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

摘要：这个项目将研究巴特和新加尔文主义者如何理解人类对美的体验和他们所描述的上帝之间的关系，这导致了我对改革宗“美的类比”的提议。“在基督教传统中，认为美可以揭示神性的信念源远流长。然而，一个普遍的假设是，改革宗传统对美缺乏理解和欣赏。卡尔·巴特（1886-1968）自己声称“宗教改革和正统新教完全忽视了”这个话题。这一假设在宗教改革文化的反偶像主义和简单美学中得到了支持。这是有神学根源的，最深刻的是改革宗强调创造者和受造物之间的区别，这可以从禁止用视觉来描绘上帝中看出来。这种对任何可能将上帝带入人类视线或控制范围的事物的否定，产生了一种将人类对美的体验与上帝本身联系起来的犹豫。然而，最近的一个学术机构已经记录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为这种反叙事做出贡献。首先，它将恢复卡尔·巴特（1886-1968）和荷兰新加尔文主义者的神学美学。巴特试图纠正新教徒对美学的忽视，他将上帝描述为“美丽的”。冯·巴尔塔萨认为巴特的工作是新教的第一次。然而，新加尔文主义者亚伯拉罕·凯波尔（Abraham Kuyper, 1837-1920）和赫尔曼·巴文克（Herman Bavinck, 1854-1921）早前就已经承认了上帝的美和世俗美的重要性。他们共同催生了丰富的新加尔文主义美学传统，包括汉斯·鲁克梅克（1922-1977）、加尔文·西维尔德（生于1930年）和尼古拉斯·沃特斯托夫（生于1932年）。Barth最近在Andrew Dunstan的著作中受到了关注，但是尽管有许多文章和章节长度的论述新加尔文主义美学的各个方面，我将提供第一个专著长度的新加尔文主义美学。这也是自1991年杰里米·贝格比的博士论文以来第一次实质性的合作，那篇论文省略了对沃尔特斯托夫的讨论，在神学分析上也过时了。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不同观点。这个项目将通过对相关文本的仔细分析来完成，这些文本位于最近以英语为母语的新加尔文主义研究的繁盛时期。其次，我的主要兴趣将是主人公如何解释上帝与美之间的关系。我将寻求将我的对话者提出的对美的理解置于他们更广泛的神学和哲学背景中，揭示关于美的说法是如何从更广泛的神学承诺中流出、存在并揭示出来的。这将揭示在上帝、契约、创造和人类的教义中对造物主和受造物关系的不同描述。这些差异不仅存在于巴特和新加尔文主义者之间，也存在于新加尔文主义传统本身，他们有时会更接近巴特而不是彼此。这种上帝与美之间的关系是新教美学中一个重要的、困难的、被忽视的问题，它试图避免实体类比和柏拉图式的参与学说。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建议。我将提出一种改革宗的“美的类比”，从天主教的冯·巴尔塔萨、东正教的哈特和激进东正教的广泛的盎格鲁天主教的敏感性中得到加强，以及在过去三十年中由贝格比领导的新教美学的复兴。

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.