Karl Rahner’s Writings on Literature, Music and the Visual Arts

If asked to name major twentieth century theologians who also wrote on aesthetics, mention would certainly need to be made of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jack Maritain and Paul Tillich, and perhaps also of occasional pieces by Karl Barth and Hans Küng among others. But hitherto not even the latter minimum has been available in the case of Karl Rahner, and that despite the fact that of all theologians of the period he was the most open to the activity of the Spirit in the wider world. Gesa Thiessen has at last rectified this defect in her splendid collection and translation of occasional pieces by Rahner on the subject. While most of the extracts discuss how the words of poets can operate like ‘gates into infinity,’ the other arts are not ignored. Much more than ‘mere illustration,’ they confirm how the arts, like theology, are an experience of grace, opening individuals to the transcendent. -- David Brown, University of St Andrews, UK
Premiere theologians expand the traditional boundaries of theology with an eye to the human experiences as manifested in the arts. Gesa E. Thiessen highlights these elements in Karl Rahner’s oeuvre by collecting his commentaries on the visual arts, poetry, literature, and music even unto Stravinsky and the Beatles into this superb volume. -- Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Georgetown University, USA
Gesa Thiessen has given us a wonderful gift in these remarkable but often overlooked works by Karl Rahner on the validity and importance of non-verbal modes of doing theology. Rahner’s trust in the capacity of the arts to be a means by which humans encounter and understand the divine is foundational and just as relevant to contemporary theological reflection as it was in his time. -- Robin Jensen, Notre Dame University, USA