and so on. And indeed it is not difficult to find passages in which he specifically acknowledges the limited nature of our knowing, the need for epistemic humility, the inescapability of mystery. What I will be trying to show is that Balthasar is in fact caught in a significant performative contradiction: the way his theology is done presumes something which the content of the theology rules out. This is, it must be acknowledged, a rather strong criticism. I am not suggesting merely that at times