A Generous Symphony

<p>Hans Urs von Balthasar one of the preeminent theologians of Roman Catholic theology in the modern era constructed a theological world suffused by the literary a vision carried across over 16 volumes of his magnum opus. <b>A Generous Symphony</b> offers a balanced appraisal of Balthasars literary achievement and explicates Balthasars literary criticism as a distinctive theology of revelation which offers possibilities for understanding how divine presence may be manifested outside the canonical boundaries of Christian tradition.</p><p>The structure of <b>A Generous Symphony</b> is a chronological presentation of the Balthasarian canon of imaginative literature which allows readers to see how social and historical interests guide Balthasars readings in the pre-Christian medieval and modern eras. While other books have examined the systematic theology of Balthasar this book will examine the important question of how students of literature like Balthasar can be transformed into theologians by attending to the implicit presence of Christ in what Gerard Manley Hopkins poem As kingfishers catch fire . . . called the ten thousand places. Balthasars deep investment in the uniqueness of Christian revelation is underlined while at the same time his aesthetic sympathies cause him to invest literature with quasi-sacramental status.</p>