Excerpt of "Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism"

J O S H UA R . B R O W N

Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

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Copyright Š 2020 by the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Published in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xiii Note on Translations xv Introduction 1

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one

The Conceptual Structure and Context of 20 Xiao in Early Confucianism

t wo

“While Living, Serve Them with Li”: Xiao as 42 Care for Parents

three

Serve the Dead with Li: Filial Love and 69 Obedience in Ceremonial Xiao

four

The Spiritual Context and Structure of 101 Christological Love and Obedience for Hans Urs von Balthasar

five

Archetypal Obedience: Balthasar’s 121 Conception of Christ’s Filial Obedience as Archetypal Experience

six

Mission, History, and Obedience: Christ’s 143 Filial Obedience in Theo-Drama

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viii Acknowledgments

seven

A Confucian Rereading of Balthasar 168

Notes 210 Bibliography 266 Index 291

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Introduction

According to the Synoptic Gospels, at the baptism of Jesus a voice from heaven proclaimed, “This is my beloved son, in him I am well pleased.”1 This scene attests to the central Christian mystery: the eternal Son of God assumed human nature—in an indivisible and unconfused union—in the divine person of Jesus of Nazareth for the sake of humanity’s salvation. More specifically, Christ’s baptism testifies to a paradox at the heart of this mystery. Not only did the eternal Son assume flesh for us, he assumed flesh in weakness through a life of pleasing obedience. The Letter to the Hebrews captures the tension nicely: “Son of God though he was, he learned obedience in the school of ­suffering.”2 The fact that the Triune God revealed himself through Christ’s life of obedience unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8), is not haphazard. As Thomas Aquinas observes in the Summa theologiae, it is “supremely fitting” that the Son, rather than the Father or Spirit, becomes flesh.3 Aquinas explains this fittingness by noting the resonance between the Son’s divine personhood, his perfection of human nature, and the salvific work he accomplished for his fallen creatures. But what can be said about the “fittingness” of Christ’s obedience in particular? How did his obedience resonate with his Trinitarian personhood as Son, his assumption of the perfections of human nature, and his salvific sacrifice for his beloved yet sinful people? What can be discovered, articulated, and adored about Christ’s filial obedience?

The unique claim of this book is that those who wish to reflect on the fittingness of Christ’s filial obedience can find a rich and helpful resource in the early Confucian doctrine of xiao 孝, or “filial piety.”4 1

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2 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

Specifically, I contend that the early Confucian xiao can be developed as a helpful lens for interpreting, clarifying, and developing theological accounts of Christ’s obedience as incarnate Son. Initially, such a claim might seem to be an interesting idea, but no more than that. It might seem that the study of Christ’s filial obedience would benefit more by drawing on resources from cultures more similar to Christ’s own, such as the ancient Near East or Second Temple Judaism. Hence, the Confucian xiao may appear unlikely to provide a particularly fruitful area of study for Christology. I argue to the contrary that it is, in fact, quite fruitful. To demonstrate this will require quite a bit of spadework. First, it will require engaging with Confucian philosophy as a serious intellectual tradition worth studying in its own right. Second, it will involve developing the Christian understanding of Christ’s filial obedience as a way of discerning where and how Confucian insights might serve Christological science.

To facilitate this task, this book presents a Confucian rereading of Christ’s obedience as understood by the twentieth-century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.5 My aim is to analyze Balthasar’s articulation of Christ’s obedience using the early Confucian xiao as an interpretive lens. Specifically, I shall apply the early Confucian understanding of xiao to three purposes in rereading Balthasar’s Chris­ tology: (1) to affirm or confirm some of Balthasar’s interpretations of Christ’s obedience; (2) to challenge some of his positions on this theme; and (3) to expand the scope of his Christological vision, with which I have deep sympathies.

Rereading Balthasar’s account of Christ’s obedience in light of the Confucian xiao requires, however, a process of preparation and development. In order to ensure a rereading that does justice to the concerns and approaches of both interlocutors, a sound rereading first requires a firm grasp of both the conceptual framework of the Confucian xiao and Balthasar’s theology on their own terms. Thus, this study begins with the Confucian account of filial obedience and its complement, filial love, as articulated in the context of China from the preQin through the Han dynasties.

The first part, chapters 1–3, describes the historical and conceptual contexts of the early Confucian xiao (chapter 1) and then presents

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Introduction 3

early Confucian accounts of xiao as filial service to parents while they are living (chapter 2) and after they die (chapter 3). The second part, chapter 4–6, offers a parallel treatment of Balthasar. Beginning with the spiritual and biographical contexts of Balthasar’s theology of Christ’s obedience (chapter 4), I exposit his understanding of this doctrine in his theological aesthetics (chapter 5) and theological dramatics (chapter 6). Then, in chapter 7, I undertake the constructive task of rereading Balthasar’s theology in light of the Confucian xiao.

