Probably the most important sustained piece of theological writing to appear since Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics, von Balthasar's work restores aesthetics and contemplation to their rightful place in Christian theology. Armed with a remarkable knowledge of theological and metaphysical traditions as well as Western letters, von Balthasar shows how the Biblical vision of the divine glory, revealed in the crucified and risen Christ and reflected in the great theologies of the Christian tradition, fulfils and transcends the perception of Being in Western metaphysics. V: The Realm of Metaphysics in the Modern Age, In this second volume on the metaphysical traditions of the West, von Balthasar presents a series of studies of representative mystics, theologians, philosophers, and poets, exploring the three main streams of metaphysics which have developed since the 'catastrophe' of Nominalism. The way of self-abandonment to the divine glory is traced through figures such as Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis de Sales; the attempt to relocate theology in a recovery of antiquity's sense of Being and beauty is uncovered in Nicholas of Cusa, Hölderlin, Goethe, Heidegger, and others; and the metaphysics of spirit is examined in Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Idealists. The strengths and weaknesses of these methods are relentlessly exposed.