The Revelation of Love as Beauty

One of Balthasar’s key insights into how God incites man with his divine love is to encourage the
non-believer to ponder his encounters with beauty in the world, especially as found in human
love. Since most non-believers like to consider themselves open-minded, Balthasar capitalized
on that desire by helping them see the mystery of Being as revealed in beauty. His thought in
this regard has been developed wonderfully by Fr. Thomas Dubay in The Evidential Power of
Beauty (Ignatius, 1999). Non-believers must also consider the limitations of worldly beauty,
especially in the brokenness and failures of all human love. Why is love in this world so finite and
fractured? Why are all attempts at love stamped as "failed" by the inevitable reality of death?
This predicament leads to the vital question: Is there a love beyond this world?

At this point the non-believer can be led to wonder at the Cross and be provoked by this sign of
divine revelation. They can be challenged to open their heart to the encounter with the beautiful
form of Christ crucified revealing in its depths the Triune God of love. The non-believer with an
open heart can be drawn by the grace coming through this form into the dynamic of love,
leading to an act of faith. Though this theme is present throughout Balthasar vast writings, I will
concentrate on two of his foundational works: Love Alone Is Credible (Ignatius, 2004), and The
Glory of the Lord, (tr. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis), vol. 1 (Ignatius, 1982).

Balthasar argues that the encounter with beauty in the world is analogous to the encounter with
the Triune God. What happens in the "aesthetic encounter"? He sees that beauty is an
indissolvable union of two things: species and lumen. Beauty consists of a specific, tangible form
(species) accessible to human senses with a splendor emanating from the form (lumen). Beauty
has a particular form, is concretely situated in the coordinates of time and space, and thus has
proportion so that it can be perceived. The splendor is the attractive charm of the Beautiful, the
gravitational pull, the tractor beam pulling the beholder into it. When confronted with the
Beautiful, one encounters "the real presence of the depths, of the whole reality, and . . . a real
pointing beyond itself to those depths" (GL).

In the perception of beauty, two moments occur: first vision and then rapture, the result of
which is the impression of the form on the beholder. The splendor moves out from within the
form, enraptures the person and transports him into its depths. Thus the visible form "not only
‘points’ to an invisible, unfathomable mystery; form is the apparition of this mystery, and reveals
it while, naturally, at the same time protecting and veiling it" (GL). In beauty, the beholder is
drawn out of himself and pulled into the form by the attractive force of the beautiful thing,
thereby encountering the beautiful thing in itself.

The Aesthetical Encounter

A simple example to illustrate the aesthetical encounter can be found in looking up into a clear
night sky at the stars. One is struck by the immensity and order of the universe, by the
arrangement of the constellations. On an especially clear night, one seems engulfed by the sheer
number of stars. Presented with this beautiful form, a sensitive viewer is drawn in by light
breaking forth from the form. This light is not simply the light emanating from each star, the
result of burning gases. It is the light of Being. Transported into the depths of the form, the
viewer ponders foundational questions such as: How did this happen? Where did these things
come from? Why is this form so beautiful? Why am I so moved by it?

The result of the aesthetical encounter is an encounter with the mystery of Being-in-itself. One
has been shown the form and through the form been brought into an encounter with the depth
of Being. Wondering at the mystery of a particular being, one is drawn into that beautiful form,
and touches the mystery of absolute Being. The form and the depths of its being are
indissoluble. In beauty one doesn’t "get behind" the form. Rather one touches the depths of
Being in the form itself.

For Balthasar, things that exist don’t just lay there in existence; they glow from their
participation in absolute Being. In Beauty, one is taken in and grasped by Being. In order to
perceive a particular being as it is, one must surrender, be receptive, and be willing to be taken
in by the form. Control or manipulation on the part of the beholder derails the aesthetical
encounter. To share in the beauty, the viewer must renounce himself. The result of the
encounter with beauty is the impressing of the form on the person leaving him breathless,
exhilarated, full of awe and infused with joy. He is "seduced" by the beautiful form whether it is
a stunning landscape or one’s beloved.