The remainder of this introduction prepares the reader for the work to follow in three steps. First, I provide an apologia for this book by identifying the ways in which it contributes to broader theological discourses. Second, I explain my rationale for structuring the book as two analytical prolegomena that enable the constructive proposals I present in chapter 7. And third, I offer brief introductions to the early Confucian texts that I analyze in this book and to my method of analyzing xiao in the first three chapters. The last of these three steps is needed because, whereas Balthasar’s corpus is straightforward and easily defined, “early Confucianism” is an imprecise term that requires explanation. But the first two steps are necessary because this book is written for three main audiences, each of which may question the logic or role of some aspect of the book.

The primary intended audience of this book are theologians, especially scholars of Balthasar’s work, to whom I aim to demonstrate the theological fruitfulness of Confucian philosophy and whom I hope to inspire to serious engagement with Confucian thought. Second are culturally Chinese Christians with theological interests and background, for whom I strive to provide an example of how the intellectual resources of Chinese philosophy may be fruitfully and faithfully used to articulate and develop Christian theology.6 And third are comparative theologians who are interested in the Christian theological appeal to Confucianism, which is a neglected subject of study in this field. Of course, I greatly hope that other readers will also find the book interesting, including systematic theologians interested in Christology, scholars of early Chinese thought or Confucianism, and anyone wishing to find resources for a dialogue between Christian faith and Chinese culture.

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4 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

Among these audiences, scholars of Balthasar’s thought may ask why engaging Confucianism is helpful in the first place. Conversely, Chinese Christians or comparative theologians may intuit the value of Confucianism but question why Balthasar is a fitting interlocutor, or what warrants a study of Christ’s obedience. Finally, all these audiences may question why I am requesting a considerable amount of patience from readers as I lay out the Confucian xiao and Balthasar’s interpretation of Christ’s obedience on their own terms. Thus, addressing my reasons for requesting this patience will allow the reader to see that the investment of the work in chapters 1–6 is necessary in order to produce the fruitful results of the rereading in chapter 7.

Why Read This Book?

Although a book combining analyses of the Confucian xiao, the works of Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the doctrine of Christ’s obedience is unique in modern theological literature, uniqueness does not equal significance.7 What makes this book significant is what it offers to the discipline of academic Christian theology and Christian reflection in general. This book contributes to the theological discourse of the Christian community in three clear ways, by (1) addressing general concerns regarding the interaction of Christianity and Chinese culture; (2) adding to academic discourse in systematic theology on Christ’s obedience; and (3) contributing to the study of Balthasar’s thought.

Some theologians may find it odd that I attempt to cultivate a reading of Christ’s obedience here through a Chinese tradition’s appeal to filial obedience rather than through intellectual resources more culturally or historically relevant to Christianity or the person of Jesus Christ. But there are two reasons to undertake this project for the sake of articulating the harmony between Christian faith and Chinese culture, which one can distinguish as subjective and objective reasons.

Asian theologians such as K. K. Yeo illustrate the subjective significance of reading Christology in light of Confucianism. In his recent book, Musing with Confucius and Paul, Yeo attempts to unite

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Introduction 5

Christian theology and Chinese ethics.8 Having a Malaysian Chinese background, Yeo partially justifies his approach as a means to unite his Christian and Chinese identities. Such an effort shows that for Chinese Christians and culturally Chinese Christians, it is often difficult to perceive the unity between the Christian faith and Chinese culture.

Since the majority of Christian reflection justifiably comes from European and Mediterranean traditions, some culturally Chinese Christians may find that growing in Christian faith increases a feeling of “liminality,” out of which they feel a need to choose between being Christian or being culturally Chinese.9 By demonstrating how Chinese intellectual concepts can serve in interpreting and developing Christian theological reflection, this book can help culturally Chinese Christians to articulate the harmony between Chinese culture and the gospel proclaimed in orthodox Christianity. This, by extension, can ameliorate at least one source of liminality for culturally Chinese Christians.10 A more objective way this book contributes to the relationship between Christianity and Chinese culture concerns a type of theological task that will soon be needed. In 1961, the Tenth Annual Chinese Catholic Conference of San Francisco resolved “to reconcile the tenets of Chinese philosophy with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.”11 This reconciliatory task has yet to be accomplished, and the time to undertake it is now. Some scholars estimate that China will soon become the largest Christian nation in the world in terms of population (though not in terms of percentage of the national population).12 This is a weighty prognostication, particularly since there are many Christians in regions that are heavily influenced by Chinese culture or thought, such as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and Vietnam, to name just a few. In short, very soon, and possibly already, the majority of the world’s Christian population will face the need to understand the relationship between Christian doctrine and Chinese intellectual traditions.

