Augustine, for me, is interesting to study as a contrast for what has happened to beauty in our culture. Interesting because Augustine asks many of the questions today’s world asked – and continues, in some circles, to ask – but the solution Augustine came to is vastly different from the world. Yet, for its vast difference, Augustine’s view hinges upon recognition of one single fact: the existence of God.
I was handed a paper containing many quotes from Augustine; let’s look at several of them.
“...I ought not to have been content with what the philosophers said about such things, even when they spoke the truth. I should have passed beyond them for love of you, my supreme Father, my good Father, in whom all beauty has its source.” Many times we assume that if someone has a Ph.D, or are particularly versed in a particular discipline, that we may take what they say as fact. But simply because they do not come out and say “God does not exist,” by their words and actions they live as if He does not. So when something appears to be the truth, we buy into it, rather than pressing beyond to seek God, who is the source of all true wisdom.
“But my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in Him but in myself and His other creatures, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.” Has not our culture done this? Pleasure is what you call it, beauty is what you call it, truth is what you call it. Many have reconciled themselves to this, or at least resigned themselves to it; but how much pain, confusion, and error has multiplied when the beginning and end of all things is in ourselves. Kant committed this error when he marginalized beauty in favor of the sublime; and by favoring the sublime, he favors the individual, and God is cut out a little more from personal life.
“I shall say no more, except that to us is promised a vision of beauty—the beauty of whose imitation all other things are beautiful, and by comparison with which all other things are unsightly.” The most beautiful woman, the most handsome man, the most awesome of nature’s wonders – if they are beautiful, it is because they imitate that from which beauty issues forth. But when held in stark contrast to that which is most beautiful, we see how starkly ugly and perverted by sin they are. This should be made most clear; before we go about valuing superficial beauty, we must remember to look at ourselves and others through God’s eyes. Our beauty comes from the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, not in a specific blend of genes which gives our features a particular form. Do not all things come from God? If He blesses one of his children with harmony of physiognomy, it is still nothing compared with the bodies we will receive in His Glory.
Augustine, through these and many other of his quotes, reveals a man who wrestled with questions common to us all, and common through the ages. What sets him apart is his conclusions based on God, instead of spiraling into nothingness the way the postmodern movement has.
The great misstep of philosophers of all times is the starting assumption that the world is in good working order. From that standpoint, claims to reality have been searched. But it is akin to replicating a model which was not correctly assembled to begin with. Rather than returning to the blueprints, we try to make sense out of the mess before us. But if the realities of the world have been twisted and corrupted by sin and the Devil, is it any wonder it seems to make little sense? Only when we recognize there were original blueprints, and an original architect whose design was malevolently twisted by human error, can we begin to approach an ultimate, objective reality.
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