Aesthetics

Introduction

For this essay I will look at how the 20th century architectural movements have slowly progressed through time having a big effect on our contemporary built environment. I will start by writing about the main 20th century movements which encouraged certain architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Groupius to push the boundaries of modern architecture into a new sense. To define the ever changing architectural attitudes we categorise them into the following terms: individual, collective, expressive and rational. I will discuss these terms including relevant examples and show how we can apply them to our contemporary built environment to gain an understanding of our surroundings.

Firstly, in order for us to learn about our contemporary designed environment, we must start with how 20th century architecture can teach us about the influences and movements which changed the face of architecture and got us to where we are now. I have come across 10 essential architectural movements from this time period which can show how architecture developed through this period. The first is Art Nouveau, characterised by odd shapes with the use of lots of arches, curves and gardens that feature curvy floral designs with the use of plants. This type of design is expressive with odd striking shapes and detailed gardens it has no sense of rationality. The movement was a reaction to industrialisation and the boom of mass production, across the world its saw the likes of architects such as Victor Horta and his building the ‘Tassel House’. With it’s curved lines and vegetal ornament, making a statement with the idea of looking to the past traditional crafts in an attempt to revive artistic craftwork, which took skill and time. It was a clear rejection of the neo-classicism style of the 18th and 19th century which employed straight lines and strict proportions. Second is the Arts and Crafts movement using aesthetically pleasing shapes like The buildings of the Art Nouveau movement but was designed more to fit within its surroundings and create a more personal feeling for the client bringing the inside of the building outside and vies versa. This movement is individual and expressive but also slightly rational.

Art Deco architecture is taken from different pre-existing styles but made with modern materials such as stainless steel and aluminium. Seen as buildings of the future with sleek, smooth lines, geometric and zigzag shapes, also quite often painted in vivid colours with patterns influenced by Egyptian art. This is an individual movement using lots of different architectural influences and influences from art movements. The Chrysler building New York (begun 1928) is typically characteristic of art deco taking arched forms which are derived from classical models but reinterpreted in new ways.

This movement then called for a new style in architecture that entertained the idea to create buildings which were completely uninfluenced in the hope of expanding the mind to something never been seen before. This was known as the Futurist movement, ignoring all past architectural movements and create something entirely new using only modern technology and materials in the construction of this type of structure. This type of architecture was purely individual.

Modern architecture was designed to be simple and un-ornamental to adapt to social and political change. This could be due to a deflated feeling post war because of the severe loss encountered through that time not just humanity but architecturally also. There may have been a sense of relief and an appreciation for the simple things which saw a lack of need for beauty and aesthetics. The Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius is an early example of modern architecture. This was seen as a rational way of designing taking away all the ornamental forms and creating something minimalistic and simple to give a clean and bright space.

International style is taken from the modernist movement but designed to give a visual weightlessness, stripped of any ornamental or decorative forms with an open plan space and a cantilevered construction, with the use of glass, steel and less visible reinforced concrete. The functionality and use of the space within was also a main influence on the design. Again this type of design is rational but I think it could also be seen as expressive because it’s fundamentally modern but has been adapted to look more aesthetically pleasing.

Expressionist architecture is totally opposite to the previous two movements and began to taking a big step back to the beginning of the 20th century and creating buildings that have no thought into the functionality creating something totally ornamental which has odd and inconsistent shapes producing a reflection of the inner feelings of the designer.

An example of this architectural style is the Einstein tower in Germany which is used for astronomical research, built in 1919and finished in 1924. It was designed by architect Erich Mandelsohn who was well known for his expressionist architecture and for developing dynamic functionalism in his designs for department stores and cinemas. The style is reminiscent of previous movements such as Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts era in the sense that it is decorative and the quality is in the aesthetical value of the craftsmanship.

Number eight is Brutalism architecture a movement which was mainly driven by the need for cost-effective buildings to rebuild the buildings lost in the Second World War, mainly consisting of concrete and block shapes giving a dull and aesthetically displeasing appearance. This movement can only be seen as rational, only influenced by the fact that we needed new cheap buildings as a means to provide simple shelter which were only intended as a temporary measure until the country got back on its feet, however many have stayed around to prove the test of time and outdoing there functional purpose.

Postmodern architecture is contrasting of modernism but function wasn’t the priority of the design it was the appearance that became the driving force but whilst still considering the functionality. This style is still current and relevant to today’s architectural environment. It moves away from the idea that buildings need only to provide shelter and employs new techniques, materials and craftsmanship to create experimental architecture. It may be apparent that we have exhausted ideas when it comes to originality by this point. Even though postmodern architecture focuses on aesthetical value it may be that the original intention of function is compromised because of this and it is plausible that we have lost the essence that beauty can be derived from simple functionality.

The last one of the movements is New Urbanism which was more about creating a sense of community within cities and increasing affordable housing, taking things like sustainability and visual coherency into consideration and together using historical architecture styles to adapt to the surroundings of the area. This for me seems like a big jump way from the previous architectural movements because they have all been influenced by historical movements and forced to be something else but urban design embraces the different architectural forms and creates not only a new movement but a new way of life designing on a whole new level and scale.

All these different architectural movements have not only influenced one-another but have influenced Architects who then try to create something different for example Frank Lloyd Wright who’s designs where highly influenced by Japanese Architecture. He used the principals of Japanese architecture and created something new that represented him and was distinctly recognisable as his work.

