Struck by the Arrow of Beauty: Saturated Phenomena and the (Theo)Drama of Subjectivity

This article is concerned with theological aesthetics and aims to show how aesthetic modes of experience create a context in which a subject can understand their existence in terms of (Christian) spiritual drama. It considers the ideas of twentieth-century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar and of contemporary phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion in order to show how aesthetic experience acts as a gateway through which the experiencing subject enters into a new, dramatically constituted spiritual space. Finally, this article illustrates this conception of a dramatized spiritual life by considering the writings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Saint Thérèse, the author argues, models how a life that is otherwise obscure and “undramatic” may be “lifted” into the dramatic mode through experiences of faith as filtered through what Marion calls “saturated phenomena.”