Originally published in 1953 and expanded and revised in the 1980’s, *Tragedy Under Grace. Reinhold Schneider on the Experience of the West *focuses on this twentieth-century German writer who explored with rare depth and persistence the complex relationship between Christian holiness and temporal power. Balthasar highlights Schneider’s keen awareness of the tragic impossibility of synthesizing worldly rule and the Kingdom of God “from below.” Nevertheless, the last word of the book is not tragedy, but obedience: the unconditional surrender that leaves God free to give the desired synthesis as an unexpected gift from above--not as an easy-to-manage program or technique, but as a via crucis in the steps of the Crucified who reveals divine rule from the depths of his freely assumed human weakness.