Theological Aesthetics After von Balthasar

273 Pages·2008·1.64 MB·English

by  Oleg V. Bychkov

THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS AFTER
VON BALTHASAR
Ashgate Studies in Theology,
Imagination and the Arts
Series Editors:
Trevor Hart, St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews, Scotland
Jeremy Begbie, Ridley Hall, UK
Roger Lundin, Wheaton College, USA
What have imagination and the arts to do with theology? For much of the modern
era, the answer has been, ‘not much’. It is precisely this deficit that this series seeks
to redress. For, whatever role they have or have not been granted in the theological
disciplines, imagination and the arts are undeniably bound up with how we as human
beings think, learn and communicate, engage with and respond to our physical and
social environments and, in particular, our awareness and experience of that which
transcends our own creatureliness. The arts are playing an increasingly significant
role in the way people come to terms with the world; at the same time, artists of
many disciplines are showing a willingness to engage with religious or theological
themes. A spate of publications and courses in many educational institutions has
already established this field as one of fast growing concern.
This series taps into a burgeoning intellectual concern on both sides of the
Atlantic and beyond. The peculiar inter-disciplinarity of theology, and the growing
interest in imagination and the arts in many different fields of human concern, afford
the opportunity for a series which has its roots sunk in varied and diverse intellectual
soils, while focused around a coherent theological question: How are imagination
and the arts involved in the shaping and reshaping of our humanity as part of the
creative and redemptive purposes of God, and what roles do they perform in the
theological enterprise?
Many projects within the series have particular links to the work of the Institute
for Theology Imagination and the Arts in the University of St Andrews, and to the
Theology Through the Arts programme in Cambridge.
Other titles in the series
Baptized Imagination
The Theology of George MacDonald
Kerry Dearborn
Redeeming Beauty
Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics
Aidan Nichols, O.P.
Theological Aesthetics after
von Balthasar
Edited by
OLEG V. BYCHKOV
St. Bonaventure University, USA
JAMES FODOR
St. Bonaventure University, USA
© Oleg V. Bychkov and James Fodor 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Oleg V. Bychkov and James Fodor have asserted their moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
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Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Theological Aesthetics after Von Balthasar. – (Ashgate Studies in Theology, Imagination and
the Arts)
1. Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 1905–1988. 2. Aesthetics – Religious aspects. 3. Theology,
Doctrinal.
I. Bychkov, O. V. II. Fodor, James.
230.2’092
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Theological Aesthetics after Von Balthasar / edited by Oleg V. Bychkov and James Fodor.
p. cm. – (Ashgate studies in theology, imagination, and the arts)
(hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 1905–1988. I. Bychkov, O. V.
II. Fodor, James.
BX4705.B163T44 2008
230’.2092–dc22 2007045052
ISBN 978-0-7546-5834-4
This book has been printed on acid-free paper
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction by Oleg Bychkov xi
List of Contributors xxix
Acknowledgements xxxiii
PART I: The Legacy of von Balthasar
Section A: The Trilogy 3
1 Hans Urs von Balthasar: Beauty as a Gateway to Love 5
Francesca Aran Murphy
2 Hans Urs von Balthasar’s ‘Theatre of the World’:
The Aesthetic of a Dramatics 19
Ben Quash
Section B: Retrieving the Past
3 Transcending the Aesthetic: Gadamer on Tragedy and the Tragic 35
Daniel L. Tate
4 The Beautiful after Thomas Aquinas: Questioning
Present-day Concepts 51
Günther Pöltner
5 Divine Delight: Acceptatio and the Economy of Salvation
in Duns Scotus 59
Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ
6 Hopkins, Scotus and von Balthasar: Philosophical
Theology in Poetry 67
Bernadette Waterman Ward
PART II: Von Balthasar: Some Criticisms
7 Balthasar, Hopkins and the ‘English Tradition’ 81
Fergus Kerr
vi Theological Aesthetics after von Balthasar
8 Von Balthasar and Protestant Aesthetics:
A Mutually Corrective Conversation 97
Lee Barrett
9 Is the Time Right for a Theological Aesthetics? 107
George Pattison
PART III: Outside von Balthasar: The Spectrum of Theological Aesthetics
Section A: General Perspectives
10 Beyond Beauty and the Aesthetic in the Engagement
