Irish Theological Quarterlyhttp://itq.sagepub.com Balthasar's Theological Aesthetics and Lacanian Psychoanalysis Thomas Dalzell Irish Theological Quarterly 2004; 69; 3 DOI: 10.1177/002114000406900101 The online version of this article can be found at: http://itq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/69/1/3 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Pontifical University, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland Additional services and information for Irish Theological Quarterly can be found at: Email Alerts: http://itq.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://itq.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from http://itq.sagepub.com by William Stranger on April 22, 2009 Hans Urs von Balthasar. In turn.com by William Stranger on April 22.5 While beauty has been important to other theologians such as Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. for it to continue to do so. 3.and even the success of the recent ’Seeing Salvation’ exhibition at the National Gallery in London’ . therefore. or because of false scientific rigour. Modernity and Faith: Restoring the Image (London: SCM. W. Jesus Christ. A Theological Study of Making and Meaning (Princeton: Princeton University Press. Viladesau.would suggest that beauty is making a comeback. ’Galleries’. cultural studies. See Edward Farley. Patrick Sherry. Michael Palmer (Berlin. Paul Tillich. F. It is hoped that psychoanalysis will shed Despite belles lettres. 5. Eine theologische Ä. 1970) 641f. the demise of ’the beautiful’ from the high arts. 1999). 4. Beauty and Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schau der Gestalt (Einsiedeln: Johannes. God in Imagination. Evangelisches Verlagswerk. It seems that it is no longer necessary for theology to renounce its natural interest in aesthetics. whether consciously or unconsciously. A Christian Understanding (London: Cassell. 2. Spirit and Beauty. An Introduction to Theological Aesthetics (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1961) 110. Alejandro Garcia-Rivera. See Karl Barth. A study of Lacan’s appraisal of Las Meninas demonstrates how the work of art engages the truth and desire of the subject. Western religion. A Theological Aesthetic (Aldershot: Ashgate. these are presupposed and perfected in the encounter with God’s own work of art. Bromiley and T.’ Doing aesthetics. Art and the Beauty of God. 6. 2009 . Frank Burch Brown. 1992). Church Dogmatics II. out of weakness or forgetfulness.esthetik I. 1993). The Tablet (1st April 2000) 448-450. Neil MacGregor. and 1. G. is not so much a theological option as a theological necessity. Main Works/Hauptwerke. Gesa Thiessen. philosophy. Indeed. Faith and Beauty. as Hans Urs von Balthasar has remarked. See Lucrezia Walker. 1993) 37. The Community of the Beautiful. 1998). 3 Downloaded from http://itq. A Theological Aesthetics (Collegeville: Liturgical Press. 1990). would entail its giving up a good part of itself. Richard Harries. especially as enunciated by Jacques Lacan in his return to Freud. New York: De Gruyter.6 this paper will focus on von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and attempt to bring it into dialogue with the insights of psychoanalysis. Art. Richard R. Theological Aesthetics.’ the plethora of new works on theological aestheticsZ . Writings in the Philosophy of Culture/ Kulturphilosophische Schriften II.sagepub. Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 2001) 1-12. 1999).Thomas Dalzell Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics and Lacanian Psychoanalysis Convergences between the theological aesthetics of von Balthasar and the thought of Jacques Lacan allow the author to interpret the aesthetic moments of perception and rapture in terms of truth and desire. eds. George Pattison. ed. See. 1999).. ’Seeing Salvation’. Herrlichkeit. Theology and Modern Irish Art (Dublin: Columba Press. The Tablet (26th February 2000) 283. Religious Aesthetics. if not the best part. in addition to Farley. as Frank Burch Brown has urged. Dublin. In the beautiful object. but a theological aesthetics whose central concern is the revelation of God’s own beauty. SM Theology and Philosophy.sagepub. If the divine glory reveals itself within the structures of natural aesthetics. that. he notes that the language traditionally associated with a beautiful object is form (Gestalt) or figure (Gebilde) and that the adjectives formosus (from forma) and speciosus (from species) derive from the first moment.’ Hence. for Balthasar. Theologik I: Wahrheit der 9. this means that human perception must play a mediating role in the appreciation of the divine mystery. beauty. 255. we are confronted with two moments at the same time. Declan Marmion. We encounter not only the form but something else . 112. In other words. is clear from his view that the radiance of God’s glory reveals itself within the radiance of Being. Institute of and Dr. 18. Therefore he can say that the beautiful is the way in which God’s goodness gives itself so that it can be understood as truth. 2009 . which considers its truth.’ I. 246. Hence Balthasar’s claim in his dialogue with Karl Barth. and a theological ’logics’. 