The work of the influential Jesuit theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) has become a common point of reference in discussing the relationship of theology and the arts. However, the full significance of his theological aesthetics for both the emerging field of theology and the arts, as well as for interdisciplinary conversation with contemporary art and theory, remains to be unfolded. This book explores the ways in which Balthasar's theo-aesthetics, when taken together with his theological dramatics and theo-logic, yield a theologically informed phenomenology of the work of art with rich implications for contemporary theologies of art. By investigating the nature and disclosure of beauty and being through art, Balthasar's theological re-reading of Heidegger, his theo-dramatic relation of all forms to Christ, and his phenomenology of truth, Balthasar's philosophical and theological insights into the nature of art are presented as a resource for a constructive theology of art which "springs" from the depths of his theological aesthetics.

This book is an introduction to French phenomenology in the post-1945 period. While many of phenomenology’s greatest thinkers—Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty—wrote before this period, Steven DeLay introduces and assesses the creative and important turn phenomenology took after these figures. He presents a clear and rigorous introduction to the work of relatively unfamiliar and underexplored philosophers, including Jean-Louis Chrétien, Michel Henry, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Jean-Luc Marion and others. After an introduction setting out the crucial Husserlian and Heideggerian background to French phenomenology, DeLay explores Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy, Henry’s material phenomenology, Marion’s phenomenology of givenness, Lacoste’s phenomenology of liturgical man, Chrétien’s phenomenology of the call, Claude Romano’s evential hermeneutics, and Emmanuel Falque’s phenomenology of the borderlands. Starting with the reception of Husserl and Heidegger in France, DeLay explains how this phenomenological thought challenges boundaries between philosophy and theology. Taking stock of its promise in light of the legacy it has transformed, DeLay concludes with a summary of the field’s relevance to theology and analytic philosophy, and indicates what the future holds for phenomenology. Phenomenology in France: A Philosophical and Theological Introduction is an excellent resource for all students and scholars of phenomenology and continental philosophy, and will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as theology, literature, and French studies.

Bringing together thinkers from philosophy of religion, religious studies, music, art, and film, while drawing on a wealth of phenomenological resources and methods, a team of renowned scholars provide new vantages on the question of how art is an expression of the human desire for God. In three interrelated parts, chapters employ phenomenological tools to propose new ways for speaking of the desire for God. Scholars first draw upon music, sculpture, film, and painting to develop ways of expressing diverse philosophical and religious aspects characteristic of aesthetic experience. The discussion then opens up to examine the mystical and wounded aspects of embodied interface with God. The final part investigates embodied aesthetic praxis in philosophy of religion and religious studies. With several contributions engaging with the embodied, aesthetic experience of underrepresented voices, Art, Desire, and God offers constructive phenomenological bridges across divides of disciplines, aesthetic experiences, and embodied actions.

There is growing interest in the relationship between the arts and Christian faith. Much has been written about the arts and theology and the place of the arts in church life. Not as much has been written, however, about how the arts might actually advance spiritual formation in terms of the cumulative effect of religious experience and intentional practices. This book provides a modest step forward in that conversation, a conversation between theological aesthetics and practical theology. Understanding aesthetics as 'the realm of sense perception' and spiritual formation as 'growing capacities to participate in God's purposes', James McCullough suggests how these dynamics can mutually enhance each other, with the arts as an effective catalyst for this relationship. McCullough proposes an analysis of artistic communication and explores exciting examples from music, poetry, and painting, which render theoretical proposals in concrete terms. This book will engage both those new to the arts and those already deeply familiar with them.

This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesau's goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.

Volume XXI Special Issue, 2023 Part 1: Phenomenological Perspectives on Aesthetics and Art Part 2: Heidegger and Contemporary French Philosophy Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl’s groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Reinach, Scheler, Stein, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Liliana Albertazzi, Dimitris Apostolopoulos, Gabriele Baratelli, Anna Irene Baka, Irene Breuer, John Brough, Peer Bundgaard, Justin Clemens, Richard Colledge, Bryan Cooke, Françoise Dastur, Ivo De Gennaro, Natalie Depraz, Helena De Preester, Daniele De Santis, Madalina Diaconu, Arto Haapala, Robyn Horner, Erik Kuravsky, Donald Landes, Elisa Magri, Michelle Maiese, Regina-Nino Mion, Brian O’Connor, Costas Pagondiotis, Knox Peden, Constantinos Picolas, Hans Reiner Sepp, Jack Reynolds, Jon Roffe, Claude Romano, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Michela Summa, Panos Theodorou, Fotini Vassiliou, and Sanem Yazicioglu. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors (burt-crowell.hopkins@univ-lille3.fr and daniele.desantis@ff.cuni.cz) electronically via e-mail attachments.

The thesis of this essay may be stated quite briefly: Vatican II is a demonstration model of the phenomenological method employed on an international scale. It exemplifies the final developmental stage, postulated by Husserl, of an inter subjective phenomenology which would take its point of departure, not from individual subjectivity, but from transcendental intersubjectivity. Vatican II, accordingly, offers a unique application of a universal transcendental philosophy in the field of religious reflection for the practical purposes of moral and socio cultural renewal. Phenomenology, as a distinctively European development, is relatively un known in America - at least in its pure form. Our contact with this style of 1 intuitive reflection is usually filtered through psychology or sociology. How ever, Edmund Husserl, The Father of Phenomenology, was originally trained in mathematics, and he entered the field of philosophy because he recognized 2 that the theoretical foundations of modern science were disintegrating. He foresaw that, unless this situation were rectified, modern men would eventually slip into an attitude of absolute scepticism, relativism, and pragmatism. After the First World War he saw this theoretical problem mirrored more and more in the social turbulence of Europe, and his thoughts turned to the need for a 3 renewal at all levels of life. In 1937 when Nazism was triumphant in Germany, and Europe on the brink of World War II, he wrote his last major work, The 4 Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy.

*Presents a rigorous reexamination of von Balthasars interpretation of major ancient and medieval texts*

In The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Matthew Levering has written a book for theologically educated readers who mistrust von Balthasar or who mistrust von Balthasar’s critics. The book shows that von Balthasar’s critics can and should benefit both from the rich and wide-ranging conversations that mark his trilogy and from the critical and constructive engagement with German philosophical modernity offered by the trilogy. In addition, Levering hopes to show that those who mistrust von Balthasar’s critics need to be more Balthasarian in their response to criticisms of the Swiss theologian.

Tending the Fire That Burns at the Center of the World engages the central question of Christian formation, that is, what kind of knowing is most likely to awaken and sustain Christian faith? This book seeks to reclaim aesthetics--beauty and creativity--as the church's most native theological way of knowing and being, which participates with God's own glory and creativity. This book traces the prominence of aesthetics up until the dawn of the Enlightenment, including recent theologians who reclaim aesthetics for theology and formation. The book elaborates the aims and techniques of aesthetic approaches to teaching and learning in the church. Finally, this book cautions against overly determined rationalisms and moralisms that do not retain a sense of wonder, delight, and openness in the church's teaching, liturgy, and proclamation. In this view, the church does not simply regurgitate familiar texts, political tropes, or flattened doctrines but breaks into the world as Christ's body, a parable, a song, a flash mob, interrupting business as usual, giving new expression to acts of care, repentance, forgiveness, joy, and communion, awake to the beauty of God's gifts and inviting our worship.