Transcendental in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and its significance for Chinese academic aesthetics
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Date
26/11/2013Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Peng, Sheng-Yu
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Abstract
This thesis begins a dialogue between Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological
aesthetics and Chinese academic aesthetics. We identify a tension between aesthetics
and religion in Chinese academic aesthetics, and argue that a dialogue with von
Balthasar’s work has the potential to contribute to the development of Chinese
academic aesthetics with regard to overcoming that tension.
In order to set a ground for the dialogue, von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics
is examined in Part I. His theological aesthetics reveals that genuine beauty can
never be fully accounted for by a perspective based in modern aesthetics, an
aesthetics that limits itself to worldly categories. Rather, genuine beauty comes only
from the beauty of the Christ form, in which religion and aesthetics converge. In
Part II, we examine the tension between religion and aesthetics in Chinese academic
aesthetics. The origin and influence of Chinese academic aesthetics stems from Cai
Yuan-pei’s proclamation calling for the “substitution of aesthetics for religion”. For
Cai, with a perspective based in modern aesthetics, aesthetics and religion occupied
opposed and incompatible positions. Social and historical factors, for example
government backed Marxist ideology, also contribute to hostility towards
Christianity. We argue that due to the lack of the transcendental dimension, a result
of rejecting the divine and so divine beauty, the further development of Chinese
academic aesthetics may be stunted. Finally, in Part III, we outline the beginning of
a dialogue between von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and Chinese academic
aesthetics. We argue that by dialoguing with von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics,
Chinese academic aesthetics may potentially obtain a transcendental dimension in
coming to recognise genuine beauty, divine beauty. In coming to recognise genuine
beauty, we argue that true progress in Chinese academic aesthetics may be made.