of Religion and Art 119
Nicholas Wolterstorff
11 The Beauty of the Cross 135
Richard Viladesau
12 Is Good Art Good for Religion? 153
Frank Burch Brown
13 On A New List of Aesthetic Categories 169
Alejandro García-Rivera
Section B: Specific Issues
14 ‘Alien Beauty’: Parabolic Judgment and the Witness of Faith 187
James Fodor
15 The Strange and the Self: Visual Arts and Theology in Aboriginal
and Other (Post-) Colonial Spaces 201
Sigurd Bergmann
16 Aesthetics and the Built Environment 225
Timothy Gorringe
Index 235
List of Illustrations
Figure 1 Anonymous Umbrian painter, San Damiano Cross
(12th c.), Assisi, S. Chiara 146
Figure 2 Matthias Grünewald, The Small Crucifixion
(c. 1511/1520), National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. 148
Figure 3 Paul Gauguin, Yellow Christ (1889), Albright-Knox
Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York 149
Figure 4 Pablo Picasso, The Crucifixion (Sept. 19, 1932),
Musée Picasso, Paris, France. © Succession Picasso/
DACS, © ARS, NY. Photo courtesy of Réunion des
Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY. 150
Figure 5 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.
Photo courtesy of Robert Colombo. 174
Figure 6 Jesus Nazareno de Jocotenango. Photo courtesy of
John Endres, SJ. 175
Figure 7 Replica of the “Black Christ” of Esquípuli,
Guatemala. San Fernando Cathedral, San Antonio,
Texas. Photo courtesy of Alex García-Rivera. 176
Figure 8 St. Martin de Porres. Prayer Card. 179
Figure 9 Karneval beim Sanatorium “Weißer Hirsch,” February
1910 (repr. in: I. Lloyd, German Expressionism
New Haven, London, 1991, p. 115). 205
Figure 10 A. van der Lam, Lapponian landscape, etching (?),
Frontespiez in: Carl von Linné, Flora lapponica
(Amsterdam, 1737), repr. in: Richard Tham,
Lappland och Tornedalen i konsten: Landskapsvyer
1799–1910 (Luleå, 1989), p. 21. 207
Figure 11 Etching, in: Sophus Tromholt, Under Nordlysets
straaler (1885), repr. in: Odd Mathis Hætta, Samene:
historie, kultur, samfunn (Oslo, 1994), p. 34. 208
viii Theological Aesthetics after von Balthasar
Figure 12 Geir Tore Holm, Are you still my friend? Performance,
1999, repr. in: Ofelas, Iver Jåks, Veiviseren (Ofelas,
Iver Jåks, Guide) (Tromsø: Universitetsbiblioteket, 2002),
p. 133. © DACS, London 2007. 212
Figure 13 Iver Jåks, hva for noe, 1994, wood, coloured glass,
rope of reindeer skin. © DACS, London 2007. 218
Figure 14 Britta Marakatt Labba, Niehkodoaivagat/Önskedröm
[Desire dream], textile patchwork, 35 x 35 cm, repr.
in: Britta Marakatt Labba (catalogue) (Luleå, 2000).
© DACS, London 2007. 220
Figure 15 Odd Sivertsen, Blå livsstrand [Blue beach of life], 1995,
oil on canvas, reproduction in: Odd Sivertsen, En himmel
i Nord (Tromsø: Galleri Embla, 1999), p. 13 221
Abbreviations
References to works by Balthasar are given, where possible, in parentheses in the
text of the book. Otherwise they are to be found in footnotes.
GL1 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 1: Seeing the Form,
translated by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, edited by Joseph Fessio and
John Riches (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1983)
GL2 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 2:
Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, translated by Andrew Louth,
Francis McDonagh, and Brian McNeil; edited by John Riches
(San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1984)
GL3 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 3: Studies
in Theological Style: Lay Styles, translated by Andrew Louth,
John Saward, Martin Simon and Rowan Williams; edited by John Riches
(San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1986)
GL4 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 4: The Realm of
Metaphysics in Antiquity, translated by John Kenneth Riches
(San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1989)
GL5 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 5: The Realm of
Metaphysics in the Modern Age, translated by O. Davies et al. (Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark, 1991)
GL7 The Glory of the Lord. A Theological Aesthetics. Volume 7: Theology: The
New Covenant, translated by Brian McNeil (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1989)
AvP First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, translated by Antje Lawry and Sr.
Sergia Englund (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1981)
ExT1 Explorations in Theology I: The Word Made Flesh, translated by
A.V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press,
1989)
ExT2 Explorations in Theology II: Spouse of the Word, translated by
A.V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press,
1991)