The Theological Aesthetics of Eberhard Jüngel

Zusatztext

C.M. Howell offers the first systematic account of the theological aesthetics implicit in the thought of Eberhard Jüngel (1934-2021). He argues that aesthetics forms a persistent yet largely unrecognized dimension of Jüngel's theology and that his doctrine of revelation is fundamentally aesthetic in structure. Working within the context of twentieth-century German Protestant theology and the broader tradition of German aesthetics from Alexander Baumgarten to Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author reconstructs Jüngel's scattered remarks on perception, play, art, and worship in order to articulate a coherent theoretical framework. The methodology combines historical-theological analysis of Jüngel's major writings (from Paulus und Jesus to his later essays of the 2000s) with conceptual comparison to key interlocutors such as Wolfhart Pannenberg and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Through close textual interpretation, the book demonstrates that aesthetics in Jüngel operates in three interrelated dimensions: as a theory of perception, as a category of freedom expressed through play and artistic production, and as a theological distinction between worldly beauty and divine glory. The study's main finding is that aesthetic experience provides the anthropological and hermeneutical conditions for recognizing God's self-revelation while simultaneously preserving the radical difference between God and the world. Beauty discloses the fragile meaning of worldly existence, whereas glory names the event in which God's self-revealing love transforms human existence through faith and worship. By uncovering this structure, the book contributes to a new interpretation of Jüngel's theological anthropology, clarifies debates concerning his divine ontology, and situates his work as a distinctive Protestant alternative within contemporary theological aesthetics.

Autorenportrait

Born 1985; 2024 PhD in Systematic Theology (University of St Andrews); Research Assistant for the Widening Horizons in Philosophical Theology project.

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