The Beauty of All Things Beautiful

Beauty is an idea that has been on my mind quite a bit. It is especially a concept that I think most believers have terribly misunderstood. Let's begin with a simple question. Is a sunset beautiful? I am going to go ahead and assume that the majority of people who read this will answer with something similar to "it depends upon the person looking at it". There is an idea in that answer that I think is wrong to begin with. But it is an idea that society has ingrained into our minds that it is just natural to answer this way. So for just a little while let's consider what makes something beautiful, lovely, delightful or anything of that manner.

WHAT MAKES SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
People today have become very prideful and even in a sense that they do not even realize. There is an idea that reality, to some extent, must be based on my own perception. Think about your car. I drive a 95 Toyota Camry, the best car I've ever had. But is it a car? Or is it only a car when i decide that it meets the criteria of a car. Is it a car before or after I agree to it being a car? What if I decided that it wasn't? Well, of course we would say that it is a car whether or not I agreed it was. The problem is we believe that we are the essential deciding factor in reality. Is a sunset beautiful? That depends on what real beauty is. Is there a standard for beauty? Standards are what we use to determine if a car is a car, or if a shirt is black, or if a tree is tall.

One of my favorite verses of scripture is found in the Romans 10:15, Paul gives a description of what the person is like that is telling others about Christ. But instead of saying "How wonderful" or "How gracious" or "How great", Paul says "How beautiful are the feet of them". Notice that he does not correct himself in anyway. He does not say, their feet are beautiful if this is the sort of thing that affects you to perceive as beauty. There is no questioning to it, just simple facts.  But what is it that makes their feet beautiful? It is spreading the Gospel of Christ. The essential quality that makes them beautiful, not just beautiful to Paul but beautiful in their essence is the act of telling others the Good News. Beauty should be defined as something that brings glory to God. The more glorifying of God an object is the more lovely it should be to us.

DOES THIS MATTER?
In a simple answer, yes it does. In a more complex answer, it must. It definitely matters in the question of why we love God and why God can punish unbelievers. Someone might think that God could be unlovely because there are people who do not love Him. But the failure of your heart to desire God does not mean that God is unlovable, it means your desires have failed. God is beautiful whether He appears so to us or not. This is the basis for my whole reasoning of loving God. Sin has affected our hearts so deeply that we are unable to see the essence of all beauty as beautiful. But one day God opened my eyes, and lifted they veil over my heart so that I might see God for who He truly is. I do not love God because He died for my sins, I do not love Him because He created all things, I do not love God for an innumerable list of reasons. I love God because He is, as the woman says in Song of Solomon 5:16, "altogether lovely". I love Him because there is no quality of Him that is unlovely, He is lovely in His essence and character. Everything else just adds confirmation to His loveliness. God commands that we love Him, not because He is a terrible egomaniac tyrant, but because we must lovely Him for He is truly lovely. God is beautiful, and if there is anything of beauty it shows God. The more something displays the glory of God the more beautiful it is. That is why Augustine called God "the beauty of all things beautiful"