Von Balthasar shows the tension between the necessary unity in Christianity and the diversity that should and must exist. Today when most people talk about pluralism and really mean dissent and rebellion, von Balthasar shows how genuine variety is both possible and desirable within Catholic unity.

Von Balthasar shows the tension between the necessary unity in Christianity and the diversity that should and must exist. Today when most people talk about pluralism and really mean dissent and rebellion, von Balthasar shows how genuine variety is both possible and desirable within Catholic unity.

Theology is in fact the intellectus fidei-the intelligence of the one faith, the same yesterday and today, composed of distinct but analogical mysteries. The truth is symphonic, as Hans Urs von Balthasar says. It is like one piece of music played by many instruments. The greater the variety of instruments playing the same piece, the better they express the beauty of that one musical score. The same should be true of the multitude of believers around the world. If this is not the case, there is some lack, not in the mystery, but in the approach to the faith. The role of a single instrument is only clear within the context of the whole symphony. Similarly, it is only within the context of the whole faith, starting with the faith of the Church, that one can distinguish the peculiarity of a single mystery. This is what I tried to do by bringing together individual tiles of theology-theological opinions offering an interpretation of dogma and its defence when necessary, holding on as close as possible to revealed dogma-in order to compose one grand mosaic.

The truth of God is rich and multifaceted. Though a coherent body of revelation, the Bible comes to us through a variety of inspired authors, metaphors, and themes highlighting the many facets of God's truth. Likewise, our theological formulations capture manifold emphases--distinct perspectives on the whole--which collectively enable us to gain a fuller understanding of the truth. Poythress explains, We use what we have gained from one perspective to reinforce, correct, or improve what we understood through another. I call this procedure 'symphonic theology' because it is analogous to a blending of various musical instruments to express the variation of a symphonic theme. The implications of this approach are far-reaching for theology and praxis.

Identifying an important subgenre of horror literature, this book argues that Catholic horror fiction works distinctively to inspire the philosophical, theological, and spiritual imaginations of readers from all backgrounds and faith traditions. Hurley analyzes four novels that are foundational to the genre of Catholic horror: J.K. Huysmans’s Là-Bas (1891), Robert Hugh Benson’s The Light Invisible (1903) and A Mirror of Shalott (1907), and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist (1971). Putting these texts in conversation with the classical liberal arts, the book shows how Catholic horror fiction coheres in a commitment to dialectical thinking that aims both to resolve—and to accommodate—contrasting world views. Given its use of this methodology, Catholic horror literature is uniquely positioned to draw readers into a contemplative mindset. In presenting ghost stories, tales of possession, and narratives about evil, Catholic horror invites audiences to confront and reflect on profound existential questions—questions about the line between life and death, the nature of being, and the meaning of reality.

Central to the repertoire of Western art music since the 18th century, the symphony has come to be regarded as one of the ultimate compositional challenges. Surprisingly, heretofore there has been no truly extensive, broad-based treatment of the genre, and the best of the existing studies are now several decades old. In this five-volume series, A. Peter Brown explores the symphony from its 18th-century beginnings to the end of the 20th century. Synthesizing the enormous scholarly literature, Brown presents up-to-date overviews of the status of research, discusses any important former or remaining problems of attribution, illuminates the style of specific works and their contexts, and samples early writings on their reception. The Symphonic Repertoire provides an unmatched compendium of knowledge for the student, teacher, performer, and sophisticated amateur. The series is being launched with two volumes on the Viennese symphony. Volume II The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert Volume II considers some of the best-known and most universally admired symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, who created what A. Peter Brown designates as the first golden age of the Viennese symphony during the late 18th and first three decades of the 19th century. The last two dozen symphonies by Haydn, half dozen by Mozart, and three by Schubert, together with Beethoven's nine symphonies became established in the repertoire and provided a standard against which every other symphony would be measured. Most significantly, they imparted a prestige to the genre that was only occasionally rivaled by other cyclic compositions. More than 170 symphonies from this repertoire are described and analyzed in The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony, the first volume of the series to appear.