Radiations of Divine Light

Curt Daniel, The History and Theology of Calvinism, p. 405:

How is it that a totally non-Christian artist can paint a beautiful painting? Why is it that not all art by unbelievers is directly blasphemous? Calvinists such as Hans Rookmaaker have discussed the Calvinist theology of art, or Reformed Aesthetics. They point out that not all workers on the Temple were Israelites. Some were pagans, but they were good artists and architects. How? Because they had been endued by Common Grace with cultural gifts.

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, p. 97:

I have already, more than once, called your attention to the important significance of the Calvinistic doctrine of "common grace," and of course in this lecture on art I must refer to it again. That which is to be ecclesiastical must bear the stamp of faith, therefore genuine Christian art can only go out from believers. Calvinism, on the contrary, has taught us that all liberal arts are gifts which God imparts promiscuously to believers and unbelievers, yea, that, as history shows, these gifts have flourished even in a larger measure outside the holy circle. "These radiations of Divine Light," [John Calvin] wrote, "shone more brilliantly among unbelieving people than among God's saints." And this of course quite reverses the proposed order of things. If you limit the higher enjoyment of art to regeneration, then this gift is exclusively the portion of believers, and must bear an ecclesiastical character. In that case it is the outcome of particular grace But if, at the hand of experience and history, you become persuaded that the highest art-instincts are natural gifts, and hence belong to those excellent graces which, in spite of sin, by virtue of common grace, have continued to shine in human nature, it plainly follows that art can inspire both believers and unbelievers, and that God remains Sovereign to impart it, in His good pleasure, alike to Heathen and to Christian nations. This applies not only to art, but to all the natural utterances of human life, and is illustrated by the comparison in early times between Israel and the other nations. As far as holy things are concerned, Israel is chosen, and is not only blessed above all nations, but stands among all nations, isolated In the question of Religion, Israel has not only a larger share, but Israel alone has the truth, and all the other nations, even the Greeks and the Romans, are bent beneath the yoke of falsehood. Christ is not partly of Israel and partly of the nations; He is of Israel alone. Salvation is of the Jews. But just in proportion as Israel shines forth from within the domain of Religion, so is it equally backward when you compare the development of its art, science, politics, commerce and trade to that of the surrounding nations. The building of the Temple required the coming of Hiram from a heathen country to Jerusalem; and Solomon, in whom, after all, was found the Wisdom of God, not only knows that Israel stands behind in architecture and needs help from without, but by his action he publicly shows that he, as the king of the Jews, is in no way ashamed of Hiram's coming, which he realizes as a natural ordinance of God.

Hans Rookmaaker, "We and Art" in The Complete Works of Hans R. Rookmaaker, Vol. 4, pp. 350-351:

For now we want to concentrate on the first question, namely, that of whether God has assigned his people a positive task in connection with art. Has he given us the vocation to create art, to make ‘Christian art’ in distinction from ‘worldly art’? For only too often people have said, thinking things through ‘consistently’, that we must claim all fields for Christ and therefore also let our distinctive voices be heard in the realm of art. Yet in this way we may perhaps out of self-willed religiosity saddle ourselves with possibly irresolvable problems and heavy burdens. If we have such zeal for God yet without comprehension – since not according to God’s word and commandment (Romans 10:2 [‘they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge’]) – then the Lord will also reproach us as in Micah 6:3 ‘My people . . . how have I burdened you?’ For already in Micah’s day there were some who thought to justify themselves in such matters by appealing to David’s example, while at the same time forgetting the covenant (Amos 6:5). If we turn now and search the Scriptures to see where and how they speak of art, then we find that that only happens a few times and then almost in passing, nd that the Lord nowhere gives us an explicit commandment, for or against.

We find that for the making of the ark, God himself designates some artisans and fills them with wisdom and understanding so that they know how to make all the work in the service of the sanctuary according to God’s commandments. Yet the matter is one of a very narrowly defined commission extended to a handful of selected people. In 2 Chronicles 2 and 3 we learn of the building and furnishing of God’s Temple by Solomon. And who does he seek out to be responsible for the decorating and furnishing? There is no one in the nation of Israel whom he regards as suited. And so he sends to Hiram, the king of Tyre, to ask for his help. And the king of Tyre sends him Hiram Abi, the son of a worker in precious metals from Tyre. We do not know if this smith was a believer, yes or no, only that his mother was of the tribe of Dan. However that may be, he had learned his art, including the style, in Tyre. He was renowned for his wisdom and his understanding in making works of brass, including works decorated with figures and scenes. Naturally Solomon would have seen to it that the fonts dedicated to God were not decorated with heathen images, but for the rest this art would in principle not have differed in appearance from that of Tyre.

