-
Kerley
Beauty. Such an interesting topic. It is a topic that everyone has an opinion about, and all opinions are; we wantmorebeauty in our lives. As we said last week, beauty is food for the soul. In fact, true beauty is said to be so personal, and so transcendent, that talking or writing about it seems to do them a great injustice and tarnishes their radiant glow. Perhaps it is because, as John-Mark Miravalle explains, beauty affirms balance and order, and a longing for the transcendent. Thomas Aquinas was keen to this. He once wrote that “nature is nothing other than a certain kind of art, namely God’s art.” This is why there is often a haunting loneliness that comes when experiencing true beauty; our soul longing for the transcendent Artist of all the beauty that we see. It is because of the linking of beauty with the transcendent that human beings have a personal moral obligation towards beauty’s creation and preservation. We know this because nothing evil can be beautiful. Think about it. Can a beautiful evil be conceived? Nor does evil bring serenity or peace, or anything that humans long for. And if it did it would immediately cease to be beautiful because it was in fact ugly from the start. That is why beauty is a place of common ground between believers and the skeptical unbelievers like Michael. Michael appreciates and loves beauty just as much as the ardent Christian. Miravalle explains that is because “we believe in objective standards of goodness and morality. In other words, beauty isn’t just a preference.”
Atanyrate,humanshaveamutual obligation to pursue beauty. John-Mark Miravalle writes that when people pursue truth and goodness (or beauty), they will be conformed to goodness by becoming morally upright. “There is, in other words, a continuity between the things pursued and the pursuer’s own attributes.” That is why the apostle Paul once said “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8). Why? Because beauty draws us outside of ourselves and to a higher reality; that spiritual reality, we have said, is the Creator: the Designer of the cosmos, the Designer of the “irreducible complexity” found in human beings. A complexity not unlike the body/soul duality of man. That immaterial soul that needs to be fed. That soul that hungers for something higher and beyond itself. That soul that hungers for its Creator.
A few weeks ago, we looked at the beauty beheld in the Golden Ratio, and last week we looked at beauty found in music that is written following the Golden Ratio. But it is the beauty of nature that surpasses all else. Indeed, St. Augustine of Hippo once wrote of the orderliness of nature: “from this stage, reason advanced to the province of the eyes. And scanning the earth and heavens, it realized that nothing pleased it but beauty; and in beauty, design; and in design, dimensions; and in dimensions, number.” After all, God used the wonder and beauty of nature to offer a defense of Himself against Job (Job 38-42). And it is from the beauty of nature that Paul claims we cannot deny that there is a Creator of all that we see (Rom 1:19ff).
Once again, evolutionary explanations fail to offer the best possible solution why humans have such a keen sense and a longing for beauty. Philosopher Mahan Matthen summarizes the dilemma facing the evolutionists: “why is it valuable to be absorbed in contemplation, with all the attendant dangers of reduced vigilance? Wasting time and energy puts organisms at an evolutionary disadvantage.” In fact, Christian scientist Fazale Rana states; “an obsession with aesthetics could be properly seen as maladaptive.” It is not a good thing to day-dream about the beauty of a rose, or the beauty of a sunrise, all-the-while living in the woods with a saber-toothed tiger! But if the eyes of the soul are open, then the often-breath-taking beauty beheld in nature can be seen to bear the fingerprints of God.
The point is this; after a thorough investigation, it seems to me that human beings alone possess both a body and a soul. And it is the soul of man that longs for something that transcendsthisworld.ItistheCreator that oftentimes feeds the soul of His creatures through divine serenity found in beauty. Philosopher Richard Swinburne notes; “if God creates a universe, as a good workman he will create a beautiful universe. On the other hand, if the universe came into existence without being created by God, there is no reason to suppose that it would be a beautiful universe. It seems to me, the best explanation for the beauty in the world around us is divine agency. And it is further evidence for the human soul. Join us next week as we look once again at the human drive and capacity to feed the soul “real food,” and to glimpse the fingerprintsoftheCreator.Untilthen, what say you: is God dead?
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Ty B. Kerley, DMin., is an ordained minister who teaches Christian apologetics, and relief preaches in Southern Oklahoma. Dr. Kerley and his wife Vicki are members of the Waurika church of Christ, and live in Ardmore. You can contact him at: dr.kerley@isGoddead.com.