The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics Volume 4

Any Christian who likes to express his or her faith in aesthetic terminology should read this book. Any educated person with a classical philosophic vocabulary should read it too. Beautiful work.

I've read many works of theology and most are fairly forgettable. They trot out the basic dogma of their sect, usually followed in a mechanical fashion with the usual quotations from the Bible or from tradition. Yet sometimes you are lucky enough to come across a creative theologian, a theologian who is able to make you look at religious ideas in a new an innovative way. Von Balthasar is one such theologian. In this series of works (going to seven volumes) Balthasar introduces the idea of a 'theological aesthetic.' This idea sounds very abstract but to put it in simpler words; theology is about Beauty, the Beauty of God. Balthasar argues a key attribute of the Absolute/God in Western tradition, be it religious, mythical or theological, is Beauty. Beauty is rightly associated with Goodness, Truth and Being, and all these are rightly associated with God. Balthasar aims to restore the ideal of the beauty of God by examining the Beauty of God and of the created world, as shown in the Bible, in Greek myth, in philosophy, and in Catholic Theology. Balthasar's most insightful comments often are made about key Church fathers, including Denys, who emphasized the Beauty of God in his theology. I myself felt Balthasar's work was very valuable for recovering a neglected aspect of theology, the role of theology and theological issues in relation to creative art. The focus in the 20th century and in much of the preceding centuries was to make theology compatible with economic or social thought or with science or philosophy, but not with creative art. Balthasar also recognises the key element of art in the work of mystics like Eckhart and St John of Cross. This series forms a valuable exploration of the aesthetic dimension to theology and I am sure future students of art and theology will find it a valuable aid to their own explorations.

This book blew me away. After getting through volume II and III, I was not prepared for the power of his narrative and his argument. The text follows Western Metaphysics from Homer and Pindar through the classics all the way until Thomas Aquinas. The breadth of his erudition is absurd. At one point I had to stop and read Aeschylus, Euripides, and Virgil in order to grasp what he was discusses. If it has been a while since you have studied the classics I would recommend a brief tutorial before embarking on this adventure, it is well worth the wait.

Hans Urs von Balthasar was one of the most preeminent XXth century catholic theologians, and this is, in my opinion, his most important work - by this I mean the whole trilogy (Glory, Theodrammatica, Theologica). This first volume of Glory, Seeing the Form (Schau der Gestalt) seems to be really fundamental for a serious understanding of the guidelines of his thought. At the fantastic Introduction, after a superb hymn to the Beauty, he presents us with an accurate analysis of the elimination of this universal (Beauty) from both Catholic and Protestant theology, besides a review on the possibilities of a Protestant Aesthetics. He tries, then, to make it clear the difference between an Aesthetic Theology from a Theological Aesthetics. The task and structure of the latter is then explored. There's no way to go on in such detailness through the whole book, because there are too many points to look at, and this is not the place to do it. But it's worth to say that the main objective of the author, as he goes on working on the 'subjective evidence' through the 'light' and 'experience' of faith (the second part of the book), and at the third part, the 'objective evidence', the main objective, as I was saying, is to precise a 'form', to state the main difference of Christianity from all other world religions, which is exactly the visible and historical form of the God made flesh. After 'seeing' the form of revelation which came from the Old Covenant, we have in Christ the centre of its form, that is, the centre of God's revelation form. I strongly recommend this book to everyone who is seriously wanting to deep his theological studies, or to anyone who wants to learn more about the actual situation of the Church, and Christianity as a whole.

The late Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar was, without a doubt, one of the most important Catholic systematic theologians of the 20th century. This is the first book (of seven) of the first part of his "trilogy" which outlines and describes his systematic theology. As an introduction to his systematics, it is an essential read. To those not familiar with von Balthasar, it's a wonderful place to start.Unsatisfied with Rahner's "transcendental Thomism" and his method of "doing theology from below", von Balthasar begins with the revelation of God. The entire systematic theology is structured around the ancient philosophical transcendentals "Beauty, Truth, and Goodness". In this first volume (and throughout the first part of the trilogy) von Balthasar discusses the Revelation of God to humanity through form and beauty.Truly a remarkable book, and a good introduction to a remarkable man.