Abstract / DOI
«God’s Incomprehensibility Hits the Heart.» Guardini’s Theology of the Heart. A Contribution to the 50th Anniversary of Death. «Heart is spirit in the vicinity of blood.» During Guardini’s long lectureship in the universities of Berlin, Tübingen and Munich he unfolded a specific «theology of the heart». Heart definitively does not mean something romantic or an outburst of feelings but it is the centre of serious intellectual and passionate decision for and against God, for and against oneself's origin. Related to heart is conscience, but the deeper and more comprehensive organon of the person is the heart. In interpreting Jacob’s struggle with the unknown one Guardini shows the necessity and blessing of fighting with God during the night of human existence. Heart is the place of this fight, and it has to be endured lifelong. But also God’s heart was wounded by humans, and so God experienced a «destiny» by creating humans in their liberty to decide just against him. According to Guardini it belongs to the severe earnest of God’s love to become vulnerable by humans. And just this incomprehensibility hits the heart.