18. the inner life of God revealed in the beautiful form of Christ sheds light on the mystery of Being. as we will see.which evokes rapture which. while interested in God’s beauty. analysis possible. since God’s revelation has to take place within the structures of metaphysics if it is to be perceived at new 7. This means that Balthasar’s theological aesthetics is not simply a retrieval of the category of the beautiful for theology. Welt. Regarding the former. But this has implications for the human subject.splendour . and. remains an aesthetics as such. Herrlichkeit I. the transcendental attributes of Being are linked. In Herrlichkeit. See Balthasar. Herrlichkeit is followed by a theological ’dramatics’. is a matter of ’transport’. 10. his theological aesthetics is an aesthetics. 10 That Balthasar’s theological aesthetics. He does not merely develop an aesthetic theology.9 But then there arises the question of what changes the species into speciosa. Balthasar.4 some light which is on what is at stake not just in aesthetics but in an aesthetics specifically theological. Gesa Thiessen of the Milltown for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. according to Balthasar. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theology of Beauty Theological Aesthetics rather than Aesthetic Theology Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics is a theology of God’s self-revelation in the light of the third transcendental. for Balthasar. 8. and it is this that makes a dialogue with psychol. For Balthasar. This refers to the second moment. which understands the revelation of God’s glory as a free self-gift. I am grateful to Dr. Ibid. But. Balthasar isolates two moments in his conception of beauty: form and splendour. it is the splendour which radiates from within the form. Downloaded from http://itq.com by William Stranger on April 22. &dquo. it is only in ’the light of Being’ that worldly objects can be perceived. 113. there is only an analogy between aesthetics and an aesthetics which is specifically theological.ll That having been said. Balthasar’s own distinction between the natural a priori (philosophical ’faith’ as openness) and the theological a priori (theological faith) confirms his position that what faith perceives is more than the beauty of Being. 13 This is confirmed by his acceptance of Heidegger’s idea of Ekstasis. Yet. in his view.the locus par excellence of divine beauty’s self revelation . Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie (Kö. ural’ vision. for Balthasar.ln: Hegner.transport into the depths of God . In other words.are central to the act of faith also. Balthasar notes. 13. one which is interested in God’s own beauty. Our question is whether psychoanalysis can help us understand those structures. 157. in and 11. he recognizes that natural or philosophical perception and faith-perception are not beyond comparison. Yet. 14. since. Downloaded from http://itq. the horizon of the human spirit is thought to extend beyond worldly being to absolute Being. indeed. God’s own splendour cannot be reduced to other instances of aesthetic radiance which can be perceived in the world. His argument is that. His starting point is that faith is required.sagepub.5 all. See ibid. if the subject is to see it for what it is. 1962) 177-181. We will see later how psychoanalysis has something to say about the dread experienced in the context of aesthetics. if Trinitarian beauty is to be perceived at all. Regarding the latter. God’s self-revelation is offered to the human subject in such a way that it can be seen. and rapture (Ent-zucken) at perceiving such a self-bestowing fullness. two aspects of the philosophic act are brought together: dread (Ent-setzen) as the finite discovers in itself the opening up of infinity. his theological aesthetics has to remain an aesthetics. 2. But Balthasar’s point is that ’the light of faith’ shines in the locus of the same spirit that knows Being in such a way that respects it and makes it capable of something more than a natural or philosophic act. 12.&dquo.he examines the nature of that perception with a view to understanding how it is similar and dissimilar to ’nat. Balthasar. In the latter. because he recognizes that the natural structures of the human subject have to be respected. perception and rapture . Philosophical and Theological Aesthetic Openness Since Balthasar’s aesthetics deals with the perception of divine beauty through the form (Gestalt) of Christ . just as nature and grace are compatible. Karl Barth. as such. Another way of putting this is that there is an analogy between the perception of God as revealed in the Christ-form and the perception of what is disclosed in other finite beings. 2009 . Herrlichkeit I. For Balthasar.com by William Stranger on April 22. Balthasar. See ibid. Barth’s analogia fidei must contain within itself the analogic entis. the beauty of God’s Trinitarian love. 151 (Heidegger’s text not cited). 151-152. as we have seen.&dquo. but intends the rapturous transport of the subject who perceives it. if this is what happens in faith. For him.com by William Stranger on April 22. his or her natural capacities are brought to nothing or replaced.to carry the subject to the threshold of faith? For Balthasar. For Balthasar. Rather. so too Balthasar’s theological aesthetics does respect and fulfil the natural aesthetic openness of the human subject. argues that. 2009 . the obedient opening oneself to the revealing God who calls the believer to a graced relatlonship. Balthasar does not accept that. the rapture in question does not carry one only to the heights of Being. Responding to the light of faith. the dread involved in ’philosophical faith’ is removed.sagepub. Just as grace does not destroy nature but perfects it. just so perception and aesthetics not rapture go together. Balthasar’s aesthetics. when the finite subject is drawn into relationship with the God of Jesus Christ. therefore. On the contrary. 