An Argument from Beauty
Monday, February 02, 2009 Posted by Pastor Fred Wolfe
Kant thought that if we think something is beautiful then we want everyone to agree with us. I can see how people would think this way, but I disagree. That kind of appreciation for beauty takes all of the warmth out of beauty. It's like a man who sees a beautiful violet growing out of the ground. Upon beholding it, he takes out a field manual on botany and studies the theories on why it is so brightly colored, and treads it down in the process.
Many have endeavored to explain the beauty of an unfolding rose, the light from a moonlit path, or a west-coast Florida sunset. Poets have crafted our language to try to express our feelings of passion that are envoked by an ornate oak, or emerald rolling hills. I love the stimulation that comes with well done art, and the awe and respect for the vastness of nature.
Where is the kingdom of God in all of this beauty? Could we dust the horizon, and find the fingerprints of God freshly laid?
I think that the answer could be found, if one is mature enough, in the deepest fathoms of the spirit, in the placid glass that forms the heavens, in the utter beauty, the sweet existential exquisiteness...of my wife's lasagna. Ahhhh...the beauty.
I cannot under any other circumstances except in the worldview of a theist explain the allure of nature.
Why do I find things beautiful?
Some of you will be thinking, "Duh. It's an evolutionary trait; something we are born with. It gives us the will to procreate, it tells us what is good to eat, it guides where we sleep, it helps determine the future of the human race."
Let's take a sunset for example. I'v lived on the west coast of Florida, so I have the privilege of taking in some of the most breathtaking sunsets in the world. You know the postcards you buy on vacation? That's been my backyard. Sunsets, though, have nothing to do with procreation, survival, or anything beneficial to my species. Actually, sunsets become more brilliant when pollution is at it's height. Something that is almost universally held as beautiful is the result of our destroying the environment.
When stormclouds roll in, I get excited. Cracking through the breezing stormclouds, lightning pierces my gaze. I also happen to live in the lightning capital of the world. Lightning strikes here quite a bit. These strikes are usually mixed up with blustering winds, flooding and falling branches. Surprisingly, I am completely drawn to this kind of weather. I love lightning. I wish I could grab it and stare at it for a while.
Robert Frost has a famous poem:
Taking a look at the imagery in this poem tells us how beauty is not necessarily correlated to the survival of the species. He contrasts two beautiful things with very ugly actions. A frosty lake, a candle flame-both are beautiful-and both have the capacity to kill.
I think Weimaraners are absolutly beautiful dogs, but I don't want to have sex with them, I don't want to eat them, and I don't have any real beneficial purpose for liking them. What benefit or purpose then, has beauty, beit objective or subjective?
I offer this thought: Could it be, that we have a creator who is benevolent in more that just the unique miracles of scripture, or the glory of the ones to come? Could it be that my west coast Florida sunset was a truly altruistic and loving gestural abstraction?
I think God had fun creating the world. Not like the fun you and I have, which is often self-centered. He enjoyed taking out his "paintbrush", creating the laws of science and physics, and breathed art into the world for us to enjoy.
The next time you see a sunset, or a snowy mountain cap, or a droplet of water running down a leaf of grass, thank your Creator for the gift of beauty.
September 7, 2011 11:28 PM
I like this. What a wonderful sentiment, and kudos on a post that is both expressive and evocative, along with being well-written. There's something you should know, though: I am an atheist. Now, before you remove my comment, please hear me out, because I'm really being sincere. I may view the world differently than you, and I may have different ideas on how it came to be, and we probably have different ideas on how to live a good life, but when we see something beautiful we likely both feel the same way: a swelling in our chests, a feeling of breathlessness, a sense of wonder at the world we share.
And most of all, we each feel happy. I feel happy because I know that there's so much of this world to explore, and that I can use my time on earth to see and do so many fantastic things. And forgive me if it seems like I'm speaking for you, but I'd wager that you feel happy because you know that God created this and that someday you'll be with the being who created everything that we see as beautiful, and perhaps beauty itself. Now, I don't believe that, but the point is that we each see and experience beautiful things, and that we're more similar than one might think.
There's something that separates us, though. Where you might be content to simple observe beauty and attribute it to God, I dedicate my life to understand that which I find beautiful. Where you see a tree of golden leaves and think, "God is great," I might see the same tree and wonder, "what causes that?" And the answer is often marvelous in itself.
In all my life, though, I've never thought to ask myself, "why?" I never wondered, "why do I find that particular object/sentiment/scene beautiful?"
And so even though your post was anti-evolution, I suppose I should be thanking you for posing such an evocative question. Best of all, I don't know the answer. I suppose it could be linked to evolution. Or perhaps psychology? Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Maybe it's because of an experience I had as a child, or could it somehow be hereditary? Some mix of these possibilities, or some that I haven't thought of?
I have no idea, but you've inspired me to go out into the world and find an answer. What a beautiful thing to study: beauty itself. And this is what's wonderful about science; it's also what is different between you and I. When I don't understand something about our world, I search for an answer in terms of our world. It seems to me that when you don't understand something, you attribute it to God and move on.
This is, I suppose, the point I've been trying to make all along: that when one doesn't know something (like many aspects of evolution), that doesn't mean that they shouldn't look for an answer. Simply because there's a part of the evolutionary theory that we don't yet understand doesn't mean that the entire theory is bunk-- it means that we should work harder to understand it.
Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for listening to my ramblings. I hope nothing I said came off as rude-- I have nothing but respect for you. It felt good to type this out, too; I'm in one of those "everything is amazing" moods. All the best,
anonymous