The Theological Aesthetics of Eberhard Jüngel

C.M. Howell offers the first systematic account of the theological aesthetics implicit in the thought of Eberhard Jüngel (1934-2021). He argues that aesthetics forms a persistent yet largely unrecognized dimension of Jüngel's theology and that his doctrine of revelation is fundamentally aesthetic in structure. Working within the context of twentieth-century German Protestant theology and the broader tradition of German aesthetics from Alexander Baumgarten to Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author reconstructs Jüngel's scattered remarks on perception, play, art, and worship in order to articulate a coherent theoretical framework.
The methodology combines historical-theological analysis of Jüngel's major writings (from Paulus und Jesus to his later essays of the 2000s) with conceptual comparison to key interlocutors such as Wolfhart Pannenberg and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Through close textual interpretation, the book demonstrates that aesthetics in Jüngel operates in three interrelated dimensions: as a theory of perception, as a category of freedom expressed through play and artistic production, and as a theological distinction between worldly beauty and divine glory.
The study's main finding is that aesthetic experience provides the anthropological and hermeneutical conditions for recognizing God's self-revelation while simultaneously preserving the radical difference between God and the world. Beauty discloses the fragile meaning of worldly existence, whereas glory names the event in which God's self-revealing love transforms human existence through faith and worship. By uncovering this structure, the book contributes to a new interpretation of Jüngel's theological anthropology, clarifies debates concerning his divine ontology, and situates his work as a distinctive Protestant alternative within contemporary theological aesthetics.

Introduction
Chapter 1: The Possibility of Beauty
Part I: The Beauty of the World
Chapter 2: ''True Perception,'' or, "Truly Beautiful Perception''
Chapter 3: From Homo Faber to Homo Ludens
Chapter 4: Art as the Opium of the World
Part II: The Glory of God
Chapter 5: The Origin of Glory
Chapter 6: "Where Love Is, There Is Vision!"
Chapter 7: The Festival of Worship as the Image of Freedom
Conclusion: A More Theological Aesthetics