Once that/how God has revealed Himself is established, the next step in systematics is theology proper: the study of God qua God. Questions concerning God's essence, attributes (both incommunicable and communicable), triunity, and the connections between such are raised and answered. One sees here, particularly, that God's Being is indelibly tied to His attributes. As Louis Berkhof writes, "[The attributes of God] are essential qualities of God, which inhere in His very Being and are not co-existent with it. These qualities cannot be altered without altering the essential Being of God... each one of them reveals to us some aspect of the Being of God" (Systematic Theology pg. 46).
This is essential to understanding our world, the world that has been created by God. In God, we have a positive standard for the world in which we live, a standard particularly revealed to us in His Word, both written and Incarnate. For instance, something is objectively good if it appeals to the goodness of God. One sees this in God's Law; as the Law reflects the Law Giver, so what God sets as a standard for goodness reflects His goodness. Something is objectively good because the One who is good declared it to be so. Goodness cannot be independent of God's nature. Hence in Christian ethics, goodness is only truly good in reference to God and His goodness.
Truth, too, is only objective in light of the Being of God and His proclamation and knowledge of truth, which by necessity flows from His Being. The veracity of God depends on no higher logic or reasoning than God Himself. There is nothing higher than Him to which one can test truth claims. If God does not exist, there can be no objective truth. Truth is bound to God's truthfulness and His sovereign knowledge. In a sense, for us to know truth we must know God's definite knowledge after Him. For example, the formula used to find the area of a circle (A= πr^2) can only be true if God ordained it to be so and then subsequently knows it to be true. God can not ordain and know the validity of A= πr^2 and it not be objectively true. The ordination of God and definite knowledge that comes from His ordaining establishes objective truth.
So goodness is determined by God, as is truth, and both depend upon His attributes. This post is not about Christian ethics or Christian epistemology; as the title suggests, the topic is of beauty. Is beauty completely objective on the same basis as goodness and truthfulness, God's Being, thus leaving no room for subjectivity? Can beauty truly be "in the eye of the beholder?"
Before I continue to answer this question, I will give you the reason as to why I am thinking of such. As one may know, I am a philosophy major. This past semester I took a survey course on the history of Western Philosophy from the 16th century to the 20th century. We focused on foundationalism and methodism in modern philosophical thought, particularly how these two things are different between the two major lines of epistemic thought in Western Philosophy: rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism, crudely speaking, desires to know universal truths in order to establish particular truths. Empiricism is the opposite, desiring to know particular truths in order to establish universal truths. Empiricism is the reigning conception today especially within the field of science. One day, I saw a quote on twitter by a well known atheistic empiricist named David Hume who wrote, in the 18th century, "Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." In other words, beauty is purely subjective, "[only] in the eye of the beholder." Knowing that this is coming from the same man who says the same thing about ethics and causality, that neither exist in reality but only in the mind, I began to think of the causal connection of the atheistic, empirical, subjective aesthetic to the subjectivity of ethics and truth that necessarily comes about in the atheistic world view, which have been discussed in previous posts. Therefore, this post has come about after ponderings that I have had concerning theistic absolutism its relation to beauty.
The first step is to find a reference point for beauty. God is said to be the measuring stick of truth and goodness; can it also be said that He is the same for beauty? Can God be called "beautiful" as He is also called "good" and "true?" The Scriptures are clear concerning the beauty of God: "One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple" (Psalm 27:4). Psalm 29:2 parses out the conception a bit more for there David speaks of the "splendor of [His] holiness." Beauty is found in the holiness of God; one could speak of this beautiful holiness as moral purity, but, perhaps, the holiness spoken of in Psalm 29:2 is referring to majesty, the absolute overpowering nature of the Godhead. Such holiness is spoken of in Isaiah 6. There, Isaiah finds himself in the presence of God and, subsequently, crying out in anguish and woe because of His fear of being consumed by God's holiness because of his sinfulness. Is this not the same situation in which David desires to be in Psalm 27:4, "to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple?" David tells us that the LORD's beauty is seen when one is in His presence; Isaiah shows us that the LORD causes fear and trembling when one is in His presence. Perhaps Rudolph Otto was correct in his understanding of the holy, that it provokes both fear (mysterium tremendum) and attraction (mysterium fascinans). Perhaps this is why awe inspiring phenomena like lightening can also be some of the most terrifying. However this may manifest itself in the world, one can be sure that God's holiness, though it provokes fear, is also inherently beautiful according to the Scriptures.
