The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty (Theology for the Life of the World)

In theological aesthetics the lineaments of Thomistic thought have long been most formative, but now, in this rich, closely argued and admirably synthetic work of theological aesthetics, Junius Johnson has contributed a powerful adequation of St. Bonaventure’s conception of beauty—both as gift from the Father of Lights and as illumination leading back to him. Beauty rightly perceived—that is, in a necessarily subjective appropriation of objective reality—enables a fuller understanding of God, in Bonaventure’s term a contuition. We are simultaneously dazzled both by beauty in the world and by beauty’s Giver. Johnson’s thoughtful book, conversing as it does with the likes of Von Balthasar, Boudrillard, Barthes, and Ospensky, is brimming with insight, a remarkably fruitful excursus in philosophical theology in which many will find worthy treasures.

—David Lyle Jeffrey, FRSC, distinguished senior fellow, Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion; emeritus distinguished professor of literature and the humanities, Baylor University