If one were looking for a clear and rigorous book dealing with the topic of the ‘spiritual senses’, this accurate volume by Mark McInroy is the appropriate choice. Well-written and well-structured, the book offers a reliable synthesis of the doctrine of the spiritual senses as elaborated by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Far from circumscribing the spiritual senses within the realm of mystical experience, the Swiss theologian interprets the traditional topic so as to explain ordinary Christian life as the place where human being can perceive the splendour of the form of God's revelation. In so doing, his operation of ressourcement succeeds in offering an important theological ‘tool’ to constitute a real phenomenology of believing experience. As the author points out: Balthasar ‘draws from the spirit (if not the letter) of the tradition in order to advance the audaciously creative version of the doctrine that is required to meet the challenges of his age’(p. 190). From the point of view of Balthasar's work itself, the book shows the usefulness of this theological effort to sustain the realism of Christian experience and its credibility, but also the originality of this theoretical contribution in the field of anthropological theology. From the viewpoint of studies on Balthasar's thought, McInroy's volume shows the diffusion of the spiritual senses throughout almost the entire corpus of Balthasar's writings. In this way, one can consider this theme as a synthetic perspective in understanding the anthropological vision of the Swiss theologian: his distinctive personalism, his overcoming of Greek hierarchic dualism (material / spiritual) as well as of the Neo-Scholastic dualism regarding nature and grace, and the anthropological profile of his theological aesthetic.
The book is articulated in six chapters. The first is devoted to the patristic influence on Balthasar's view of the spiritual senses, with particular attention to the role of Origen of Alexandria, dealing with Evagrius of Pontus, Diadochus of Photice, Pseudo-Macarius, Augustine of Hippo, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa, and Pseudo-Dionysius. In this context, it is very interesting to see how McInroy interprets the influence of Karl Rahner's reading of Origen on Balthasar, and the effort of the former to gain an original viewpoint connected with the overcoming of dualistic conceptions in the anthropological realm. The second chapter considers Balthasar's interpretation of Bonaventure, as the main medieval theorist of the spiritual senses, and of Ignatius of Loyola. In the context of the emerging anthropology of ‘unity-in-duality’, here is underlined the practical dimension and the continuity between the corporeal and the spiritual senses as they emerge in the tradition originating from Ignatius. Contemporary sources are the main topic of the third chapter. Here the author analyses the influence on Balthasar by Karl Barth, Romano Guardini, Gustav Siewerth and Paul Claudel, regarding particularly the unity of corporeal and spiritual perception. The ‘unity-in-duality’ of the Balthasarian anthropology finds its roots in different aspects, elaborated by these important Christian thinkers, such as the following elements. From the two theologians, Balthasar holds, on the one hand, the human capacity to perceive God through the world within history (Barth) and, on the other hand, the notion of Gestalt as object of a kind of perception which lies beyond the separation between corporeal and spiritual (Guardini). The personalism under which the human being can be conceived as ‘being-in-encounter’ (p. 116) within the radical unity of body and soul (Siewerth), and the Eucharistic correlation between the spiritual senses and the real in a strong Christocentric context (Claudel) are instead the ‘precipitate’ of the hermeneutical encounter between his exigencies and the speculation of the German philosopher as well as of the French poet. The fourth chapter tries to interpret the doctrine of the spiritual senses, sketched by Balthasar, within the context of his theological aesthetics. This field is based on a peculiar conception of fundamental theology, characterized by the centrality of ‘relation’: ‘if human beings are fundamentally constituted in an interpersonal act, and if they are able to experience God, then the experience of God must also occur as an encounter with the other human being’ (p. 124). Thus the theological aesthetics becomes the intellectual place in which Balthasar can conceive how the ‘spiritual emerges from the ‘corporeal’. In this way, we can perceive – with the simple gift of grace proper to ordinary Christian life – the Christocentric character of the experience described. In fact, for Balthasar, ‘the object of spiritual-corporeal perception is the Incarnate Word’ (p. 126) and ‘Christ is present in the world, the Church, liturgy, and the neighbour’ (p. 127).
This conception is deepened in the fifth chapter, where – as McInroy himself claims – the study proposes its central assertion: ‘Balthasar's theological aesthetic calls for perception of the ‘form’ (Gestalt), and that form consists of both sensory and ‘supersensory’ aspects’ (p. 12). Just as in the forma we can perceive the splendour, so in Jesus Christ we can perceive the Father (cf. Jo 14:9). The sixth and last chapter, which is one of the most interesting, describes the role of Swiss theologian within the context of the main theological issues of his time. Considering Balthasar in dialogue with the Neo-Scholastic approach, with Karl Rahner, and Karl Barth, McInroy shows how his intellectual strategy relating to the spiritual senses matters in dealing with issues such as ‘the nature of faith, natural theology, apologetics, aesthetic experience, and the relationship between nature and grace’ (p. 13).
Balthasar on the Spiritual Senses is a very instructive thought-provoking and fully documented book. It makes a solid contribution to studies devoted to the Swiss theologian's work, underlining – beyond the use of the word itself – the phenomenological character of his theological project. In this sense, it can be useful in order to safeguard the realism of Christian experience. However, even the most complete research can have some deficiencies. In this case, I might point out the lack of discussion of an important thinker in the genesis of Balthasar's work as Pierre Rousselot (cf. the article ‘Les yeux de la foi’, in Recherches de Sciences Religieuses I (1910), 241–259; 444–475). Moreover, the rich bibliography does not mention the important collection on the topic of the spiritual senses edited by the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy (Milan) (A. Montanari (ed.), I sensi spirituali. Tra corpo e spirito, Milan, 2012).