A good example of his work a house he designed in 1935 called Falling Water. It was constructed in 1936-1939. It was a building not only influenced by historical architecture but by Wrights inelegance and ability to use the surrounding site to influence the shape and nature of the building. He then took it a step further and created something with meaning and extreme detail. He wanted to use the surrounding elements to interweave with the structure and space conforming to nature. Although it’s all open with bands of windows people inside feel sheltered as though they are in a deep cave and feel secure with the surrounding mountains. Their attention is automatically directed towards the outside by the low ceilings, the materials of the structure blend with the colourings of the rocks and trees; the interior is accompanied by occasional bright furniture that represents wildflowers or birds outside. The house many different entrances to connect it with the outside, “Sociability and privacy are both available, as are the comforts of home and the adventures of the seasons. So people are cosseted in to relaxing, into exploring the enjoyment of a life refreshed in nature”. (http://www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd-wright/fallingwater.html) Too me wrights architecture seems to be a new type of architecture but just as important to Contemporary architecture. It could be that instead of architectural movements influencing contemporary architecture it’s the ideas and designs of architects like Wright which influence the way architects of today think and design. Without the history of architecture we wouldn’t be where we are now but because as architects we have tried to block out all of this knowledge and started to think of different ways to influence our designs to create something that is completely new. We are stopping ourselves from moving forward with architecture not using the way we create things as humans which is taking something and making it better this is the only we are capable of moving forward, nothing in life is truly original everything comes from some form of inspiration. One Architectural style I know of which is pushing the boundaries and edging away from our contemporary environment is ‘Blobitecture’ taking the same principals of the Futurist movement blocking out existing buildings and depending on architectural software to play around with organic shapes then letting the software figure out how the structure would work in order to build the design. Frank Gehry is a well know architect who has taken advantage of this type of architecture creating something that represents nothing but an abundance of organic shapes again creating a form of architecture which distinctively represents him. (Example. Hotel Marque de Riscal).

This shows that instead of creating a new architectural movement it is individual architects who are creating their own style of architecture. It could be that architect are afraid of plagiarism and other constraining legal reasons that were not taking advantage of these new and exciting ways of designing and therefore not creating a new architectural movement.

Although we have to design with lots of different things to keep in mind, like climate change, building regulation and economic growth their doesn’t seem to be any buildings that could be considered original especially when keeping in mind it’s mainly the aesthetics and architectural forms of the building that seem to determine an architectural movement. The fact that most project builds are designed with a budget in mind gives the architect an instant self-conscious decision to find the materials and labour that will be value for money which instantly restrains the architects design and what the outcome will look like. This could also be seen as an advantage in the sense that it also gives a starting point to a project knowing what materials you are going to be working with. Overall I think because we have so many different restraints as architects to design around, we are not moving forward in architecture and have been trying to create something original for years. A good example of this argument is the five points towards a new architecture, written by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret which talks about how a new generation of architecture is coming using five points that would determine the existence of this architectural movement. The five points where:

1. The supports. To solve a problem scientifically means in the first place to distinguish between its elements. Hence in the case of a building a distinction can immediately be made between the supporting and the non- supporting elements.
2. The roof gardens. The flat roof demands in the first place systematic utilization for domestic purposes: roof terrace, roof garden. In general, roof gardens mean to a city the recovery of all the built- up area.
3. The free designing of the ground- plan.
4. The horizontal window.
5. Free design of the facade.

This in effect will give the architect the freedom to design freely producing something which represents him without the influence of past movements. Although this seems like an ideal way of design and something which would move architecture forward it is describing something which ultimately would control architecture and again restrain the architects ability to create something more individual. It also describes pretty much what contemporary architecture is therefore it was a step forward from 20th century architecture but hasn’t helped us to move forward from contemporary architecture.

What we can learn from 20th century architectural movements is that this was a time when technology was rapidly moving forward and getting more advanced which I think is one of the reasons why there where so many different types of architectural movements, this was a time when vision and a thriving ambition to create an idealistic community with an easy lifestyle, taking advantage of technology and continuing to modify and create bigger and better things which brought us to where we are using advanced technology and materials such as steel, concrete and glass to create buildings that are created through imaginative aesthetics which ultimately is just a shell to then think about the inside spaces afterwards and have the opportunity to move the internal spaces around. Architecture in the 20th century was trying to break away from the ornament and aesthetics of previous architecture which was designed to represent the architectural movement of its time and create a more meaningful and sophisticated look at how we should design buildings taking not just thins like architectural forms into consideration but taking everything that could be effected by the building into account for example, how the building will fit into its surrounding area, how we would get to the building or how we would enter it. Today we try to create something which can control the way you think and feel as you enter a building creating a sense of place which you will remember because of the experience and how it makes you feel instead of how it looks. Our contemporary built environment is influenced by all of the 20th century movements and events that happened through this period it seems as though the 20th century was and is the most important time for architecture which is why I think we have come to a standstill with architecture we may have gone too far ahead of our time and using technology as a driving force and because of the rapid development in technology we may need to use our creativity more instead of letting technology determine how our environment should look because technological advances have allowed a fast passed work load, it seems less time is concentrated on the idea and originality of a building, and so all too often we seeing repetitive and almost run of the mill buildings. It seems that today it could be necessary in architecture to start looking backwards as well as forwards to create a new and exciting contemporary built environment. This may not be what we are aiming for maybe we are blinded by trying to achieve something totally original instead of trying to use what we have already achieved to influence us and move us forward.

