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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Need More Images

What is your favorite way to describe God? Is there a particular name of God in scripture that you are drawn to? What images and pictures come to mind when you think of God? These are questions I don't think we ask often enough. We all have an image of God in our heads that we work with. It may not be a literal picture, though it might be, but ideas and concepts we tend to associate with who God is. Some of those images and associations may come from the Bible, but some may not. These things are influenced by our upbringing, Bible reading habits, personalities, relationships, culture, and more. The way we picture God has a dramatic impact on the way we live our lives. For example, if the primary idea you have of God is "Healer," when you hear or read that you are made in God's image you will likely feel called to heal, be it physical ailments or spiritual wounds. But, if your primary image of God is "Judge," that changes things. You very likely might tend to...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

The Early Middle Ages: Historical Friday

The next segment of history that we are going to overview is the Early Middle Ages. This dates roughly from AD 450 to AD 1100. This is intended to be a very general overview. There are probably historians that would classify some other time period as the "Early Middle Ages" or a more specific time period. For our purposes this will cover the aforementioned time period. This was a very influential period in the history of Christianity. It saw the formation of what we now call the Roman Catholic Church and its separation from what we would now call the Eastern Orthodox Church. Before this time there was only ONE church. There weren't different denominations or groups. It is hard for us to think about in our modern context, but there was a time when Christianity was visibly unified. Brief History The first major thing to happen during this time period is the remaining three ecumenical councils. We discussed the first four several weeks ago. These councils discussed va...
Post a Comment
Read more