sunset or scum?

we were given a couple of marriage books - one good friend gave us The Good Marriage, we bought Married for God, but at the moment we're reading one another good friend gave us, The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason (Multnomah, CO: 2005).

what i was challenged about most recently was the way we think about people. chatting with someone about the work they used to do, i was taken back to hear the language used to describe their clients. sure, they were repeat offenders, you could even say stupid in their actions, but there is still a way you talk about fellow human beings, recognising their value as worthy of value and honour and respect, due not to themselves, but to their createdness, to their being God's image bearer.

but when reality kicks in, we see this doesn't shape our actions and our time - i would much rather walk in the forest, watch a sunset, watch nature documentary - than hang out in a dodgy venue in King's Cross, at night in the back streets of Macquarie Fields, in any number of the world's slums and ghettoes.

Mason writes:

The conclusion is inescapable, that to be in the presence of even the meanest, lowest, most repulsive specimen of humanity in the world is still to be closer to God than when looking up into a starry sky or at a beautiful sunset.
[T]here is nothing in the New Testament about beautiful sunsets. The heart of biblical theology is a man hanging on a cross, not a breathtaking scene from nature. For the Bible is centrally concerned with love, and the wonders of nature [...] touch only remotely on love. We cannot really love a sunset; we can love only a person.

pp46-47. emphasis added.



create in me a new heart, o Lord, that i might see things as you see them.

Words David Bentley Hart Uses (with reckless abandon)

monad
3. Philosophy.
a. (in the metaphysics of Leibniz) an unextended, indivisible, and indestructible entity that is the basic or ultimate constituent of the universe and a microcosm of it.
b. (in the philosophy of Giordano Bruno) a basic and irreducible metaphysical unit that is spatially and psychically individuated.
c. any basic metaphysical entity, esp. having an autonomous life.

plenitude
1. fullness or adequacy in quantity, measure, or degree; abundance: a plenitude of food, air, and sunlight.
2. state of being full or complete.

Sobornost
3. Russian, Religion. Kireevsky asserted that "the sum total of all Christians of all ages, past and present, comprise one indivisible, eternal living assembly of the faithful, held together just as much by the unity of consciousness as through the communion of prayer". The term in general means the unity that is the church, based on individual like minded interest.

dégringolade
French. a quick deterioration or breakdown, as of a situation or circumstance.

i assume i'll have to look up a dictionary for the untranslated greek and latin (latin includes vinculum caritatis and causa in fieri)

i do thank God for dictionary.com (where all these references are sourced)

we're now up to page 187 of Hart's the Beauty of the Infinite, through but a fraction of his breathtaking, brain-exploding section on the trinity.

He summarises point 2. as

"The Christian understanding of difference and distance is shaped by the doctrine of the Trinity, where theology finds that the true form of difference is peace, of distance beauty" (p187)

i most enjoyed this section, where difference is shown to be peace and not threat, and distance is indeed beautiful. a hard read, but well worth it.

the wolf

again exploring the relative beauty, or ugliness we find, this passage from Hermann Hesse's the wolf stood out.

we come to a point in this short story, set in a harsh winter, with very little left for the wolves to eat - they have resorted to attacking sheep, and after an intense hunt this wolf has just been spotted and shot.

Trembling, the wounded wolf climbed through the woods in the half-light, while slowly the brown blood trickled down his flank.
The cold had let up. The sky in the west was hazy, giving promise of snow.
At last the exhausted beast reached the top. He was at the edge of a large, slightly inclined snowfield not far from Mont Crosin, high above the village from which he had escaped. He felt no hunger, but a dull persistent pain from his wound. A low sick bark came from his drooping jaws, his heart beat heavily and painfully; the hand of death weighed on it like a heavy load. A lone fir tree with spreading branches lured him; there he sat down and stared forlornly into the snow-gray night. Half an hour passed. Then a red, strangely muted light fell on the snow. With a groan the wolf stood up and turned his beautiful head toward the light. It was the moon, which, gigantic and blood-red, had risen in the southeast and was slowly climbing higher in the misty sky. For many weeks it had not been so big and red. Sadly, the dying wolf's eyes clung to the hazy disk, and again a faint howl rattled painfully through the night.

[...](the men catch him, kill him; they laugh, boast, sing and curse)

None of them saw the beauty of the snow-covered forest, or the radiance of the high plateau, or the red moon which hovereed over the Chasseral, and whose faint light shimmered on their rifle barrels, on the crystalline snow, and on the blurred eyes of the dead wolf.

even this wolf, so close to death, is the only one truly able to appreciate his surrounds. the desolation, the oppressiveness, and even his looming demise, fade away when he is no longer focussed on his own survival, but gives himself over to his fate - in that stillness he can find solitude and find beauty.

arguing for aesthetics

when i look at the world, fickle as i am, i'm able to see beauty in many places.

• Max Weber sat in a skyscraper, looking down at the goings-on in a city, and was awe-struck.
  
• in seeing the film angels and insects i now recognise the appropriate fascination we can have with the insect kingdoms.
  
• the subtitle of Dr Strangelove was How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and the testimony of many who have had the honour to witness the detonation of an atomic bomb, is that it is indeed awe-inspiring.
  
• the Grand Canyon (depending on who you believe) may have been the result of the erosion of a massive lake.
  
• the landscape of lebanon is astounding in its sparseness (even though the cedars are no more)
  
• the growth of a tumor, seen in time-lapse photography, is also a beautiful thing.

there is a short story by Herman Hesse (from which i hope to post at some stage) which explains how, even when dying, mostly due to the effects of this fallen world, we can still see immense beauty.

whether this is due to:

1. / there being inherent beauty in these things, despite many of them being a result of the fall
   
2. 2/ us being created with the ability to see good in all things, as God is sovereign over all and his good flows over into all things
   
3. 3/ our fallen nature meaning that we are able to see good in what God calls ugly

i've been swinging between the three, but would be interested in your thoughts.


particularly check out byron's blog, particularly the comments.
also see my previous thoughts on aesthetics

arguing from aesthetics

some apologists would try and argue the existence of God from aesthetics.
'how can you say there is no God, when you look at this beautiful photo?!'
some more cynical types would say that that is a stupid argument.
'there's a beautiful photo. why bring God into it?'
c.s. lewis is one apologist who argues from the premise of longing: we all long for something more, there must be something more. as the writer of ecclesiastes said: God has put eternity into the hearts of men (or something like that) (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ).

i think, when one surveys the unquestionable beauty on this earth, one has two choices.

1. look beyond. in the same way as a signpost points you beyond that point, to consider the enormity of the universe, the complexity, even the simplicity, and, if appropriate, whatever/whoever created the whole scene.
   
2. look at yourself. the reflection in the water, of so great a mountain, should remind us of our own reflection. who we are, where we fit, the impossibilty, or design, of your playing a role within eternity.

but aesthetics, as an apologetic for theism, on the way to Christianity, can be only a halfway house on the way to a halfway house. without the full host of where creation fits in to God's plan for salvation, this is ahollow argument.

(although i do believe a brief faustian world tour of contrasts - showing both the beauty and the depravity of creation, both the purpose and the corruption, may well be a valid use of aesthetics as an apologetic)