Catholicism in China faces the particularly political struggle of defining itself as both Christian (which is traditionally seen as Western) and Chinese, a struggle that has played out formally in episcopal controversies and informally in the imprisonment and martyrdom of

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6 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

Christians.13 On the one hand, it is clear that such issues cannot be resolved for Chinese Catholics by outsiders, and I have great respect and admiration for the ecclesial leaders and theologians who have been addressing these issues for decades. Still, resources that demonstrate how Christian theology can appreciatively read and incorporate Chinese philosophy can aid Christians of Chinese heritage both in understanding how the Christian faith is harmonious with Chinese culture and in learning how to articulate this conviction to non-Christians.14 At the very least, offering a rereading of a Western theologian in terms of Confucian philosophy expresses solidarity with Chinese and culturally Chinese Christians, which in turn testifies to the catholicity of the church and Christian fraternity.

Apart from ecclesial demographics, academic Christian theology stands to be heavily affected by the probable shift of Christianity’s cultural center to Chinese and other non-Western cultures. Currently, many theologians are hard at work fighting the decay of the Christian faith in the contemporary West. Although that is an important task, it requires a complement if the discipline is to survive and flourish. Unless Christian theology shows a willingness to become acquainted with Chinese and other non-Western intellectual frameworks and to employ them in a genuine articulation of Christian doctrine, then the discipline will soon risk being unable to clearly communicate with or understand well the majority of Christians in the world.

Additionally, there is a risk that Christian theology will become a tribalized and nationalized discipline in which “Western” theology becomes divorced from other global theologies with little or no mutual exchange between them.15 To put it in terms of this book, unless Christian theology takes up a serious engagement with Chinese intellectual traditions and questions, I sense a considerable danger that theological works such as those of Balthasar will be seen as useful to only an increasingly small number of Western Christians. Thus, if it is true, as I believe it is, that Western theologians such as Balthasar or Aquinas have insights and wisdom that are relevant to all Christians regardless of culture or language, then there is a tremendous need to learn how to mediate these insights to non-Western cultures and ­languages.

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Introduction 7

A final contribution of this book regarding Chinese culture and Christianity follows upon various scriptural exhortations to take the gospel “unto the ends of the earth,” which are embodied in the catholicity of the church (Acts 1:8). One implication of this catholicity is that the faith of the church, although born from the Jewish history of salvation and nursed through Greek and Latin cultures, resonates in some manner with the intellectual traditions of all cultures, mutatis mutandis.

Throughout Christian history, theologians have noted how the Christian faith is catholic (that is, universal) in the sense of acknowledging, welcoming, and drawing upon all truth. Though the church is rightly beholden to divine revelation as communicated in sacred scripture and sacred tradition, all that is true, good, and beautiful outside of divine revelation is nonetheless in harmony with revelation.16 Thus, the harmony between Christian fides and aspects of non-Christian ratio testifies to the fullness of the gospel, which benefits all Christians in demonstrating the extent to which the gospel perfects and fulfills the exercise of human reason across the variety of human cultures and languages.17 Consequently, this study helps to indicate the breadth of the church’s catholicity by concretely demonstrating how Christian doctrine can accommodate and draw upon philosophical insights from various cultures.18 Regarding this book’s relationship to contemporary academic systematic theology, the doctrine of Christ’s obedience has become increasingly important over the last few decades in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theology.19 These developments are largely the culmination of trends begun in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by German kenotic theologians, who attempted to discern the theological foundations for God’s kenosis (the “self-limiting” of Phil. 2:6–11).

These theologians focused on how the Son humbled himself and took the form of obedience in the Incarnation and asked what this kenosis might mean about God. Gottfried Thomasius set a trajectory for kenotic discourse when he argued that in the Incarnation, the Son ­“divests himself of the divine mode of being in favor of the humanly creaturely form of existence.”20 Or, as he also put it, the Incarnation requires a “renunciation of the divine glory” on the part of the Son.21

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8 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

At the very least, Thomasius and sympathetic theologians were willing to reimagine traditional language about the Trinity and the predicates of God, such as divine impassibility, in light of Christ’s kenosis.22 Inevitably, kenotic theses evoked responses from those who wanted to retain a commitment to traditional orthodoxy without avoiding these new questions. Perhaps the two greatest examples of such theologians were the two masters of Basel: Karl Barth and Bal­ thasar. Both men imaginatively sought to connect the mystery of Christ’s obedience on earth to a Trinitarian principle of kenosis within God’s life in a manner that makes Christ’s obedience as Son harmonious with God’s perfections.23 Both Barth and Balthasar held that obedience can be predicated of the Son eternally (that is, in the immanent Trinitarian life), and that this is the foundation for his obedient words and deeds in the economy of redemption.

