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Beauty: A Theological Engagement with Gregory of Nyssa
Beauty engages fourth-century bishop Gregory of Nyssa to address beauty's place in theology and the broader world. With the recent resurgence of attention to beauty among theologians, questions still remain about what exactly beauty is, how it is perceived, and whether we should celebrate its return. If beauty fell out of favor because it was seen to distract from the weightier concerns of poverty and suffering--because it can even be a tool of oppression--why should we laud it now? Gregory's writings offer surprisingly rich and relevant reflections that can move contemporary conversations beyond current impasses and critiques of beauty. Drawing Gregory into conversation with such disparate voices as novelist J. M. Coetzee and art theorist Kaja Silverman, Beauty displays the importance of beauty to theology and theology to beauty in a discussion that bridges ancient and modern, practical and theoretical, secular and religious."Natalie Carnes has written a remarkable book--in its range, its learning and its imaginative sweep. All good history and theology thrive on imaginative engagement--while beauty is most enticing when it is veiled and presented as a mystery. Gregory of Nyssa emerges from these pages as a writer and theologian for our time, at once ancient and postmodern."--David Jasper, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK"A compelling exploration of Gregory of Nyssa as theologian of the divine beauty. Drawing on her extensive knowledge of Gregory's writings, Natalie Carnes shows how the themes of fittingness and gratuity take us deep into the heart of his Trinitarian vision. To know God's beauty is to be wounded--and transformed. A remarkable achievement."--Joseph L. Mangina, Wycliffe College, Toronto, Ontario, Canada"Attentive, as many recent theological writers are not, to the dangers of beauty and of the ideologizing of beauty in bourgeois discourse, [Carnes] takes us from the modern alternatives of functionality or distinterestedness to the complementarity of gratuity and fittingness. Through Gregory's writings this is shown to illuminate both the sufferings of Christ and, poignantly, the human sufferings exemplified by his sister's breast cancer. The book reminds those of us who have read less of Gregory than we should have how much we are missing."--George Pattison, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK"Beauty is a singular achievement. It retrieves from Gregory key Trinitarian insights and constructively recasts them in the service of delineating a vision of beauty that speaks to our time. . . . 'Fittingness' and 'gratuity' are key to Carnes's theological investigation, categories that she refracts in three primary first, theologically, according to Gregory's doctrine of God . . . second, christologically, according to the way that we confront in the person of Jesus of Nazareth an unsettling juxtaposition of beauty and poverty; and third, pneumatologically, according to the workings of the Holy Spirit who schools us to recognize beauty anew through a wounding of the self, achieved by means of suffering and love of neighbor."--Jim Fodor, St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, NYNatalie Carnes is Assistant Professor of Theology at Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
- GenresTheologyPhilosophy
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 13, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 9, 2017
It is a great joy to see Gregory of Nyssa taken seriously for the thick theological and philosophical contributions he has to offer. Carnes beautifully renders Nyssen as a keen and spacious thinker who delights in the generous transcendence of God for the flourishing of humanity. This is a wonderful treatment of Gregory that deserves a slow read.
She situates her exploration of Nyssen's understanding of beauty in the urgency of determining the possibilities of beauty as well as the dangers. Beauty is dynamic and transformative and can also comply with cruelty and oppression. According to Carnes, “Gregory of Nyssa claims more for beauty. He invokes a beauty that itself resists oppression, particularly the oppression of social structures that accommodate us to poverty, hunger, and suffering. Resistance comes both from the invisibility of Beauty and from its visibility on the face of the poor, as the image of God, and in eschatological glory. The way Gregory locates the beauty in which beautiful objects, actions, and people participate positions beauty to challenge assimilation to cruelty and sloth” (9).
Carnes demonstrates that, for Gregory, beauty as both fittingness and gratuitous distinguishes his approach from others. Beauty as primarily fitting or beauty as primarily gratuitous easily tip over into cruelty and oppression but Christ's affirmation of the goodness of creation in the Incarnation and the future resurrection for humans hold these in tandem and ground beauty in embodiment. Bodies do not disappear in the ascent (84). Indeed, embodiment is beautiful and even functions as a sign of divine presence. Carnes's read of Gregory of Nyssa makes it clear that we've only scratched the surface of his contributions for modern theology.
She situates her exploration of Nyssen's understanding of beauty in the urgency of determining the possibilities of beauty as well as the dangers. Beauty is dynamic and transformative and can also comply with cruelty and oppression. According to Carnes, “Gregory of Nyssa claims more for beauty. He invokes a beauty that itself resists oppression, particularly the oppression of social structures that accommodate us to poverty, hunger, and suffering. Resistance comes both from the invisibility of Beauty and from its visibility on the face of the poor, as the image of God, and in eschatological glory. The way Gregory locates the beauty in which beautiful objects, actions, and people participate positions beauty to challenge assimilation to cruelty and sloth” (9).
