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This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesaus goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts ...

This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesaus goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aestheticsis an innovative and creative attempt to unsettle and reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Constructing what he calls an "allegorical aesthetics," Plate sifts through Benjamin's writings ...

Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aestheticsis an innovative and creative attempt to unsettle and reconceive the key concepts of religious studies through a reading with, and against, Walter Benjamin. Constructing what he calls an "allegorical aesthetics," Plate sifts through Benjamin's writings showing how his concepts of art, allegory, and experience undo traditionally stabilizing religious concepts such as myth, symbol, memory, narrative, creation, and redemption.

"Gold has cleverly managed to write an important new genealogy for the history of religions, and like any good genealogist, he sets out to resolve a shadow in our ancestry. The issue at hand is not science versus disguised theory or imagination, but the blessed union between a vital science and a ...

"Gold has cleverly managed to write an important new genealogy for the history of religions, and like any good genealogist, he sets out to resolve a shadow in our ancestry. The issue at hand is not science versus disguised theory or imagination, but the blessed union between a vital science and a keen sense of the aesthetics of religiohistorical writing. This is a ground-breaking work, essential reading for scholars and students of religion."--Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and co-editor of "Gods of Flesh, Gods of Stone: The Embodiment of Divinity in India

"A most important and original corrective to a confused and self-contradictory set of dogmas that have split the field of comparative religions in disastrous ways in past decades."--Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of Religion, University of Chicago

"An engaging, refreshing and exciting book. This impressive account of humanistic writing about religionin the 20th century greatly expands the history of the study. And for people who already know the history, Gold's approach comes as a breath of fresh air."--Greg Alles, author of "The Iliad, the Ramayana, and the Work of Religion: Failed Persuasion and Religious Mystification

"At long last, an up-to-date, theoretically sophisticated exploration of the history of religions and religious studies and their development in the 20th century! Focusing on the many ways in which influential scholars have creatively managed an intrinsic tension between aesthetic sensitivity and scientific commitment, Gold provides a richly documented account. Fascinating Truths is one of those very rarediscipline-oriented books that both illumines the past and establishes a creative trajectory for the future."--Frank Reynolds, Professor Emeritus of History of Religions at the University of Chicago and editor of "Religion and Practical Rea