These proposals of obedience as an eternal predicate of God have been received in three main ways. Some theologians have rejected the Barth and Balthasar position, as in the Thomistic criticisms levied by Thomas Joseph White and Guy Mansini.24 Others have accepted the Barth and Balthasar position as correct and attempted fortify this approach. With respect to Balthasar, one can see this in various appeals to the metaphysics of W. Norris Clarke and the “active receptivity of being” thesis, for example.25 Finally, theologians such as Wayne Grudem and Bruce A. Ware have used a broadly construed theory of obedience within God to provide a Trinitarian ground for a patriarchal anthropology.26 Christ’s obedience is an urgent topic today, touching on the link between God’s immanent Trinitarian life, the economic Trinity, and divine predication. What value does Confucianism bring to a consideration of this doctrine? Most of the current literature provides excellent metaphysical and theological analyses of Christ’s obedience from several angles, but none has asked what seems to be the vital question: What is filial obedience? If we accept that Christ is obedient as the incarnate Son, then it would seem that all the questions about the proper foundation of his obedience or about how we might predicate obedience to him in the economy depend on the specific quality in which

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Introduction 9

his obedience is presented to us: as filial, as an act of his Sonship. And this requires some account of what filial obedience is in the first place.

I admit that it would be perfectly legitimate, and likely fruitful, to cobble together a theory of filial obedience from more traditional Western sources, such as Plato or Aristotle or theologians such as St. Maximus the Confessor or St. Ignatius of Loyola—or, of course, from scripture itself. However, one who has even the barest awareness of Chinese Confucianism can hardly deny that this tradition has a robust conception of the family and obedience within it that, at the very least, should be investigated for its possible contributions to the theological study of Christ’s obedience.

In chapter 7, I draw on the Confucian logic of filial obedience to argue that Balthasar’s account of Christ’s obedience is a profoundly reasonable account that identifies essential insights regarding what ­filial obedience must involve. At the same time, however, I contend that the Confucian xiao can clarify moments at which Balthasar’s account of Christ’s obedience does not accord with the logic of filial obedience. And most constructively, I argue that the Confucian xiao expands Balthasar’s interpretation of Christ’s obedience by introducing a concept of ritual sonship that is profoundly helpful for articulating the specific ritual character of Christ’s obedience. In each of these steps, I hope to demonstrate, by offering a specific account of the natural bond of father and son, and the filial virtues of obedience and love within that bond, that the Confucian xiao constitutes a rich but neglected resource for articulating the Christian doctrine of the obedient incarnate Son. This leads to this book’s contributions to scholarship on Balthasar’s theology. Balthasar’s corpus is vast, staggering in its size, depth, and variety of sources. Interpreting his theology requires us to follow one who was not an academic theologian but a spiritual director who engaged with the modern world. Balthasar’s Christology is especially indebted to trends in German philosophy, theology, and literature, such as the trajectories of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher, and developments in twentieth-century Catholicism, such as la nouvelle théologie. However, the most important contexts for Balthasar’s

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10 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

Christology are his formation in Ignatian spirituality and his relationship with the mystic Adrienne von Speyr, both of whom I discuss at greater length in chapter 4.

As a spiritual director, Balthasar felt that his theological purpose was to enliven devotion rather than offer meticulous clarifications and distinctions. Unlike Aquinas, Balthasar did not teach others how to theologize, and, unlike John Chrysostom, he did not offer instruction for the faithful. Rather, Balthasar was attempting to initiate a theological renewal by fostering the encounter with divine love and glory.27 This feature of Balthasar’s work enables a rereading that is both charitable and fruitful, for his systematic theology provides an opportunity for greater clarification and definition even as it possesses a solid and compelling spiritual core.

