What do you think?
Rate this book
The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics #2
Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles
Henri de Lubac has described von Balthasar as 'probably the most cultured man in Europe'. In volumes II and III von Balthasar shows the extraordinary range of his knowledge and expertise in a series of essays designed to illustrate different ways in which theologians have shared their work. What he offers is 'a typology of the relationship between beauty and revelation' which shows 'that there neither has been nor could be any true great and historically fruitful theology which was not expressly conceived and born under the constellation of beauty and grace'.
Volume II offers a series of studies of representative figures from the earlier period of Christian theology - Irenaeus, Augustine, Denys, Anselm and Bonventura.
366 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
9 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Hans Urs von Balthasar
456 books312 followersHans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th century.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. While Rahner offered a progressive, accommodating position on modernity and Lonergan worked out a philosophy of history that sought to critically appropriate modernity, Balthasar resisted the reductionism and human focus of modernity, wanting Christianity to challenge modern sensibilities.
Balthasar is very eclectic in his approach, sources, and interests and remains difficult to categorize. An example of his eclecticism was his long study and conversation with the influential Reformed Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. While Rahner offered a progressive, accommodating position on modernity and Lonergan worked out a philosophy of history that sought to critically appropriate modernity, Balthasar resisted the reductionism and human focus of modernity, wanting Christianity to challenge modern sensibilities.
Balthasar is very eclectic in his approach, sources, and interests and remains difficult to categorize. An example of his eclecticism was his long study and conversation with the influential Reformed Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 25, 2022
Von Balthasar is the final boss of theology and I think it's fair to say that his Trilogy is the greatest theological system of the twentieth century. Rahner is the only competition, though maybe you could make a case for Bulgakov, or Florensky (if he had written a more systematic series of works).
With that said, this volume of Glory really shows von Balthasar's weaknesses as a writer. Apart from his penchant for mentioning Schellingian dialectic/freedom once per page for no discernible reason, this really isn't a theological work so much as a collection of his notes on various thinkers. Von Balthasar's greatest individual works are the early books on Maximus and Gregory of Nyssa, and those are basically the same thing; very well-written summaries of great theologians, with zero original content.
Balthasar is a very good reader, and is insanely knowledgeable, but ultimately I think it's fair to say that he's not much of an original theologian; where he attempts original thought, like near the end of Theo-Drama, it's weird semi-heretical nonsense (drawn from Adrienne von Speyr etc.) or just, like, Hegel (see Theo-Logic vol. 1).
But really from his doctoral dissertation in the 1930s all the way through the 1980s, his writing style relies far too heavily on just awkwardly fitting together info-dumps of notes on various thinkers -- likely just going through a stack of citations on index cards and literally writing them out verbatim -- and either connecting them awkwardly through dialectic (Theo-Drama is the worst offender here) or stating that there's no dialectic but still basically adding it (Glory).
With that said, this volume of Glory really shows von Balthasar's weaknesses as a writer. Apart from his penchant for mentioning Schellingian dialectic/freedom once per page for no discernible reason, this really isn't a theological work so much as a collection of his notes on various thinkers. Von Balthasar's greatest individual works are the early books on Maximus and Gregory of Nyssa, and those are basically the same thing; very well-written summaries of great theologians, with zero original content.
Balthasar is a very good reader, and is insanely knowledgeable, but ultimately I think it's fair to say that he's not much of an original theologian; where he attempts original thought, like near the end of Theo-Drama, it's weird semi-heretical nonsense (drawn from Adrienne von Speyr etc.) or just, like, Hegel (see Theo-Logic vol. 1).
But really from his doctoral dissertation in the 1930s all the way through the 1980s, his writing style relies far too heavily on just awkwardly fitting together info-dumps of notes on various thinkers -- likely just going through a stack of citations on index cards and literally writing them out verbatim -- and either connecting them awkwardly through dialectic (Theo-Drama is the worst offender here) or stating that there's no dialectic but still basically adding it (Glory).
March 23, 2015
This is pure genius - I really love Balthasar.
This is the second volume of the first part of Balthasar's trilogy, and it's just wonderful. The first volume (Seeing the Form) was all about theoretically describing the loss of beauty as a fundamental aspect of being, and of God (beauty as a transcendental), and Balthasar's introduction to how we ought to discuss beauty in relation to God (primarily as the form of Christ). This is just an introduction.
This volume is the first of two parts, and in it Balthasar looks at the "clerical" styles of talking about beauty (the next volume is "lay" styles, by which he means figures like Dante, Peguy, and Hopkins). "Clerical" seems to mean 'doctors of the church' - so the five thinkers he looks at are Irenaeus, Augustine, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Anselm, and Bonaventure.In all of these thinkers he's looking at their aesthetics - how they conceive of beauty in relationship to God.