There is little more to be found about these matters in the Scriptures, including the New Testament, so we can conclude that God has not assigned us a special task with respect to them. God does not demand of us that we create a distinctive art or style of our own! On the other hand, it is obvious that if one of the Lord’s people is an artist, one may not just go out and make anything one wants in the way a worldly person might do, in disobedience to God’s commandments. Yet no great difficulties should arise here. For it is obvious that one may not make blasphemous or immoral presentations. The latter might lead people into temptation and incite them to commit unholy acts. And naturally one will also keep one’s distance from art that clearly bears the stamp of an apostate way of life. I have in mind, for example, modern Surrealism, which holds up to us a world that is totally devoid of meaning, without norms, decadent and without hope: but what believer could possibly be won for such ideals? Thus it is not so much the positive task of the Christian artist to create a distinctive style from scratch unconnected with the world; it is much rather the negative task of not producing works in which the theme selected or the thought communicated is contrary to God’s commandments or could lead believers, God’s children, into temptation.

Kuyper 'Common Grace' Translation Project

Good news from Grand Rapids! The Acton Institute and Kuyper College have teamed up to translate -- for the first time ever in English -- Abraham Kuyper's three-volume work, Common Grace (De gemeene gratie), published from 1901-05, while he served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands. While the doctrine of common grace is opposed by certain streams of thought in the Reformed community, this doctrine, as Kuyper puts it, is “the root conviction for all Reformed people,” and Kuyper's contribution to the doctrine articulated by many other giants of the Reformed Church who preceded him, was significant.

Dr. Stephen Grabill, director of programs at the Acton Institute, is the general editor of the project; Dr. Nelson Kloosterman of Worldview Resources International and translator of numerous Dutch works oversees the translation of the texts; and John Bolt, professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary and author of A Free Church, a Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper’s American Public Theology, as well as the editor of Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, serves as a theological advisor to the project. The translation and publication project will cover a two year period, and the three volumes total over 1,700 pages in the original. The first volume of Common Grace is expected to be published in the fall of 2012. For more information, see today's press release from the Acton Institute.

Not A Square Inch

It was 90 years ago this week that a remarkable saint passed into glory. Abraham Kuyper died on November 8, 1920. Minister of the gospel, theologian, scholar, journalist, author, editor, educator, politician, and patriot, he stands tall almost a century after his passing among the heroes of the Christian faith.

It might fairly be affirmed that his credo was: "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'"

A brilliant and diverse man, who served his God and his country in many capacities, he meditated upon Psalm 73 (To Be Near Unto God 1):

You have love for your native land, you have love for the beauty and grandeur of nature, you have love for the creations of art, from the sense of compassion you have love for suffering humanity, you are conscious of love for what is noble, true and of good report, and thus in all honesty almost every man can say that he also has love for God, and that his love for God even exceeds all other loves, since all good that inspires love is from God, and God Himself is the highest good. And yet while this love for God can be a lofty sentiment, can be deeply serious, and can even be able to ignite a spark of enthusiasm, the soul may have no fellowship with the Eternal, and have no knowledge of the secret walk with God; the great God may not have become his God, and the soul may never have exclaimed in passionate delight: "I love God!"

Love for God, taken in general, is still largely love for the idea of God, love for the Fountain of Life, for the Source of all good, for the Watcher of Israel Who never slumbers, for the One Who, whatever changes, eternally abides. But when there echoes in the soul the words "I love God!" then the idea, the sense and the reality of the Eternal Being becomes personified. Then God becomes a Shepherd Who leads us, a Father Who spiritually begat us, a Covenant-God with Whom we are in league, a Friend Who offers us His friendship, a Lord in Whose service we stand, the God of our confidence, Who is no longer merely God but our God.

A defender of hymnody in worship, he nevertheless wrote (Our Worship, p. 39):

1. In Holy Scripture we do not find a separate collection of prayers, but we do find a separate collection of psalms.
2. The spiritual depth of the psalms exceeds by far anything that afterward was composed as a church hymn and was sometimes claimed to be even more spiritual.
3. Whenever hymns came into the churches, they always seemed, first, to push back the psalms, and then to supplant them.
4. The psalms have always echoed the enduring, eternal keynote of the pious heart, while hymns usually had a temporary quality and were marked by what was popular at the moment.
5. Hymns in most cases led to the singing by choirs, with the congregation becoming listeners.
6. In the struggle between hymn and psalm, all nominal members favored the hymns over the psalms while the truly pious members were much more inclined to use the psalms rather than the hymns.

