Beauty ...

Friday, August 21, 2009. We are talking about challenges of faith. Today we discuss the topic around “beauty”. We will use beauty as a symbol for many things which can pull us away from God, which can seriously threaten or even distroy our faith.

The world we live in is full of beauty. Usually, we are attracted by beauty. That can be a beautiful woman, a beautiful man. In Germany, there is some discussion currently about the sexiest politician. Beauty or physical attraction can be appealing. In fact, beauty can influence us strongly. Have you ever experienced the situation where you are suddenly completely overwhelmed by a particular beauty? We can even forget all our previous goals or principles if we are suddenly under the influence of beauty.

Beauty is not only a physical property of humans. It is a general property many things have on this earth. Music can be extremely beautiful - both pop, rock, jazz or classical music. Opinions about a particular kind of music might differ, but most of us know some music which is beautiful above most of the things we know. Being influenced by fantastic music can be great. It can help and motivate us. It can also distract us and completely govern our life. Music is just one particular art which can take this role. There are many more arts, many more things on this planet who are beautiful and who can take the lead in our life.

As a scientist I know that science is beautiful. I am strongly dedicated to science. I am working many hours every day on new scientific results, putting together theories and ideas, working them out, applying them to particular problems. Science has its own strong beauty. It can become our life. It can govern everything we have. It can become the substitute of God himself. It can forget its limits and very special strategies of understanding. It then lends towards the evil, it turns dark. But that does not need to be the case. Science can be bright and amazing - if it is carried out with reason and understanding.

There is a strong challenge to faith in the beauty of things. We tend to forget the true situation of our life. We tend to focus on some particular beauty. It might be so encouraging and compelling, that it starts to influence everything else in our life. We even might experience this as good and encouraging. We become more and more dedicated and we receive a lot of positive feedback. We learn to perform our art and become better, world leading, fantastic, amazing … but we loose the right sense of reality. We are drawn into a spiral of beauty, which looses what is called “the life”. Beauty can destroy faith, if it is not experienced within a healthy framework of life.

God has given the beauty of this world to us to experience it and to enjoy it. The beauty of the world is a little hint to the beauty of God. If we keep a good sense of reality, we can take beauty within a larger framework, which is the beauty of God himself, the beautyful character of the creator. In this sense all beauty is good. But good things can turn dark if they loose the relation to the creator. That is the challenge of beauty. ... more texts