The aesthetic experience as a propaedeutic way to the experience of God

Abstract

In different works of Edith Stein we find allusions and a few reflections on the aesthetic realm, for the main part combined with other topics. For Stein, this realm entails the notions of art, the artist, the beauty and its characteristics, information about the reactions of the spectator before beautiful and/or artistic objects, and finally, God as beauty and author of the beautiful in creation. It is clear that in Stein’s thought aesthetics does not only imply reflection on the beautiful object (natural or manmade) but also reflects on the subject who relates to beauty.

The article aims first to reconstruct Stein’s understanding of the aesthetic experience through various textual clues and personal testimonies of the German thinker. The notion of experience is not univocal, and this is also shown when applying the notion to this field of study. Secondly, the article presents texts, for the most part from the Christian period of Stein’s writings, that reveal how the aesthetic experience opens the way to the ethical and above all to the religious, thus allowing for an experience of God.