At his funeral, 90 years ago, the mourners sang the timeless words of Psalm 89.7-8:

7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

8 O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee? (KJV)

Simple and Absolute

After studying for the ministry, Abraham Kuyper accepted his first pastorate in 1863 at a town called Beesd. The Dutch Reformed Church in that era was far removed from high-water mark of Dordt orthodoxy. There was a young woman in Beesd at that time named Pietronella Baltus, known as Pietje (May 12, 1830 - March 26, 1914). She was a devout woman but had become so disillusioned with the state of the church in her day that rarely attended services at the established church and would not partake of the Lord's supper administered by a state-sanctioned minister. When Kuyper tried to visit her in 1864, as part of his pastoral outreach to parishioners, she would only shake his hand as a fellow human being, not as a representative of the ministry of Christ. She assumed that he was part of the liberal watered-down gospel ministry, which in fact was the case at the time. It took repeated efforts by Kuyper to engage her in conversation about her critique and concerns, but when they spoke, her "absolute" conviction of faith so impressed him, that it changed his life completely. When she died in 1914, he wrote a moving tribute to her in his paper De Standaard (as found in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, pp. 58-59):

Pietje Baltus

Our paper too must include a brief word of recollection upon the death of Pietje Baltus.

As the reader knows, Dr. Kuyper became acquainted with this humble soul when he was a preacher in the village of Beesd, an event not without consequence for the subsequent course of his life.

The thing that marked this woman, who was still young at the time, was her decisiveness. In Beesd no modern preacher had yet occupied its pulpit and the principal of the public school in this Betuwe village was a dear old believer, Mr. Kievits. But though "orthodoxy" more or less continued to set the tone in Beesd, Pietje Baltus wanted no part of this kind of church life. It was a poor halfway thing to her, a lot of tomfoolery that simply led to further decline. The church of God could not live on it, let alone flourish. So she attended no church and did not even want to receive such a half-baked preacher into her home. She insisted on a full confession of the faith for which our martyers had died. In all those compromises and accomodations and concessions she had seen the face of death.

So when Dr. Kuyper became the preacher, she wanted no part of him. Presumably he was just another one of those half-grown, half-committed, half-baked, half-winged church wreckers. And this was understandable. When he arrived at Beesd, though he was what was then called "conservative," he leaned strongly toward the "ethical" wing of the church and therefore tended to be anti-Reformed.

Still a meeting did take place and that encounter brought about a change in Dr. K.'s conviction. He suddenly grasped the power of the absolute in this woman and broke with all halfheartedness. Then he got acquainted with the spiritual legacy of the fathers. Dordt, which had first repelled him, from that time on became attractive to him. Also from Calvin he absorbed rays of light.

That simple woman had bent the line of his life from a halfway position to a whole one, and it has consistently remained Dr. K.'s grateful confession that only when he made her acquaintance did he get to where he now felt he had to be.

On the occasion of her death the Telegraaf commented on the remarkable influence this Pietje Baltus had on our church history the past half century. That comment is correct. And so by her graveside we may be permitted to pray that the "simple in the land," in line with the noble example given by this devout woman, may persevere in the absoluteness of their faith!

One child of God, however insignificant by the world's standards, can be like the morning star, again bringing radiance into the night of the church's life.

De Standaard, 30 March 1914

The Genevan Psalter and Common Grace

John H. Gerstner, "Singing the Words God Has Put in Our Mouths" (originally published in The Hymn, January 1953), in John H. Gerstner: The Early Writings, pp. 204-205:

The third theological foundation of the Genevan Psalter was the doctrine of common grace. By this it was recognized that there are two types of divine gifts -- supernatural and natural. The former are the virtues wrought in the soul by a special work of grace; the latter are those which pertain to secular matters and are distributed to all, not to saints only; as a matter of fact, often to sinners. But, wherever they were, Calvin recognized these and used them for his purposes. Skill in music is a natural rather than a supernatural skill, but Calvin was ever on the alert to capture this for the worship of God. Thus, at his Academy in Geneva, he made music required four hours each week. The choir thereby trained in this skill was to lead the people so they could, under its leadership, cultivate the same skill. Acting on this same principle, Calvin was quick to appreciate the able -- though not excessively orthodox -- Marot, and to stand by the gifted composer, Bourgeois, who was thrown into prison for breaking some of the rigid disciplines of Geneva of which Calvin was himself the main author. Abraham Kuyper, in his admirable Lectures on Calvinism, so aptly remarks, "Music...would flourish, henceforth, not within the narrow limitation of particular grace, but in the wide and fertile fields of common grace."4

