Herrlichkeit

The volume begins by tracing how Protestant and Catholic theology, from the Reformation onward, gradually came to pay less and less attention to beauty and aesthetics. Von Balthasar then moves to its main concern, which is how theological knowledge is possible. He considers what it means to believe as a Christian, drawing freely on Anselm, Pascal and Newman. His account gives weight to a distinct kind of knowing that grows out of a personal relationship with God, a God who is made present through the form of revelation found in Jesus Christ. This is the first part of von Balthasar's larger theological trilogy, a theological aesthetics that asks how the form of God's self-disclosure can be truly seen.