That said, Mattes’s task is not an easy one, since Luther’s theologizing pivots around making sense of God’s gracious act of justification as the central task of theology, meaning beauty is embedded within this task, rather than existing as an independent concept.Īs a result, Mattes firmly roots beauty within Luther’s theological horizon, exegeting its contours out of his views on forensic and effective justification, his law and gospel distinction, as well as his distinction between the hidden and revealed nature of God. Being shaped, in part, by a medieval world rooted in the neo-Platonic affirmation of the importance of beauty, he is deeply aware of the importance of beauty as a theological concept. Mattes is right to stress the importance of exploring Luther’s view on beauty. Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2015). In many ways, the argument as a whole responds to the view that Luther is a primary cause of this disenchantment, seen for instance in Brad S. It is fair to say that these issues lie behind Mark Mattes’s argument in Martin Luther’s Theology of Beauty: A Reappraisal. This larger aesthetic structure thus resonates well with Weber’s claim about the “disenchantment” of the world in which reason shapes a discourse that negates any transcendent power for beauty. What’s more, following the aesthetic thought of Kant, artistic beauty has no wider purpose, making a visit to an art museum merely an act of contemplation on the nature of art, rather than any sustained reflection about the efficaciousness of beauty to evoke the divine. And yet, within everyday life, material beauty saturates our common experiences, usually chained to consumptive practices, as in an enticement to awaken a desire to purchase some new gadget. Within the Protestant theological tradition.
In the contemporary context, critical reflections about the nature of beauty lie underdeveloped, especially