Articles

Grasping the Form: A Proposal for Contemplative and Synthetic Systematic Theology

Angela Franks

Issue 1

Volume 1

pp. 204 - 231

https://doi.org/10.65172/LUiUjWhQkMHIWd10

Abstract

Angela Franks proposes a "gestaltenlesendes Denken" as a method for renewing systematic theology, drawing heavily on Hans Urs von Balthasar and Thomas Aquinas. She argues that theology must move beyond fragmented specialization toward a synthetic, contemplative vision centered on the form of Christ. This approach universalizes creaturely truth by recapitulating it within the Word made flesh, integrating rigorous intellectual service with adoring prayer and obedience to the Spirit.

Citations

Christopher M. Hadley, A Symphony of Distances: Patristic, Modern, and Gendered Dimensions of Balthasar’s Trinitarian Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022).

Cyril O’Regan, Anatomy of Misremembering: Von Balthasar’s Response to Philosophical Modernity, vol. 1, Hegel (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Crossroads, 2014), 133–46, 443–44, 446–47.

Karol Wojtyła, Person and Act, in Person and Act and Related Essays, trans. Grzegorz Ignatik (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 93–416, at 207–373.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 2: Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, trans. Andrew Louth, Francis McDonagh, and Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1984), 260–362.

Bonaventure’s Collationes in Hexaëmeron

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I.

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the “De Trinitate” of Boethius.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles.

Alasdair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 174.

Cory, Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge

Therese Scarpelli Cory, Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 138-40

Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work: In Retrospect (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 41.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh, trans. A.V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989).

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic, vol. 2, Truth of God, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004).

Angela Franks, “Liquidity: Man, the Triune God, and the Eucharistic Christ,” Communio 46, no. 3–4 (Fall–Winter 2019): 585–619.

Christophe Potworowski, “An Exploration of the Notion of Objectivity in Hans Urs von Balthasar,” in Glory, Grace, and Culture: The Work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, ed. Ed Block Jr. [Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2005], 69–87.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. 2: Dramatis Personae: Man in God, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), 267–68, 405–7.

John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, encyclical letter, September 14, 1998, in particular §§16–23.

Elio Guerriero, Hans Urs von Balthasar. Eine Monographie (Einsiedeln, CH: Johannes Verlag, 1993, 419–24.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theology of History (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1994).

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic, vol. 1, Truth of the World, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000).

Angela Franks, “Deleuze, Balthasar, and John Paul II on the Aesthetics of the Body,” Theological Studies 81, no. 3 (December 2020): 649–70.

Schindler, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth.

Joseph Ratzinger, “John Paul II: Twenty Years in History,” in The Legacy of John Paul II: Images and Memories, trans. Michael J. Miller and Nicoletta V. MacKenzie (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005), 9–33, at 16.

Therese Scarpelli Cory, “The Nature of Cognition and Knowledge,” The New Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, ed. Eleonore Stump and Thomas Joseph White (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 153–83, at 166–75.

“Quel che devo a Goethe: Discorso per il conferimento del premio Mozart” (“What I Owe to Goethe”), reprinted in Elio Guerriero, Hans Urs von Balthasar (Milan: Edizioni Paoline, 1991), 395–406, at 396

Nicholas Boyle, Goethe: The Poet and the Age, vol. 1, The Poetry of Desire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 596.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic, vol. 3, Spirit of Truth, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005).

Jonathan Martin Ciraulo, The Eucharistic Form of God: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Sacramental Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022).

Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, ed. and trans. Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 79–80.

Adrienne von Speyr, Light and Images: Elements of Contemplation, trans. D.C. Schindler [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004], 111.

Brian P. Dunkle, “Service in the Analogia Entis and Spiritual Works of Erich Przywara,” Theological Studies 73, no. 2 (May 2012): 339–62.

Joseph Ratzinger, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1989).

Angela Franks, "The Epiphany of Being: Trinitarian Analogia Entis and the Transcendentals in Hans Urs von Balthasar" (PhD diss., Boston College, 2006).

D.C. Schindler, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth: A Philosophical Investigation (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004), 167–75.

Angela Franks, “Trinitarian Analogia entis in Hans Urs von Balthasar,” The Thomist 62 (1998): 533–59.

Angela Franks, “What Secularization Did to the Self,” Church Life Journal, January 17, 2022, https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/what-secularization-did-to-the-self/.

Breviloquium

De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1994).

Jean Yves Lacoste, “Zur Theologie des Geistes,” Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift Communio 15, no. 1 (1986): 1–7.

Daniel De Haan, “Aquinas on Sensing, Perceiving, Thinking, Understanding, and Cognizing Individuals,” in Medieval Perceptual Puzzles: Theories of Sense-Perception in the 13th and 14th Centuries, ed. Elena Baltuta (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 238–68, at 261.

Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, trans. John R. Betz and David Bentley Hart (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 229 and 235.

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