before life, the existence of mankind came to be, and this, in other words, is pure love.
Balthasar continues by saying that “it is a reflection on the “image”- and “likeness” –character of created being in relation to the divine archetype, which consequently brings to light the watermark of divine love in every single created being and in the totality of nature as a whole.” This “divine archetype”, or the idea of Christ dying before living, is the cornerstone of all existence on earth. Keeping this in mind and living by this rule brings about love in people. In order to find love and start new life, Balthasar states that we must first be broken down. Humans have refused to be broken down, and by this, they are unable to learn and live with love. Balthasar will later say that, “Through revelation we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it has already seen love offered to it by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross.” Balthasar continues by stating, “Finite beings are thus trained by it in giving themselves away in love.” One’s being and “self-possession” can grow precisely to the extent of how a person confronts his problems. For example, Balthasar reinforces, “it is only the sign
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