A Grace of Sense - theological aesthetics

  [Ich bitte um Geduld wegen meine grammatischen Fehler] Theologie ist Kenntnis bzw. Wissenschaft des Wortes Gottes. Die eigentliche, buchstäbliche Meinung des Wortes θεολόγια ist gerade „das Wort Gottes“. Besonders die protestantische Theologie hat immer hervorgehoben, dass der einzige Boden alles christlichen Denkens das Wort Gottes sei, und damit hat man letztlich – wenn nicht ausschließlich - die Heilige Schrift gemeint. Allerdings ist zu beachten, dass es steht außer Frage, wenigstens inmitten den kirchlich-geistlichen Sprachgebrauch, dass das Wort Gottes heißt die Bibel. Einen Laienperson kann es verwirrend anmuten, wenn es nicht so unbedingt sei.  Jedoch kann man behaupten, dass die Idee des Wortes Gottes als ein gedruckter Bibeltext ist - theologiegeschichtlich gesehen - sehr spät. In der Tat ist es nicht mehr als fünfhundert Jahre alt: Bibel als ein Buch veranlasst Buchdruckerei und Leserschaft. Der Anzahl lesekündige Christen war bis die Reformation – und auch später...

  Moses said, "I pray thee, show me thy glory."And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live." And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen." (Ex 33, 18-23) When Gregory of Nyssa (d.395) explains this passage in his Life of Moses, his point in question is the endless eros , interminable longing for God that can never attain its fulfillment or rest in a complete satisfaction.  "This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to s...

 The Swedish theologian Anders Nygren wrote some 90 years ago his groundbreaking study Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna (Engl. "Eros and Agape"). The basic idea of Nygren is simple: There are two main forms - or motives - of love. The first is eros, that means human desire for fulfillment. Love as eros is aimed at the person/thing that I am wanting, that satisfies my longing and fills the empty space in my heart. The second form of love is agape, that does not seek for its own, but is generously giving itself to the other. This, precisely, is the Christian love promoted by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. The cross of Christ unfolded the meaning of agape: self-surrender until death. "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins." (1 Jn 4,10) In Nygren's view, eros appears as the selfish kind of love, whereas agape has a more divine and disinterested aura. Nygren, the Lutheran bishop, finds the...

Je me considère comme une non-croyante. Mais si le lien à Dieu est celui du Cantique des cantiques, je suis prête à le partager. (Julia Kristeva) "How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful!" (Sgs 4,1) What we do know about this little book called Shir ha-Shirim in Hebrew, according to the modern Biblical scholarship? Three things could be pointed at. First, Song of Songs is a book that does not mention the name of the Lord (Jahweh) at all, except for a vague implication in 8,6. Second, it boldly celebrates the sexual love between a man and a woman. Third, it has neither a moral agenda nor a doctrinal teaching, but exhibits pure joy of sensuous love. Still, this ancient erotic poem is, according to many great theologians of Christianity, the very book that tells most about God! Its being a part of the Holy Scripture would perhaps have been contested, was it not of an ancient origin (and, supposedly, Solomonic authorship). Nevertheless, the idea that it contains mo...

"And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (Gen 2:9) It is worth noting that the aesthetic dimension (pleasant to the sight) is mentioned here before the material usefulness (good for food) of the trees of paradise. This is the first verse to attest the aesthetic character of the Bible, alongside the reiterated phrase "God saw that it was good". God creates beauty and is pleased by it. This is the very first thing to know about the Creator. There are many words for the beautiful in the Old Testament Hebrew: tiph'ara "beauty", hadar "majesty", 'oz "brightness" etc. However, the most prominent word for the aesthetic in the Bible is "glory" (Hebrew kabod , Greek doxa ) that is discussed below. Suffice it to say here that arguably the greatest account on theological aesthetics in the 20th century is Hans Urs von Balthasar's encyclopedic Herrlichkeit ...

  There are several possible approaches to the art among Christians. In the following, I tend to draft them in a cursory manner. 1. Art is harmful for a Christian This extreme view has been promoted by some pietist or monastic movements. The bleakest parts of Leo Tolstoy's aesthetics may suggest this view. Art generally, and music and dance in particular, arouse emotions that provoke lust and lasciviousness. Even when that is not the case, artistic figures and niceties distract the soul from its concentration to prayer and spirituality. To sum, there is nothing good or useful for a Christian in the arts. 2. Art is irrelevant to spirituality According to this view, arts are not bad in themselves. In fact, they may be considered as gifts of God, but they have no spiritual value. They do not belong to the spiritual realm, their virtues are mundane. In that regard art is similar to politics or furniture. 3. Art is a good hobby for a Christian A human being needs pleasurable pastime act...

