Michael Haykin takes us through discussion of beauty from Greek philosophy onwards. It is a fundamentally human interest, and also a biblical one. The Bible describes God as beautiful: Psalm 27:4, 145:5. It is connected with his glory, that shines out beautifully.
Augustine writes that the material realm is only beautiful because it derives its being and beauty from the One who is Beauty itself. Aquinas saw beauty as one of God’s perfections. Jonathan Edwards wrote of the way in which his conversion led him to see creation as beautiful.
In the eighteenth century, there was a shift away from the question of the nature of beauty to a focus upon the perceiver’s experience of the beautiful. Today beauty is seen as problematic, simply something that depends upon individual taste, and so the concept of beauty in theology is controversial. Haykin says this points to our lack of a proper vocabulary to support our ascriptions of beauty to God.
Here Haykin takes us back to Edwards amongst others, to give us some of this vocabulary. If God is beautiful – and the Bible says he is – we should think about it, and the nature of the beauty he imparts to creation. We need more of a vocabulary of aesthetics, and not to be afraid of it. Haykin’s article gives us some ways forward to be better appreciators of beauty, as theologians, and as created worshippers of God.
Haykin, Michael A G. “Beauty as a Divine Attribute: Sources and Issues.” Churchman 116/2 (2002): 127–36.