But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of us were sinners before him and worthy of condemnation.

In this statement von Balthasar frames human stakes in explicitly theological rather than merely biological terms: the decisive “issue” is not survival but standing before God as judge. The second sentence underscores a classical Christian anthropology—universal sinfulness and deserved condemnation—meant to level human pretensions and make grace, not moral self-justification, the center of the drama. Read in von Balthasar’s wider theological vision, such language typically functions to heighten the seriousness of salvation and the need for Christ’s redemptive work, shifting attention from worldly crises to the ultimate horizon of divine judgment and mercy.