What is the factor that unites the diverse books of the Bible? What has the Pentateuch common with the Apocalypse, or the Song of Songs with the Pauline epistles? Martin Luther determined the justification of the sinner to be the doctrine that joins all the books of the Bible together, written on every page of it. As persuasive as this view is, it is hardly tenable. Indeed, there are many pages of the Scripture that do not mention the justification of the sinner. Justification is a good nominee for the uniting bond between the various texts of the Bible, but not an entirely satisfying one. I argue that the thing that joins all the literary genres and individual books of the Bible is their aesthetic character. This is not a highly original statement, but rather something very obvious. The aesthetic character of the Bible can be perceived along the following traits: Musicality. Many texts of the Bible are made for singing, Psalms in particular. There are many other songs, too: in the Pro...

Photo: Timo Rasimus The Islamic tradition tells that some people have converted to Islam on account of the sheer beauty of the Arabic of the Qur'an. Lacking the knowledge of the language,  ignorant of the teachings of the Prophet, they have nevertheless grasped the spiritual depth of the text (or, rather, recitation). This kind of religious awakening has hardly other than an aesthetic nature. There is neither theological doctrine nor moral obligation involved. Something strikes a person, changing his or her world at once, and one does not know what it is (a counterpart for the aesthetic nescio quid ). A similar story is told within Eastern Christianity. The conversion of Russians to Christianity happened through (or with a little help of) an aesthetic experience, according to the 12th century Nestor's Chronicle . The envoys of the Prince Vladimir reported, after attending the service in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: "We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth....

In the ancient Greece, humor, playfulness, and jokes were considered as something proper to children and slaves but not appropriate for free men. Plato wanted to drive away the comedians from his Republic. The Christian Church inherited this view on humor. Accordingly, laughter was deemed as superfluous, if not sinful. Jesus is not told to have laughed, and in monastic rules (e.g. the Rule of St. Benedict) laughter is prohibited for monks and nuns.  It is worth noting that laughter in the Bible has usually the touch of scorn, as "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision" (Ps. 2,4). Even God himself seems occasionally lack the sense of humor when He asks: "Why did Sarah laugh?" (Gen. 18,13) Later, Thomas Aquinas had an interesting discussion on humor in Summa Theologiae II-II, quaestio 168 . He asks, whether the "lack of play" ( defectus ludi ) can be viewed as sin. Typically, Aquinas begins with an argument against play and laughter...

"Les offrandes oubliées" (1930) is a major achievement of a newly graduated composer, a work that points out the essential traits of Messiaen's music: his preoccupation with rhythm, his modal language (Messiaen is not tonal or atonal composer, but modal) and his Catholic Christian faith. These features, with the later extensive use of birdsong, prevailed throughout Messiaen's career until his death in 1992. Messiaen commented on his faith in an interview in 1961 as follows: "God for me is manifest. and my conception of sacred music derives from this conviction. God being present in all things, music dealing with theological subjects can and must be extremely varied. The Catholic religion is a real fairy-story, with this difference, it is all true. I have therefore, in the words of Ernest Hello, tried to produce 'a music that touches all things without ceasing to touch God'. But, if my music is a spontaneous act of faith, without premeditation, it is by...

Roman de la Rose , or "The Romance of the Rose" was arguably the most read book in late medieval Europe. It is a courtly romance manifesting troubadour world view and suggestive of the erotic poetry of Decamerone.  The French allegorical poem tells about the pursuit of a woman and the final enjoyment of her favors. The book has two authors. Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first part in twelfth century and Jean de Meun continued in the thirteenth century. Generally speaking, the first part is still innocent, but the stanzas written by Jean de Meun are more graphic in their sexual imagery. No wonder that Roman de la Rose alarmed church officials and aroused heated discussions. When the chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson (1363-1429), one of the foremost theologians of his day, decided to enter into the discussion on  Roman de la Rose in the beginning of the 15th century,   the book had been around for a hundred years. Perhaps the book had not achieved an ep...

