Von Balthasar's Historicism

In 1939 Hans urs Von Valthasar, S. J., published "Patristik, Scholastik und wir": Theologie der Zeit (English translation by Edward T. Oakes, S.J. : Communio, n. 24, September 1997). In it he set forth his own theory of theological historicism, in which he undermined the objective basis of theological inquiry taught by the Fathers and great Scholastic Theologians, so as to advance the cause of Modernism in the Church.

Historicism is a philosophical error which is akin to Nominalism. For Nominalists hold that every name is univocal and that therefore man cannot know universals. For example, Nominalists deny that apple, orange, and bananna are fruits. They assert rather that each is unique, and any inference to a generic universal erroneous.

Historicists hold that men in any given age cannot know an eternal truth. They assert rather that the limitations of human reason or languge prevent any authentic grasp of an eternal truth, by the mere fact that being eternal, it is unboundable by categories which are themselves timebound.

Thus Historicists will praise thinkers in every age for their attempts at expressing the truth, but at the same time Historicists will deny that thinkers in any age authentically grasped any given eternal truth.

Historicism leads to Modernism by undermining the confidence of scholars and students in the method of theological inquiry. Because if no man in any age can obtain an authentic comprehension of an eternal truth, it follows that no thinker in any age can know the truth in a manner that would make discipleship virtuous. And hence every uncritical acceptance of the intellectual achievements of any man leads inevitably to falsehood. Applied to theology, it undermines of necessity the authority of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and of the Saints.

Von Balthasar's own historicism is a rather crafty exposition of this general error of Historicism. He won't come out and say what he means directly, but by means of affirming half heartedly a certain modicum of respect for the Fathers, Doctors and Saints of the Church, he insinuates little by little the principle of Historicism.

I will leave it to the reader to asses his article (above) and note point by point how he does this.

Here, however I would mention for now, only the contrary truth which itself destroys the error of Historicism.

God the creator is the Author of Man's rationality. Therefore, since the Creator is also God the Revealer, the Author of the Deposit of the Faith, and God the Holy Ghost, it follows that men, who by grace are made disciples of Jesus Christ (God the Revealer), thereby receive a grace to know and comprehend authentically and faithfully eternal truths.

This grace is the Faith, eternal but come in time, and thus perennial, unalterable and incommutable and yet living.

And since the Faith comes to a man through hearing, it is precisely in the Divine Precept to make disciples of every nation unto the consummation of time, that Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches infallibly that men who are time bound by nature can know eternal truths faithfully and authentically accross the expanse of time and despite the mediation of differing languages and cultures. The corrollary of Christ's Precept is that every man and every time and every culture can be faithful to Christ by being transformed by His Magisterium and Example and Grace. A secondary corrollary is that since He who graces men throughout time is One, the Holy Ghost, it follows that He who assists the disciples of Christ to understand the Deposit of the Faith, speaks through all Saints, Fathers and Doctors the same truth, which is the authentic understanding of the Faith.

If Von Balthasar were correct the Social Reign of Jesus Christ would be a non-sequitur, because no age or culture or people could every so authentically submit to Christ that there could be a just social order, founded upon Christ's Techings, in reality.

And this error of Von Balthasar we see in the Conciliar rejection of the perennial Catholic teaching regarding the primacy of Christ in all orders of being, even that of politics.

Historicism in theology leads to a rejection of Scholasticism by denying that it was an authentic and faithful expositor of the Fathers or of the Deposit of the Faith. It thus leads ultimately to the rejection of reason and to the position of the Nominalists, who deny that words have a meaning that transcends the particular.

It also leads in the practical order to the rejection of the Church's Mission, and to replacing it with a theology of dialogue. It does this by rejecting the goal of the Church to christianize the age by decisive and resolute programs to sanctify and evangelize, and substitutes, by denying the p0sssibility of attaining an authentic conception of eternal truth in any particular time, the goal of seeking a pragmatic concord or cessation of hostilities to serve the particular utilitarian interests of differing parties, since the good of the particular is that good which Historicism alone does not deny.