A Better Question about Beauty

If anywhere today the matter of beauty comes up for discussion, almost inevitably someone asks, "Is beauty just in the eye of the beholder?"  (Sometimes, that question will be simply implied by someone repeating the stock phrase that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder.")  In our heavily scientific age, that phrase -- "eye of the beholder" -- casts a cloud of suspicion over beauty.  Modern science seeks empirical observations that can be made by multiple scientists.  In contrast, two people observing the same object can disagree about whether that object is beautiful.  And so, there is an air of suspicion about whether beauty is "really out there" or is just something our minds project upon the world.  Beauty is not easily nailed down.

Philosophers today spin in circles asking questions about beauty.  And most modern theologians usually don't even address the matter.  Meanwhile, ordinary people throughout the world make beauty a part of their lives.  And find beauty in Nature, and are inspired by it.  They pick flowers and make art.  They listen to birds and create songs.  They are not fooled by philosophical questions.  The contemporary writer Elaine Scarry makes a critical point:

" [Beauty] seems to incite, even to require the act of replication.... It makes us draw it,
 take photographs of it, or describe it to other people."

Perhaps we would get deeper into appreciating and understanding beauty if instead of the usual question about "eye of the beholder" we asked why beauty entrances us.  And why we humans are drawn toward imitating it.

Another stock phrase that can be a stifling cliche is that "beauty is only skin-deep."  Admittedly, that phrase can remind us that we can be misled by some person's superficial beauty.  But the phrase "skin-deep" can discourage us from looking more deeply into the nature of beauty's power upon us -- including it's ability to bring us closer to our best true selves.  And its ability to draw us closer to the Divine.

Before modern times, the eighteenth-century Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards believed that beauty was an essential part of his experience of God, who was revealed through the natural world.  He wrote:

"When we are delighted with flowery meadows and
 gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that
 we only see the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ ... his love and purity."

A few contemporary theologians are beginning to wake up to the fact that in modern times their field of theology has neglected the topic of beauty.  One such writer is the contemporary religion professor Frank Burch Brown.  He emphasizes that:

"Aesthetic experience is a pervasive factor in our sense of the sacred,
  [and] in our delight in creation."

Asking the more productive question about beauty -- the one about our desire to replicate beauty -- is not just an academic matter.  It is a critical matter because we are confronted daily with so much ugliness.  Especially in the way humans often behave toward one another.  Everything from terrorists to ugly internet comments.  That gives us even greater reason to cultivate forms of beauty.

Beauty is not just something we perceive (or don't perceive).  It can also be something we do. A person can display beauty through loving and giving.  When we create beauty, and when we act in beautiful ways, we align our lives with the natural beauty in the world.  And thus transform ourselves.

~ ~ ~

What experiences of beauty in Nature linger in your memory?

(The Elaine Scarry quotation is taken from her book On Beauty and Being Just, © 1999, p. 3.)

(The Edwards quotation is taken from Open Secret by Alister E. McGrath, © 2009, p. 284.)

(The Frank Burch Brown quotation by is from “Aesthetics” in the New & Enlarged Handbook of Christian Theology,
 Donald W. Musser & Joseph L. Price, eds. © 2003. pp. 19 & 21.)
(Both pictures are in the public domain.)