God's presence within his absence : the theological aesthetics of Eberhard Jüngel

Abstract

This thesis is the first concentrated work on the theological aesthetics of Eberhard Jüngel. The project is driven by Jüngel’s claim that “revelation is by definition an aesthetic event.” The particular aim of the work is to discern the meaning of “aesthetic” in this claim. It argues that “aesthetic” has three primary meanings: it designates a theory of perception; it characterizes a category of freedom; and it marks a distinction between aesthetic categories of worldly beauty and God’s glory. This work explains that the primary significance of aesthetics is to serve Jüngel’s radical claim that “humans can be human without God” by offering a non-theological source for existential meaning. This significance parallels a theological use relating to the aesthetic nature of God’s self-revelation. The two realms—anthropology and theology—are represented by the aesthetic distinction between beauty and glory. Beauty pertains to aesthetic events of the world; glory, to aesthetics events of God’s presence.

Subsequently, this work is divided into two sections. The first focuses on the meaning to be had in the space of Jüngel’s anthropology. This topic is presented by analyzing in perceptions of beauty (Chapter 2), the freedom of play (Chapter 3), and the unique phenomenon of art (Chapter 4). The second section focuses on glory as the theological correspondence to beauty. Here, it is argued that God’s glory is the presence of his ontological unity (Chapter 5), that this unity is perceived in events of revelation (6), and that this unity is shared among believers in the activity of worship (Chapter 7). The conclusion (Chapter 8) shows that beauty confronts glory eschatologically, and that beauty disintegrates in the light of glory. It also highlights areas where an aesthetic interpretation of Jüngel resolves criticisms within the secondary literature, and highlights possible ways to develop Jüngel’s aesthetics.