Presence and Thought: An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa

A study of Gregory of Nyssa written in French and published by Beauchesne in Paris in 1942, reissued in 1988 with a preliminary note by Jean-Robert Armogathe; Ignatius Press published the English translation in 1995. It is the first of Balthasar's three monographs on speculative Greek Fathers, with Kosmische Liturgie on Maximus the Confessor and Parole et mystère chez Origène. In My Work: In Retrospect he wrote that Gregory develops a philosophy of becoming with such dynamism and openness that it reads as a Christian anticipation and overcoming of German Idealism and of many of Heidegger's intuitions. Gregory's idea of an endless desire for God became central to Balthasar's own theology.