Junius Johnson's The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty contributes to theological studies with a philosophical argument for the objective experience of beauty. Johnson distinguishes his work from other twentieth-century efforts, and in particular the benchmark volumes of Hans Urs von Balthasar, in method and substance. Rather than theological aesthetics, which Johnson defines as reflections on art, Johnson declares that his ambition is to engage beauty directly to explore its nature and relation to theological realities revealed by God in Christ. For readers of von Balthasar, this distinction may not appear as clear-cut as Johnson suggests in light of von Balthasar's own references to beauty's appearance within the object-subject relation (Glory of the Lord, volume 1)Footnote ¹ and beauty's distinct relation to God's glory in Scripture (Glory of the Lord, volumes 6 and 7).Footnote ² Unlike von Balthasar, though, Johnson's constructive method places his theological interlocutors in the background. Thinkers like Bonaventure, Aquinas, and von Balthasar, as much as philosophers like Heidegger, Buber, Derrida, and Levinas, are present, even if seldom mentioned by name.

Johnson contends that the experience of beauty offers a distinctive kind of continuation, or a “co-seeing,” of the natural beauty of creation (what differs from God) simultaneously with a partial and imperfect view of divinity (God's transcendence). Beauty inheres within creation, as much as it draws those who encounter it beyond creation and to beauty's source and end in God. For Johnson, beauty is thoroughly teleological. It belongs to every created thing by dint of the good ordering of God's creative work, and it always points beyond the natural world to its source and end in God. The idea of anamnesis thus serves a double function for Johnson. On the one hand, it points back to the foundation of beauty in the givenness of creation itself—it reflects the God who gifts the world. On the other, it points toward God as its referent and end—it awakens the subject to this end as well.

Humans have creative power with respect to beauty, but they cannot rightly choose to ignore the objectivity of what presents itself to them. Subjectivity must recognize and rightly relate to the world that is given. Here phenomenology and semiotics intersect the teleological vision with which Johnson begins. Johnson rebuffs phenomenological and linguistic turns without transcendent grounds (e.g., Heidegger) or objective signification (e.g., Derrida, Eco); however, he also embraces the power of language as an expression where continued creative capaciousness reflects beauty's orientation to the infinity of a God whose measure exceeds creation's image.

The initial legwork of Johnson's argument supports his later focus on beauty's role in sacraments (especially the Eucharist) and the ecstatic function of beauty (in icons and the iconic function of saints). These chapters also point to questions that encroach from the margins of the book, and in particular the relation of beauty to form and to drama. Johnson's commitment to the objectivity of beauty shines in his explanation of res, and the beauty particular to res sacramenti. However, the deeper Johnson moves into the territory of sacrament and beauty's iconic peregrination, the more do his omissions of the categories of form and drama become noticeable. Readers may wonder why Johnson has foregone these categories, which seem apposite when engaging beauty's phenomenology of appearance as well as its relation to communal and ecclesial experiences.

Johnson's efforts in presenting a case for beauty as objective, recognizable, and efficacious are clear and persuasive. This book will satisfy those who recognize the historic voices behind Johnson, as much as those who approach his arguments without a deeper knowledge of the scope that informs his position. It will be useful both in undergraduate and graduate classrooms. It is an academic asset to any library. The scriptural grounds for this book, and its commitment to the Christian tradition, make it valuable to all who wish to understand and offer evidence in support of beauty as much more than what is simply in the eye of the beholder.