A Grace of Sense - theological aesthetics

  The Greek word καλός may denote beautiful, good, or useful. That is the case with many other languages, too: the word for beauty has several connotations, other than aesthetic.  In the Greek philosophy, there were also several criteria that make beauty beautiful. The most prominent were order (τάξις ), symmetry, and harmony. In a perfect body, harmony of the human limbs were in accordance with the harmony of the universe, of which the musical harmony was a sounding image.  According to Plato, all visible beauty is originated in the idea of beauty. Diotima's celebrated speech in The Banquet begins with beautiful objects, then discusses beautiful soul and beautiful action, and ultimately presents the idea of beauty behind all this.  Beauty is inseparably connected with the moral goodness and the useful. The vehement criticism of art in Plato's The Republic is principally due to the enormous power of art to move the human soul. Compared to Plato, Aristotle's view on k...

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...

"Beauty redeems the world” says the protagonist, Prince Myshkin, in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot. For many reasons, he sounds like an idiot—today even more than before. Nothing redeems the world anymore; terms like redemption or justification have disappeared from the public sphere and come to be religious gibberish. Moreover, if there is anything in Christianity that brings hope to this world, it is not beauty. One may suggest justice, human dignity, or peace for the Christian agenda for the world, but not beauty. Even those who consider art the source of meaning in this world find the word beauty old-fashioned and inadequate. Aesthetic value has replaced beauty in the philosophy of art. In this article, I nevertheless maintain that Prince Myshkin was right. The Christian faith is an aesthetic view of the world: it perceives beauty even where beauty is not apparent. This is possible because a Christian is a person who is beautiful in God’s sight. For Protes...