On Beauty

By Doug Gehman

November, 2022

C.S. Lewis once came across a book by two authors written for youth in the British educational system. Lewis did not identify the authors nor the title of the book but insisted “there is such a book and I have it on my shelves.”1 The authors retell a well-known story by Samuel Taylor Coleridge about two tourists who visit a waterfall. Moved by the scene’s grandeur, one tourist called the waterfall “sublime” and the other simply said it was “pretty.” Coleridge had his own thoughts about the tourists’ observations, but the two authors go further. The “sublime” comment, the authors assert, is nothing more than one tourist’s emotional response to what he saw. “Actually,” they continue, “he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings.”2

This little book became the impetus for a series of lectures by C.S. Lewis. “The Abolition of Man” is one of Lewis’ most brilliant philosophical arguments, written in rebuttal to the thesis of said book. “Having nothing good to say of [the authors]”3 Lewis responds to their existentially asinine commentary that – because the British educational system inserted the book into school curriculums – was foisted on the minds and hearts of impressionable boys and girls about something so exquisite as beauty that was now diminished to human feelings.

“The Abolition of Man” is about much more than beauty. But, on this one aspect of his thesis I will now concentrate. Lewis infers a simple question. Does beauty only exist in the eye of the beholder, that is, like limerence between a young man and woman? Is the human heart the only place where beauty exists? Is beauty only a feeling we have when we see something that inspires us? Or, is beauty something more, and does it exist outside of our observations? In other words, does beauty have intrinsic and objective value?

Human interest in beauty originates from connections between our inner senses and the outer realities of our experience. We see something that to our senses is grand, inspiring, sublime. The two authors contend that our feelings are the extent of beauty. Are they correct? Or does beauty exist outside of our experience? In other words, if there was no one to observe Coleridge’s waterfall, would the waterfall still be sublime?

In a Christian worldview, physical things and this world do not just exist. They might for animals, but they don’t for humans. A unique feature of humanity is that we recognize something beyond just the physical features of existence. A mountain is not just a gazillion-ton pile of rocks, dirt and trees where lies shelter, food, predators, and danger. A mountain evokes something more from us, as if it has merit and worth appropriately requiring respect, even veneration from the observer. We could say that a mountain can both inspire grandeur and provoke dread depending on our experiences with it. Yet the very reality of our feelings speaks to something more than just our feelings. As if our experience with the mountain points to something more profound.

An atheist or relativist would refute this connection, insisting that whatever feelings we have about a waterfall or a mountain are nothing more than that – feelings, the consequence of a highly evolved physical life form, now intelligent, even astute in our interactions with the world around us. But is human perceptivity all there is? Religious or secular, beauty touches us in a sacred way – a kind of holiness in both the observer and the observed – that inspires awe and elicits wonder, a subtle reference to value, merit, and even a call to humility and belief.

Indeed, beauty is more than tangible things – like mountains and waterfalls – that elicit a response from us. The elicitation itself speaks of necessity. We need beauty! Like water and food for which we thirst and hunger, we search for the sustaining essence of this quality. We do not want to live in an ugly world. And while one person might differ from another in the details and definitions, we all know there is beauty “out there” that we should experience, even possess as an inherent part of our existence.

And, what of ideas and causes? Cannot these also be beautiful? Americans lean intrinsically into freedom, and disdain tyranny. Why, it could be asked, is freedom beautiful and tyranny ugly? For a tyrant, oppression and domination might be a beautiful thing. But we would say that such a tyrant is a madman. Are we correct in this assessment? Why is the tyrant wrong? In a world of relativism, who decides? Or as Friedrich Nietzsche implies, power is the real essence, and when a tyrant has power, who is to say he is wrong for using it to get what he wants?

That we categorize good and evil, and do so with strong conviction, even going to war to defend our ideals, is assumed to be a mark of humanity, a feature Lewis called “first principles of practical reason.” He claimed that these values are self-evident around the world. The shaping of young minds through education – for Lewis that happened in England – was the means by which these principles are nurtured, and therefore a proper education is essential. The United States in our time is debating the same thing. Who should make content decisions, and what is the standard to which we appeal for that content? In short, what is beautiful and worth protecting, teaching, and propagating? And what is ugly and should be refused? Even if ugliness is taught, for history’s sake we point out its ugliness and reasons we abhor it.

For the Christian, God is the originating point of beauty. He is the standard, the ideal from which all things derive their essence and being. Beauty exists in the Person of God, and because “in him we live and move and have our being”4 humanity the world over recognizes this value and others like it.

Psalm 8, written by King David, declares,

“Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babies and infants,
You have established strength because of your foes,
To still the enemy and the avenger.”5

The word “majestic” in the original Hebrew (ad’dir) is sometimes translated glorious, excellent, great, etc. In the English language the word implies power, dignity, honor, respect, even beauty. All ancient religions ascribe to an idea of something that pre-exists existence. The Chinese called it the Tao. Ancient Hinduism the Rta. The Jews claim that God and His Law is this eternally existent reality, and he epitomizes glory, majesty and beauty.

The Jewish Psalm above suggests that this Truth – this Law, this Majesty, this Beauty – is so near and obvious that even babies perceive it and speak of it in their babbling, a speech so profound it silences ugliness and evil. Another Psalm echoes this powerful beauty: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”6

Christians build on Judaism’s foundations, claiming that in the Messianic arrival of Jesus Christ, dignity, majesty and beauty came near to us, and in his coming God made it possible to escape the ugliness that defiled our very being. Christ, by his advent, and his death and resurrection, prepared a way for all to return and rediscover the beauty, dignity, and honor we crave.

The apostle John, who was a close friend and colleague of Jesus, said of him in the opening words of his biography about Jesus…

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”7

The Christian claim about the deity and advent of Jesus answers the human longing for beauty that we can see, feel, and touch. In John’s words, as he continues the introduction to Jesus’ story …

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”8

Paul, a skeptic and hater of Christians, was converted when he met Jesus. Later in life Paul wrote to a group of Christians in the city of Corinth, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”9 According to Paul, life can be transformed from poverty to riches, from ugliness to beauty, through an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Perhaps Jesus is worth a closer look.