Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | Januar/2022 |
Spalte: | 108–109 |
Kategorie: | Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Vind, Anna, Damgaard, Iben, Busch Nielsen, Kirsten, and Sven Rune Havsteen [Eds.] |
Titel/Untertitel: | In-visibility. Reflections upon Visibil-ity and Transcendence in Theology, Philosophy and the Arts. |
Verlag: | Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2020. 501 S. m. 52 Abb. u. 3 Tab. = Refo500 Academic Studies, 18. Geb. EUR 130,00. ISBN 9783525550717. |
Rezensent: | David Brown |
So long as Platonism dominated Christian theology, there was no problem in making a connection to the divine. The human soul as immaterial, immortal and invisible was seen as belonging essent-ially to same realm as the divine. But if, as is now generally believed, all human knowledge is mediated through the empirical and so-cial, even the notion of a transcendent realm becomes inherently problematic. The present collection of essays is the result of an initiative by the Theology Faculty at the University of Copen-hagen which has sought to address the issue indirectly through the related question of how the invisible might be mediated through the visible: not of course the same thing but clearly connected. The results from twenty-five contributors are distributed across six sections. The first two explore approaches through phenomenology and language, while the middle two are devoted to the ›beyond‹ in the arts, with two further sections dealing respectively with transcendence in the individual and through the community. Most of the essayists are from Scandinavia, with seven from Germany, and two from Britain. Almost all presuppose a Lutheran perspective.
In the first two sections, the focus is on how to get beyond the analysis of either experience or language into some kind of connection with the divine. Husserl’s phenomenology is defended for the way in which his account draws attention to a similar invisible interiority within ourselves but on the other side is set the inabil-ity of his method of epoché to push beyond towards questions of truth in religion. Here, it is suggested, Heidegger fares better in finding religion’s starting point in our placement already within the world and its temporal history which then potentially opens out into something more. With language, recent claims that famous past accounts of mystical experience amount to no more than ways of talking about God rather than descriptors of such experience are challenged through discussion of how Dostoevsky, Grundtvig and Kierkegaard actually envisage use of language as a means of opening human beings to God. While at its most basic, simple monosyllabic pleas (help!), thanks or praise might do the trick, more commonly multiple positioning is necessary, in order to break down barriers that human beings erect as a form of self-defence and which often prevent them from ever perceiving new insights. Although somewhat at a tangent from other contribut-ions in its section, the final essay by Christine Helmer offers a powerful defence of Schleiermacher against the common critique of him (from scholars such as Bayer, Frei and Lindbeck) as caving into modernism. As she rightly observes, his own frame of reference was quite different: »the pressure of a unique experience with the Christus praesens« (130).
The third section on »human existence between visibility and invisibility« in some ways functions as a transition to the two following sections on the arts. One major theme is of the image of God in human beings as a work in progress but another is the way in which this is illustrated by portrait painting. Claudia Welz effec-tively makes the point by considering the numerous self-portraits of Rembrandt and of Frida Kahlo. Rembrandt was constantly en-gaged in acts of self-interrogation, while Kahlo deconstructs her own image by the various unusual settings she gives to that image. So even with the portrayal of what it is to be human we arrive at something which is beyond complete visibility. Svein Aage Chris-toffersen (a contributor assigned to a later section) seeks to carry the argument further by observing how Francis Bacon sought to remove any stability whatsoever, as in his deconstruction of Velasquez’ famous portrait of Innocent X, and suggests that this might indicate a feature of our present society more generally. But I doubt this. Bacon’s English contemporary, Lucian Freud, points in quite a different direction.
The central two sections then explore how the arts might contribute. Although there are also essays on music and architecture, most space is devoted to the visual arts. Placed at the head of the two sections is a plausible challenge by Olivier Boulnois to one of the most influential books on the history of art in recent times, Hans Belting’s Bild und Kult (1990). Belting’s basic contention was that the Reformation brought with it a profound change of attitude: paintings no longer seen as ›containing‹ the divine presence like icons but freed to be art in its own right. Boulnois argues for a much more complex story. Because Nicaea II had no direct impact on the West, Luther inherited a variety of positions which had flourished prior to the Reformation, and so acknowledged the necessity of images (no thinking without them), even as he rejected their ven-eration. That is why he was even willing to accept Cranach the Elder’s depiction of God the Father as an old man.
But, if that is really Luther’s position, it does seem to come at too high a price, in making any connection between art and the invi-sible essentially arbitrary. Is it not precisely because of a potential pull towards veneration that we feel that something rather more has been communicated? Intriguingly, it is precisely this feature which is stressed in Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen’s discussion of late nineteenth century Danish art and architecture. Not only is the importance of an emotional response noted but also three elements were seen as crucial in the selection of paintings to be hung in church: awe, compassion and nostalgia. As the illustrations offered suggest popular rather than great art, it is a pity that Jürgensen did not widen the discussion to include some great art, for there the tension with veneration is surely at its most acute. Yet it is all the more necessary, precisely because such closeness makes God more easily accessible: no longer a figure easily dismissed but one to which we are naturally drawn. Sometimes, it is suggested that this is a problem unique to the visual but course some treatments of scripture equally equate the medium with the reality behind it. A couple of the contributors talk of music creating a space for pres-ence. While a valuable idea, they see this as most applicable in church settings. But even as devout a composer as Bruckner sometimes assumed that it was the concert hall that would be used for some of his mass settings, and that, more pertinently, mediation of the divine could happen there also.
The final section treats of the church, and in particular how the ecclesial community like the individual is a work in progress, in this case particularly as defined in relation to the eschaton. Perhaps its most interesting essay is that by Hans-Peter Großhans where the attempt is made to move analysis of its present reality in a more Orthodox direction under the influence of »Timothy« Ware (later known as Bishop Kallistos). Precedents are sought in the greater readiness of Lutheran theologians such as Ebeling and Jüngel to use the term »mystery« when speaking of the church.
As this brief survey hopefully indicates, this is a wide-ranging work that repays careful attention. The editors are to be congratulated on the way in which they have organised material within sections so that it can be read consecutively.