Between the Image and the Word

Trevor Hart is Professor of Divinity and (since 2000) Director of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts in the University of St Andrews. Formerly Lecturer in Systematic Theology in the University of Aberdeen, he is the author and editor of numerous publications including Faith Thinking (SPCK, 2000), Regarding Karl Barth (Paternoster, 1999), Hope Against Hope (Eerdmans,1999), Tolkien, Literature and Theology (Baylor, 2007), Faithful Performances (Ashgate, 2007), and Patterns of Promise (Ashgate, 2012).

’Hart is at his best (which is very good) when he is elucidating a central Christian idea by drawing on the work of imaginative writers...anyone interested in theological aesthetics will find much to reflect on in this book.’ Theology ’The fourteenth century poet Petrarch, in one of his letters, posed this rhetorical question: What is theology if not poetry about God? In this collection of illuminating essays, grounded in an excursus on the inevitable character of theological language as thinkers from Aquinas to Ricoeur have understood it, Trevor Hart explores with insight and verve the theological potential in verbal and visual imagery (ut picture poesis). The result is a highly stimulating contribution to reflection on the nature of theology itself as well as on its fruitful dance among the arts.’ David Jeffrey, Baylor University Waco, USA ’This is a work of serious and profound theological reflection which takes entirely seriously - as theology itself all too often fails to do - the place of the imagination in religious thought and life. While rooted in a constant return to the Christological, it ranges over wide sea of theological themes and theologians, at the same time bringing into the conversation creative writers such from Dorothy Sayers to J.R.R. Tolkien and Shusaku Endo. The relationship between Christian theology and the arts is ever shifting and creative and Professor Hart's work is a major contribution to that on-going and lively dialogue.’ David Jasper, University of Glasgow, UK

• Introduction; Chapter 1 Between the Image and the Word; Chapter 2 The Promise and the Sign; Chapter 3 The Economy of the Flesh; Chapter 4 The Grammar of Conversation; Chapter 5 Cosmos, Kenosis and Creativity; Chapter 6 Unauthorised Texts; Chapter 7 Unseemly Representations; Chapter 8 Unfinished Performances; Chapter 9 Unexpected Endings; Chapter 10 The Substance of Things Hoped For;