Responses to the call for commentary on the existence of the divine, part II
Explaining God by the transcendence of beauty
Hans Decker
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: Commentary
I wouldn't dare try to prove the existence of God in 400 words or less. Loyalties to St. Thomas aside, I don't think it can be done. But to give a reason why I believe that God exists, well, that's something else.
I was reading Wallace Steven's poem, "Sunday Morning," where a skeptical woman reflects that we have to learn to live our lives without a misguided expectation of some better future. Instead, "Death is the mother of beauty"; things are only beautiful because they will pass away.
Stevens writes these lines fully aware of the tension that they form with our natural tendencies: "But in contentment I still feel / The need of some imperishable bliss." As humans, so often we sense the inexpressible sadness that is connected to beauty; we ache for something more, something that lasts.
But why do we think things are beautiful? I am from Oregon, where everything is green, not just where the sprinklers are running. Do I find it beautiful because somewhere in my ancestral past, the monkeys developed a sense that green things mean that there is food nearby? Do I love sunsets because red is related to the fancy colors on animals attracting mates? Is Beethoven's music beautiful because I have some residual attraction to complex birdcalls?
Without God, we are left without transcendence, but without transcendence, we have no paradigm by which to explain our experiences of beauty. Materialistic explanations of beauty hinge on the principle of utilitarianism, but our experience of beauty is wholly the opposite. We experience beauty and it causes us to pause, if only for a second. We don't love sunsets because of what they can do for us. We recognize beauty because it calls us to experience something beyond ourselves: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork."
And so we fight against the death of beauty. Poetry is transient, dying as quickly as it is spoken, but we write it down and memorize it. We keep "Sunday Morning" in our hearts because there is something beautiful about the words, the sincerity, even the meaning that we sense should not be left to die. We long for immortal beauty, for something that gives significance to the momentary experiences that we have now, and thus we treasure whatever gives us a hint of it, even if it is ephemeral.
I was reading Wallace Steven's poem, "Sunday Morning," where a skeptical woman reflects that we have to learn to live our lives without a misguided expectation of some better future. Instead, "Death is the mother of beauty"; things are only beautiful because they will pass away.
Stevens writes these lines fully aware of the tension that they form with our natural tendencies: "But in contentment I still feel / The need of some imperishable bliss." As humans, so often we sense the inexpressible sadness that is connected to beauty; we ache for something more, something that lasts.
But why do we think things are beautiful? I am from Oregon, where everything is green, not just where the sprinklers are running. Do I find it beautiful because somewhere in my ancestral past, the monkeys developed a sense that green things mean that there is food nearby? Do I love sunsets because red is related to the fancy colors on animals attracting mates? Is Beethoven's music beautiful because I have some residual attraction to complex birdcalls?
Without God, we are left without transcendence, but without transcendence, we have no paradigm by which to explain our experiences of beauty. Materialistic explanations of beauty hinge on the principle of utilitarianism, but our experience of beauty is wholly the opposite. We experience beauty and it causes us to pause, if only for a second. We don't love sunsets because of what they can do for us. We recognize beauty because it calls us to experience something beyond ourselves: "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork."
And so we fight against the death of beauty. Poetry is transient, dying as quickly as it is spoken, but we write it down and memorize it. We keep "Sunday Morning" in our hearts because there is something beautiful about the words, the sincerity, even the meaning that we sense should not be left to die. We long for immortal beauty, for something that gives significance to the momentary experiences that we have now, and thus we treasure whatever gives us a hint of it, even if it is ephemeral.
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