Given the robust Ignatian context of Balthasar’s spiritual background, it is unsurprising that obedience would become a central theme in his works.28 Indeed, scholars have noted the crucial function of obedience in Balthasar’s Christology for several decades. Arno Schil­­son and Walter Kasper observed as early as 1974 that Balthasar possessed a Gehorsamschristologie (obedience-Christology).29 More recently, Philippe Barbarin noted that Christ’s filial obedience is the central node in Balthasar’s sweeping theology of revelation: “It is the obedience of the Son which reveals Trinitarian love.”30 Barbarin’s description touches on the real contribution, and the challenge, that Balthasar offers Christian theology. The Christian tradition has always had accounts of Christ’s obedience, but Balthasar makes this mystery absolutely central to understanding the entire narrative of salvation history and God himself. Michel Beaudin’s study shows how foundational Christ’s obedience is to Balthasar’s entire theological worldview. Beaudin argues that Balthasar sees obedience as the véritable étoffe (the true matter) of the figure of Christ, wherein obedience is the means through which Christ reveals God’s love.31 The Trinitarian and soteriological love of Jesus is shown through his entering into solidarity with humanity through a life of obedience.32 According to Beaudin, the obedience of Christ is how Balthasar defines God’s opening up his “perspective” for human participation: God reveals his glory through the idiom of obedience so that we may perceive

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Introduction 11

and adore the glorious one. Jesus’s obedience is, above all, the locus of the “return to the center” (exitus-reditus) wherein God is “not unknowable; he is incomparably manifest” to humanity.33 Those previously unfamiliar with Balthasar’s work can now readily see why he makes an ideal subject for this book. Simply put, Balthasar is one of the few theologians to give the theme of Christ’s obedience a truly central role in his thought, interpreting Christ’s obedience as the heart of the dramatic encounter between the Triune God and the fallen creature. To Balthasar, obedience is the fundamental idiom of the Incarnation as a work of revelation and redemption. The great benefit of this is that rereading Balthasar’s Christology in light of the Confucian xiao invites Confucian philosophy to encounter the heart of the ­gospel, and it ushers Confucian concepts and framework into the service of explaining and adoring the salvific work wrought by the incarnate Son of God. At the same time, drawing on the Confucian xiao introduces into Balthasar’s thought a more thoroughly developed understanding of filial obedience than what Balthasar himself possessed. For Balthasar, Christ’s obedience was a filial translation of Ignatian spiritual and religious obedience, and he did not emphasize the natural father–son bond as a ground upon which to build his account of Christ’s obedience.

At several points, including the Trinitarian aspects of his theology of Christ’s obedience, I argue that the Confucian xiao can both identify weaknesses in Balthasar’s approach and offer means for i­ mprovement.

A final contribution of this book to studies of Balthasar concerns the relationship between Balthasar and Asian thought. To date, the only major study to examine Balthasar’s relationship to Asian traditions has been Raymond Gawronski’s Word and Silence.34 Gawronski examines how Balthasar interprets Asian traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but he does not assess how such traditions might be fruitful for assessing and expanding Balthasar’s theology. This latter task, taken up in this book, finds splendid justification in Balthasar’s own words: “The overall scope of the present work [The Glory of the Lord] naturally remains all too Mediterranean. The inclusion of other cultures, especially that of Asia, would have been important and fruitful. But the author’s education has not allowed for such an expansion,

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12 Balthasar in Light of Early Confucianism

and a superficial presentation of such material would have been dilettantism. May those qualified come to complete the present f­ ragment.”35 One would not be wrong to think that Balthasar—who was deeply conscious of the nature of his own intellectual formation and its possible shortcomings—would extend this comment to his entire corpus, not just to The Glory of the Lord. Here Balthasar demonstrates a felicitous instinct that a prolonged and patient engagement with Asian sources would enrich his theology. And so not only does this work bring Balthasar into comparative conversation, but it also suggests pathways to fill a lacuna in his approach that Balthasar himself noted and desired that someone address.36 Pursuant to filling this lacuna, my rereading seeks to expand Balthasar’s account of Christ’s obedience by introducing the Confucian idea of ritual sonship. In chapter 7, I strive to combine the best of Balthasar’s Christological instincts and the insights of the Confucian xiao to articulate how Christ’s life of filial obedience is ensconced in the particular expression of ritual. I argue that this expansion illustrates how Confucian philosophy can complement and deepen Christian theological reflection. By developing the idea of Christ’s obedience in light of ritual sonship, Christian theology gains an articulation of Christ’s perfections as the incarnate Son in loving obedience with new attention to the breadth and depth to which Jesus Christ fulfills and perfects natural filial obedience, complete with its ritual aspects.

Hence, readers will gain yet another reason to stand with Balthasar in wonder before the God of Jesus Christ, who is the source all human bonds and their perfections. And now, with these various ends in mind, I turn to clarify the logic of the book’s structure.

The Format of the Book

The first six chapters of this book analyze the Confucian xiao and Balthasar’s theology of Christ’s obedience; thus there is prima facie an imbalance between the part of the book that prepares for rereading and

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