There is, however, another way in which one can view the beauty of God. Grudem describes the beauty of God as a collective attribute; it is an attribute that is a summation of the other attributes. He writes: "God’s beauty is that attribute of God whereby He is the sum of all desirable qualities" (Systematic Theology 219). In a sense, one can think of the beauty of God as the positive affirmation of perfection, where perfection is the attribute whereby God does not lack any undesirable qualities and is therefore viewed from a negative perspective.
Whatever perspective is taken concerning God's attribute of beauty, it being closely related to His holiness or it being more of a summation attribute, it seems clear that God is the consummate objective standard of beauty in the same way as He is the standard of goodness and truth. Therefore, one having a biblical worldview must conform his or her understanding to this reality, that beauty is ultimately objective as it is an attribute of God. Just as God is the ultimate object of goodness and truth, therefore making the subjectivity of goodness and truth impossible, so, too, God being the ultimate object of beauty makes any sort of aesthetic based upon subjectivity false. To hold to an aesthetic that is based upon subjectivity is to be outside of the biblical worldview as it appeals to the concept of beauty for it denies the consummate, objective beauty that is found in God alone. The beauty of God is the standard of all beauty, and, therefore, a Christian aesthetic must be built from this foundation.
How, then, does the universal manifest itself in the particulars? How does the objective beauty of God translate into the created world? As beauty seems to be in the same category as truth and goodness, it would seem that something in this world is beautiful as it reflects the being and nature of the beautiful God. This shall be broken down in two ways: 1.) as it relates to man and 2.) as it relates to things that are perceived, particularly through vision and hearing.
The manifestation of beauty as it relates to man is simple: God is beautiful; man is made in the image of God, therefore, man is an image of God's beauty. The constitution of man by nature demands the designation of beauty. Granted, because of the entrance of sin into the world, the image of God in man was marred and distorted. However, man is still made in God's image; he still has residual beauty that reflects in some way the beauty of God. The mere fact that man can will, reason, communicate, has personality, etc. because of His being made in the image of God makes him beautiful though he is tainted with sin.
Yet there is a promise for those who believe in Christ, that the blotches and imperfections that are caused by sin will be removed in the last day when believers will be fully conformed into the image and likeness of the Son, God incarnate. I find it to be no coincidence that Paul speaks of that day with terms concerning the beauty of the Church as Christ has made her beautiful in Ephesians 5:27: "so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." As Christ restores the Church back to the consummate image of God, He makes her beautiful as she will more fully reveal the beauty of God in holiness.
There is, therefore, an innate beauty that is a part of man as he is made in God's image, and through Christ's work, the pock marks, wrinkles, and zits of sin are being and will be removed from His Church on the last day, therefore bringing man back to his original beauty, to his original state before the Fall when he was more fully reflective of God's image.
Yet this is mostly metaphysical regarding man and his constitution. How does the beauty of God manifest itself in the physical? How does it appeal to the senses? To begin, one must first ask, "What is God's primary relation to the physical?" The simple answer is this: there is God and everything else that exists has been created by Him. The eternal God created the heavens and the earth. That is His primary relation to the universe: Creator.
It is in the creation narrative of Genesis 1 that one finds how God, Who acted in accordance with His attributes, created the world: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void..." (Genesis 1:1-2a). From the structure of the narrative, it seems as though God first created matter, for prior to His creative work there was only Spirit as only He was in existence then. After initially creating matter, He saw that it, particularly the earth, was "without form and void." It is interesting how the LXX translates the Hebrew into Greek. There, the Hebrew term translated as "without form" in English, which is often translated as "confusion," was translated as "αόρατος" (aoratos), loosely meaning "unsightly." "Without form," "confusion," and "unsightly" are all indicative of something: chaos. There is no form, no order, and, by correlation, no beauty as the earth was "unsightly." Chaos, the lack of form,the lack of order, seems to be tied to ugliness.
One can think of the Fall in light of this conception. Sin, the ugly transgression against the beautiful command of God, is ultimately a subversion of the order which God has established for man. Man thought it wise to transgress the command of his Creator, thereby attempting to establish himself as ruler. This is the ugliness of sin, the reordering of the structure that God had established for man.
But God did not leave the creation in chaos, in formlessness. He acted by His nature, in accordance with His attributes which show forth the collective attribute of beauty, to form all things as they are by the power of His Word. He turned chaos into cosmos, which literally means "order." Thus, what was once "unsightly" became beautiful by the hand of Him who created all things. Creation is a work of God which was done in accordance with His attribute of beauty; therefore, beautiful things were produced. It is through the creative work of God that things are beautiful. This is how the metaphysical becomes physical, through creation.
Order, then, seems to correlate to beauty, as order is the opposite of chaos, which correlates to ugliness. It is no wonder why "cosmetics" come from the root "cosmos" for what are cosmetics supposed to do but bring order out chaos? Now, I say that somewhat jokingly, but that is definitely how they are perceived to work.