Carnes demonstrates that, for Gregory, beauty as both fittingness and gratuitous distinguishes his approach from others. Beauty as primarily fitting or beauty as primarily gratuitous easily tip over into cruelty and oppression but Christ's affirmation of the goodness of creation in the Incarnation and the future resurrection for humans hold these in tandem and ground beauty in embodiment. Bodies do not disappear in the ascent (84). Indeed, embodiment is beautiful and even functions as a sign of divine presence. Carnes's read of Gregory of Nyssa makes it clear that we've only scratched the surface of his contributions for modern theology.
December 17, 2025
"The ugliness that names a deprivation of beauty due to poverty or suffering is also the occasion for a particular participation in the beauty of Christ. As God can join to what is not-God (can become, that is, a creature that is human, suffering, and poor) without ceasing to be God, so beauty can join to what is not-beauty (can saturate poverty and suffering) such that that which is poor and suffering is taken up into the beautiful."
May 7, 2020
So many sections of this are deeply profound. Some parts exceeded my limited comprehension.
June 27, 2023
This book was an experience to read. It gave me language for things that I had only known by intuition and expanded on my knowledge of different views of beauty within and outside of the Christian church. I read Esther Lightcap Meek’s “A Little Manual for Knowing” and definitely recommend reading both together as I found they informed, and conversed with, each other well.
February 27, 2023
Absolutely fascinating! Carnes does a wonderful job of conversing with the theology of Gregory of Nyssa.
4/⭐️ because I only took in about 20% of what was happening on my first read. Super dense but worth looking into.
4/⭐️ because I only took in about 20% of what was happening on my first read. Super dense but worth looking into.
February 7, 2017
When one hears the word, 'beauty,' one undoubtedly is evoked images of physical appeal--specifically feminine. This was not the case 2,000+ years ago with Socrates and Plato. For these Greek Masters, 'beauty' evokes powerful intellectual and pleasurable appeal of the highest and greatest attainment humans could ever grasp: the Ultimate (Good). Centuries later, another admirer of beauty not just philosophized but also (Christianly) theologized 'beauty' as God: Gregory of Nyssa (His name is Gregory and he bishoped at Nyssa).
Natalie Carnes, assistant professor of theology at Baylor, expanded her dissertation to this 250 paged book that crosses theological aesthetics (beauty) and Gregory of Nyssa's theology. Carnes invites readers to absorb the foreign world of Greco-Roman antiquities and revive a (very dead but) worthy conversation partner on beauty.
The first chapter reviews the history of beauty's demise, passing through the sullied hands of post-Enlightenment Europe. The rest of the three chapters retrieves Gregory of Nyssa's theology according to his theological biographies and selected homilies. Carnes first establishes the radical transcendences of God based the ontological difference between Creator and creation in creatio ex nihilo. She then mingles beauty with ugliness with the Word's scandalous mingling with flesh: poverty and suffering have been declared beautiful solely because Word dwelt among them. Finally, she described the animating and healing and beautifying power of the Spirit, through whom we have participation in the Word towards the radically transcendent God.
No book can solve all problems, but Carnes's book stimulates important discussions on a topic that was, at first, so at home in theological and philosophical discourses, but now is absent. And though Gregory of Nyssa lived a vastly different world with starkly different worldviews from us, he is more than capable to hold his ground as we hold onto ours as we continue conversations. Welcome back, Gregory.
cf. www.sooholee.wordpress.com
Natalie Carnes, assistant professor of theology at Baylor, expanded her dissertation to this 250 paged book that crosses theological aesthetics (beauty) and Gregory of Nyssa's theology. Carnes invites readers to absorb the foreign world of Greco-Roman antiquities and revive a (very dead but) worthy conversation partner on beauty.
The first chapter reviews the history of beauty's demise, passing through the sullied hands of post-Enlightenment Europe. The rest of the three chapters retrieves Gregory of Nyssa's theology according to his theological biographies and selected homilies. Carnes first establishes the radical transcendences of God based the ontological difference between Creator and creation in creatio ex nihilo. She then mingles beauty with ugliness with the Word's scandalous mingling with flesh: poverty and suffering have been declared beautiful solely because Word dwelt among them. Finally, she described the animating and healing and beautifying power of the Spirit, through whom we have participation in the Word towards the radically transcendent God.
No book can solve all problems, but Carnes's book stimulates important discussions on a topic that was, at first, so at home in theological and philosophical discourses, but now is absent. And though Gregory of Nyssa lived a vastly different world with starkly different worldviews from us, he is more than capable to hold his ground as we hold onto ours as we continue conversations. Welcome back, Gregory.
cf. www.sooholee.wordpress.com
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March 29, 2016Unrated because I haven't actually finished it yet. I just had to set it aside.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews