The Beauty of, um... Beauty!

A few more thoughts on Book 15 before I move on...

While brilliant and essentially orthodox, Augustine was also a man of his times; times that included a tremendous theological preoccupation with monastic self-denial, and general distaste for the physical world over against the spiritual. However, I suspect Augustine was inwardly uncomfortable operating within this context because he can't help acknowledging the praiseworthiness of beauty:

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God..."

Even though he immediately feels compelled to qualify, almost apologize for his appreciation of something in the material created order:

"...beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good..."

But for all that, he still can't help the fact that he does appreciate it!

"It is this which some one has briefly said in these verses in praise of the Creator: 'These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless the sin we commit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee love that which Thou hast made.'"

Most of his caveats have their place; we should only love creation insofar as it reflects the glory of its Creator. Taking that appreciation too far, to the point of loving creation on its own merit, is nothing short of idolatry. But we must also recognize that there are ditches on both sides of the path. If idolatry is on the right, then ingratitude is just as surely on the left. And while balance is key, that doesn't make it unreasonable to know which ditch is in more need of exhortation. After all, a drowning man doesn't need a lecture on the necessity of staying well hydrated!

Augustine goes beyond erring on the conservative side here. He is wrong to say that beauty is carnal, or even a "lower form of good". On the contrary, beauty is not exclusive to the created ("carnal") order, but is one of God's eternal attributes (Zec. 9:17)! Furthermore, in Augustine's time (as is often true in the church today) the ingratitude on the left was the ditch more commonly encountered than the idolatry on the right. But in reality we have no reason to look down on God's material creation as somehow inferior to the “spiritual things” (whatever that means) because He made both! Some things He made for utility and some for beauty, but all for His glory. Each piece of His creation can be viewed as a mirror designed to reflect His glory back to Him.

Don't be afraid to revel in the afterglow!