Bibliography

1. Conrad’s, U. (ed.) (1971) Programs and Manifestoes on 20th Century Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
2. Hoffmann, D. (ed.) (1993) Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water The house and its History: Dover Publications Inc
3. Jencks, C. Kropf, K. (1997) Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture. Sussex: Wiley-Academy
4. Kuhl, I. Lowis, K. Thiel-Siling, S. (2008) 50 architects you should know. London: Prestol Publishing Ltd
5. Miller, J. (2009) 20th Century Design the definitive illustrated source book. London: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd
6. http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/index.php?bauhaus-1919-1933
7. http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/teaching/nds/ws98/script/text/corbu.html 1/25/2003

Introduction

Subjectivity is the starting point of Hegel’s statement. His lectures on aesthetics give the significance of art within his philosophy while the German period of romanticism is being explained and critiqued. Recent theorists such as Theodor Adorno, Paul Guyer and Arthur Danto based their views on aesthetics from Hegel’s outlook on art. All support that Hegelian idealism was introduced with a poor consequence of personal subjectivity.

The idealistic philosophers argued that only our conscience has real status and that the physical world is only a product of consciousness. The idealism (or utopianism) is closely linked to the religion either directly or indirectly and all philosophies based on this term are supporting the existence of a superior power that can not be interlinked with human’s capability. The most effective way of understanding the whole concept of idealism is to study directly the forefather of all theorists. Plato in his book, ‘The Republic’, gives an allegory (the ‘cave’) to represent idealism in it’s simpler form.

He describes men sitting in a dark cave who are chained in such a way that they can look in only one direction. Few meters behind them, light comes out of a fire which casts their shadows towards a wall they cannot see. Plato asks us to imagine those men in that specific position for their entire life. Having no experience of anything else, these men understand what they have experienced before reality is being represented to them. The philosopher continues with his metaphor and asks us to visualise that those prisoners got unchained and faced the existence of the fire and the shadows. They begin to have a sense of the environment they lived in. The allegory ends, with Plato explaining that those men in the cave are us. As a consequence, we experience the world with our only five senses, but as a matter of fact ‘our world’ is made with images and three-dimensional shadows. He claims that our mind has absoluteness perfection (‘absolute mind’). As we look into sun and turn away for protecting our eyes, thats how we turn back into the cave, in our safe place of sense perception. Now, modern idealism puts forward a cognitive human activity and attributes to a self-determined reality, such as the ‘absolute truth’ and creativity. Two German recent idealism theorists, J. G. Fichte and Friedrich von Schelling, which came to a climax in an absolute idealism of Hegel, started giving their explanation with a refutation of the uncertain thing-in-itself.

However, Hegel formulated a complete structure of thought about art and the world. Most importantly, he hold up that reality should be logical, so that it’s eventual framework will be shown by our own thoughts. He did not think that symbolic, so by extension, conceptual art, has the ability to surpass the high nature of classical Greek art and its representational/imitative abilities. This is because, as he explains, since symbolisms, depend on the knowledge of man of the earth and society, and because, we can never know everything about the human psyche, trying to represent it with symbolisms, is just not enough. Hence, imitative art, which is what classical Greek sculptures, are of a much higher regard to Hegel, than symbolic art. He describes it as ‘the sensuous presentation of ideas’. It is in the communication of ideas excluding the connection between our reason and our sensory faculty and is distinctive successful. Modern aesthetic theorists turn first and foremost to Kant, an 18th century German philosopher, and the historical convention of German romanticism to utilize the role of ‘pessimistic’ art. Hegelian view comes to support that art does more than sabotage the non?aesthetic. Thus, modern art can preferable take in contemporary artistic practices. Both theorists connect that art is superior to the external world, both opposed to appetite and enjoyment.

Hegel gives his philosophy on art that is, as a whole, his main philosophical system. For us, to comprehend his philosophy of art we must understand his philosophy as a whole. Similar with Aristotle’s way of thinking, Hegel believes that the investigation of logic could lead to a key system of reality. Thus, logic is being characterised as dialectical. Poetry for Hegel seem not to have something physical as a sculpture. In that way, music according to him is the least spiritual form of art. On the other hand, Kant stated as an important matter that a generic explanation of the world could lead to an opposite observation. But Hegel explained that those two notions could be integrated by a move to a different way of thinking. Consequently, our mind moves from thesis, to antithesis, to synthesis[4]. This could be seen in history, nature and cultural progress. All the thinking consists by the idea (thesis), which antithesis is nature, while combining (synthesis) the two it forms the spirit.

This could also be named as the ‘absolute’ itself and is examined in more detail in Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ as a transformation from subjective to objective to the absolute spirit.

He is examining the organised structures in humanity giving absolute freedom and self determination to be essential. Those vitals principles include the practice of right, having a family and being part of a civil society (state). The most developed and sufficient perception of spirit is achieved by philosophy. It provides a conceptual understanding of the nature of reason while it describes why reason must take the form of time, space, life, matter and self-conscious spirit. In Christianity, however, the procedure which the ‘idea’ or ‘reason’ turns into self-conscious spirit is symbolised with metaphors and images as the procedure where God turns into spirit lies within humans. This is the process we place our belief and faith rather our notion of understanding. Hegel supports that humans cannot live with just the hypothesis of things but also need to trust the truth. He asserts that ‘is in religion that a nation defines what is considers to be true’.

According to Hegel, art is different from religion or philosophy and it’s purpose is the formation of beautiful objects in which aesthetically pleasing indication is coming through. Therefore, the main target of art is not impersonate nature but to give us the opportunity to look at images being made by non-materialistic freedom. In other words, art exists not just for the purpose of having ‘art’ but for beauty.

This union of freedom and beauty from Hegel shows his obligation to two other theorists, Schiller and Kant. Kant goes further to analyse that our understanding of beauty is a form of freedom. He explains, by judging an object or a piece of art as beautiful, we are discernmenting about a thing. By this we are declaring that the ‘thing’ or object has an effect on us, thus everyone will have the same effect. This results to a comprehension and vision in ‘free play’ with each other, and it is this delight that comes from the ‘free play’ that guides us to our judgment if something is nice or not.

