Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Preoccupation.

In Saving Karl Barth: Hans Urs von Balthasar's Preoccupation (Minneapolis: Fortress, $49.00), Stephen Long presents the unlikely friendship between mid-twentieth-century theologians Karl Barth (Reformed) and Hans Urs von Balthasar (Roman Catholic) with the intent of reigniting current ecumenical dialogue between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Long shows that throughout his career von Balthasar took Barth's doctrine of God and the divine attributes with the utmost seriousness, largely because he saw Barth offering a portrait of God as beauty--the most important divine attribute for von Balthasar. Von Balthasar found that Barth's work on Anselm paralleled his own appreciation for the "analogy of being," which argues for the inter-relatedness of creatures based on their desire for the Creator. Highly technical, this book is most fitting for Barth or von Balthasar scholars.

Mark Mattes