Theological Aesthetics after von Balthasar

by Bychkov,Oleg V.

• ISBN13: 9780754658344
• ISBN10: 0754658341
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781317011347
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-28
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

This collection of essays by distinguished authors explores the present-day field of theological aesthetics: from von Balthasar's contribution and parallel developments to correctives and alternatives to his approach. A tribute to von Balthasar's own project expands into a dialogue with ancient and medieval traditions in search of revelatory aesthetics. The contributors outline challenges to his approach (including Protestant perspectives) and introduce new ways of viewing the field of theological aesthetics, which ultimately opens up to the idea of concrete cultural contexts and practical human needs determining the use of the arts and aesthetic sensibilities in theology.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Legacy of von Balthasar

The Trilogy

Hans Urs von Balthasar: beauty as a gateway to love

Hans Urs von Balthasar's 'Theatre of the World': the aesthetics of a dramatics

Retrieving the Past

Transcending the aesthetic: Gadamer on tragedy and the tragic

The beautiful after Thomas Aquinas: questioning present-day concepts

Divine delight: acceptatio and the economy of salvation in Duns Scotus

Hopkins, Scotus and von Balthasar: philosophical theology in poetry

Von Balthasar

Some Criticisms

Balthasar, Hopkins and the 'English tradition'

Von Balthasar and Protestant aesthetics: a mutually corrective conversation

Is the time right for a theological aesthetics?

Outside von Balthasar: the Spectrum of Theological Aesthetics

General Perspectives

Beyond beauty and the aesthetic in the engagement of religion and art

The beauty of the Cross

Is good art good for religion?

On a new list of aesthetic categories

Specific Issues: 'Alien beauty': parabolic judgment and the witness of faith

The strange and the self: visual arts and theology in Aboriginal and other (post-) colonial spaces

Aesthetics and the built environment

Index

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Excerpts

This collection of essays by distinguished authors explores the present-day field of theological aesthetics: from von Balthasar's contribution and parallel developments to correctives and alternatives to his approach. A tribute to von Balthasar's own project expands into a dialogue with ancient and medieval traditions in search of revelatory aesthetics. The contributors outline challenges to his approach (including Protestant perspectives) and introduce new ways of viewing the field of theological aesthetics, which ultimately opens up to the idea of concrete cultural contexts and practical human needs determining the use of the arts and aesthetic sensibilities in theology.