Schiller comes in contrast with Kant which explains beauty as a belonging of the object itself. He stress that freedom is independent from our mind (Kant describes as ‘noumena’).

‘Freedom in appearance, autonomy in appearance […] that the object appears as free, not that it really is so’’

However, in Hegel’s view on beauty, is being described as the complete manifestation of freedom. It can be seen or sound like a sensory expression. Hegel moves a step further to explain that beauty can be created by nature but as he calls a ‘sensuous’ beauty’ it can only be found through art which can be produced by people. For him, beauty has symmetrical qualities. It has elements that are not organised in a framework but are joined organically. We were told, as he explains, that the Greek outline is beautiful, because the nose is flawless under the forehead while the Roman human profile has more sharper angles between them. Nevertheless, beauty’s importance is not only the shape but also the content. Modern art-theorists disagree with Hegel’s theory of beauty and art. They claim that art can include any content. This content is described in religion as God, then a beautiful art could be seen as angelic. Nonetheless, Hegel insists that Godly art is through a humankind form as freedom. He understands that piece of art could consists of nature such as plants or animals but he thinks that art is responsible to show the angelic form, as mentioned before. Only a human can represent reason and spirit through colors and sounds.

Art, in Hegel’s eyes, is metaphorical. Not because it always comes to copy what is in nature, but the main motivation of art is to communicate and represent what he explained as a ‘free spirit’. It can mostly be attained throughout humans and images. Particular, art exist to remind our mind that us, as human beings, have freedom and try not to forget the truth within ourselves. It is the only way the ‘freedom of spirit’ could be seen in it’s simplest form. The contradiction with art is that it links truth all through romanticised images made by someone. As mentioned before, according to Hegel, this spirit and beauty could be found through ancient Greek sculptures (Aeschylus, Praxiteles, Phidias and Sophocles).

The German philosopher explains that are a lot of things we can be named as ‘art’, such as the Greek sculptures mentioned before, Shakespearian plays, but not everything is entitled to be called like that. This is because not everything represent what ‘true’ art really is. He sets some standards that a piece of work has to meet in order to be beautiful art.

References

BBC magazine, A Point of View: Why are museums so uninspiring(London, BBC, 2011) [accessed 11 mar 2011]

Hegel G. W. F., Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, (Oxford: University Press, 1977)

Hegel G. W. F., Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on fine art, Know, vol.1 (Oxford: University Press, 2010)

Hegel G. W. F., Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: Volume II: Determinate Religion: Determinate Religion v. 2 (Oxford: University Press, 2007)

Immanuel Kant, ‘Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: And Other Writings’

(Cambridge, University Press, 2004)

Jason M, Miller, ‘Research Proposal’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Notre Dame, 2004), p.2

Robin, Waterfield, ‘Plato’s Republic’ (Oxford: University Press, 2008)

Stephen, Houlgate, ‘Hegel’s aesthetics’, (The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy, 2009) [accessed 15 Mar 2011]

Schiller, Friedrich, ‘Kallias or Concerning Beauty: Letters to Gottfried Korner”, in Classical and Romantic German Aesthetics’, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Notes on Hans Ours von Baluster’s Thought Edmund Hustler’s phenomenology analyzes the downfall of science into techno, deprived of its necessary foundation in objective evidence. It responds to this impoverished self-understanding of science, the human being and the goals of reason themselves, uncovering in the roots of this epistemological and cultural crisis the true founding of our understanding and praxis of human experience.

In a seemingly different arena, the possibility of religious experience has been object of a harp criticism that has uncovered and denounced its ideological social function, the unconscious constitution of its symbols and categories, and its denial of the worldliness of the human being, escaping to another fictitious world. After its own troubled polemics with modern reason the last century, Christian religion has come to understand its role in this dialogue, not as that of an enemy, but in any case, of a possible companion or inspiration for the quests of humanitarian that triggered those critics.

Nonetheless, catholic Christianity still faces some paretic uniqueness of this critic understanding of its faith, as well as the vital questioning from those to whom religion says nothing, or apparently offers nothing but another ethical proposal. This complex situation, due to, for example, different local developments, is not reducible to oversimplified oppositions or labels.

The Swiss theologian Hans Ours von Blathers (1905-1988) stays in the crossroad of these contemporary interpolations and reaffirms: it is possible to experience God, and to give a reasonable account of this experience. Following the first volume of his The Glory of the Lord – A theological aesthetics we can point out some of the central challenges he seeded to face. (1) Is it possible to speak about certitude and truth in the space of faith? About the misleading “either … Or” approach to faith and reason. 2) Is God ‘s revelation possible? Against a representational reduction of Jesus. (3) Can we grasp the revelation -or, better, can it grasp us- through tradition? Concerning historicity, the mediation of the community and the critic potential of faith. (4) Is it possible to respond to the calling discovered in religious experience? About the following of Jesus, autonomous ethics, the availability of salvation and, above all, the ultimate proximity but absolute asymmetry in the relation between the human being and God.

In this central point lies also Baluster’s main suspicion against phenomenology. These discussions will bring us the most fundamental question when meeting Baluster’s thought: his claim about the necessity of an aesthetically approach to understand religious experience, or, in other terms, what he means with the affirmation that the self-emptying of the Son that makes himself a human being, lives like one, dies rectified, descends to hell, and is resurrected, reveals the true Glory of God, the proper object of faith.

