Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
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Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. David Bentley Hart. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003. The Beauty of the Infinite is a complex and subtle work that presents an aesthetic defense of Christian rhetoric against those who embrace what David Bentley Hart calls “the metaphysics of violence”: the belief that life is inherently tragic with no possibility of redemption. Its arguments, however, repay study. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, contends that the Christian understanding of beauty can rise above the metaphysics of violence with the promise of faith and hope. By appealing to the possibility of eternal life, Christians are able to break the cycle of violence that characterized pagan society. The entrance of God into time through Jesus Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit in the institution of the Church offers the hope of replacing the narrative of suffering and violence with one of beauty and peace.
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of…
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. David Bentley Hart. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003. The Beauty of the Infinite is a complex and subtle work that presents an aesthetic defense of Christian rhetoric against those who embrace what David Bentley Hart calls “the metaphysics of violence”: the belief that life is inherently tragic with no possibility of redemption. Its arguments, however, repay study. Hart, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, contends that the Christian understanding of beauty can rise above the metaphysics of violence with the promise of faith and hope. By appealing to the possibility of eternal life, Christians are able to break the cycle of violence that characterized pagan society. The entrance of God into time through Jesus Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit in the institution of the Church offers the hope of replacing the narrative of suffering and violence with one of beauty and peace.