You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, June 13th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm.
We will be discussing “The Presence of Mystery: Structures of Paradox in Hans Urs von Balthasar” by Roberto Carelli from the Summer 2024 issue entitled “Paradoxes of Faith” (Volume 51.2).
Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “The Presence of Mystery: Structures of Paradox in Hans Urs von Balthasar,” Roberto Carelli argues that the cornerstones of Balthasar’s thought are marked by paradox. Balthasar sees paradox not as a limit to or end of thought but “as the sign of mystery and the reawakening of thought.” He uses paradox as a theoretical apparatus by which he “avoids committing both of the contrary errors of modern thought: neither substituting theology with anthropology nor, reactively, erasing anthropology from the theological sphere.” The mystery of paradox, Carelli argues, finds an “original synthesis” in Balthasar: “He affirms paradox as the characteristic, synthetic figure of an intellectual project centered on the presence of mystery, that is, on the hyper-tension between the fullness of God and the incompleteness of man.” Carelli walks us through the structures of paradox in Balthasar’s thought, exploring how his use of paradoxes evidences the influence of his teachers and contemporaries—Erich Przywara, Gustav Siewerth, Ferdinand Ulrich, Henri de Lubac, and Romano Guardini.
We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.
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