The Arrow that Strikes the Heart: Lewis, Balthasar, and the Eros of Beauty

This essay explores the genealogical connection that exists between Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and the writings of C.S. Lewis, a connection rooted in Balthasar’s familiarity with and deep respect for Lewis’s work. It argues that Lewis presented for popular audiences, through images, narratives, and poetic language, core themes that were later given full, exhaustive treatment in Balthasar’s scholarly work. This intertextual connection underscores Lewis’s generative significance as a Christian thinker and highlights his creative writing as a paradigm of the kind of evocative presentation of divine love and beauty that Balthasar called the church to recover.