10. Faith is understood as the act of acceptance. Rapture in Theological Aesthetics as form and splendour are united. taken to be the ability to understand all existents in the light of Being. for Balthasar. Ibid. 17. Of course. is surpassed by the theological a priori (faith) as its ontological and epistemological elevation. if his theological aesthetics attempts to overcome extrinsicism by showing that the act of faith has a foundation in the natural openness of the human spirit. But. 16. faith and grace are complementarily structured so that one culminates in the other. Just as Heidegger included rapture (Ent-zucken) in his conception of the philosophic act. theological perception act.theologically . such theological rapture is thought to respect and perfect philosophical rapture. contends that the revelation of God’s beauty is not art for art’s sake. is no more heteronymous than the subject’s being open to the light of Being. ory theory subject’s to participate in the glory of God made manifest in Christ as the form of forms. Can psychoanalysis shed any light on the latter? Is such rapture not the awakening of desire which is never satisfied and hence can be understood . Ibid.6 is thought to surpass the Balthasar Moreover. what is important to this paper is that he does recognize a continuity. it is also clear that he maintains a discontinuity between the two. On the other hand. unlike much aesthetic theology which concentrates on revelation alone. 16 theological only includes a theof but also a of the elevation or transport so as vision. when Being is perceived philosophic as Trinitarian love. the Holy Spirit is understood to draw or transport the believer in rapture into the sphere of glory inside the Trinitarian God. Ibid. But this gracing of the human subject will not bP at the expense of his or her humanity. the human subject’s natural a priori. his argument is that God perfects those capacities for a His 15. 15 Hence. Yet. 284-285. Downloaded from http://itq. 3. according to the old scholastic dictum. A stage’. 2009 . we are looked at. Alan Sheridan [London: Routledge. something slips and is to some degree eluded. he claims. In Lacan’s opinion. 1999] 1-7).even if no eyes are to be seen20 . the gaze comes in the place of what has been lost ever since the first separation of the infant from its mother.22 In other words. His interest is not in the meaning of a painting as representation but in the effect it has on the viewer. which is not the case in mere looking. Ibid.&dquo. but completely beyond. For Lacan. 108. this is not what art is about. he associates the eye with the looking proper to the register he calls ’the imaginary’. However. It is a narcissistic looking. which offers the illusion of completion devoid of lack. and he claims that it can even be detected in philosophies which understand consciousness as a turning back on itself. The objet a of Lacanian algebra in the scopic field 18. This is what he calls ’the gaze’. ’The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience’ in É. something in the work of art . As Leader points out. 19. as in a mirror. Moreover.7 rapture analogous to. While we are the ones looking at the painting. for Lacan. Selection. tr. 101. But what are those powers? What is aesthetic perceptiveness and rapture? To attempt an answer to these questions. what Lacan calls the ‘objet petit a’.crits. 20. Darian Leader has suggested that our looking for things once we have lost them might give us a clue to why we look at visual art. The Four Fundamental Concepts of PsychoanalysiS. gaping void’. nor does he involve himself in art criticism. we will now turn to psychoanalysis and in particular to Jacques Lacan’s views on what is happening when we are confronted by visual art. 2002) 7.&dquo. Lacan and Visual Art: The Gaze Jacques Lacan does not set out to analyse a painter. for Le Figaro at least. but the division of the subject. there is ’something absent’ to be observed in every picture. 66-67.com by William Stranger on April 22. See Darian Leader. that place was ’an enormous. wishes to attract the eye of the viewer. That loss causes a lack and because that lack is intolerable we put something in its place. like an actor. While one might think that a painter. and he distinguishes the eye from what he calls ’the gaze’. II. In every picture. according to Lacan.sagepub. Stealing the Mona Lisa. this absence is replaced by the gaze. it does not reveal the illusory completeness of the Ego. the painting is not a mirror. horrific. 74. In Seminar XI. 21. In reference to the theft of the Mona Lisa. Lacan contends. 22. The Contribution from Psychoanalysis 1.&dquo. Why do we look at paintings then. the rapture which is an actualization of his or her natural powers. The crowds that flocked to the Louvre after the theft demonstrate the true function of the work of art: to evoke the gap between the artwork and the place it occupies. the Ego is an imaginary construct dating from what he calls ’the mirror in it the infant is captivated by its own image (see Lacan. Downloaded from http://itq. See ibid. Lacan thinks not. especially portraits? When we see a painting.gazes at us. What Art Stops us from Seeing (London: Faber and Faber. Ibid. a painting confronts us with the primal separation. shows what is represented in its proportions. this painting is a trap not for the eye but for the gaze. What it manifests . 