4 Lectures on Calvinism, p. 228.

Pilgrim of the Stars

Of the three men who contributed most to the groundbreaking study of John Calvin's aesthetics, shattering the myth that Calvin was not concerned with, or opposed, the cultivation of the arts -- Abraham Kuyper and Émile Doumergue being the first two -- Léon Wencelius (1900-1971) is credited with authoring "[t]he most extended secondary discussion of Calvin's view on art," that is, L'Esthétique de Calvin (Paris, 1937) (Paul Corby Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition, p. 28).

He was a French soldier-turned-philosophy professor who left the land of his nativity to teach at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He is known to Calviniana as the author of Calvin et Rembrandt. Etude comparative de la philosophie de l'art de Rembrandt et de l'esthetique de Calvin (1937); "L'Idee de Moderation dans la Pensee de Calvin," The Evangelical Quarterly 7.1 (Jan. 1935): 87-94; Le Classicisme du Calvin Humanisme et Renaissance (1938), v. 231-246; "L'Idee de joie dans la pensee de Calvin," Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses (1935) 70-109; "L'Idee de moderation dans la pensee de Calvin," Evangelical Quarterly, VII (1935), 87-94; VIII (1936), 75-93; and "The Word of God and Culture" in The Word of God and the Reformed Faith: The Addresses of the Second American Calvinistic Conference of 1942; among other works. But he may be known to readers outside the Reformed tradition as the close friend and sometime editor of works by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the world-famous pilot, adventurer, and writer, author of that most famous of children's stories, The Little Prince, known for poetic and vivid descriptions of the night sky (at least three asteroids are named for him or his works) and as "the pilgrim of the stars."

They met in New York City in 1940, while World War II was raging, where Wencelius had been sent to help influence America to join the French fight against the Nazis. The two men took an instant liking to one another, and became fast friends. Saint-Ex, as he is often called, is one of the great adventurers of the 20th century but -- an admirer of Bach and Pascal -- he sometimes said that he wished he had lived in the 16th century.

Curtis Cate, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: His Life and Times, pp. 553-554:

To feel, like Hamlet, that one's time is "out of joint" and to regret that one was not born in an earlier and "brighter" age is not simply the mark of an incurable romantic. Saint-Exupery's upbringing, in effect that of a monarchist, made him prone to a nostalgia that was tempered, but only momentarily, by the giddy enthusiasm with which he embraced the bright future of aviation. Unlike [Charles] Baudelaire, he was not ready to condemn steam-engines and railway stations out of hand, but like Baudelaire, he was oppressed by the feeling that the poetry was being squeezed out of modern life by the implacable advance of an ever more soulless and utilitarian technology. His ideal was pre-revolutionary -- in the industrial as well as the political sense -- and this even though, as he once wrote to his mother (during his term of Air Force service in Strasbourg) "the eighteenth century, all pink and rosy, fills me with horror". The age of silk stockings and powdered wigs was too soft and effeminate for his robust taste, and the century which had his preference, the one he would have liked to live in, as he one day confided to Dr. Pelissier, was the sixteenth -- the age of Elizabeth and Henri IV, of Francois Premier and the Chevalier Bayard, the century of Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Rabelais, when France, its mind as yet unravished by the eloquence of Rene Descartes, was readier to heed the sceptical voice of Michel de Montaigne.

He wrote of wisdom, childlike simplicity in a world of adults, and of man's striving to live, to truly live, by overcoming the obstacles -- man-made and otherwise -- in one's path, and his writing reflected his life. It is difficult for me to find a label for his religious views. There is an existentialist flavor in his writings and he seemed to waver somewhere between Pascal and Nietzsche, somewhere between faith and reason. His life was cut short in 1944, when his plane mysteriously disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean, presumably shot down by Germans. His identity bracelet was recovered in 1998, and his plane finally found in 2000.

Wencelius edited a 1943 edition of Pilot de Guerre (English title: Flight to Arras) with a preface, "Le message d'Antoine de Saint-Exupéry," along with annotations and a glossary. In 1963, he co-edited Citadelle, a massive book that was in rough form at his death, and is difficult to characterize, being the unfinished magnum opus of a man trying to reconcile the unreconcilable.