I browsed in vain three philosophical  internet encyclopedias ( The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie and L'Encyclopédie philosophique ) to find an entry on joy ( Freude, joie ). Joy is apparently not a major philosophical concern, but something subordinate to bigger questions.  There seems to be two philosophical approaches to joy. In the first one, it is associated with general discussion on emotions. In the western tradition, emotions stand for an inchoate or lower form of understanding, or even something opposite to the reason. On the other side, joy is connected to pleasure. Pleasure for its part stands for something sensuous, which again introduces the question whether gratification of senses is tantamount to happiness - and whether happiness is the ultimate goal of human existence. Religion in general and Christianity in particular provides a deeper understanding of joy. The Christian gospel, euangelion, is "the good new...

The Hungarian Béla Bartók (1881-1945) was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. He was also an outspoken atheist. Therefore I am puzzled by the recurrent religioso markings of his late works. The viola concerto (Sz 120) and the 3rd piano concerto (Sz 119) include a middle part titled adagio religioso (to be precise, the viola concerto has it in the version made by Tibor Serly). What does this religioso stand for? The Bartók biography by Kenneth Chalmers uncovers the composer's thoughts on religion to some degree. An important source is Bartók's letter to the violinist Stefi Geyer, who was some kind of a femme fatale to Bartók. Bartók dedicated his first violin concerto (that remained unperformed during the composer's lifetime) to Geyer, to whom he had a crush on. It is possible that they parted because of their opposite views on religion. In the letter to Stefi Geyer, Bartók describes his atheist stance. It becomes clear that Bartók is not a straightforward...

The Aesthetic View of Christianity Christianity can be viewed as a non-aesthetic stance, remote from outer appearances and physical phenomena. Soren Kierkegaard is an advocate of this existentialist reading of Christianity that emphasizes the paradox. “To believe that the artistic helps one into actuality is just as mistaken as to believe that the more artistically complete the sermon, the more it must influence the transformation of life — alas, no, the more it influences life esthetically, the more it influences away from the existential.”  This view is discernible in the thinking of modern theologians like Karl Barth or Rudolf Bultmann. Basis for Christian understanding of beauty: creation and incarnation Most of Christian theology can approve the words of John Keats: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Unlike Kierkegaard’s mistrust of the aesthetic, Friedrich Schleiermacher defines religion as an aesthetic endeavor: “Religion’s essence is neither thinking nor actin...

The Word of God is the basis for Christian theology. Only very modern, liberal theologies may claim that there is some other source of Christianity that would be more important, such as "human religious experience". All great traditions of Christian spirituality attest that the Word of God is the source of theology. However, "the Word of God" may have several different meanings. In the protestant world, the Word of God is equivalent for "the Holy Bible". This view is correct, yet inadequate. Everything in the Church is based (in one way or another) to the Bible. It is the major litarary source of Christianity, even if not the one and only. Fundamentalist theologians tend to ignore the significance of creeds and ecumenical symbols. There is no direct access to the Bible that could take no notice to the two millennia of Chriatian thinking. Nevertheless, there is no way getting rid of the Bible. For a Christian, the Bible is neither a historical document ...

After Luther’s death in 1546, the real presence of the body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper became the shibboleth of orthodoxy in Lutheranism. It was thought that one could thereby distinguish between Philippists or Crypto-Calvinists and genuine Lutherans. A major proponent of the Lutheran position was the Reformer of Württemberg, Johannes Brenz (1499-1570). The writings that gave Brenz a place in the history of theology are De personali unione (1561) and De maiestate Domini (1562). In these treatises he continues and deepens the argumentation of the real presence advocated in the Stuttgart Confession (1559). His opponents were Swiss reformers Peter Martyr Vermigli and Heinrich Bullinger, who commented his writings. Vermigli died while writing a reply for De personali unione . At his deathbed, his friend Bullinger comforted him with the word of God: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3,20) and Vermigli replied: “But not in Brenz’ heaven, that is nowhere.” The Christologi...

"Beauty redeems the world” says the protagonist, Prince Myshkin, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot. For many reasons, he sounds like an idiot—today even more than before. Nothing redeems the world anymore; terms like redemption or justification have disappeared from the public sphere and come to be religious gibberish. Moreover, if there is anything in Christianity that brings hope to this world, it is not beauty. One may suggest justice, human dignity, or peace for the Christian agenda for the world, but not beauty. Even those who consider art the source of meaning in this world find the word beauty old-fashioned and inadequate. Aesthetic value has replaced beauty in the philosophy of art. In this article, I nevertheless maintain that Prince Myshkin was right. The Christian faith is an aesthetic view of the world: it perceives beauty even where beauty is not apparent. This is possible because a Christian is a person who is beautiful in God’s sight. For Protes...