The Unselfing Activity of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar‪.‬

IN THE EXTENSIVE SECONDARY literature on the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, comparatively little attention has been given to his understanding of the activity of the Holy Spirit. This is to be expected, as it is the incarnate Word who forms the basis of his aesthetics, his trinitarian speculation, and his ethics, and the acts and episodes of Christ's life on which he counsels the Christian to meditate. Christ, he says, is not only the "means" of salvation, but also its "content," so that all theology, if it is to be Christian, must ultimately be speech about him. In contrast, von Balthasar says that the Holy Spirit desires not so much to be seen as to enable seeing, to illuminate the Son. He is among those Western theologians to emphasize the Spirit's role in rendering believers attentive, a theme more commonly encountered in the East. As he puts it,