This is why truly beautiful music is harmonious, well balanced in volume and tone and tempo. Order has been established from the chaos that would otherwise exist with the screeching and squawking of instrumentalist playing on their own accord. This is why a mere rock is aesthetically different from the Venus de Milo. One shows shapelessness and formlessness, the other form, order, and structure.
So order, then, correlates to beauty, for order is expressed in how God has worked in creation and is a reflection of Himself, who is both orderly and beautiful. But man in recent years, in his want of independence and in his rebellion against God's beautiful, structured, formed, and ordered law, has want to establish for himself a definition of beauty that is contrary to God's being and work. He wants to deny the objectivity of beauty and establish for himself the measuring stick of beauty: his own opinion, his subjectivity. The beauty in the arts has followed the same path as morality and truth. It has been dwindled down into a subjective study because of the changing tides of the relativistic worldview.
Chaos and nothingness has now become beauty for many in the existential and postmodern period of the past fifty or so years. Simply compare the art of the days when absolutes were upheld to the art of more recent periods, and you will see that there has been a shift in the "opinion" of beauty. Stylistically, art of the past was built upon order and form, the art of the late 20th and early 21st centuries for the most part reflect chaos. One merely has to compare the works of Rembrandt to Picasso or of Ambrosius Holbein toPollock. In music, compare Mozart to John Cage, or Bach to Schoenberg. The shift in the understanding of aesthetics is large and trails behind the shift in worldview. As society's understanding of truth and goodness have changed from objectivity and cosmos to subjectivity and chaos, so, too, has society's understanding of beauty conformed to relativism and mere feeling.
Considering the nature of God in relation to His beauty, particularly related to His having the summation of all desirable attributes, should Christians cleave themselves to the recently formulated idea of subjective beauty? It would be unwise to do so for such denies the objective nature of beauty that is present by necessity due to the beauty of God.
Should Christians find chaos beautiful, as many do in this culture that has been deeply influenced by philosophical existentialism and postmodernism? Such would be a denial of a fundamental element of cosmology, that God has made things ordered, formed, and beautiful for our enjoyment and His glory. To cave to the world's system of aesthetics is to deny what God has deemed to be beautiful and to upset the established order even more, leaving more deformity and ugliness behind it. Simply put, the aesthetic of this day is itself ugly as it shows forth a rebellion against God's order.
Christians should notice this trend, the trend moving from objective order to subjective chaos, and see how it is manifesting itself in the worldview of today. Not just in the realm of truth and goodness should these things be identified and combated, though these are first and foremost, but also in the area of aesthetics. Christians are called to conform themselves totally to the will of God as expressed in the Scripture, and that conformity includes how one views this world. What the Word says about beauty is the foundation of true aesthetics.
May we be transformed by the renewing of our minds concerning all things, concerning truth, goodness, and beauty, and recognize the objectivity of all three as true truth, true goodness, and true beauty as they appeal to and glorify God in their expression and in our enjoyment of them.
The manifestation of beauty as it relates to man is simple: God is beautiful; man is made in the image of God, therefore, man is an image of God's beauty. The constitution of man by nature demands the designation of beauty. Granted, because of the entrance of sin into the world, the image of God in man was marred and distorted. However, man is still made in God's image; he still has residual beauty that reflects in some way the beauty of God. The mere fact that man can will, reason, communicate, has personality, etc. because of His being made in the image of God makes him beautiful though he is tainted with sin.
Yet there is a promise for those who believe in Christ, that the blotches and imperfections that are caused by sin will be removed in the last day when believers will be fully conformed into the image and likeness of the Son, God incarnate. I find it to be no coincidence that Paul speaks of that day with terms concerning the beauty of the Church as Christ has made her beautiful in Ephesians 5:27: "so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." As Christ restores the Church back to the consummate image of God, He makes her beautiful as she will more fully reveal the beauty of God in holiness.
There is, therefore, an innate beauty that is a part of man as he is made in God's image, and through Christ's work, the pock marks, wrinkles, and zits of sin are being and will be removed from His Church on the last day, therefore bringing man back to his original beauty, to his original state before the Fall when he was more fully reflective of God's image.
Yet this is mostly metaphysical regarding man and his constitution. How does the beauty of God manifest itself in the physical? How does it appeal to the senses? To begin, one must first ask, "What is God's primary relation to the physical?" The simple answer is this: there is God and everything else that exists has been created by Him. The eternal God created the heavens and the earth. That is His primary relation to the universe: Creator.
