The Theological Axiology of Dietrich von Hildebrand

DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND (1889-1977) was born in Florence, and it is striking that we can find in the work of another son of that city, Dante Alighieri, compelling images that introduce us well to the spirit of von Hildebrand's philosophical works. Dante puts before our eyes images of a soul seeking progressively through love to purify and strengthen its appropriate response to values, guided by both the arguments of reason and the light of grace, and dwelling constantly in the vital interplay of the true, the good, and the beautiful. The philosophical writings of von Hildebrand in their own way pursue this same course.

Few twentieth-century thinkers have written as comprehensively and insightfully about the fundamental issues of philosophy and the life of the spirit as Dietrich von Hildebrand, as the titles of some of his major works suggest. He explores the foundations of metaphysics in What Is Philosophy? (1960); his 1953 book titled Ethics provides a profound philosophical account of Christian ethics, a work von Hildebrand describes as "the philosophical exploration of the totality of morality, including the natural moral law and morally relevant values accessible to a noble pagan, as well as the morality embodied in the sacred humanity of Christ and in those men and women who have been transformed in Christ--the Saints" (454). The territory of aesthetics is studied carefully in his two-volume work that has been published only in German, Ästhetik (1977, 1984). Von Hildebrand's works (and there are many more in addition to these) all point to Christian revelation as embodying the culmination of each area of knowledge, and he argues that the relation of each area of knowledge to revelation is accessible to natural reason and is a proper subject of philosophical analysis. His book Transformation in Christ (1948) provides a demonstration of the fulfillment of all knowing, loving, and willing when one is reborn in Christ, and shows how through the transformation of the person in Christ the fullest human experience of the true, the beautiful, and the good can be achieved. ¹

The prominent role of beautiful colors, shapes, sounds, and even scents in Dante's Purgatory serves well to introduce the reflections pursued by von Hildebrand in his 1951 article titled "Beauty in the Light of the Redemption." ² The contrast between Hell and Purgatory in Dante is captured by the cacophony characteristic of the former and the beautiful music that enraptures Dante the pilgrim in the latter. Beauty, and specifically beauty perceived through the senses, possesses spiritual significance and power that can be best understood in relation to the soul's deepest desire to open itself fully to the vision of God, and von Hildebrand in this article seeks to overcome arguments that would blind us to the proper dignity and importance of the beauty we perceive in the world of the senses. This effort to overcome the shackles of value blindness through perspicacious argument is a keynote to all of the work of Dietrich von Hildebrand, and the constant awareness of the ultimate unity that can be perceived behind the differentiated world of individual values forms a recurrent theme in many of his writings.

The concept of "theological aesthetics" comes to mind when considering accounts of the theological significance of beauty, and indeed the writings of von Hildebrand offer rich material for the field of theological aesthetics, material that has not as yet been well noted by scholars working in that field (as far as I can tell). However, the concept of theological aesthetics is not sufficiently comprehensive to describe the predominant philosophical concerns of von Hildebrand. We might find a clue to developing a more adequate perspective for viewing the work of von Hildebrand if we note that a reference...