A grace of sense – soundings in theological aesthetics

“A grace of sense” is a quote from T. S. Eliot’s Burnt Norton (from Four Quartets). What makes it of interest for me is its ambiguousness. One could either read it as “unmerited blessing of meaning” or “elegance of perception” , why not “beauty of reason” or eventually “gratification of senses”. In all these aspects, this phrase illuminates the scope of theological aesthetics. The key values in aesthetic theology are beauty, gratuitousness, expertise, sensory perception, a feeling of significance and intrinsic enjoyment.

 “A grace of sense” refers also to the way an aesthetic experience often occurs when one least expects it to happen. All artistic occasions – concerts, exhibitions etc – are intended to arouse “a grace of sense”, but one cannot guarantee that it takes place. When an aesthetic experience happens, one cannot but gratefully accept it. In this regard the aesthetic experience resembles greatly the religious experience of grace.

That the world makes sense whatsoever is an unmerited grace. There is no scientific explanation for the fact that we humans encounter the world as something rational, as a whole with an inherent logic. All evolutionary interpretations end in a circular reasoning – e.g. that we explain the world in rational terms because we need that or because we are fashioned that way. Scientifically speaking, it is no use to ask where does this need or that fashion come from.

Another major grace, although not always celebrated in Western Christian tradition, is the sense perception. The sole basis of knowledge in modern natural sciences, sense perception, has faced philosophical mistrust in Platonist and Christian thinking. Senses have the alluring power to enchant human soul and understanding. It takes a philosopher to doubt the reality of the outer world of physical objects – for others it is something taken for granted.

“Beauty” is a word of ancient philosophy that is not a topic of modern philosophy any longer. Even in its proper dominion, art and aesthetics, it has been superseded by “aesthetic value”. Perhaps the shallowest opinion about a piece of art is to say that it is beautiful (or that it is not). Yet beauty may be a valid concept even today, and not merely for beauty and fitness business.

 There has never been a theological doctrine concerning beauty or an academic branch of scholarship labeled “theological aesthetics.” Nevertheless, beauty and faith are irrevocably interwoven, and they need each other. For a Christian theologian, aesthetic may seem as a vague and impertinent approach to the reality compared to logic or ethics. According to a cliché, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not in the essence of things. That notwithstanding, the aesthetic approach can prove to be important for the Christian apologetics. People of today are tired of religious intolerance and religious traditions’ inability to attain peace with each other. Understandably, this has amounted to the fact that many educated people have abandoned religion altogether and expect nothing good of it.


Aesthetic theology opens a new entrance into religion: one may contemplate the beauty of religious texts, traditions and doctrines without the necessity to uncritically accept or moralize them. This means not to deny or ignore the truth claim of religious beliefs, but to subject them to an aesthetic, disinterested contemplation. The word “disinterested” originates from Kant’s Critique of Judgment and it does not mean that the object of this contemplation would not be interesting. Quite the opposite: the object of aesthetic contemplation overwhelms the understanding of the beholder so that one does not ask for the real existence or the moral value or the economical benefit of the object. It is a “grace of sense”, something one may sense but not logically dissect into its ingredients. However, it is not an inchoate nescio quid, but ultimately an experience that “makes sense” and we humans also make sense of it through trying to understand it and describe it to others. This is the way both art and religion occur.