Léon Wencelius has distinguished no less than one hundred different themes in this book of 213 chapters and 985 typescript pages (reduced to 531 in the printed text). (ibid, 557)

In the friendship of Wencelius and Saint-Exupéry, we find an intersection of life and art, religion and warrior heroics, faith and reason, that co-exists somehow, the sum of which is greater than the parts. To what extent each influenced other I cannot say. But it is certain that they did so, and the aesthetic appreciation of both military men resonates in their writings long after both men are gone. As Saint-Exupéry the pilot-poet himself put it: "J'admire la Science, bien sur. Mais j'admire aussi la Sagesse." ("I admire Science, to be sure. But I admire Wisdom as well.")

Remembering Francis Schaeffer 25 Years Later

Francis Schaeffer died 25 years ago today, on May 15, 1984, but his legacy lives on (despite a sad portrayal of him by his son Frank that has been disowned by others close to the elder Schaeffer). There are aspects of his belief with which I differ, but his willingness to engage 20th century culture made a deep and lasting impact upon many, myself included. For those who wish to learn more about the man, I commend in particular Colin Duriez's recent biography, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life.

Os Guiness gave an interview recently in which he commented on Schaeffer's legacy from his close-up, personal point of view. From a much more distant perspective, yet personal to me, I would simply say that of all the subjects upon which Schaeffer expounded, nothing touched me more deeply than his views on art.

In the Kuyperian tradition of one who declared "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'" (speech given on October 20, 1880, quoted in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, p. 488), Schaeffer too affirmed that art is not be relegated to a Christian ghetto, but that "[t]he Lordship of Christ over the whole of life means that there are no Platonic areas in Christianity, no dichotomy or hierarchy between the body and the soul. God made the body as well as the soul, and redemption is for the whole man" (Art and the Bible, p. 1). Thus, as we are created in the image of our Creator with creative capacity, man can and should glorify God in the arts, and that is beauty -- true beauty, rightly apprehended -- is reflective of who God is, and how he works (Gen. 1.26-27, 31). "If God made the birds, they are worth painting. If God made the sky, the sky is worth painting. If God made the ocean, indeed it's worth writing poetry about. It is worth man's while to create works upon the basis of the great works God has already created" (ibid, p. 60). Art need not consist of religious iconography to glorify God, and indeed, the second commandment, as well as the seventh, do indeed regulate the proper expression of that which is God-honoring art. In fact, there is a whole universe of inspiration which is at the artist's disposal, and as "he shines in all that's fair" (a line from a hymn by Maltbie Babcock, "This is My Father's World," as well as the title of Richard Mouw's book subtitled "Culture and Common Grace"), he who creates glorifies God in heeding the apostolic injunction: "[W]hatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. 4.8).

The corpus of Schaeffer's works cover many important subjects ranging from abortion to ecology to apologetics to philosophy and so much more. But, in my personal opinion, Schaeffer's genius is especially to be found in his articulation of the Lordship of Christ over all of life, with particular emphasis upon the creative arts. And for this, I am in his debt.

Common Grace and the Arts

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Lecture 5: Calvinism and the Arts:

And therefore I must still illustrate the second factor, which alone decides the case. I have already, more than once, called your attention to the important significance of the Calvinistic doctrine of “common grace,” and of course in this lecture on art I must refer to it again. That which is to be ecclesiastical must bear the stamp of faith, therefore genuine Christian art can only go out from believers. Calvinism, on the contrary, has taught us that all liberal arts are gifts which God imparts promiscuously to believers and to unbelievers, yea, that, as history shows, these gifts have flourished even in a larger measure outside the holy circle. "These radiations of Divine Light,” he wrote, “shone more brilliantly among unbelieving people than among God's saints.” And this of course quite reverses the proposed order of things. If you limit the higher enjoyment of art to regeneration, then this gift is exclusively the portion of believers, and must bear an ecclesiastical character. In that case it is the outcome of particular grace. But if, at the hand of experience and history, you become persuaded that the highest art-instincts are natural gifts, and hence belong to those excellent graces which, in spite of sin, by virtue of common grace, have continued to shine in human nature, it plainly follows that art can inspire both believers and unbelievers, and that God remains Sovereign to impart it, in His good pleasure, alike to Heathen and to Christian nations. This applies not only to art, but to all the natural utterances of human life, and is illustrated by the comparison in early times between Israel and the other nations. As far as holy things are concerned, Israel is chosen, and is not only blessed above all nations, but stands among all nations, isolated In the question of Religion, Israel has not only a larger share, but Israel alone has the truth, and all the other nations, even the Greeks and the Romans, are bent beneath the yoke of falsehood. Christ is not partly of Israel and partly of the nations; He is of Israel alone. Salvation is of the Jews. But just in proportion as Israel shines forth from within the domain of Religion, so is it equally backward when you compare the development of its art, science, politics, commerce and trade to that of the surrounding nations. The building of the Temple required the coming of Hiram from a heathen country to Jerusalem; and Solomon, in whom, after all, was found the Wisdom of God, not only knows that Israel stands behind in architecture and needs help from without, but by his action he publicly shows that he, as the king of the Jews, is in no way ashamed of Hiram's coming, which he realizes as a natural ordinance of God.