We will explore the meaning of this claim that the (ultimate) thing itself can give itself, and actually is given to us in the form of a man, making explicit the phenomenological spirit of these discussions, and how they can provide a fruitful orientation for our study of human experience. Truth and certitude Let us be guided by the structure of The Glory first volume. Its first part discusses the subjective side of religious experience, focused on the subjective evidence.

Blathers shows how the Scripture and tradition know no incompatibility between Christian pistils and gnomish. The problem is not an critical use of the terms in the Godspeed, Paul, etc. But our constrained by an impoverished notion of knowledge shaped by a misunderstood sense of objectivity in natural sciences. Faith is not Just a substitute for knowledge, that accepts unfounded propositions impulses by a nude leap.

Despite this fragmented modern construct, for Christian tradition to believe is an integrating certitude that moves all human dimensions to a commitment that exceeds the individual as its only possible centering, and that’s why believing cannot be understood without taking into account the form – the structure of the object – given in the experience, which is the focus of The Glory second part. The form is the thing itself in its manifestation, the nucleus that gives coherence to all the aspects of the manifestation, and gives believing its specific nature.

Therefore, religious experience can ‘t be understood only in terms of an impenetrable subjective certitude founded in (IR)rational or emotive dogmatism. We face an experience that affirms itself as a convection of the lifework, perception and praxis of the subject, radically referred to an objective truth criterion. This is an important introductory hint to the aesthetically approach Blathers is sketching.

He understands this reciprocal reference of subject and object in religious experience, as that of the true perception -Haranguing – of the beautiful object in nature or art, where the description of any experience of Joyous contemplation of beauty is incomplete without the consideration of its particular object (and no other). The subject experiences himself guided by the object that brings together various capacities, or develops them, in a fashion that cannot be properly described in terms of a causal explanation that considers the object as a mere physical entity.

The analysis of the experience demands itself to consider the presence of the object in the subject, and of the subject in the object. Truth, as beauty, isn’t Just conformity to external parameters or expectations: a breathtaking landscape or a Mozart masterpiece seems to have “everything in its place”; it poses, inside the experience, its own objective criteria. As we experience the beautiful object, we wouldn’t normally struggle to condense it in one formula, definition or perspective point to “capture” what it is about.

We would rather, as Blathers repeatedly remembers, give ourselves to the experience, walking around the sculpture or painting, letting ourselves deepen our view of it by the successive partial perspectives that constitute the richness of the experience. We are proposed a symphonic experience of truth, whose harmonious variety structures an inner conformity that penetrates us subjects, who find ourselves in this music that “speaks” of us, as well as to us.

What is “spoken” it’s not Just a metaphoric resemblance of what is said in language, but its more profound human roots: the logos directed to the very center of the human being where all the dimensions of his experience are integrated, and he finds himself addressed as a true human being. Thing itself and representation What is given to us in perception is the manifestation of the thing itself, not Just a mere signing.

For Christians, Jesus is the manifestation of God, in him is revealed the truth about God and about the human being, creature of the world. He is the nucleus ND permanent form of the revelation which comprehends the Scripture, Mary, the Church, the Creation and the Eschatology. The true scope of the form is condensed in the formula: “He who sees me, sees the Father”. The form does not testify about himself but about the Father, and so it is the Father who testifies about the truth of his words, actions, gestures, etc. I. E. The truth of his manifestation. Thus, the thing itself manifests, and its manifesting – its self- giving – is so essential to it that, as far as we can grasp its misters, it really is this very elf-emptying seeking to reach the human being as testimony of the Father. Jesus’ life reveals itself as a total openness to the Father: his most intimate identity is an act of reception. In Jesus, mission and being are one; what he does is not an outer expression of his identity, but the active reception of God’s will.

So, in Jesus’ experience of the Father, their absolute reciprocal reference is revealed in the form of obedience which is not an irrational subjugation to an external imposition, but the receiving of his being from He who is all for him, with whom he is one in the Spirit. This openness to the Father drives Jesus to the human world. His being with others is the Father’s will turned into response, because the Father wants to manifest himself to mankind.

The revelation affirms the rich density of the life of a human being, where the ultimate Being reveals itself: the form of Jesus is inseparable from the sportsmanlike frame in which it occurring. So, the true experience of the form presupposes a subject within a history, a community, a body, opened through his expectations, plans and actions to the future. Our always partial experience grows as his constituents are opened through its attention to He who gives completely to us, in an infinite process that seeks its fulfillment in the object that captivates us in such a profound manner.

The absolute became flesh and made his dwelling among our history, our cultures, our lands and, thus, becoming one of us, fulfilled himself accomplishing the Father’s will in the Spirit. Historicity and understanding For Blathers the historical-critical method ‘s most important contribution is to show how God’s word is God’s word in human word. He has has nothing but praise for the academic rigor of these methods, which made possible a profound rediscovery of the Scriptures, the Holy Fathers and the tradition.

He denounces, however, a common methodological extrapolation that subtly precludes the objective pole of revelation: exegesis dogmatically reduces itself to an analytic of the sign within the net of its historical mediations, that seeks nothing more but the reflection of the community about its faith, with its hermeneutic criterion being its paraxial significance for our present existential urgencies.

Our theologian feels compelled to reaffirm the manifestation of the truth in the objective form that is the Scripture, or rather, the books that form the Scripture, which, though incarnated in our present perplexities, is far more than a “dialogue” about them. The Scripture is a form submitted to the form of Christ, constituted of different forms articulated through complex relations. The completeness and profundity of the form of Christ is made evident in the richness variety of these forms. None of them is obsolete.

