Beauty continued...

There have been some interesting comments regarding beauty and I thought that I would post them as blog.

bucky said...
I suppose that poses the question of "is beauty good?" Does "beauty" inherently posses a quality of good or bad? If it does, then there is scriptural basis for what its standard is, but if it does not, then it would seem that the word "beauty" is only a synonym for "preferred" or "pleasant" (or "pretty" to the dismay of Coleridge regarding the description of a waterfall).
12:52 PM
Nick said...
Isn't beauty good? It seems that when you call something beautiful you are automatically inferring that it is good....
5:10 PM
bucky said...
We may infer, but are we right? When referring to beauty, our reference is positive, yes, but does that necessarily mean that beauty is inherently good; good in its essence?I suppose that would pose the question “what is good?"
6:23 PM
Nick said...
To pose the question "what is good?" would be a totally different subject... Could you give an example of when someone could be wrong in thinking that an object is beautiful?
7:07 PM
bucky said...
It appears we are speaking equivocally; the same word with perhaps two definitions?Is it possible that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is true if ones definition of the word beauty is the same as Webster’s: “The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit: loveliness”? If we were to substitute their use of the word “beauty” for our use of the word “pleasurable”, then this would be correct. On the other hand, if our definition of beauty is “something possessing a quality that demands appreciation, even if it is not granted it”, than their statement would be false. Perhaps the beauty that we consider objective, is just that. If, for instance, we consider beauty to be what God is delighted by, than this has nothing to do with what anyone of us beholds, but if we consider beauty to be what “one” is delighted by, than it doesn’t matter what the object is, it may or may not be beautiful depending upon who is looking at it.
11:42 PM
Nick said...
So which is it? Both definitions sound probable.. and since there can only be one definition, it has to be one or the other. A question that I think that needs to be taken into account is: What about the things that we can learn to find beauty in? If we can find the beauty in something we didn't orignally see, wouldn't that suggest that there is some kind of quality of beauty that the object must have in order to find it? And if there is a certain quality that everything must have in order to be beautiful or to find the beauty in, that would mean that there must be some kind of standard that it must fall on.
8:35 AM
bucky said...
I do think it possible for one word to have multiple definitions (i.e. the word “right” could mean “correct”, “the direction opposite of left”, or even “just” as in “near”, such as in something’s placement being “right around the corner”), but I see what you mean, and what appears to remain unresolved.To approach the real subject that you are referring to (not the definition of the word, but the quality and essence which the word is attempting to define) I would again go back to goodness. No one is good but God, yet He says when looking on His creation, that behold it was good. Not to be too meticulous here, but what exactly is “it”? What if the “it” referred to here is God’s action of creation itself? What if nothing inherently possesses goodness (except God, being Goodness Himself), yet as His creation, we exist for His good purpose, in very fact, His good pleasure? This brings me back to beauty: “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit: loveliness”-Webster. God taking pleasure in us would seem to me to be the best example of objective beauty that I’ve seen yet (subjective to God in the sense that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which in this case is Himself, but objective to man since God’s vision is Truth). If this makes any sense, it could perhaps define the standard or quality of beauty: that which God takes pleasure in.The reason we can learn to see the beauty which was once hidden from us, may very well be the same type of learning we undergo when we come to recognize Truth that we had formerly overlooked.Where man's art comes into play here, I don't quite know, but I would ask:what does God take pleasure in?
12:39 AM
Nick said...
So nothing is inherently beautiful, but the act of taking pleasure in something is beautiful(correct me if I misunderstood.)? That would mean that beauty is subjective, because people then can choose what they decide to take pleasure in and what they don't want to take pleasure in. If God is the essence of beauty, then us taking pleasure in Him is not what makes Him beautiful. Because He "is" beautiful. Whether or not we "choose" to take pleasure in Him does not make Him any more or less of what He is. Now where this plays into creation is not quite clear. However, if God made us in His image then we as humans are beautiful. And what He created within those seven days of creation must have beeen "good" (whatever that means! :~P). In something such as art, we are using what God had created within those seven days. This leads back the idea that there is some element of beauty in art, whether or not we instantly see it. However, the question now is: can we as humans distort Gods beauty? At first that question seemed simple, but now there seems to be a lot more to it (as usual)!!