Every year, I let my HUM II classes give me a question to write a 45-minute in-class essay on--sort of a fair turnabout for all the writing I assign them! They give me four possible topics, and I pick one to answer. This year's two topics were "What is beauty?" and "What do you think of the doctrine of predestination?" Both pieces are severely limited by lack of time and space, but here they are, just the same.
What is Beauty?
We have discussed many important questions in this class, but “what is beauty?” struck a nerve of its own. This might simply be because of its eternal relevance. If we don’t know what beauty is, can we appreciate a painting in a museum? The face of a movie actor? Who’s to say, really, whether one room is more attractive in a house than another? Perhaps your friend might like lots of ferns and exposed steel in a room, so that is “beautiful,” while the other guy likes low-lit, open-concept Spanish ranch houses. Can we actually find a standard to judge between them, or must we throw up our hands and give way to a whirlpool of relative ugliness?
In our age, “beauty” is often relegated merely to the natural form—the sort of word we use about pictures of Rocky Mountain landscapes unspoilt by the hand of man, or a particularly fine bone structure in the body of a Hollywood star. This is fine as far as it goes, but all too often this degenerates into mere taste: one guy likes the Shenandoah Valley in the early morning and the other likes LA sunsets (the smog really sets off the clouds). But if beauty is merely personal taste, then we’ve reduced it to the perception level of each person. No one can say what beauty is, the same way no one can force me to like pineapple on pizza or the color combination of orange and maroon. In short, we destroy the very concept of beauty by drowning it in a sea of mere preference.
So it would seem that beauty, to be a coherent concept
between two or more people, requires some form of overarching standard. But
where should we get our ruler to measure our beauty-units? Societies throughout
history have tended to locate it in one of two places: an elite artistic class,
or in the fabric of the cosmos itself. The first claims that beauty is what is
born of an artistic mind. This can either be acquired by training (the
Neo-Classicists) or by inborn genius (the Romantics). Either way, this priestly
caste sets the standards for what a culture considers beautiful, and woe betide
the Philistine who dares to disagree. You don’t like William Blake’s Marriage
of Heaven and Hell or Picasso’s cubism or the cold concrete brutalism of
the Frankfurt School? Too bad. The rulers have spoken; and you, O Commoner,
need to shut up and shell out your tax money for such things in ever-increasing
government grants. Beauty is a production of the Artistic Soul, and none but
such a soul can judge it.
The other option is that beauty is somehow built into the
fabric of the universe, and that when we recognize beauty in any individual
thing, we are responding to the way things are (or ought to be). Plato (and his
Pythagorean forebears) would be firmly in this camp: beauty is a function of
number, proportion, the reflection of the Order of the cosmos itself. A
beautiful statue shows the proportion and movement of the human frame;
Michelangelo’s David is to be praised not for its realism, but for its perfection.
A beautiful body on a person shows us the pathway to the Good (or, depending on
how seriously you take parts of the Symposium, might even be the
pathway to the Good). A beautiful room resonates on the senses the same way a
Bach cantata resonates on the ear. This is safer (and more universal) than the
artist-as-standard view—we can access the standard of beauty just as well as a
beret-clad bohemian.
But how do we reliably access that standard? Do we do it via
the reason and the mind, constructing beauty piece-by-piece from the bottom up?
Do we find it sitting in an ethereal 17th dimension, a Form so
ravishing that Plato could never be bothered to actually look at a physical
sunset again? I believe the easiest place to look for it is in the greatest
work of art we know to have been produced: Creation itself. The God of the
Bible followed no external Form, no thirty-seven basic rules of Beauty, when He
laid the foundations of the earth. His nature overflowed into the realm we see
around us, and he made us to appreciate it. That is the true source (and
standard) of beauty: God likes it. And if we are called to be like God (which
we are) then the first place to look is in all the things He made for us.
Stars. Beetles. Mountain sunsets. The minute spiral of DNA. And, yes,
proportion and number. Fibonacci was in fact on to something—he discovered one
of God’s blueprints to the wonderful art gallery around us.
So, in the final analysis, what is beauty? It appears
(looking around at this wonderful world) to be somehow the contrast of
opposites: complexity and diversity. A garden is beautiful when the wild nature
of roses (complexity) is forced into observable geometric patterns
(simplicity). A sunset uses the visible light spectrum reflecting off a few
clouds (simplicity) to make no two evenings the same (complexity). In short, we
capture beauty the best when we do a thing right. And we know it’s
right, because we can see what God likes all around us. So the next time you
see a sunset, a freckle on a well-loved nose, or a Michelangelo painting, don’t
be afraid to exclaim, “It’s beautiful.”
