THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND APOPHATIC THOUGHT: EMPIRICAL BEING AS IKON

Author: Rhodes, Michael Craig

Source: Zygon, Volume 42, Number 2, June 2007 , pp. 535-552(18)

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Abstract:

This essay is an interdisciplinary study of beauty that attempts to bridge the gap between religion/theology and science in some measure by drawing from Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500) a notion of being that I argue is consonant with the notion of the sense of the beautiful, which I develop using Steven Weinberg's and Werner Heisenberg's discussions of empirical beauty. I use the term ikon to refer concisely to Dionysius' theophanic notion of being, namely, that the beyond-being is nonsubstantially present in being.

Keywords: apophasis/apophatic thought/apophaticism; beauty; Dionysius the Areopagite (Denys); empirical being; ikon; science; theology; theophanic

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.2007.00535.x

Affiliations: 1: Instructor of theology at Loyola University, 6525 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60626-5385;, Email: michaelcraigrhodes@yahoo.com.

Publication date: 2007-06-01