Such prejudice is based in the previously mentioned impoverished experience of truth which imposes reduction as the exclusive form of universalistic and understanding. Beyond any unforgiving systemization of the symphonic truth that has its nucleus in Christ, the plenitude of the form manifests only in the final harmony of these irreducible forms. Hence, from this form-centered hermeneutic perspective, we cannot claim that scientific exegetical methods per SE provide us the definitive access to this truth.

Our author confronts this pretended superiority, with the testimony of the first apostles and Fathers, who din ‘t only display and admirable intellectual power, but gave themselves to the living Truth that became their lives, showing us that not only the rue exegete but the true theologian is only the saints. Affirming this, we are not renouncing to the objectivity of truth, or despising exegetical sciences. We must be critically aware of the historically mediated categories (conceptual, aesthetic, etc. ) of the Scripture, as well as ours.

But history is not Just a collection of facts, or a coherent articulation of sense that stood indifferently in front of us. Understanding the Scripture is recognizing -I. E. Letting us be grasped by- the spirit that animates it. It supposes human limitation, the particularity of the form in which t manifests, for only because of it, it is accessible to other limited humans as ourselves. Such limitation constitutes the openness of our historical and cultural horizons, supported by the objectification of a written text, articulating a living tradition.

Tradition, the form of the community through history, living up to our days, finds then its true form as the testifying, embodied in all its declarations and actions, that finds its truth in its submission to the form of Christ, light, path and Judge. This doesn’t exclude the possibility of unfaithfulness to this calling, but rather stresses rearmament the need to test oneself under the light of the guiding objective pole. This understanding of the revelation and tradition in its historicity, reveals itself as a calling to the truth, mediation or conversion.

History is this history which we consider, and it takes the form of our own patriarchal history as we understand it. Hence, historicity it’s not an obstacle, as neither is it Just a neutral bridge to the truth. Its openness, as it constitutes our understanding of what was revealed to us in Palestine and was given to us through the experiences of others conformed to the arm of Christ, constitutes simultaneously our own self-understanding.

So the understanding -the experience – of the revelation enabled by the tradition which we form, reveals itself as a commitment to truth, as an integral response in the form of a conversion orientated objectively by a calling. This committed response in conversion, as well as the very understanding of the calling, presuppose a capacity to (self) critic, which doses ‘t identify with the historiographer methods but uses them and urges its development to understand critically (I. E. In conversion attitude) the historical situation in the past and nowadays.

The call for conversion, the ultimate critical principle, sovereign over our own criteria, reaches us in a moment – in every moment – in our own questions, our own already traveled path, building or destroying a future expectation. In the believer community, the living face of tradition, centered by the Scripture and the Eucharist, the individual is reached by Jesus who calls him or her by name. His life, death and resurrection, the very form revelation of God, are the form of this calling.

And that profound is, when understood and believed, also the form of the free response enabled by this revelation. Praxis, responsibility and beyond Modern thought has sought to found its humiliating project as a paraxial imperative of reason, where truth achieves its fulfillment in an uninterested and persevering action: giving one’s own life for a more human world for all human beings, specially for those we put the last, even protecting and Judging with the same Justice friends and enemies. The experience of the Christian commandment of love disapproves nothing of this demand and aspiration.

Rather it has much to admire, and even to confess humiliated, due to its own critic potential, its sins of power and violence, hen its distinctive force is the cross, its absurd weakness, failure and inadvertent power, only experienced through one’s own sin and powerlessness. For the believer this commitment to the others to have life, and that they might have it more abundantly, is the following of Jesus; not a theoretical affirmation about “religious truths” or some ritualistic praxis to gain heaven, but an all-life integrating response to the gracious love he has offering.

Love refers here to the content of Jesus’ life: a total self-giving to the others. This “message” embodied in the impoliteness of a human life , demands a correlative life response, whose truth criterion is the conformation of this life to the form of love, or its rejection. Thus, all the infinite possibilities of forms of the Christian life, integrate in the archetypical form of Christ, and, because his life was his total self-givens to the others, specially the most needed of healing, the follower is enabled and invited to see in his or her neighbor, the misters of that love: God himself has given his life for this man or woman.

Once again Blathers proposes Mary as the true believer model, for she appears to s as the model of openness: she emptied herself for the life of God to flourish, and, doing so, she opened mankind to his revelation. In this foundational human “yes” to God, we face the pre-eminence of the feminine form over the masculine form in the objectively true response to the calling. Through the mother, he was opened to the world, to the others an their life, and to his self-discovery.

His life is framed by the “yes” of the mother: in Nazareth and before the cross, she gave herself to the misters. Theology must understand -contemplate – the importance f this human constitutive conditions for the Christian response: the corporal and affective experience of the mother (previous to and beyond linguistic objectification) founds the experience of every human being of the world as good (bonus), true (verve) and beautiful (fulcrum)xv. This openness directs us to the worldly things and, through them, to the Being, and, most of all, to the possibility of infinite love.

This is the horizon of Christian praxis. This experience of fulfillment through openness, which encounters in the neighbor the misters of God’s redeeming love is thus mediated in ordinary life by the immunity. The believers gather responding to the Father’s calling in Jesus to flourish in this shared Spirit of service, hope and expectancy, that goes beyond the sums of their individual experiences. They conform the form of the Church that serves the form of Christ manifesting him.

In this way the community’s life goes beyond its factual frontiers in the form of a loving life conformed to that of Jesus, where the extra ecclesiae null callus formula expresses not an elitist barbarism, but the universal calling signed by the humble, paraxial and gracious invitation, where imposition has and should’ve had no place. As we have seen, this calling that brings the community outside itself is always situated. God din ‘t instrumentalist human nature, but fully revealed himself in it and still does here and now, appearing and calling.