23. Reception. in his opinion. 14 This painting depicts two characters : the ambassadors Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. see Mark Roskill (ed. and 25. which.27 What the elongated skull manifests is the gaze. it is not a representation. It confronts us with our loss. this strange oblique object that can be apprehended as a skull. drawn into the picture and represented there as caught. 15 it is not the ambassadors. Hence.26 But as such. 89. For various views on Holbein. We are.es/visitas. 26. Meninas can be viewed on: Velá. perhaps.ln: Kö. which causes our desire. a classic example is to be found in The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger. Hans Holbein: Painting. is the value of a painting . true 3. Ibid.23 The 2. 28. it makes visible for us the subject as castrated in the sense of having given up an imaginary unity with the mother. when viewed from a certain point. which causes our lack. but it is known for a curious object in its foreground. for example. in Lacan’s opinion. was called ’the theology of painting’ by Luca Giordano. 2001.nemann. what we put in place of the lost object. a painting looks at us. http://museoprado. 106. interestingly. Life and Work (Kö.the gaze .&dquo.29 In other words. 2000) 85.is a representative of what remains absent. If. 101. Lacan argues. the subject tries to avoid it by having recourse to mere ’looking’ in which the gaze is elided. New Haven: Yale University Press. The Ambassadors Anamorphosis is by Hans Holbein the Younger an artistic device used to give a distorted image but which.com by William Stranger on April 22. It may frighten us. This. While the earliest examples appear in the notes of Leonardo da Vinci. from the moment the gaze ’appears’. 27. Ibid. 2009 Las . according to Lacan. It is. It is this that both fascinates and disturbs. See Dieter Beaujean. Ibid. that look at us.3° is a classic example of a painting which disturbs the viewer. but only.). Lacan adds the scopic drive to the list of drives (see ibid. Prints Lacan.mcu. It confronts us with the lack that causes our desire.8 gaze symbolizes our lack and it is for this reason that a us. 78). 92. we may even experience dread disturb painting may because the painting confronts us with our loss.zquez. rather. according to Lacan. ibid. 89. and even makes us into a painting.html Downloaded from http://itq. the seventeenth-century masterpiece by Veldzquez. as one turns around on leaving the room. The picture looks at us from the death’s head and captures us.sagepub. the object of the scopic drive is ’the gaze’. If every drive has an object. 24. It reveals the imaged embodiment of what is called in Lacanian algebra ’the minus phi of castration’ where phi represents the phallus that is understood to be the symbol of desire. 30. For Lacan. Ibid. of the ambassadors. Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez Las Meninas. is the gaze. 29. The Object in Psychoanalysis (1965-66). If this is a in that each of the figures is looking somewhere Lacan observes in Seminar XIII. 96-7. Foucault points out. he notes. How was this masterpiece accomplished? Did Velazquez use a mirror to paint the gathered personages behind him? Did he employ a stand-in for himself while painting the meninas in front of him? Is the artist is painting the King and Queen? Are they standing in front of the painting and being reflected in the mirror at the back and. The painter. See Lacan. the heart of the problem is: what is the ents painting of looks - painter painting?32 Since the artist includes himself in the painting. we might say. Downloaded from http://itq. Seminar XIII. See Lacan ’Seminar 17 (11. it was known as The Family of Philip IV at first. cause of desire. he adds that there is another invisible point exterior to the painting: we 31. See Brown. too much going on. Maria Agostina Sariente. The Order of Things. that the looks are lost on some invisible point. 9. 10. The Object of Psychoanalysis.66)’. Furthermore.of the daughter of Philip IV and Marianna of Austria. who is leaving.66)’.9 For Lacan. Las Meninas disori- the viewer. as he emerges from behind the canvas. as Lacan remarks. it has been argued by Jonathan Brown that Velazquez wanted to make it known that his declaration of the nobility of his art . Unpublished tr. 1-17 at 14. his torso and face are halfway between the visible and invisible. although we can place ourselves at that point occupying the same position as his subject.was endorsed by the king.com by William Stranger on April 22. Once again. He disagrees with Michel Foucault’s view that this painting is the representation of representation. what is on the canvas is invisible to us as well as what he is looking at. But. 35 Foucault highlights the dialectic of visibility and invisibility in Las Meninas.05. ’Seminar 17 (11. 33.sagepub. Lacan is more interested in the effect the painting has on the viewer and the painting demonstrating that effect. no other look fixes on anything. Don Jos6 Nieto Veldzquez. that give viewers a headache as they try to work out the trick of the painting’s construction. Given this name in the nineteenth century. Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting (Princeton: Princeton University Press. Even the figure at the back. The title refers to the young court companions the maids of honour . Apart from the look of one of the figures. 32.05. See Lacan. Cormac Gallagher. 1978) 101. if so. ’Seminar 17 (11. the Infanta Margarita. Lacan thinks it can only be the representative of a representation which remains absent (V orstellungsrepräsentanz). See Foucault. Seminar XIII (1965-66).as a liberal art whose guarantor was perspective . why does the perspective not work? These are the kind of questions. 35. there is. is visible in the painting. According to Lacan.05. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Routledge. 1970) 3-16.33 But that is to enquire about the intention of the artist. 11.66)’. it demonstrates well the subject’s relation in the scopic field to the objet a. is said to confuse us. Lacan draws our attention to an absence. 34. 2009 .&dquo.34 Since something is lost. not illusory completeness . The work of art confronts us not with an image of our own 36. if Las Meninas incarnates the gaze. Lacan. as Darian Leader reminds us. he does not say 4there. the one who looks at it is fastened on it (‘y est bouclé’). See Foucault.66)’. where the painter is painting from. but the representative of a representation. the problem with the painting is not one of visibility. it is a gaping place. Unpublished tr. ’Lacan on Las Meninas. for Lacan. ibid. Seminar XIII (1965-66). Like The Ambassadors. The picture-subject relation is said to be fundamentally different to the mirror-subject relation because the former refers to the lost object and to the subject as divided. is caught into its space. the picture is. Ibid. The Visual Structure of the Human Subject’. 37.05. Lacan would seem to be right in not attempting to analyse the artist since. Lacan argues. Lacan. For Foucault. In other words. because the ’there’ is elided. we find Las Meninas contrasted with the mirror. 10.com by William Stranger on April 22. ’Seminar 19 (25. ’Seminar 17 (11.37 More importantly. ibid. ibid. 39. On the other hand. 40.66)’.42 Lacan believes it demonstrates that the gaze is not a seen gaze but a gaze in another register.&dquo. ibid. The Object in Psychoanalysis.sagepub.05. made ’manifest’ by the painting. an unmarked interval. Hence the complaints when the Louvre decided to put the Mona Lisa under glass. 1-12 at 2. In other words. on the other hand. of where the subjects are standing. 16. Lacan speaks about Las Meninas capturing us. Hence Lacan’s pointing out that if Velazquez responds to the Infanta’s ’let me see’ with ’you do not see me from where I am looking at you’. if the artist did not tell us his or her story.41 In short. the point of capture and of the action the painting exercises on the viewer. Cormac Gallagher. where the spectator is. rather. is his showing us the effect the work of art can have on us in awakening our desire. 42.36 For Lacan. the subject is positioned by Las Meninas by being sustained in his or her lack .in relation to the objet a. cause of desire. from where I am looking at you’.38 Later in Seminar 2~III. See Lacan. See Brendan Staunton. 10. leaving us with his painting for our eternal interro- gation. is not that the gaze is invisible. he highlights the dreamy look of the figure at the back who is leaving. this would be ’in the imaginary’. See Foucault. the invisibility of what is on the other side of the canvas. The importance of Lacan’s contribution. 5. While Foucault thinks the dreamy figure may be about to enter the room. 28). The Letter 12 (Spring 1998) 25-40 at 34. an absence. Downloaded from http://itq.10 don’t see where the painter is painting from.39 If a mirror offers the completeness of representation. 2009 . 12. 38. the issue is that it cannot be visualized at all because it is not a gaze that is ’seen’. The difficulty. In all this. it is invisibility that the painting makes perceptible. He contends that this is the point where the lines of perspective come together. Lacan proposes that Velazquez himself is leaving us. the legendary art dealer Duveen used to heavily varnish his paintings because his clients used to enjoy looking at their own image in them (see Leader. 41. 45. An Convergences Analogous Perception Both theological aesthetics and psychoanalysis are concerned with perception and transport. And if the aesthetic act of transport. See Herrlichkeit I.der has suggested that the figures in Las Meninas gain their importance from the unimportance of their environment and that. Herrlichkeit I. is art about representation.is only accessible through representatives. is not primarily interested in the artist.as unconscious . If God is made visible in the Christ-form. Penguin Freud Library 14. this perception of divine beauty is also thought to lead to transport. 47. according to psychoanalysis. as the manifestation of God’s Trinitarian beauty.43 it is concerned rather with the effect art has on the viewer.45 What makes Balthasar’s aesthetics specifically theological is that. ’Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood’. so Lacanian psychoanalysis is concerned with the perception via the work of art of the subject’s own truth. For Balthasar. But Lacan will not reduce its idea of perception to the visual. the glory of glories. 46. Art and Literature. Psychoanalysis. 44. 