Protestantism, whether primitive or modern, Lutheran or Calvinist, orthodox or liberal, generally occurs as a religion of antitheses—and liberal theo… - Henri de Lubac

It is not the universal which takes on for us the appearance of the personal in order that it may make itself apprehensible by giving itself mythical expression; the universe does not become more or less personal and so acquire an added attribute. It is the personal which becomes universal, to the degree in which (subject to certain conditions) it realizes more profoundly its own specific character. Universality is the prerogative of the strongest personality. God, apart from whom nothing subsists, is pre-eminently the personal being, and it is for that reason that nothing subsists apart from him: even more, too, for that very reason, he is the 'personalizing' being. In becoming universal, Christ is not dissolved in the universe; he is the 'plasmatic principle' of the universe, he […] imposes his form on it.

Christian tradition has always looked on heaven under the analogy of a city. Coelestis urbs Jerusalem.[…] It is a city compact like a single house; a close-knit society, gathered like one family under a singe roof […] but at the same time extended to the uttermost.[…] Among those who are received within this heavenly city there is a more intimate relationship than subsists among the members of a human society, for among them there is not only outward harmony, but true unity […], the very consummation of unity, both the image and the result of the unity of the Divine Persons among themselves.[…] The Christian mysticism of unity is trinitarian. The likeness, which in every created soul must be the completion of the divine Image, is not that of a Spinozist God; it is that of a God of Love, of the God whose being is Love.

Christianity, by those doctrinal aspects that we have just emphasized as well as by others, brought something absolutely new into the world. Its concept of salvation is not merely novel in comparison with that of those religions in existence at the time of its birth. It is a unique phenomenon in the religious history of mankind.<p>For what do we witness outside Christianity whenever a religious movement rises above the domain of sense and effectively transcends the limit of nationality? In every case, though appearances may differ considerably, the basis is the same—an individualist doctrine of escape. It was this that inspired ancient mysticism, whether it sought to escape the vicissitudes of the sub-lunary world or to pass over the outer circle of the cosmos and to penetrate into the realm of intelligible Essences or even beyond.