What do I Think of the Doctrine of Predestination?
The doctrine of predestination has gotten a lousy reputation
over the years. It is frequently sneered at as the invention of John Calvin
(who was obviously a cold, humorless, unhappy man) and the mental refuge
of the famous “Frozen Chosen” who can’t stand that somewhere out there people
might be having a little bit of fun. These are caricatures, of course, but like
all exaggerations they often reveal a little bit of truth. Is someone who holds
to God’s predestination of human souls heartless—a cruel monster who enjoys
damning his fellow men to burn in Hell?
Well, as someone who does in fact believe in predestination,
I would quietly chuckle and say, “no.” But before we dive into it, let’s make
sure we’re all on the same page. Predestination is specifically the teaching
that God knows and causes the eternal fate of human souls, sending a
predetermined number—known before the foundation of the world—to glory and
salvation. It is a subset of the doctrine of Providence: that God controls all
circumstances of his creation. Virtually all orthodox Christians believe in
Providence, but predestination causes far more heartburn. Why is that?
There are two basic, recurring objections to the Christian
doctrine of God’s predestination. The first is that it turns humanity into
lifeless, irresponsible robots, merely following their Maker’s programming. The
second is that it is unfair of God to doom human souls merely on his own say so
without giving them a choice. In short, we are caught between the horns of
freedom and justice. Those who object to predestination say that we who hold to
it either make God a puppet master, or the worst judge of all time.
Let’s look at the puppet master objection first. This one is
actually fairly easy to dispute on a logical level, though not on a feelings
level. Basically, if Romans 8:28 is true (“all things work together for
good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose”) then the
doctrine of Providence is biblical. And if God controls everything that
happened in creation (because He made it, sustains it, and guides it) then that
has to include at minimum most of your personal choices. Why did you decide
pineapple on pizza was an abomination? Because your father thought the same.
Why do you have brown eyes? Six thousand years of genetic accumulation. Why do
you like rock music and not a Bach cantata? Because you were born after
electricity and recording music and the mp3 file were all discovered. In short,
many of the most personal things about us—our tastes, appearance, friends, even
beliefs—are caused by factors way outside our control. It is silly to
then claim that the choice of God is somehow on a quantitatively different
level from these. After all, if you’d been born to Muslim parents in Indonesia,
you might not have even had the option to “choose Jesus.” Either God controls
everything, or He controls nothing; a Christian cannot split the difference. In
that sense, every Christian must admit that God is a “puppet master.” To claim
otherwise is simply to say that He is not God, and the universe relies on
chance, not a plan.
However, God somehow (and I admit, I can’t do the math)
holds us truly responsible for the choices He puts in front of us. The best
analogy I’ve seen for this is that of an author. Frodo, as a character, should
not claim the Ring of Doom. It’s a bad choice, and he knows it. He does so
anyway. Now, did he do so because J.R.R. Tolkien willed it, or because he
wanted to?
Any answer to that question that doesn’t answer both sides
with “yes” is blindly missing the point. Tolkien chose it (on one level) and
Frodo chose it (on a completely different level). Of course, we can object that
we’re different, much greater, than a novel character. But God is much greater
than a human author. He can write a novel with truly free characters.
Reconciling human freedom and God’s providence is a perspective problem, not a
logical problem. Do we really want to claim that a being outside of time
might be able to do things we can’t?
This answers the “horrible judge” problem also. God does
not—indeed, cannot—look at a human soul that earnestly desires Him, and is
willing to obey His every word, and go, “naah, I think I’ll fry you.” God is
perfectly just. Every soul in Hell will have chosen to be there, both in our
father Adam and in each of our own lives. God has never turned down a
legitimately seeking soul, and He never will. God gives the reward for our
deeds. The part that we can’t figure out (not being omnipotent, out of time,
and omniscient) is how He can also give us the deeds themselves. It’s a
biblical objection, but it’s one the Bible tells us specifically not to make: “So
then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his
will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded
say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
If Paul is right, then we simply have to shut up and believe
that God can do what He says. But we have comfort: He has promised to save all
who ask. Predestination, at bottom, is not supposed to be a whip applied to the
unbeliever or a branding iron on the conscience of the sinner. It is a comfort,
a warm blanket around the soul of the doubter. God has promised to save those
who are His. Have you claimed Him? Then predestination says He will save you in
spite of your sinful self. He is the kind Father, not a blind puppet-master,
and Justice itself, not a fallible, angry judge.