120).46 Although he is regarded as the analogia entis in person. He is the representative of God’s own love in the world. Downloaded from http://itq. Just as Balthasar deliberately hyphenates Wahrnehmung (perception) to Wahr-nehmung44 (taking to be true).ndern (1971-73)’. he is the form of forms. Nor. the measure of measures.com by William Stranger on April 22. he is thought to enable Christian ecstasy or transport. its function and effect are elsewhere. there is almost nothing to be seen (see Kö. Lacanian psychoanalysis. (London: Penguin. See Freud. 2009 . Geist und Leben 2 [2002] 135-141 at 140).11 completion but with the lack that causes desire. its ultimate object is the beauty of God’s Trinitarian love. 10. 1990) 143-231. God is revealed in him and that revelation is given for faith-perception. Jesus is not thought to be only another beautiful form. 41 43. III. Herrlichkeit I.der. something which cannot be visualized but . Hence if the German priest-artist Sieger Kö. In addition. therefore. See Balthasar. For that reason.sagepub. those who see his form are said to be caught up in love of this God they includes cannot a moment see. as we have seen. See ’Preface of Christmas. Balthasar contrasts such worldly forms with his form and regards him as the archetypal form. Balthasar and Lacan: 1. ’Ein Fest der Narren? Zur Geschichte meines Bildes Das Mahl mit den Sü. another instance of beauty in the world. apart from them. is also interested in what is perceived in a work of art and has its own way of understanding what the work of art provokes. Jesus Christ is God’s representative. he is not merely another revelation of the beauty of Being but rather the very appearance of the beauty of God’s inner love. I’ in The Roman Missal (cited Balthasar. while its proximate object is Jesus Christ. it can be argued that what is incarnated in the painting cannot be seen. For Balthasar. 450-451. despite Freud’s reflections on Leonardo da Vinci. 18. he understands him as God’s representative (Reprasentanz) in the world. for example. This dual function is important to Balthasar who bases his argument for the restriction of priestly ordination to males on the basis that while all Christians continue the redemptive work of substituting (Stellvertretung) for sinners. the lost object. 50 More importantly. The Revelatory Significance of the Male Christ and the Male Ministerial Priesthood (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università. 50. therefore. invisible visible. Is there not a certain similarity between the work of art manifesting the subject’s lack and so awakening his or her desire.sagepub. Gregoriana. The Trinitarian Foundation of Human Sexuality as Revealed by Christ According to Hans Urs von Balthasar. it has to be conceded that there are important dissimilarities also.can represent God’s active paternity in the world.48 can it not be argued that. 49. or any instance of worldly beauty. Jesus functions in a certain sense like a divine signifier? As God’s own Word incarnate.49 If this suggests similarities between what psychoanalysis understands to be happening when one sees a picture and what is happening when one is confronted with Christ as God’s work of art. See Balthasar. Although it might be argued that his humanity is ’from below’. Analogous Rapture Like a work of art. the form is its very appearing. does not the displacement effected by the Christ-form not respect and perfect the natural structure of human desire? 48. If ’the gaze’ is thought to represent what is absent. Herrlichkeit I. and God’s work of art enabling such transport? Is such graced transport not grounded in the human metonymic movement which characterizes the desire of every subject? Just as Balthasar’s theological aesthetics is guided by the principle that grace does not destroy nature. in the sense of taking the place of sinful humanity.com by William Stranger on April 22. An objet a. but perfects it. On this. On the other. could we not say that he represents God in God’s apparent ’absence’? In Balthasar’s own view. One does not see a representation but is confronted with a representative of what is missing. see Robert A. Balthasar does not think that the splendour of God’s beauty is situated behind the form. only males-like Jesus. it is the viewer that puts ’the gaze’ in place of the lost object. Balthasar understands Jesus to cause rapture or transport as the believer is caught up in love of the God they cannot see. The incarnate Word is positioned by God not the viewer. 2000). a signifier represents the subject which remains hidden. If. does not make the perceived. There is only an analogy between them.12 But that if psychoanalysis is also concerned with what is that the painting. Downloaded from http://itq. Pesarchick. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. 2009 . 207. What is perceived is at a level other than seeing as such. rather. it is on God’s initiative that it is assumed by the eternal Word. cannot be reduced we have seen it maintains to a Lacanian 2. Jesus becomes humanity’s representative (Stellvertreter) before God. for Lacan. while Jesus can be understood to represent the God who is hidden. in the context of divine manifestation. from the world. See Lacan. and what is more relevant to this paper. Jesus. desire can never be satisfied.5’ Lacan believes that it constitutes the human subject. 55. la lecture de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard. as the signifier of the lacking object. 52. A. a lack that could never be filled by any material object. This. When need has been satisfied. the relationship was no longer one of immediacy but from then on one mediated by language. 