It is in the creation narrative of Genesis 1 that one finds how God, Who acted in accordance with His attributes, created the world: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void..." (Genesis 1:1-2a). From the structure of the narrative, it seems as though God first created matter, for prior to His creative work there was only Spirit as only He was in existence then. After initially creating matter, He saw that it, particularly the earth, was "without form and void." It is interesting how the LXX translates the Hebrew into Greek. There, the Hebrew term translated as "without form" in English, which is often translated as "confusion," was translated as "αόρατος" (aoratos), loosely meaning "unsightly." "Without form," "confusion," and "unsightly" are all indicative of something: chaos. There is no form, no order, and, by correlation, no beauty as the earth was "unsightly." Chaos, the lack of form,the lack of order, seems to be tied to ugliness.
One can think of the Fall in light of this conception. Sin, the ugly transgression against the beautiful command of God, is ultimately a subversion of the order which God has established for man. Man thought it wise to transgress the command of his Creator, thereby attempting to establish himself as ruler. This is the ugliness of sin, the reordering of the structure that God had established for man.
But God did not leave the creation in chaos, in formlessness. He acted by His nature, in accordance with His attributes which show forth the collective attribute of beauty, to form all things as they are by the power of His Word. He turned chaos into cosmos, which literally means "order." Thus, what was once "unsightly" became beautiful by the hand of Him who created all things. Creation is a work of God which was done in accordance with His attribute of beauty; therefore, beautiful things were produced. It is through the creative work of God that things are beautiful. This is how the metaphysical becomes physical, through creation.
Order, then, seems to correlate to beauty, as order is the opposite of chaos, which correlates to ugliness. It is no wonder why "cosmetics" come from the root "cosmos" for what are cosmetics supposed to do but bring order out chaos? Now, I say that somewhat jokingly, but that is definitely how they are perceived to work.
This is why truly beautiful music is harmonious, well balanced in volume and tone and tempo. Order has been established from the chaos that would otherwise exist with the screeching and squawking of instrumentalist playing on their own accord. This is why a mere rock is aesthetically different from the Venus de Milo. One shows shapelessness and formlessness, the other form, order, and structure.
So order, then, correlates to beauty, for order is expressed in how God has worked in creation and is a reflection of Himself, who is both orderly and beautiful. But man in recent years, in his want of independence and in his rebellion against God's beautiful, structured, formed, and ordered law, has want to establish for himself a definition of beauty that is contrary to God's being and work. He wants to deny the objectivity of beauty and establish for himself the measuring stick of beauty: his own opinion, his subjectivity. The beauty in the arts has followed the same path as morality and truth. It has been dwindled down into a subjective study because of the changing tides of the relativistic worldview.
Chaos and nothingness has now become beauty for many in the existential and postmodern period of the past fifty or so years. Simply compare the art of the days when absolutes were upheld to the art of more recent periods, and you will see that there has been a shift in the "opinion" of beauty. Stylistically, art of the past was built upon order and form, the art of the late 20th and early 21st centuries for the most part reflect chaos. One merely has to compare the works of Rembrandt to Picasso or of Ambrosius Holbein toPollock. In music, compare Mozart to John Cage, or Bach to Schoenberg. The shift in the understanding of aesthetics is large and trails behind the shift in worldview. As society's understanding of truth and goodness have changed from objectivity and cosmos to subjectivity and chaos, so, too, has society's understanding of beauty conformed to relativism and mere feeling.
Considering the nature of God in relation to His beauty, particularly related to His having the summation of all desirable attributes, should Christians cleave themselves to the recently formulated idea of subjective beauty? It would be unwise to do so for such denies the objective nature of beauty that is present by necessity due to the beauty of God.
Should Christians find chaos beautiful, as many do in this culture that has been deeply influenced by philosophical existentialism and postmodernism? Such would be a denial of a fundamental element of cosmology, that God has made things ordered, formed, and beautiful for our enjoyment and His glory. To cave to the world's system of aesthetics is to deny what God has deemed to be beautiful and to upset the established order even more, leaving more deformity and ugliness behind it. Simply put, the aesthetic of this day is itself ugly as it shows forth a rebellion against God's order.
Christians should notice this trend, the trend moving from objective order to subjective chaos, and see how it is manifesting itself in the worldview of today. Not just in the realm of truth and goodness should these things be identified and combated, though these are first and foremost, but also in the area of aesthetics. Christians are called to conform themselves totally to the will of God as expressed in the Scripture, and that conformity includes how one views this world. What the Word says about beauty is the foundation of true aesthetics.
May we be transformed by the renewing of our minds concerning all things, concerning truth, goodness, and beauty, and recognize the objectivity of all three as true truth, true goodness, and true beauty as they appeal to and glorify God in their expression and in our enjoyment of them.
