"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
One cannot deny that there is indeed a universal
notion that the concept of "beauty" exists but how can aesthetics
even be comprehended and compared? Where
does this standard come from that measures the beauty of a thing? And why is it that we would have a generally
shared sense of beauty? What’s beautiful
is beautiful, just like what’s true is true and what is, is. Much like the law of non-contradiction, there
is this beauty in the world that is likewise so self-evident - flowers,
architecture, a sunset and even certain people can have this quality of
undeniable beauty.
Now this is an immaterial concept that is not
adequately explained by saying that the sense of beauty we experience is merely
the chemical reactions in our brain.
Brendan Larsen recounted how an atheist would normally explain this
phenomenon away: “I remember once after work seeing a beautiful sunset and my
other co-workers saying how beautiful it looked. One of the atheist co-workers responded that
it was just an illusion and the result of chance. He has to live with his cognitive dissonance to
say that everything is just chance random processes but to admire beautiful
sunsets and other things.”
As determining beauty is a rational judgement,
there must be rationality behind the source of that judgement. There is a deeper scope to that rationality –
we as rational beings cannot attribute our rationality to the random and
arbitrary scope of the Evolutionary Story.
A rational Creator is needed to make sense of our own rational
judgements. But it is part of the
rationality attributed only to humans.
As Henry Morris said: “That such a hunger exists only in the human being
is a wonder in itself! The flower is not impressed with its own majesty; it
merely exists with no conscious awareness. The chimpanzee does not gaze
longingly on the enigma of the Mona Lisa, nor do the stars muse on the heavens
they themselves grace.”
Because a standard exists, it points toward
God. We can understand that a living
being has more value than a dead one, and that perfection is more valuable than
destruction. Non-chaos is more appealing
than chaos (especially when it comes to my kitchen!). We understand this, and we should understand
that likewise if there is no God, then beauty becomes arbitrary with no truth value attached to it. But there is truth value attached to beauty.
We often find beauty in symmetry, and there are
standards of aesthetics that everybody finds pleasing. This ties into the Golden Ratio in the way
that objective beauty can have mathematical truth values. To find truth in beauty shows that the
perfect, the truly beautiful must also have a sense of this truth. As God is truth it makes sense that the other
attributes of God’s perfection (like beauty) would ideally operate under this
‘truth’. Therefore we can see how it’s
all connected – truth, beauty and the standard of general aesthetics.
On the flip side, the fact that we’re all made
unique testifies to that other thing – beauty being in the eye of the beholder
– subjective beauty. God being unique
and wonderful made each of us to have our own unique glory. Then in turn our uniqueness inspires our
subsequent creations to be beautiful too in a unique way. We have been created to both admire
subjective and objective beauties because God created individuals with
individual tastes and the ultimate standard of beauty is God himself (endowed with
properties which inspired the Golden Ratio).
One day we will be able to witness the true
beauty of God which is too much for our present human frailties to bear right
now. We have the promise in the future:
“to behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to meditate in His temple.” (Psalm 27:4).
Grace is a biblical concept that comes from a Latin word gratia which means: "beauty or
charm of form, composition, movement or expression; an attractive quality,
feature or manner; goodwill, favor."
But it came to be associated with the blessing of being counted forgiven
by Christ, and also with the power of God through the Holy Spirit to enable
Christians to live the new life from Him.
Just as there are truth values attached to beauty, there is also a spiritual side to
it. Beauty can be found in simple acts
like love for one another, but the highest form of beauty is in grace, the
spiritual act of God forgiving us and loving us in all our unworthiness. And grace is more than just the highest
standard of spiritual beauty, it is God’s gift to one and all, if you truly see
the beauty in it and wish to receive it.