54. it is to be distinguished. But what is desire? As a continuous unconscious force. In Lacanian terms. London: Routledge. Satisfaction only leads to disappointment and the resumption of desire. When. A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism innate (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1980) 30-33. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.da! game’ to symbolize in speech his mother’s absence and presence respectively. No material object ever satisfies it. See Baruch Spinoza. from both need and demand. When a child demands the satisfaction of biological needs. This is the lack that causes desire. its object is constantly being deferred. something remains unsatisfied. But that beginning of the child’s world being mediated by language implied something being lost. cited in David Macey’s ’Introduction’ in Jacques Lacan. 287. 53. Following Spinoza and Hegel as interpreted by Kojeve. It is. for Lacan.53 that is to say. 275 (cited Dylan Evans. vii-xxxiii at xix.crits.ve. that confronts us in the work of art. Downloaded from http://itq. to cling to the 51. desire is a metonymy.sagepub. See Jacques Lacan. according to Lacan. for example. If this is reminiscent of the Blondelian shift. 36). Freud’s grandson used his ‘Fort! . in Freud’s view. It cannot be reduced to need or demand but remains when the former is taken away from the latter. it is the symbol of what is desired. the demand is at the same time asking for something more from the Other. 1947). 175.cr. it is thought to be due to language.54 for Lacan.55 But desire also has its place in the field of religion and theology. Ethics. with its dynamic tension between la volonte voulante and l. The Four Fundamental Concepts. Lacan. But the point is that. In Freud’s Future of an ILlusion. the principal signifier in Lacanian psychoanalysis of what is desired is the phallus. 2001. in his view.com by William Stranger on April 22. he contends. Transcendence and Immanence. Seminar XI. It is the fact of this ’castration’ or separation from the (lost) object. See Gabriel Daly. fulfilments of the oldest wishes of humankind. it is impossible to tie down. Boyle (London: Dent 1910). As an unconscious dynamism. tr. Alexandre Kojè. the origins of religious ideas are illusions.52 As such. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis. Lacan. As we saw earlier. is desire. É. which in childhood occasioned the need for fatherly protection. volonte vouLue which carries one to the threshold of faith. it is forever receding. The subject endlessly tries to retrieve what was lost when he or she first entered language. The continuation of a sense of helplessness throughout life. 89. By ’Blondelian shift’ is meant the rejection of extrinsicism in favour of seeing an self-transcending dynamism in human beings before they make an act of faith. Rather than a physical organ. A Selection. the metonymy of desire is unconscious. Introduction à. always the desire for something else. 2009 . made it necessary. Ibid.13 Desire is a key concept in Lacanian psychoanalysis. not just to religion. the mystic’s jouissance is not about love but about desire.. Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Rebus Press. The Future of an Illusion. The Letter 1 (Summer 1994) 111116 at 113. Moreover. In Lacan’s Seminar XX. For a much fuller treatment. Downloaded from http://itq.14 existence of an even more powerful father. desire cannot be reduced to enjoyment and for desire to exist there must be distance. not need. as Tom McGrath has pointed out. nature and grace. ’The Illusion of the Future: Freud’s Anxiety and Religion’. See Lacan. The Life of Teresa of Avila. which tries to placate him. Cohen (London: Penguin Classics.com by William Stranger on April 22. eds. Jacques Lacan and the é. ibid. ’From Kantian Ethics to Mystical Experience: An Exploration of Jouissance’ in Dany Nobus (ed. a religion based not on need but on desire. desire. jouissance comes to designate the subject’s enjoyment of desiring as such. tr.6’ Following Henri de Lubac’s position that there is in the human spirit a natural desire for a supernatural end ’64 Balthasar under- 56. be reduced to sexual pleasure. much of what Balthasar has to say about the relationships between philosophy and theology. J. and even the Son and the Father in the Trinitarian life of God is grounded in his understanding of the childmother relation . the desire of the mystic transports her (or him) to the God who remains transcendent. 64. See Freud.56 Elsewhere. 1957) 136 (cited in Sheehan. M. while the ends of rapture are both inward and outward. The English word ’enjoyment’ does not include the sexual connotations of the French original. but to theology. 1982] 137-148 at 146-147).cole freudienne [London: Macmillan Press. by herself. there is no doubt that Bernini’s Teresa of Avila is experiencing jouissance. Initially used by Lacan as a term for sexual pleasure.sagepub. The Mystery of the Supernatural. The Dramatic Encounter of Divine and Human Freedom in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Bem: Peter Lang Verlag. union is said to be altogether inward. tr. Penguin Freud Library 12 (London: Penguin. for example. Penguin Freud Library 13 (London: Penguin. is religion’s point of emergence in a more profound sense. 1991) 179-241 at 212. See Teresa of Avila. for Lacan.5’ But there can also be. If. 58. 2000) 51-58. While he thinks. God. The mystics are experts in desire. 