What is Beauty?

If you were asked to define beauty, how would you answer?

The Scriptures teach us before corruption entered the world God made all things "very good" (Gen. 1.31) and that "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19.1); and that things which are "lovely" and "pure" are among those things which are praiseworthy and ought to be thought upon (Phil. 4.8); and they teach us that our chief desire ought to be to "behold the Beauty of the LORD" (Ps .27.4) and to "worship the LORD in the Beauty of Holiness" (Ps. 96.9); that our prayer should be for "the beauty of the LORD our God [to] be upon us" (Ps. 90.17); and that he is to us a "Diadem of Beauty" (Isa. 28.5).

But as Alain de Lille, Thomas Becon, George Turberville, William Shakespeare, and other have well said, "All that glitters is not gold." The world with its vain adoration of the creature before the Creator has loved beauty for its own sake and so destroyed what is beautiful in its quest for beauty. Therefore, what emanates from the Lord, who is Beauty itself, that is beautiful. While Satan may appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11.14) and so deceive, and what Thomas Watson referred to as "spiritual beauty" may be found inside one's character and not on the cover of a magazine in a grocery store checkout aisle, yet beauty is of the Lord, wherever it is found, and sometimes in the most unlikely places. It is to be appreciated for that reason, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the Potter who took the clay and fashioned it in his own image and for his own glory. Even fallen man is worthy of respect for being made in the image of his Creator, and while "[t]here is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice" (John Calvin, Serm. No. 10 on I Cor., 698), and that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like the lilies of the field (Matt. 6.28-29), yet to delight in the works of God, apart from God, who alone is the Creator and the Giver of good gifts, is to seek beauty apart from the Beautiful.

Many from Samuel Coleridge to Felix Mendelssohn have argued that beauty is to be defined as "unity in variety." Elio Carletti is said to have characterized it thus: "Beauty is a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing is needed to be added, taken away or altered." Whether in nature or art, symmetry, order, unity in that which is manifold, all highlight these truths about beauty. Beauty and truth indeed, together, represent the harmony found in God.

Philip G. Ryken, Art for God's Sake, p. 43:

Beauty and truth belong together. As the poet John Keats said in his famous "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all ye need to know." Taken literally, Keats's identification of truth and beauty (to say nothing of his claim that this is the sum of all knowledge) is an exaggeration; yet truth and beauty are interconnected.

With all of this said, are we here any closer to understanding what drives the artist to compose his words or notes or colors so that another will find them beautiful? Why is it then said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and why so subjective, if beauty comes from God? (For Ralph Waldo Emerson said, " Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art." And everyone knows that taste is personal and art is not appreciated alike by all.)

While much-maligned in this area, Calvinism with its love of the "book" of nature, as well as the book of the Bible, teaches us that all beauty, rightly understood, points us to Him who is Beautiful.

Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism: Calvinism and Art:

Standing by the ruins of this once so wonderfully beautiful creation, art points out to the Calvinist both the still visible lines of the original plan, and what is even more, the splendid restoration by which the Supreme Artist and Master-Builder will one day renew and enhance even the beauty of His original creation.

Martin E. Marty, book review of Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition, ed. by Paul Corby Finney:

But Calvinism is also rooted in "Calvin's love of creation and beauty"--which may be the "least known and appreciated" of Calvin's claims. Calvin marveled at scientific marvels, and he concluded that creation was not only useful: "God also intended it to be a source of delight to human beings."

Beauty strikes each of us differently, for we are variable and differently made, but beauty that is true reflects Him who is triune, holy and perfect. I can't claim to define beauty in a blog post, but I welcome thoughts from readers who may seek to answer the question "What is beauty?" in their own way. Meanwhile, I leave the reader with another thought from John Keats, who said it very simply elsewhere (Endymion): "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."