Reforming Beauty: The Theological Aesthetics of Karl Barth and the Neo-Calvinists

改革美：卡尔·巴特和新加尔文主义者的神学美学

• 批准号: 2877288
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2877288
• 关键词: Reforming; Beauty; Theological; Aesthetics; Karl

Summary: This project will examine how Barth and the Neo-Calvinists understand the relationship between the human experience of beauty and the God they describe as beautiful, leading to my proposal of a Reformed 'analogy of beauty.'The conviction that beauty can be a disclosure of the divine has a rich pedigree in the Christian tradition. And yet a common assumption is that the Reformed tradition shows little understanding and appreciation of beauty. Karl Barth (1886-1968) himself claimed that 'the Reformation and Protestant orthodoxy have wholly ignored' the topic. This assumption finds support in the iconoclasm and aesthetic simplicity of Reformation cultures. This has theological roots, the deepest being the Reformed emphasis on the distinction between Creator and creature, seen in the prohibition of visual representations of God. This repudiation of anything that might bring God within the gaze or control of the human generates a hesitancy to connect the human experience of beauty with God himself.However, a recent body of scholarship has documented a distinctively Protestant aesthetics. My project will contribute to this counter-narrative by addressing two neglected areas of study. First, it will recover the theological aesthetics of Karl Barth (1886-1968) and the Dutch Neo-Calvinists. Barth seeks to redress the Protestant neglect of aesthetics by describing God as 'beautiful.' Von Balthasar believed Barth's work to be a first in Protestantism. Yet the Neo-Calvinists Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) and Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) had earlier already acknowledged the beauty of God and the importance of worldly beauty. Together, they spawned a rich neo-Calvinist aesthetic tradition, including Hans Rookmaaker (1922-1977), Calvin Seerveld (b. 1930) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (b. 1932). Barth has received recent attention in the work of Andrew Dunstan, but while there are a number of article and chapter length treatments of aspects of Neo-Calvinist aesthetics, I will offer the first monograph-length engagement with Neo-Calvinist aesthetics. This is also the first substantial engagement since Jeremy Begbie's 1991 PhD thesis, which omits a discussion of Wolterstorff and is dated in its theological analysis. Further, this project will bring Barth and the Neo-Calvinists into dialogue on this subject for the first time. This is an important comparative analysis given the competing visions of a modern Calvinism that they offer. This project will be accomplished through close analysis of the relevant texts, situated within the recent flowering of anglophone Neo-Calvinist studies.Second, my governing interest will be in how the protagonists construe the relationship between God and beauty. I will seek to situate the understandings of beauty put forward by my interlocutors in their broader theological and philosophical settings, uncovering how what is said about beauty flows from, sits within and reveals wider theological commitments. This will reveal differing accounts of the relation of Creator and creature in the doctrines of God, covenant, creation and humanity. These differences are not only between Barth and the Neo-Calvinists, but within the Neo-Calvinist tradition itself, who sometimes will sit closer to Barth than to one another. This relationship between God and beauty is a vital, difficult and neglected question for Protestant aesthetics, which has sought to avoid the analogia entis and a Platonic doctrine of participation. As such, this project will seek to evaluate these findings in the wider context of theological aesthetics, leading to a constructive proposal for a Reformed theological aesthetics. I will propose a Reformed 'analogy of beauty,' strengthened with insights from the Catholic von Balthasar, the Orthodox Hart, and the broadly Anglo-Catholic sensibilities of Radical Orthodoxy, as well as drawing on the resurgence of Protestant aesthetics over the last thirty years, led by Begbie.

总结：这个项目将考察巴特和新加尔文主义者如何理解人类对美的体验与他们所描述的美的上帝之间的关系，从而导致我提出改革宗对美的类比。“相信美可以是神圣的揭示，在基督教传统中有着丰富的血统。然而，一个普遍的假设是，改革宗传统显示出对美的理解和欣赏很少。卡尔·巴特（Karl Barth，1886-1968）本人声称，“宗教改革和新教正统完全忽视了”这个话题。这一假设在宗教改革文化的圣像破坏主义和美学简单性中找到了支持。这有神学根源，最深的是改革宗强调造物主和受造之物之间的区别，禁止上帝的视觉表现。这种对任何可能使上帝进入人类视线或控制范围的东西的否定，使人对将人类对美的体验与上帝本人联系起来犹豫不决，然而，最近的一批学术研究已经证明了一种独特的新教美学。我的项目将通过解决两个被忽视的研究领域来促进这种反叙事。首先，它将恢复卡尔巴特（1886-1968）和荷兰新加尔文主义的神学美学。巴特试图通过将上帝描述为“美的”来纠正新教对美学的忽视。冯·巴尔塔萨认为巴特的作品是新教的首创。然而，新加尔文主义者亚伯拉罕·凯佩尔（Abraham Kuyper，1837-1920）和赫尔曼·巴温克（Herman Bavinck，1854-1921）在更早的时候就已经承认了上帝之美和世俗之美的重要性。他们共同孕育了丰富的新加尔文主义美学传统，包括汉斯·鲁克马克（Hans Rookmaaker，1922-1977）、卡尔文·塞维尔德（B. 1930）和Nicholas Wolterstorff（B. 1932年）。巴特最近在安德鲁·邓斯坦的作品中受到了关注，但是虽然有一些文章和章节长度的新加尔文主义美学方面的处理，我将提供第一个与新加尔文主义美学的专著长度的接触。这也是自杰里米·贝格比1991年的博士论文以来的第一次实质性接触，该论文省略了对沃尔特斯托夫的讨论，并在其神学分析中注明了日期。此外，这个项目将使巴特和新加尔文主义者第一次就这个问题进行对话。这是一个重要的比较分析，因为他们提供了现代加尔文主义的竞争愿景。这个项目将通过密切分析相关的文本，位于最近开花的英语新加尔文主义研究。第二，我的主要兴趣将是如何在主人公之间的关系，上帝和美。我将试图解释我的对话者在更广泛的神学和哲学背景下提出的对美的理解，揭示关于美的说法是如何从更广泛的神学承诺中产生、存在和揭示的。这将揭示在上帝、圣约、创造和人类的教义中，关于创造者和被造之物的关系的不同解释。这些差异不仅存在于巴特和新加尔文主义者之间，而且存在于新加尔文主义传统本身之中，他们有时会坐得更靠近巴特而不是彼此。上帝与美之间的这种关系对于新教美学来说是一个重要的、困难的和被忽视的问题，它试图避免实体类比和柏拉图的参与学说。因此，本项目将寻求在更广泛的神学美学背景下评估这些发现，从而为改革宗神学美学提出建设性的建议。我将提出一个改革宗的“美的类比”，并从天主教的冯·巴尔塔萨（von Balthasar）、东正教的哈特（Hart）和激进东正教的广泛的盎格鲁-天主教情感中得到加强，同时借鉴了由贝格比（Begbie）领导的新教美学在过去30年中的复兴。