Perceiving Splendor: The "Doctrine of the Spiritual Senses" in Hans Urs von Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics

Abstract

This study argues that the so-called "doctrine of the spiritual senses" should be recognized as a vital component of the theological aesthetics of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988). The doctrine of the spiritual senses has been interpreted in the Christian tradition in a variety of ways. In its epistemological sense, it generally claims that human beings can be made capable by grace of perceiving "spiritual" realities. After a lengthy period of disuse within systematic theology, Balthasar recovers the doctrine in the mid-twentieth century and articulates it afresh in his theological aesthetics. At the heart of this project stands the task of perceiving the absolute beauty of the divine form (Gestalt) through which God is revealed to human beings. Although extensive scholarly attention has focused on Balthasar's understanding of revelation, beauty, and form, what remains curiously neglected is his model of the perceptual faculties through which the human being beholds the form that God reveals. I argue that Balthasar draws upon the fecund tradition of the spiritual senses in an effort at developing the anthropological structure requisite to perceiving the "splendor" (Glanz) of divine revelation. In other words, it is precisely through the spiritual senses that one performs the epistemologically central task of "seeing the form." Furthermore, to the minimal extent that Balthasar's understanding of the spiritual senses has been treated at all, no source properly acknowledges the remarkable manner in which he creatively rearticulates the doctrine in his aesthetics. I therefore additionally claim that Balthasar integrates elements of the classic doctrine of the spiritual senses with the thought of his contemporaries, and that from this intersection emerges a highly original understanding of the spiritual senses. I also explain how, in the various interactions and tensions between Balthasar and Barth, on the one hand, and Balthasar and Rahner, on the other, the importance of this theme in Balthasar's thought has been overlooked in the secondary literature to date.