Explorations in Theology I: The Word Made Flesh

The first volume of Balthasar's collected essays, Skizzen zur Theologie, published by Johannes Verlag in 1960 (301 pages). It gathers thirteen essays, among them 'Word, Scripture, Tradition', 'Word and History', 'God Speaks as Man', 'Revelation and Beauty', 'Word and Silence', 'The Place of Theology', 'Theology and Sanctity', 'Spirituality', 'Action and Contemplation' and 'Outlines of Eschatology'. The Community of Saint John reads the collection as a Catholic answer to Karl Barth: like Barth, Balthasar holds together the exclusive centrality of Christ and the all-inclusive reach of redemption, but unlike him he insists on analogy between the incarnate Word and the intelligibility of creation, so that faith's concentration on Christ includes reason rather than excluding it. An English selection appeared in two volumes in 1964-1965; Ignatius Press published a new translation as The Word Made Flesh in 1989.