On the Beauty of Christ and Christian Reason

By Jeremy Nichols –

DEDICATION: For those who have never believed; For those who no longer believe; For those who struggle to believe without a concise, reasoned defense of their Christian faith.

EXCERPT:

Christians are told that those who have not seen and believe in Christ are blessed (John 20:29). We are also told that faith is the belief in things unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Because of sayings like these, it is easy to understand why we are frequently dismissed as men and women who have all “blindly” jumped into our religion.

Although our dismissal is easy to understand, it is undeserved – All Christians have not “blindly” jumped into Christianity.

Yes, there are some of us who have an unexamined, child-like devotion to Jesus (a “blind” devotion that should never be discouraged), but there are also many of us who are devoted to Christ because we have followed our God-given reason – There are many Christians who have come to Christ with open eyes.

Today, it is particularly important to demonstrate how Christians have used reason to arrive at faith in Jesus Christ. After all, when modern men and women turn to non-Christian belief systems, they usually turn because they believe that these systems are more reasonable than Christianity. Arguably, in order for the good news of Christianity to continue to comfort men and women (apart from the occurrence of Divine revelation), Christians must show that our faith is, in fact, very reasonable – The only way to do this is to submit our religion to rigorous analysis, and then to clearly communicate the findings.

Christians do not have to be worried – Rigorous analysis does not disprove Christianity. Rigorous analysis (or philosophy) actually supports Christianity. Clement of Alexandria (a Christian writing in the 2^nd century A.D.) said as much when he wrote, “Philosophy has been given to the Greeks as their own kind of Covenant, their foundation for the philosophy of Christ.” According to Clement of Alexandria, philosophy was the Greeks’ special agreement with God that paved the way for Christianity. The great North African Christian, St. Augustine of Hippo, actually wrote that he credited the Greek philosopher, Plato, with his own personal quest for “invisible things understood by the things that are made” – St. Augustine thanked the philosopher, Plato, for opening the door to Christianity.

Arguably, when it comes to understanding the reasonableness of Christianity, all Christians owe Plato a debt of gratitude. However, unlike St. Augustine who thanked Plato for his thoughts on “invisible things,” Christians who appreciate a reasoned defense of our faith should thank the ancient Greek philosopher for his thoughts on beauty and beautiful ideas. “Beauty,” Plato wrote, “is the sign of another and higher order, and that beholding beauty with the eye of the mind you will be able to nourish true virtue and become the friend of God.” For understanding the reasonableness of Christianity, it may be argued that the most useful thing Plato ever recorded was his analysis that beauty beheld with the mind enables us to be virtuous and to become the friend of God – To phrase this differently, Christianity is reasonable when we understand that beholding beauty with the eye of the mind is sacred; Christianity is reasonable when we understand that beautiful ideas are sacred.

But what is a beautiful idea? And how exactly does it enable us to nourish true virtue and to befriend God?

BOOK DESCRIPTION: “On the Beauty of Christ and Christian Reason” is a concise, reasoned defense of the Christian faith. It demonstrates that faith in Christ can be arrived at through rigorous analysis with appreciation for beauty. It is accessible, compelling, and brief. Written for a non-academic readership without a background in theology, aesthetics, or philosophy, “On the Beauty of Christ and Christian Reason” fits snugly in the pocket or purse of anyone who wishes to understand Christianity rationally. To Purchase the book: http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Christ-Christian-Reason/dp/0615562191/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329272437&sr=8-1

PRAISE: “A sincere and devout reading of the Christian revelation, and I think that the ‘beautiful idea’ approach might very well be as far as one can get, by explaining the power of Christianity to those who have not felt it.” Dr. Roger Scruton – Former lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London; former professor of philosophy and university professor, Boston University; and author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination (1974), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), and A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism (2006).

PUBLISHER: Ave Crux Publishing
Copyright © 2011 Jeremy Nichols
All rights reserved.
Published under Ave Crux Publishing
First Edition
Published in the United States
ISBN: 0615562191
ISBN-13: 978-0615562193

Like any reasonable definition of beauty, the reasonable definition of a beautiful idea must simply state that it is known when experienced; a beautiful idea is beauty experienced when thought. Because it is beauty beheld with the eye of the mind, a beautiful idea is beauty closely inspected; beauty called to answer for itself; beauty peeled by our mind’s examination until nothing remains of it except that which gives us only a deep, inward feeling – Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen explained this well when she wrote, “In both Plato and Plotinus [another Greek philosopher] the vision of the beautiful is an intellectual act… as the vision of exterior beauty is only a first step before one perceives the ideas.”

A beautiful idea provokes a “gut-feeling.” It is the feeling that tells us that brave self-sacrifice is better than cowardly self-preservation. A man or woman only needs to compare the ugliness of an imagined rape with the beautiful idea that is an imagined newborn to know that a beautiful idea exists whether or not it can be precisely defined – To quote Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen again, the beautiful idea is “the ultimate, uniquely beautiful…that which we desire to contemplate and with which we want to be connected.”

Though the beauty of brave self-sacrifice makes short work of the argument that a beautiful idea is just comfortable or sensual, it is still important to explain why a beautiful idea cannot be just an erotic idea. Yes, all beauty (including the erotic) is beauty seen with the eye of the mind. However, because beauty that is just erotic only stimulates sexual desire, it actually frustrates the mind’s close inspection of it – Only when the mind can closely examine a thing of beauty can the mind uncover the beautiful idea that will provoke a deep, inward feeling. Only in those moments when the mind beholds the erotic with some distance (such as loving distance) can the mind analyze the erotic and transform it into something closer to being like the romantic; which is the beautiful idea of the erotic. Really, a beautiful idea cannot be just an erotic idea because the more an erotic idea becomes a beautiful idea the more it ceases to be just erotic (that is, the more it ceases to exist solely to stimulate sexual desire).

Significantly, our experience of the “gut-feeling” caused by a beautiful idea does not end with the sensation. According to Plato, part of what makes “beholding beauty with the eye of the mind” so important is that it nourishes virtue – We know that this is true because questioning the value of a particular beautiful idea (over-analyzing the importance of the deep, inward feeling it gives us) robs us of the very virtue associated with that particular beautiful idea.

Consider the beautiful idea of a newborn – If the examining mind does not value the “gut-feeling” it gives us, but, instead, values the question “Why do I feel so strongly about the idea of a newborn?” then the examining mind not only loses the experience of the beautiful idea of a newborn, but it also loses the ability to know the virtue in valuing a newborn for its own sake.

When a man or woman attempts to answer the question “Why do I feel so strongly about the idea of a newborn?” without regard for the beautiful idea, he or she inevitably responds with an answer that can only prompt more questions that will, in turn, prompt more dissatisfying answers. For example, the man or woman might answer, “I feel strongly about the idea of a newborn because the newborn is how we continue our species.” It is always the case that an answer about value that is not built upon a beautiful idea will have to answer for itself ad infinitum, ad nauseam (that is, long after we are sick of the questionable answers) – After all, the answer “I feel strongly about the idea of a newborn because the newborn is how we continue our species” does not tell us why it is important to continue our species.

Without appreciation for the beautiful idea, men and women cannot know what is important – Without the beautiful idea, men and women cannot know what is morally excellent and deserving of our devotion.