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The Three Transcendentals

I'm going to skip right to the chase; the three transcendentals are truth, goodness, and beauty. The word "transcendental" refers to a field of interest and its transcendent ideal. In this case the three are truth, goodness, and beauty. This is an ancient philosophical concept that originated most cogently with Plato, but was picked up and developed in a thoroughly biblical and theological way by Christians centuries later.

So, why am I talking about this? Well, because I think it's right. There are at a fundamental level only three areas of human interest and life. There is truth, the study of what is and what is not. This includes things like science, education, research, and law. There is goodness, which is benevolence, medicine, charity, and community. There is also beauty, which we see in art, music, and film. 

Everything in our life can essentially be boiled down to a pursuit of either truth, goodness, beauty, or a combination of these things. We instinctively seek out these three ideas in everything we do. You could even say sin is, in one sense, looking for truth, goodness, or beauty in the wrong places or in the wrong way. 

These three fields of interest also point to a transcendent ideal that stands behind them. When we seek true things in our life we are actually seeking transcendent truth itself. The same goes for goodness and beauty. So what is the transcendent truth? Goodness? Beauty?

The answer is the same; God. The Bible teaches us that God is truth, God is goodness, and God is beauty. What those ancient philosophers figured out is that all people are searching for something that transcends themselves, they just didn't know who they were looking for. We can recognize the wisdom of their discovery and see that it is completely answered and fulfilled in God.

Over the next three weeks we are going to examine each of these topics individually and see why each are important and why we as God's people should embody each of them. I know this is different than what most of my readers are used to, but I think it is informative and a helpful way of looking at God and our need for him.

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