A Grace of Sense - theological aesthetics

Beauty of the cross Cross – the token of Christianity – challenges the aesthetic reading of the Bible. The prophecy of the Good Friday says precisely, that “he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him…like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:2-3) This is the exact opposite of an aesthetic interest! The main artistic problem concerning the image of crucified Christ is that no artist ventures to depict the ugliness of the crucified body as it is (supposing that the image is visible in a church). At the closer scrutiny, the cross of Christ makes the Christian aesthetics possible in its entirety. Without the Son of God who has gone through death and suffering, up to the God-abandonment at the cross, all beauty in the world would be vain entertainment, a deceptive surface that hides the cruel reality. In the end, it is the beauty of our life that gives the ultimate meaning t...

In the ancient Greece, humor, playfulness, and jokes were considered as something proper to children and slaves but not appropriate for free men. Plato wanted to drive away the comedians from his Republic. The Christian Church inherited this view on humor. Accordingly, laughter was deemed as superfluous, if not sinful. Jesus is not told to have laughed, and in monastic rules (e.g. the Rule of St. Benedict) laughter is prohibited for monks and nuns.  It is worth noting that laughter in the Bible has usually the touch of scorn, as "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision" (Ps. 2,4). Even God himself seems occasionally lack the sense of humor when He asks: "Why did Sarah laugh?" (Gen. 18,13) Later, Thomas Aquinas had an interesting discussion on humor in Summa Theologiae II-II, quaestio 168 . He asks, whether the "lack of play" ( defectus ludi ) can be viewed as sin. Typically, Aquinas begins with an argument against play and laughter...