Thus, neither through a theoretical faith nor through an enterprise to be achieved, can the follower replace the Schwa deer Gestalt, the vision of the form that in this world, and in the most concrete way, reaches him or her in this calling. In this human perceptive openness God speaks to his creatures, and because love alone is believable, have they been rasped by the unifying misters of redemption that assumes their history and animates them in our present life, lighted by its scatological fulfillment anticipated in Jesus.

The human tendency to the infinite is fulfilled and radically transformed in Jesus, truly man, and truly God, in such a manner that openness is not closed, for Jesus himself, as we have seen, receives the totality of his being from the Father, in the unity of the same Spirit. The human life is thus introduced to the Trinitarian lifelike, and sent in mission to the world. But this response constituted as a truly profound human praxis in that glimpse of eternity, is only possible as a gift, never as an extrapolation of human expectancies.

The nucleus of the calling, of Jesus’ life as the fulfillment of his mission, is neither the external imputation of a new place in the cosmos derived from his natural place, nor the recruitment in the most humanistic or revolutionary world project. Any cosmological or anthropological reduction of the Revelation in Jesus, misses the truth his life manifestation. What was and is given to human experience in Jesus, resembles no true analogy to human reason or actions, left to their own resources, to which it is, at least, scandal and madness.

Though truly pipelining of his humanity, man’s relationship with God is not a personal relationship, and that is why, our theologian warns, the phenomenological way cannot encounter with the essence of religious experience, for it is, at least, inattentive speaking about it in terms of dialogue, and of God as “interlocutor” of maxi. There’s no discussion, adult emancipation, or middle point agreement here, but a self-giving obedient response.

Jesus experience is archetypical in the sense that its integrative authority lies in its absolute singularity. As we have seen, this integration takes place in the true reception -Haranguing – of the form revealed in Jesus’ life. That form is the Glory of God, which shined in his plenitude in the Cross, where the absolute beauty of the substance of God revealed itself evidently and irresistibly. This is the uniqueness of redemption that no cosmological or anthropological reduction can duplicate.

To the thing itself: Hierarchical, a theological aesthetics Huskers referred to the phenomenological attitude as aesthetically. This term is also the key access to Baluster’s thought in his most well-known work structured as a helically aesthetics (the Lord’s Glory, Hierarchical), followed by a Therefore (Thermodynamic) and, finally, a Theology (Theologies). Blathers relies on the renewing power of Christian and western tradition which, he contests, presupposes the methodological pre-eminence of the aesthetic approach to speak about our experience of God.

This interpretation denounces the perversion of theology as a static system attached from life, as well as its reduction to a militant ethical project. Baluster’s recuperation of the fulcrum before the bonus and the verve, certainly refers to beauty, but, more precisely, to the sublime, in Kantian terms. In its experience we are captivated not Just by the conformity we experience in the object, but subjugated by its overwhelming worth in which we discover our insignificance, filled and elevated.

Our author finds this perspective behind the whole tradition, but focuses, as tradition, in the experience of the disciples and the first believers of the kerugma, who didn’t testify a new knowledge or ethical way, but confessed being overwhelmed by the life of this Maxine, whose transparency evidenced for them what human life really is through the eyes of God. They couldn’t ignore this proposal hat demanded and received a response, whether of acceptance and redemption, or scandal and damnation.

We have discussed how love is the form of the life of Jesus. He din ‘t Just proclaimed salvation to the prostitutes, lepers, tax collectors, Pharisees or fishermen, but lived among them, and doing so, in his most simple actions and in his miracles, never gave testimony of himself but of the Father who had sent him to mankind. But the splendor of this form has its center in the Cross, where this whole life of self-giving love is desiderated, mocked, fallen in disgrace and abandoned.

The crucified finds himself not only ripped apart from the men and women he was sent to, but also from the Father who sent him: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? “. Rejected, Jesus appears most clearly, as he who is sent, as the free communication of God that is at once the possibility of communion with him. As far as human reason can understand, that’s who the Son in the immanent Trinity really is, the Our-genesis that pressures since ever the genesis, the self-emptiness, made visible, touchable and urging in the Cross.

If reason sought the Cross, it would lose itself in self destruction r in the morbid contemplation of an irrational death and suffering, without any bendable link with the ones it pretends to give life for. It might be reasonable to give life for Justice and the well-being of human beings, but it makes no sense to love -in Jesus, give life for – every human benefiting. This is what the disciples slowly grasp since the Resurrection: that God accomplished the ultimate extreme for the sake of mankind giving it his his own Son.

His absolute self-givens still offers in the Cross saving calling, silently shouting in terrifying loneliness. Theological aesthetics is, hen, no aesthetically theology. In this absurdity, Jesus radically fulfills his mission of integrating in the form of his life the totality of the human experience, sharing the fate of those who live and lose their life in the absurdity of suffering, indifference and desperation. This integration isn’t Just a titanic solidarity that somehow, after the Resurrection, reaches us as an external imputation of redemption.

Blathers insists in the traditional faith declaration: Jesus took our place and saved us; in him, all men and women have died and been resurrected. He died, and doing so he, the innocent, studiously made his own the sins of mankind introducing this evil in the divine lifelike, up to the point that he also suffered the condemnation of hell. In perhaps some of his most interesting and dramatic pages, Blathers describes the Holy Saturday experience of Jesus descent to hell, where he experienced himself cutter out from every relation, from the world, the others and even, in the absolute extreme, from his Father.

