Skip to main content

Beauty

 We've now discussed two of the three transcendentals. We've seen that truth is ultimately about what is real, and that God is transcendent Truth itself. We've seen that goodness is ultimately about flourishing and growth, and that God is transcendent Goodness itself. Both truth and goodness are things that generally churches have pursued. We understand the importance of seeking out the truth, especially in regards to the Gospel. We also understand the importance of contributing to flourishing, especially in serving the poor. 

Beauty is something we haven't pursued as much.

Just like truth and goodness we crave beauty. We seek it out relentlessly. It is something we need in our lives. Look at the music industry or the fashion industry. We spend billions and billions of dollars seeking some form of beauty. Most people understand the value of a skillful painting or a talented musician, but we aren't sure why.

Beauty is fundamentally about perfection. It's about the highest ideal that we strive for and desire. As you've probably guessed at this point, God is Beauty itself. He is perfect. He is the highest ideal and greatest desire of our hearts. 

The Beautiful calls us to a higher state of existence. It inspires us to grow and improve ourselves. Beauty is the objective of the Good. We flourish and grow towards an ideal. Beauty also illuminates the Truth because it puts things in perspective so we can see what is real most clearly. 

What does it mean for us as Christians to be Beauty people? First we recognize that God is the source of all Beauty. Things are only beautiful insofar as they reflect and participate in Him, just as with truth and goodness.

It also means that genuine beauty is something to be celebrated and admired. Christians should be at the forefront of art, music, architecture, and more because we believe that the beautiful points us to God. It means that our places of worship, homes, and businesses should be vibrant places of color and art. It means that we should strive to make beautiful music.

Of course we also know that sin is a real presence in the world today. It can distort our perception of the beautiful and cause us to pursue ideals that are less than perfect. All one has to do is take a look at the rampant sexual immorality in our culture. I believe that this is a distortion of our desire for beauty. 

We also recognize that our human methods of attaining beauty are imperfect and limited. Art and music are wonderful things to be used to glorify God and point people to Him. However, they are limited. No one song can capture the full glory of God and no piece of art can do justice Beauty itself.

As I've said I think this is the one we've struggled the most with. How many churches do you know celebrate art and music? How many put forth an ideal for its members to grow and strive for? I haven't seen many, if any, at all. 

Next week we will look at how truth, goodness, and beauty relate to one another and why it is important for us as Christians to embody all three. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...

Proverbs, Wisdom

Wisdom is an essential part of living a godly life. The ability to make good judgments and identify potentially sinful situations are skills all Christians should have. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that it is the duty of parents and older Christians to pass on these skills and train younger generations in wisdom. The book of Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. The various authors of the book are trying to pass on the things they have learned to a younger generation. They want all that come after them to know that true wisdom comes from God. Background Like the book of Psalms, the book of Proverbs is a collection of various sayings and proverbs from many different people. The primary author we associate the book with is King Solomon, who wrote the most out of any single author, but he is just one of several writers. It is a very interesting book in this regard. The book of Proverbs can be tricky because it isn't always consistent in how the text flows together. Some...

What is Theology?

Greetings all! For the first true post I have decided to cover what will be one of the defining aspects of this blog; theology. I know that when I was growing up theology wasn't a word that was used in the churches I attended. In fact I don't recall ever hearing the word until I was in high school, and even then it was used negatively like theology was a bad thing. Theology is inseparable from Bible study, Christian living, and being a disciple of Jesus in general. It is an indispensable part of being a Christian. The thing is we haven't always treated it that way. We have allowed our theology to fall by the wayside, believing it to be useless or not appropriate. So what is theology exactly, and why is it so important? What is Theology? The word theology simply means "the study of God." The goal of theology is to reveal who God is, and when we know God we also come to know ourselves, sin, the world, and so on. What we've done in the past (and this may ju...