63. ’The Jouissance of the Mystic’. entitled Encore. It is later distinguished from desire as its aim and also from pleasure as its opposite. since desire cannot be satisfied by any object. Encore. he argues that the mystic experiences a jouissance59 that is more than phallic. Totem and Taboo. Freud understands the origin of religion in terms of unconscious guilt due to the murder of the primal father and a deferred obedience. 1998) 1-28. her ecstasy cannot. As Helen Sheehan has argued.58 For McGrath. tr. 1990) 43224 at 203-205. not unity. 60. see Dylan Evans. See Thomas Dalzell. 62. desire emerges in the dialectic of infant and mother. Rosemary Sheed (London: Chapman.6° Nor is it to be understood in terms of love. Jacqueline Rose (cited in Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose. See De Lubac. ’God and the Jouissance of the Woman’. 2009 . See Freud. desire is also of concern. 61 In short.). 59. Feminine Sexuality.). 61. 1967) 72. SJ . The Letter 6 (Spring 1996) 79-90. 57. something which was familiar to Augustine whose heart was restless. in his view. See Helen Sheehan. See Tom McGrath.61 Support for this is found in Teresa of Avila’s distinguishing union (love) and rapture or transport. (cited ibid. Die Handlung (Einsiedeln: Johannes. not God.65 Mythological religion. is based. in his view. as encounter with God comes to be situated within the encounter in God. the otherness of the finite is said to be forever guaranteed by the otherness of the Son. ST I-Ilae q. Between Language and Jouissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1997) 98-99. that the possibility first emerges that the promise written into the child might reach fulfilment. On the one hand.com by William Stranger on April 22. distance is important for desire and Balthasar’s idea of relationship with God does not remove distance but ’leaves room’ for the metonymic movement of desire. heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik II (Einsiedeln: Benziger. See Joel Dor. world. dissolve or lose itself in its relationship with God. Grundriß. 69. The Unconscious is Structured Like a Language (Northvale: Jason Aronson.sagepub. that all that is experienced afterwards is disappointment and nostalgia. 2009 1980) 301. Introduction to the Reading of Lacan. 1967) 15-45 at 21. Downloaded from http://itq. 66. not even the mother. .15 stands our relationship with God to be a continuation of what occurs in the primal relationship the child has with his or her mother. 3. prayer. On the other. corresponds to the finite soul’s yearning for the One in Plotinus. Awe. Balthasar. Nothing and no one. the child’s response to the mother. in Lacanian terms. although it is only with the God of Israel. a renunciation of the child’s subjectivity in the attempt to be something for the mother.69 For Balthasar. Ibid. See Balthasar. 29). The Lacanian Subject. matches the original intuition of fullness and happiness. in his view. 16-17. which. is taken to be the basis for Christian rapture and transport. as both loving and absolute (Plotinus’s One was impersonal).66 While this self-abandonment of the child might suggest. 1997) 54. 27. 71. The world does not. according to Balthasar. for there can only be one God. Theodramatik III. 109 a. the child’s early experience of his or her mother is a basis in later life for what Aquinas calls ’natural love of God above all things’. Thomas Aquinas. it must be recognized that distance and alterity are important to Balthasar as well. and sacrifice are thought to continue the child’s abandonment to her. Ibid. Bruce Fink. not Being. what is experienced is only beings. However. Balthasar. the expectation grounded in the child-mother relation appears to be one of union with God. 24. but retains its distinctiveness. Mysterium salutis.&dquo. 67. on the child’s experience in relation to the mother.6’ something imaginary and not unrelated to ’looking’ as opposed to ’the gaze’. while in need of purification by philosophy.7° But in Balthasar’s conception. since the metaphorical distance between the divine persons is thought to be eternally held open by the Holy Spirit. 65.68 He notes. ’Der Zugang zur Wirklichkeit Gottes’. Balthasar accepts that the child must be made to move beyond the mother into relation with others and with God. 70. however. ’Der Zugang zur Wirklichkeit Gottes’. For Lacan. 68. Rather it is being proposed that there are elements in the Lacan’s approach that can shed light on the human subject’s relationship with God.16 Conclusion being argued here that psychoanalysis can replace religion.sagepub. or theological aesthetics can be reduced to the mechanisms which are more properly the field of psychoanalysis. a partial object which we put in place of what we have lost. 2009 .engages the subject’s desire and carries it to the heights of the transcendent God. Just as theological aesthetics is an aesthetics. It is not that - Downloaded from http://itq. just as it respects and perfects the subject’s aesthetic structures of perception and transport. meets human subjects as they are in their structure.com by William Stranger on April 22. God’s self-revelation. so it is possible to argue that the supreme instance of God’s beauty in the world is not only revelatory but as a representative of what remains hidden . if it is to be perceived. Nor is it being suggested that either God or Jesus is a Lacanian objet a.
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