Aesthetic Strategies in Western Religious Thought

Abstract

A s soon as we say, and Aesthetics, we are caught in a problem. It would seem that we are bringing together two relatively separate and independent entities: two separate dimensions of human consciousness, two separate areas of human activity, two separate subject fields. We may get the impression that these are two distinct spheres of influence, which we are bringing into some arbitrary juxtaposition. What a study of religion and aesthetics reveals, however, is that in the lived reality of our experience we are caught up in an intricate network of judgments that are simultaneously religious and aesthetic. When we start talking about our ultimate predispositions toward the world of experience, the shape and contours of our realities and our deepest sense of personal identity, we may find that the religious and the aesthetic are mutually implied. Religion and aesthetics are intimately intertwined in a number of important and interesting ways. They are already related to the extent that we can identify religious dimensions within works of art and aesthetic structures implicit in religion. It is the purpose of this brief paper to clarify-on a theoretical level-the relationship between religion and aesthetics. First of all, it is possible to identify religious dimensions within works of art. The religious dimensions can be identified in two ways. One way is in terms of diffusion. There are instances where we can locate and describe certain historical influences of a religious community, text, or practice upon a work of art. The influence of Aquinas's Summa upon Dante's Divine Comedy, the influence of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola upon the metaphysical poets, the influence of Calvin upon Milton-these would all be examples of religious dimensions in literature which can be empirically traced to a process of historical diffusion. Examples from the visual arts could include the influence of the liturgy upon the development