Beholding and Perceiving the Beautiful
The first volume of von Balthasar’s great trilogy just arrived in the mail, and I begin reading with overwhelming anticipation. A friend and I have committed to reading through slowly over the first part of this semester, and now, looking at the beautiful thing*, I’m worried I won’t find time for anything else. Already in the Foreword:
If all beauty is objectively located at the intersection of two moments which Thomas calls species and lumen (‘form’ and ‘splendour’), then the encounter of these is characterized by the two moments of beholding and of being enraptured. The doctrine of the beholding and perceiving of the beautiful… and the doctrine of the enrapturing power of the beautiful are complementarily structured, since no one can really behold who has not also already been enraptured, and no one can be enraptured who has not already perceived.
That’s the same relationship, he says, as lies between faith and grace—and we might also add between prayer and theology. Need I further explain my excitement?
* They really are beautifully crafted volumes. Ignatius Press always stands out for the elegant simplicity of their book design, both their covers and their pagesets. I remember first seeing von Balthasar’s Prayer, recognizing it as really about prayer just from its deep, red, empty back, its spacious margins, its simple cover which invoked an air of contemplative silence.
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