The essential shape of faith in God incarnate is Trinitarian. That God makes his home with us, that he abides in us, is the outcome of God’s
trinitarian life realised in the economy of history, and specifically, in the history of the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth.
For von Balthasar, this essentially relational understanding of God makes us relationally accountable to the world. Insofar as God’s judging and redeeming love for the world is historically real in Christ’s Incarnation, it is also made real in and through us. This is nothing less than divine grace—granted, received and lived by faith—for the sake of others. For to live in grace is to have a share in the bond of love between Father and Son, which always includes, and therefore shapes our lives in terms of God's love of the world.
God's love is personified in the Holy Spirit.
‘[I]t is the freedom which reigns between Father and Son[,] from the “Spirit of the Father” and the “Spirit of the Son”, as the unity of both of them’.[1]
But in Christ, the Spirit also descends and goes out to humanity in life-giving and redeeming grace. Therefore, to live by grace is to exist in the counterflow of two movements: one of ascent, one of descent.
For von Balthasar, this essentially relational understanding of God makes us relationally accountable to the world. Insofar as God’s judging and redeeming love for the world is historically real in Christ’s Incarnation, it is also made real in and through us. This is nothing less than divine grace—granted, received and lived by faith—for the sake of others. For to live in grace is to have a share in the bond of love between Father and Son, which always includes, and therefore shapes our lives in terms of God's love of the world.
God's love is personified in the Holy Spirit.
‘[I]t is the freedom which reigns between Father and Son[,] from the “Spirit of the Father” and the “Spirit of the Son”, as the unity of both of them’.[1]
But in Christ, the Spirit also descends and goes out to humanity in life-giving and redeeming grace. Therefore, to live by grace is to exist in the counterflow of two movements: one of ascent, one of descent.
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