Communicating truth — rationally and aesthetically

The only reason I bought the book 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology was because an Internet search for a handful of keywords produced a passage from the book’s entry on aesthetics.

The word “aesthetics” can mean one or both of two things: (1) thinking about beauty and (2) thinking about the human experience of beautiful things. Aesthetics tends to be an academic discipline within philosophy.

I want to quote a significant passage from the passage on aesthetics in the book, which was written by two faculty members at Calvin College and one at Gordon-Conwell seminary.

Some of the following terms might be a little dense, so I’ll bold-face the easier-read, core parts:

“While strands of Christian, especially Protestant, theology have adopted the more rationalistic stance of Plato, throughout history many theologians have affirmed the aesthetics as a central medium of both revelation and truth, particularly Neoplatonic theologians such as Bonaventure. The emphasis on aesthetics has received renewed interest in contemporary theology due to the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jeremy Begbie. At the core of these theological aesthetics (or aesthetic theologies) is a rejection of the rationalist axiom, which assumes that truth is communicated only in cognitive propositions. Rather, there is a mode of truth telling that is unique to the aesthetic or ‘affective,’ that cannot be reduced to cognitive propositions. Appeal is often made to the liturgy itself as an example of this, particularly the rich eucharistic liturgies of Orthodox and Catholic traditions, where all of the senses are engaged in order to communicate the truth of grace.” — Kelly James Clark, Richard Lints, and James K.A. Smith (bold-face added)

religion and philosophy

Hans Urs von Balthasar on beauty

Consider that the Devil always pursues dehumanization:

“We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.”

-Hans Urs von Balthasar, found at GregoryWolfe.com

How beauty and relationships point toward the truth, especially in parish life

G.K. Chesterton explained the value of beauty and relationships — and much more of life — in his book Orthodoxy:

If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe in Christianity, I can only answer, “For the same reason than an intelligent agnostic disbelieves Christianity.” I believe in it quite rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged demonstration, it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts. In fact the secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to Christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely such scrappy evidence that does convince the mind. I mean that a man may well be less convinced of a philosophy from four books than from one book, one battle, one landscape and one old friend. The very fact that the things are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact that they all point to one conclusion. (emphasis added)

Chesterton’s view seems to fit with something Czeslaw Milosz said in my last post: “stronger than thought is an image.”

Philosopher Linda Zagzebski also seemed to think, like Chesterton, that one’s surroundings — and one’s engagement with parish life — can become influential and even spiritually significant in someone’s life:

The natural order of religious belief is not usually to form propositional beliefs first and only later to engage in the faith life of a community. If we disengaged ourselves from the practice of faith in order to “find out” if it is justified, there is very little chance that we will ever find out. (from her chapter in the book Philosophers Who Believe):

After quoting the above passage by Chesterton, Zagzebski continued:

As I see it, a person who knows how to put together the evidence of a book, a battle, a landscape and a friend has learned something that it is too easy to forget in our intellectually fragmented world. Yes, even philosophers are moved by landscapes and friends. (I’m not so sure about battles.) It takes insight, though, to see these things as evidence.

An awareness of truly good things can hint that there is a good, true, and beautiful Creator. After all:

Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17, RSV)

And:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phillipians 4:8, RSV).

Chesterton and Zagzebski (and maybe Milosz) seem to think that those true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and praiseworthy things have evangelistic value.

Another, quite different, appeal for the aesthetic in Christian theology and worship

When a baby grows through the stages of infancy and the toddler years, his mind is absorbing numerous unspoken details about the world.

The late poet and Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz (considered by Jeremy Driscoll to have had a Christian faith in this article) made a fascinating observation in his memoir Native Realm:

Knowledge does not have to be conscious. It is incredible how much the aura of a country can penetrate to a child. Stronger than thought is an image – of dry leaves on a path, of twilight, of a heavy sky.

I would extend that to the aura of numerous things that penetrate to a child — one’s family and home life, one’s experiences in church worship, one’s surroundings. Peter Berger has famously noted the difference of mentality in a town in which the tallest building is a cathedral, versus the mentality in a town in which the tallest building is a bank. There is a social, cultural, relational, and aesthetic construction to knowledge, understanding, and worldview.

So, as the flip side of my immediate past post on Augustine’s view of culture and the temporal destiny of civilizations, the expressions of a liturgical church culture can have a developmental, and a tutoring, influence upon children as well as adult believers at various stages on life’s way.

Maybe, at very least, we could chalk up the value of liturgical worship to children as “pre-evangelism,” which Francis Schaeffer said is “no soft option” in expressing the Gospel or a Christian view of the world. “Pre-evangelism,” to Schaeffer, was the expression of corrective and positive points of view that can allow the reception of the Christian message to become more likely. After all, many creeds and faiths and worldviews have presuppositional foundations that disallow any consideration of the Christian message.

But the important thing to note is that our form of worship will say much about how we view God and how we view our surrounding culture. Our form of worship could, possibly, reinforce some of the less-admirable impulses of our culture. What kind of worship do you want to influence your child? One that props up the entertainment culture? One that values personal experience above all else? Or, at the other extreme, one that dashes to bits all symbols and artistic expressions?

-Colin Foote Burch

Aesthetics in Christian theology and worship

Kelly James Clark and James K.A. Smith of Calvin College, and Richard Lints of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (my uncle’s alma mater), offer a concise expression of the role of aesthetics in theology and worship:

“….While strands of Christian, especially Protestant, theology have adopted the more rationalistic stance of Plato, throughout history many theologians have affirmed the aesthetic as a central medium of both revelation and truth, particularly Neoplatonic theologians such as Bonaventure. This emphasis on the aesthetics has received renewed interest in contemporary theology due to the work of Hans urs von Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jeremy Begbie. At the core of these theological aesthetics (or aesthetic theologies) is a rejection of the rationalistic axiom, which assumes that truth is communicated only in cognitive propositions. Rather, there is a mode of truth telling that is unique to the aesthetic or ‘affective,’ that cannot be reduced to cognitive propositions. Appeal is often made to the liturgy itself as an example of this, particularly the rich eucharistic liturgies of Orthodox and Catholic traditions, where all of the senses are engaged in order to communicate the truth of grace. Theological aesthetics has entailed a double development: both a renewed interest in arts and a retooling of theology in response to aesthetic reality.”

The excerpt comes from the definition of “Aesthetics” in the excellent (if rather utilitarian in title) 101 Key Terms in Philosophy and Their Importance for Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).

The above excerpt is what I wished I had said when I founded LiturgicalCredo.com, because it explains much of my editorial stance.

-Colin Foote Burch