For Irenaeus, he focuses on the famous "the glory of God is a living human" idea - that the beauty of God is most evident the notion of a temporal salvation, and in the incarnation. In Augustine, he focuses on the aesthetics of the "Idea," or how the beauty of the God (the Idea) is instantiated through the love of God. For Dionysius, the founder of the idea of the analogia entis, he focuses on Dionysius' notion of how the form of the world points to God, even as God is beyond all form and beyond all being. With Anselm, he focuses on Anselm's notion of "rectitude," or appropriate reasoning, and how the beauty of God's salvation is seen in God's appropriate relationship with creation, and vice versa. In Bonaventure he focuses on the fact that the form of Jesus the crucified is the measure of all things, and as such the wealth of beauty is fully expressed in the poverty of the cross.
Of all the theologians, I found Dionysius and Bonaventure the most interesting - and so does Balthasar, since he spends the most time on these two figures (Bonaventure is a full 100 pages, more than any other, and, as Balthasar says, the most aesthetic of all theologians). Balthasar has a fascinating way of allowing these figures to speak for themselves (he quotes them a lot), and framing their aesthetic concerns.
This is the second volume of the first part of Balthasar's trilogy, and it's just wonderful. The first volume (Seeing the Form) was all about theoretically describing the loss of beauty as a fundamental aspect of being, and of God (beauty as a transcendental), and Balthasar's introduction to how we ought to discuss beauty in relation to God (primarily as the form of Christ). This is just an introduction.
This volume is the first of two parts, and in it Balthasar looks at the "clerical" styles of talking about beauty (the next volume is "lay" styles, by which he means figures like Dante, Peguy, and Hopkins). "Clerical" seems to mean 'doctors of the church' - so the five thinkers he looks at are Irenaeus, Augustine, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Anselm, and Bonaventure.In all of these thinkers he's looking at their aesthetics - how they conceive of beauty in relationship to God.
For Irenaeus, he focuses on the famous "the glory of God is a living human" idea - that the beauty of God is most evident the notion of a temporal salvation, and in the incarnation. In Augustine, he focuses on the aesthetics of the "Idea," or how the beauty of the God (the Idea) is instantiated through the love of God. For Dionysius, the founder of the idea of the analogia entis, he focuses on Dionysius' notion of how the form of the world points to God, even as God is beyond all form and beyond all being. With Anselm, he focuses on Anselm's notion of "rectitude," or appropriate reasoning, and how the beauty of God's salvation is seen in God's appropriate relationship with creation, and vice versa. In Bonaventure he focuses on the fact that the form of Jesus the crucified is the measure of all things, and as such the wealth of beauty is fully expressed in the poverty of the cross.
Of all the theologians, I found Dionysius and Bonaventure the most interesting - and so does Balthasar, since he spends the most time on these two figures (Bonaventure is a full 100 pages, more than any other, and, as Balthasar says, the most aesthetic of all theologians). Balthasar has a fascinating way of allowing these figures to speak for themselves (he quotes them a lot), and framing their aesthetic concerns.
August 8, 2021
The two stand-out treatments for me in this volume of "clerical styles" were Denys and Bonaventure. Here, as well as the others treated (Irenaeus, Augustine, and Anselm), we find masterful analysis of each's theological aesthetics. What surprises the most, is how Balthasar convinces so thoroughly that aesthetics is so fundamental to the theological tradition of Christianity.
November 28, 2019
Great summary of the beautiful in Iranaeus, Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, Anselem, and Bonaventure
"If everything in the world that is fine and beautiful is epiphaneia, the radiance and splendour which breaks forth in expressive form from a veiled and yet mighty depth of being, then the event of the self-revelation of the hidden, the utterly free and sovereign God in the forms of this world, in word and history, and finally in the human form itself, will itself form an analogy to that worldly beauty however far it outstrips it."
"If everything in the world that is fine and beautiful is epiphaneia, the radiance and splendour which breaks forth in expressive form from a veiled and yet mighty depth of being, then the event of the self-revelation of the hidden, the utterly free and sovereign God in the forms of this world, in word and history, and finally in the human form itself, will itself form an analogy to that worldly beauty however far it outstrips it."
December 30, 2022
Sometimes I read books that are beyond me and then pretend that I am qualified to assess their value using an arbirtary 5 star rating system.
March 18, 2015
Every von Balthasar book provides such a mind orgasm I almost feel guilty reading them. I will admit this one was heavy going in some places; not sure whether the blame the translators, or just that I wasn't familiar with some of the thinkers he reviews. This book surveys the theology of Irenaeus, Augustine (my name-saint!), Denys, Anselm, and Bonaventure. I loved his strong defense of Denys who fell into some disrepute among scholars after they discovered he was not actually a contemporary of the apostles. A great read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews