Erich Przywara, Philosopher-Theologian. On Faith, Metaphysics, and Modernity
John R. Betz
Synopsis "Erich Przywara, Philosopher-Theologian. On Faith, Metaphysics, and Modernity"
A study of the work of the German-Polish Jesuit, Erich Przywara (1889–1972), one of the most significant Catholic theologians of the interwar period. It introduces Przywara's thought on the basis of a comprehensive investigation of his works, and consider his sources, major interventions, and themes.
To Pope John Paul II, the German-Polish Jesuit, Erich Przywara (1889–1972), was one of the great theologians of the German Catholic tradition, in the select company of Albert the Great, Nicholas of Cusa, Johann Adam Möhler, Matthias Scheeben, and Romano Guardini. During the latter half of the twentieth century, however, Przywara's star began to fade—so much so that in the Anglophone world he has tended to been known only by association with others: either as the mentor of Edith Stein or Hans Urs von Balthasar, or as the proximate target of Barth's famous rejection of the analogia entis (the "analogy of being"). Yet Karl Rahner considered him to be "one of the greatest minds," from whom "future generations still have critical things to learn"; and to Balthasar he was an "unforgettable guide," indeed, "the greatest thinker" he ever knew.
Until recently, with little of Przywara's work available in English, such remarkable claims have been hard to understand. But since the publication of his magnum opus, Analogia Entis (translated by the author and David Bentley Hart), Przywara's star is rising again. English-language readers are finally beginning to see why so many extraordinary Catholic thinkers—including the last three popes—held him in such high regard. But one cannot fully understand Przywara's Analogia Entis without some knowledge of his early work and the Jesuit charism that informs it.
To that end, after a substantial introduction to Przywara's life and writings, this book focuses first on his largely unknown exegetical and devotional works; it then shows how he reads major figures of the Catholic tradition (specifically, Augustine, Aquinas, Cusanus, and Newman); finally, it shows how he deployed a Catholic understanding of the analogy of being in his engagements with Barth, Hegel, and the early directions of phenomenology represented by Husserl, Scheler, and the early Heidegger. In sum, this book lays a foundation for the future study of Przywara, who deserves to be remembered as one of the greatest Catholic philosophers and theologians of the twentieth century—one whose full significance to his time and perhaps our own has yet to be recognized.