We can only imagine -meditate in the light of the Scripture and the saint’s life, that report us this misters – this absolute experience of the Saint himself, haring the destiny of the damned. Therefore, contemplation lies at the center of these considerations, for we find ourselves in a misters. Not between incomprehensible affirmations, but realizing how the extreme love fully revealed in the cross has broken every ethical barrier and radically transformed our sense of ourselves, our world and where lies the ultimate reality in which we dwell.

This is the self-giving love that in its true and evident splendor enraptures the deepest intimacy of man or woman, enabling the response, for love alone is believable. So love is the absence of God xv, and the medium in which we are made participants of the Trinitarian life. The Glory is the manifestation of this redemption crucified love, fully accomplished in the Resurrection, in which we are resurrected, integrated in the path traced and completed by Jesus.

Supported in this aesthetically enrapture in the form of Jesus, we are capable of carrying out our response, as the acceptance of our role in this Grant Theatre del Mound. Blathers explores the Therefore of the following, in the frame of the bigger action of Redemption, characterized through the image of Cauldron De la Barb’s assistance. Each one is invited to accept freely the role reserved for him or her by God, between the characters of the action. Obedience appears here as letting God be God in one’s own life, Just like Mary, and, ultimately, Jesus.

The follower is incorporated in the central action which inevitably leads to the Cross, the redeemers Haranguing of the form of Christ, which enables our response, conforming it to him, sent to the others in loving self-givens. Thus, in the neighbor we find the acting love of Jesus for this limited human being, that is addressed by his or her singular personal name. The neighbor is not Just an associate or the beneficiary in our praxis, but a particular person, named by God, singled out of the mere world of things.

And, for I recognize in this experience the godly love for this sinner, I am reminded of my own sin and acknowledge thankfully the redemption I was also given. In strict sense, I’m not to be “another Jesus” but a co-participant in his redeeming action. His is the accomplishing and the Judgment. All the dogmatism of Christian faith stems from this encounter space between the believer and the neighborhoods, in which they are integrated by Christ.

There is manifested his being sent by the Father, his true humanity as the true face of the Father in the all-involving love of the Spirit. This misters is remembered, meditated and cherished in the community by its expression in the declarations of faith, as we have seen, no esoterically outwardly affirmations, or normative tools measured by its usefulness for our praxis. Only from this path can the believer attempt a word conformed to the truth of the Misters to which he or she looses his own life, to be born in the new life opened by Jesus.

This is the true position and role of Theology. From this experience, it’s Seibel to risk a word about the truth of the world, in dialogue with its now regrettably divorced companion, philosophy. There blossoms the truth about the human being, and the truth about God. This knowledge, aware of the absolute truth from where it flows, as well as its limitation to an analogical language, is the Christian noosing, the service of the truth developed in tradition, expressed in the teachings of the Magistrate and permanently explored by theologically.

Conclusion (I): Servants of human experience Hans Ours von Baluster’s theology invites the reader to realize the human capacity to eek and reach -or, rather, being reached by – the thing itself. Even more, the full profoundness of the ultimate “thing” itself is revealed precisely in a man, Jesus. Human experience is not Just a sign of the absolute, but the space of its true Revolutionaries, which awakens and enables the obeying response of letting oneself be appropriated by the form of Christ.

In him, man is really turned into the language of Goodwin. This full attention of the believer in the contemplation of the only important thing, God, orientates him or her to the world in a self-giving that, Just like Jesus, is not a canonical predication, but the true embracement of the world’s hopes, pains, and struggles. As we have seen, the faithfulness to the Spirit which constitutes the community, prevents its mission from the temptation to build its own kingdom in this world, for what is now lived is a pilgrimage.

This faithfulness demands from the community -its authority structure, its rituals, its groups and individual members form of the life of Jesus: exposition to the world and powerlessness, in order for the true power to find its silent way. “Integrity”, as von Blathers calls it, is not Just a catalogs desire for an impossible comeback to Christendom; it’s a denial to the Cross, the fall in the ever present temptation of building securities out of ourselves. Christians may and should collaborate with all human projects to protect and foster the human spirit.

Doing so they shouldn’t look down on the nonbeliever, not only because of the vivid memories of their shameful past, but because Jesus himself elevated the love of the pagan (the good Samaritan) to the level of his own lovelier. His is the Spirit to flow wherever the Father wishes. Thus, the Church rejoices in Jesus or all development of the human world, but should ‘t measure itself against the world’s criteria: growing number, influence, appreciation, etc. Xiii Only the Spirit gives the measure: the form of Christ, poor, unarmed, respectful of the human response, and abandoned in God.

The community knows itself as forgiven sinners, and there lies the permanent force of its critic capacity in order to continuously convert itself to God’s forgiving love. The consciousness of this love, and their poor response to it, drives Christians confidently and humbly to the world, given to them as the talent, not as property. Far away from despising this world, the believer cooperates in what he or she knows is a never ending task that it’s not up to us to measure.

This anticipated experience of the Kingdom is that of giving reason with meekness and fear, through life, of the loving hope which fulfills the longings of the world. Excursus:This Lifework Blathers dialogues with the contemporary European religious indifference, as well as the perplexities of the post-conciliator Christianity. What sense can it make to discuss philosophically this theology in a seemingly inverse context like Peru and Latin America, with such particular experience f widespread institutionalizing of individual autonomy, massive access to technology, wealth and leisure, religious pluralism or practical atheism?

Let us briefly address this question, before finishing. One day in October it is possible to see a Senor De Los Mailbags procession along the main pathway of this University where professors and students of its Science and Engineering School carry the image into their building between typical chants, attire and even Peruvians women with the traditional incense. Statistical data shows this was and is a familiar experience for many of these professionals of natural