Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
Hans Urs Von BalthasarRead
To be sure, the response of faith to revelation, which God grants to the creature he chooses and moves with his love, occurs in such a way that it is truly the creature that provides the response, with its own nature and its natural powers of love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Faith is a personal response shaped by one's nature and love, influenced by divine revelation.
This quote emphasizes the interplay between divine revelation and human faith, asserting that while God provides inspiration through His love, the individual must respond authentically, using their own innate capacities for love and understanding. It highlights the personal and active nature of faith, suggesting that genuine belief stems from one's own choices and attributes, rather than being imposed from outside.
Themes
FaithRevelationLoveResponseNature
In practice
Example use cases
In a sermon discussing the nature of belief and personal responsibility.
More from Hans Urs Von Balthasar
All quotes →It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.
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A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power.
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The Holy Spirit knows what a particular age's most pressing need is far better than men with their programs.
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The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be the return of the sensible finite into the intelligible infinite.
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But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former.
Hans Urs Von BalthasarRead
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