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Seeing with God's Eyes: Towards a Definition of Beauty

What is beauty?  How would your friends define it?  How about your neighbours, the kids on the playground, shoppers at the mall?  Does the definition change if you are male, female, young or old?

I'm guessing the answers would be vastly varied.  I confess at my heart, my answers are confused. What I explain to my daughter, and what I feel when I look in the mirror are at odds.  Beauty can describe a million different things: people, nature, morality, art, etc.

I scoured Youtube to see if I could get a feel for how the public understands beauty.  Here are some of the answers I gleaned from this esteemed source :)
Pretty, being yourself, being kind, being beautiful on the inside, being strong, being happy with yourself, lovely scenery, life is beautiful, everyone is beautiful in their own way, the physical appearance of a person, the qualities a person possesses, youthful appearance, a certain size of a person, compassion, confidence, being happy, personality, clothes a person wears, passion
More and more musicians are writing things like this about beauty:
I am beautiful no matter what they say, words can't bring me down.  I am beautiful in every single way.  ~Excerpt from Christina Aguilera's Beautiful
Put your make-up on, get your nails done, curl your hair, run the extra mile, keep it slim so they like you, do they like you? You don't have to try so hard, you don't have to give it all away, you just have to get up, get up, get up, get up, you don't have to change a single thing.  Take your make up off, let your hair down, take a breath, look into the mirror, at yourself. Don't you like you? Cause I like you. ~Excerpts from Colbie Caillat's Try
There's more and more voices fighting for inner beauty, or for discovering the beauty in all shapes and sizes.  This is because there is an almost deafening media presence proclaiming a different definition. Their beauty is very physical, typically referring to women and to a woman's measure of attractiveness.  It's hard for me to even think about the word beauty without images of magazine covers popping into my head.

So where does that leave us?  What is beauty?  Are we all beautiful?  Is it just a physical trait, or can it include a description of our character?  What's the link between beauty in people, in nature, in art, in music, in word and in God?

Here are some Dictionary Definitions:

Oxford Dictionary
1 A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. 'I was struck by her beauty.' 'an area of outstanding natural beauty' 

Dictionary.com
1.  the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
2.  a beautiful person, especially a woman.
3.  a beautiful thing, as a work of art or a building. 
4.  often beauties.  Something that is beautiful in nature or in some natural  or artificial environment.

Beauty in the Bible (from The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, p.82-83)
Beauty is first of all an aesthetic quality that names what we find attractive, satisfying and excellent in an object or person.  With visual art and music, this beauty is perceived through the senses.  With a work of literature, beauty is perceived by the mind and imagination.  While it is possible to define the specific ingredients of artistic beauty - such as unity, balance, symmetry and harmony of parts - the references to beauty in the Bible do not take us in this analytic direction.  Instead the biblical writers are content with beauty as a general artistic quality denoting the positive response of a person to nature, a person or an artifact....The move from beauty as an aesthetic quality to a spiritual response that we can see in the references to the beauty associated with worship in the temple reaches its culmination in biblical references to the beauty of God.  These can hardly be an aesthetic response, though we should not dismiss the way the language of aesthetics becomes the best way for the believer to express the delight and satisfaction that he or she finds in God....Somehow in God, beauty of spirit and beauty of appearance are perfected, as captured in the evocative picture of the "perfection of beauty" that "shines forth" from Zion. (Ps 50:2)
Bringing clarity to what beauty is, and what its purpose is has personally helped me and the conflicting messages I receive from the media and the world.  We can't deny that aesthetics are valuable, but not in the way that the media places value on it (specifically in regards to people and the very particular components that make a person 'beautiful').

What I have been learning from all of this:

  • Aesthetic beauty (that which we can see, hear, smell or touch) is designed to give us joy, and ultimately to worship.  As such, aesthetic beauty is meant to give us a small taste of what glory we will behold when we finally see God face to face.  Steve Dewitt, in his book Eyes Wide Open (p. 71), says "The beauty of this world whisper to our souls that there is someone ultimate."
  • There is also virtuous beauty.  God prizes virtuous beauty more than aesthetic beauty (see 1 Sam 16:7), but both are from Him and reflect Him.
  • The definition of beauty that drives us to lust, to covet, or to gain approval does offer pleasure but not the purity of joy that God intended.  Beauty should point us to who God is, and to revel in Him.  It should not sink us into depravity.
  • Men and women are created in the image of God, suggesting that there is beauty in all shapes and sizes.  There seems to be an aesthetic and virtuous beauty that He has created us with.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  


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