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374 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
“[A] painting by van Gogh is ‘according to the essence’ a canvas with pigments, but this canvas with pigments testifies to the person of van Gogh; it is the substantiation of the personal logos of van Gogh. Outside the terms of the fact of personal relation, the personal reception of the logos which the work of art embodies, it remains an object made out of neutral materials: the artist’s logos remains unapproachable, the truth of the ‘thing’ uninterpreted, the experience of personal presence, the personal uniqueness and dissimilarity of the artist, inaccessible.”
“Thus the truth of the human person recapitulates both the ontology and the ethics of Christian philosophy. The ethos of the Church is its Truth, the truth for humanity and the truth for the world and for God. And this truth, which is faith and a rule of life, is the reality of the person. For the person to be restored to his or her integrity and wholeness, for the human being to become ‘all prósōpon’ – ‘all person’ – defines our existential end. It is the conclusion of our moral journey, the attainment of theosis or deification, the goal towards which the Church strives – as defined by Macarius of Egypt when he wrote: ‘For the soul that has been deemed worthy to participate in the spirit of [God’s] light and has been made radiant by the beauty of his ineffable glory, since he has prepared it for himself as a throne and dwelling-place, becomes all light, all face, all eye.’”