The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. 4: The Realm of Metaphysics in Antiquity

In this fourth volume of his magnnum opus, von Balthasar considers the metaphysical tradition of the contemplation of Being. He provides major studies of Homer, the Greek Tragedians, Plato and Plotinus and the development of this tradition in the Middle Ages. He then explores the analogy between the metaphysical vision of the Being and the Christian vision of the divine glory of the Trinity. The book is a remarkable attempt to rediscover the ancient vision of Being in all its awesomeness as the context within which the specifically Christian vision, rooted in God's gracious self-revelation, took form and was expressed. Probably the most important sustained piece of theological writing to appear since Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, Von Balthasar's work restores aesthetics and contemplation to their rightful place in Christian theology. Armed with a remarkable knowledge of the theological and metaphysical traditions as well as of Western letters, von Balthasar shows how the Biblical vision of the divine glory, revealed in the crucified and risen Christ and reflected in the great theologies of the Christian tradition, fulfills and transcends the perception of Being in Western Metaphysics. - Publisher