The Beautiful, the Good, and the True

I was reading recently an article reviewing the life and work of theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (you can see the April issue of First Things if interested). It seems that he organized his theological trilogy (which occupies 15 volumes!) around Plato's three 'transcendentals': the beautiful, the good, and the true. The article points out that to von Balthasar the order of these 3 is important; he argues that the beauty of Christ and Christianity is something we perceive in our soul first and that causes us to proceed on to conversion and obedience.

That line of thinking intrigues me. No one would accuse me of being an artist of any kind; I am not overly concerned about style in clothing, cars, or furniture; I don't like a lot of 'stuff' cluttering the wall of my house. So, I don't really spend much time thinking specifically about beauty, at least not in the ornamental sense. In fact, I am rather put off when churches in particular spend a lot of money on what appears to be merely ornamental. When I hear arguments about how we should spend lots of money on furnishings for a church because 'God deserves our best!', I generally consider that as code-speak by whomever is talking for 'I come to this church, and I deserve the best!'.  I am much more interested in buildings, cars, and clothing being practical than about their being beautiful. Not that I prefer ugly things; I just think that it should be practical first of all and it should not be overtly ugly. I ordinarily do not think of myself as seeking out something JUST because it is beautiful. I can relate to the Good, since moral excellence stands out so much in our decadent society. I can relate to the True and I tend to think of Christianity primarily as the truth about us, God, and how we relate to each other. I tend not to focus as much on beauty, at least not as an intentional thing.

And yet if I am honest with myself there are some obvious exceptions to this. Music immediately comes to mind. What is it about music that touches us? Some really good music has a special way to reach us that is hard to explain in any way other than because of its beauty. Handel's Messiah, which combines great passages of Scripture with great music, is absolutely majestic at times. I listen to it often, solely for its beauty.

The beauty of nature is another example of beauty that moves my soul. When I have stood at the edge of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park or on the rim of the Grand Canyon or viewing the Grand Teton mountains across Jackson Lake I have been awed by both its natural beauty and what that beauty reveals to me about the Creator and His beauty.

While I may not be as oriented toward a daily focus on beauty as perhaps an artist or musician might be, still I see that beauty has a unique way of impacting my life and how I understand the world. In reading this thought about how beauty comes as a first, intuitive way of understanding God it did make me wonder about how different folks need different types of witness. While I have responded most to things like the apologetic reasoning of folks like C. S. Lewis, others may respond much more to other things. To my way of thinking, apologetics seems to come first; to von Balthasar, it came last. Beauty came first.

All of this reminds me of Philippians 4:8; '..whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.' To say that we should think on the beautiful, the good, and the true would be a pretty good summary of that!