Beauty's in the eye of the beholder.
This phrase gets repeated so frequently and
with such a high degree of certainty
that it's almost impossible to deny, but
when I hear Christians sincerely
repeat this phrase, I throw up... in my soul...
just a little bit.
The premise for that belief is that we all have different
tastes so what might appeal to one
person may not to another so how can any
of us say that what I happen to like is
beautiful whereas what you happen to
like isn't. Now I get that because it
almost sounds arrogant to say that I
know what is or isn't beautiful. I have a
couple problems with that logic, however.
The first is that the degree of variety
of what human beings find beautiful is
not nearly as diverse as that argument
suggests. The second is that the same
thing could be said for truth itself. We all
believe different things to be true to
some degree. Does that mean that there is
no objective truth and that what happens
to be true for one person is just as
valid for another? I would say no. This is
especially apparent when you think of
something like education. So take math as
an example. When you're teaching kids
their multiplication tables; until
they've learned them their answers will
reflect a wide array of incorrect
responses. Does that mean that there
are no correct answers? Of course not, it
just means that they haven't mastered
their understanding of the subject
matter. The same is true for beauty. Just
because there are varying degrees of
taste and preference doesn't mean that
objective beauty doesn't exist.
In Christian theology God is described as
Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. God is Beauty
itself. So if you're a Christian that
says that beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, then you're saying that beauty
doesn't exist apart from you. If beauty
is contingent upon you and I then so is
God which means that God is our own
creation and I don't think that's what
the Bible says. So if God is beauty then
when we encounter beauty, we're
encountering God. When we gather and
worship on Sundays, we're hoping to grow
in deeper intimacy with God.
Everything about that experience
should be designed to help us experience
God in his Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
From the preaching, to the music, to the
community, and to the environment.
The buildings we design to focus our
attention on God should reflect his
beauty and not just because it would be
nice, but because God can use that to
reveal himself to us.
Christianity is a sacramental
spirituality which means that it
embraces the whole of reality both
spiritual and physical. It doesn't reject
the physical like many pagan or Gnostic
systems do. God created matter and even
became incarnate within it and it's
through that same incarnation that he
continues to animate matter as a conduit
of Grace. An appreciation of this
understanding should be apparent in the
way we design our churches. This is
something that for large parts of
Christian history we did understand. The
Church would Commission Christian
artists and designers who would allow
themselves to be a channel for the Holy
Spirit to communicate God's beauty to
the world and in so doing they created
some of the most awe-inspiring work
known to the world. Now for reasons I'm
yet to understand we abandoned that
understanding and embraced a new
philosophy of design, which is modernism.
Modernism has some pretty nihilistic
undercurrents to it. It was a movement
underscored by a desire to discard the
old traditions of civilization, including
religion. It's what gave us phrases like
'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.
It's what transformed art into something
that is self gratifying, confusing,
relativistic, and often utilitarian. If
modern art had a slogan it would be,
"It's art because I say it's art," and this
points back to this idea that we are the
masters of beauty; that we define what
beauty is. Now I'm not saying that modern
art doesn't have its place, but it
definitely doesn't belong in the spaces
we set aside to encounter God and to
have our hearts minds and souls elevated
towards him. So let's start emphasizing
objective beauty as we communicate our
faith. Let's stop hiring architects and
designers who are formed in a modernist
school of thought. Let's get back to
commissioning Christian designers who
will allow the Holy Spirit to create
beautiful buildings that people will want to
visit generations from now, whether
they're Christian or not instead of
these modernist misfortunes that nobody
will want to step foot in 30 years after
the go out of fashion.
