Carol Harrison
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263425
- eISBN:
- 9780191682544
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263425.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, ...
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This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the saving power of beauty within it. It therefore reintroduces aesthetics alongside philosophy and ethics in Augustine's treatment of God. The book shifts emphasis away from Augustine's early and most theoretical treatises to his mature reflections as a bishop and pastor on how God communicates with fallen man. Using his theory of language as a paradigm, it shows how divine beauty, revealed in creation and history, serves to inspire fallen man's faith, hope, and most especially his love – thereby reforming him and restoring the form or beauty he had lost.Less
This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the saving power of beauty within it. It therefore reintroduces aesthetics alongside philosophy and ethics in Augustine's treatment of God. The book shifts emphasis away from Augustine's early and most theoretical treatises to his mature reflections as a bishop and pastor on how God communicates with fallen man. Using his theory of language as a paradigm, it shows how divine beauty, revealed in creation and history, serves to inspire fallen man's faith, hope, and most especially his love – thereby reforming him and restoring the form or beauty he had lost.
CAROL HARRISON
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263425
- eISBN:
- 9780191682544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263425.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
This chapter introduces the fall of man, using the metaphor from George Herbert's The Elixir of when one is looking into a mirror. Augustine makes this distinction: St Paul's looking into a mirror is ...
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This chapter introduces the fall of man, using the metaphor from George Herbert's The Elixir of when one is looking into a mirror. Augustine makes this distinction: St Paul's looking into a mirror is an act of discernment, an attempt to make out the shapes and forms in the mirror and grasp what they signify. This looking through cloudiness and obscurity to make out shapes and forms is, for Augustine, a powerful metaphor of human life following the Fall. The vision of Divine Beauty, which man has lost, can also be grasped in the mirror of created reality, albeit obscured by a veil of temporality and corporeity. This is most especially the case with the revelation of divine beauty within that realm, which serves to reform deformed or ugly man by inspiring his faith, hope, and love, not simply to look at it, but in and through it.Less
This chapter introduces the fall of man, using the metaphor from George Herbert's The Elixir of when one is looking into a mirror. Augustine makes this distinction: St Paul's looking into a mirror is an act of discernment, an attempt to make out the shapes and forms in the mirror and grasp what they signify. This looking through cloudiness and obscurity to make out shapes and forms is, for Augustine, a powerful metaphor of human life following the Fall. The vision of Divine Beauty, which man has lost, can also be grasped in the mirror of created reality, albeit obscured by a veil of temporality and corporeity. This is most especially the case with the revelation of divine beauty within that realm, which serves to reform deformed or ugly man by inspiring his faith, hope, and love, not simply to look at it, but in and through it.
CAROL HARRISON
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263425
- eISBN:
- 9780191682544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263425.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
Faith, hope, and love are the terms most often used by Augustine to describe man's response to divine revelation, including the revelation of divine beauty. They have in common the fact that their ...
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Faith, hope, and love are the terms most often used by Augustine to describe man's response to divine revelation, including the revelation of divine beauty. They have in common the fact that their object is at once hidden and veiled. According to Augustine, faith, hope, and love are the pre-eminent lessons which the account of God's revelation in the Old and New Testaments offers. It is the faith, hope and love inspired by the revelation of God's beauty on earth which purifies, heals, and reforms man in order to see God's supreme beauty. This chapter considers how they contribute to Augustine's thought on the beauty of God's revelation, bringing man to an ultimate vision of supreme beauty in the life to come.Less
Faith, hope, and love are the terms most often used by Augustine to describe man's response to divine revelation, including the revelation of divine beauty. They have in common the fact that their object is at once hidden and veiled. According to Augustine, faith, hope, and love are the pre-eminent lessons which the account of God's revelation in the Old and New Testaments offers. It is the faith, hope and love inspired by the revelation of God's beauty on earth which purifies, heals, and reforms man in order to see God's supreme beauty. This chapter considers how they contribute to Augustine's thought on the beauty of God's revelation, bringing man to an ultimate vision of supreme beauty in the life to come.
Gerald O'Collins
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199605569
- eISBN:
- 9780191729454
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605569.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Theological method belongs to the agenda to fundamental theology. Hence this final chapter recognizes three styles of theology: (1) an academic style in search of truth that finds its sources in ...
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Theological method belongs to the agenda to fundamental theology. Hence this final chapter recognizes three styles of theology: (1) an academic style in search of truth that finds its sources in writings from the past; (2) a practical style in search of justice that ‘consults’ the poor and suffering in matters of faith, doctrine, and morality; (3) a prayerful style in search of the divine beauty that nourishes a yearning for a final future through public worship. These styles, which, when developed unilaterally, can go astray, need and complement each other. The chapter ends with eight pieces of advice to theologians: be scriptural, historical, philosophical, provisional, ecumenical, local, converted, and prayerful.Less
Theological method belongs to the agenda to fundamental theology. Hence this final chapter recognizes three styles of theology: (1) an academic style in search of truth that finds its sources in writings from the past; (2) a practical style in search of justice that ‘consults’ the poor and suffering in matters of faith, doctrine, and morality; (3) a prayerful style in search of the divine beauty that nourishes a yearning for a final future through public worship. These styles, which, when developed unilaterally, can go astray, need and complement each other. The chapter ends with eight pieces of advice to theologians: be scriptural, historical, philosophical, provisional, ecumenical, local, converted, and prayerful.
