The Beauty of Creativity

A series on beauty could never be complete without writing about the joy of things we love to see, listen to, and feel. How can one write about beauty of this sort, though? It takes a poet, I think, not to cheapen it by putting it in words. I have written before on the joy of nature's beauty, and I hope caught a bit of the right sense there. But it has its own life. A famous conductor was about to begin a concert when he saw two young students sitting near the front with the musical score in their hands, ready to read along with the performance. He stepped off the podium, leaned down over the edge of the stage, and gently said, "You will not find it in there, my friends."

There is something "in there" in all art and beauty, whether it be a symphony or a sunset, that cannot be translated. It can only be experienced directly. We can communicate to each other some of the feelings we receive through it: awe, humility, joy, delight, or whatever. We can point out some things to each other, to notice and to appreciate (which is why art and music appreciation courses help, in spite of the non-translatability of these arts). We cannot, though, transfer our direct experience to any other person in words. Great poetry about a Grecian Urn does not give us the joy of seeing the Grecian Urn. It gives us the joy of the poetry.

Somehow, though, when we share an experience of beauty with another, we have some sense that we are sharing something like the same thing. We know that our different backgrounds lend different meanings to the experience, so it's not entirely the same for both of us. Nevertheless, don't we think and believe that there really is something shared there, too?

And why is it that we have a sense for beauty, anyway? This we certainly share. Is there any good evolutionary reason that a rainbow ought to matter to me? Is it just a displaced reproductive motivation? Really, come on now. Does that apply to music? To a great drama? And the talent of a Beethoven or a Bono--is it only a side effect of the great race for a mate? It seems pretty far over the top for that. I suppose you could make an evolutionary psychology case for it, but even among evolutionists, evo-psych doesn't muster a lot of believability yet--not unless you think it's the only answer that can even be entertained. How much more sense it makes to recognize our taste for beauty as a reflection of being created in the image of God--the great God who created mountains and shorelines and flowers and constellations!

As in the case of virtue, then, you can try to force a non-theistic paradigm to wrap around our experiences of beauty. It just fits more naturally into a world created by a God who loves us and shares his delight in beauty with us.

Related: C.S. Lewis had much to say about experiences of beauty pointing us toward God. The link I already referenced on nature's beauty might give you a jumping-off point for looking into that.

Part of a series on Beauty as reason to believe in Jesus Christ:
1. The Beauty of Christ
2. The Beauty of God's Word
3. The Beauty of God's People
4. The Beauty of Virtue
5. The Beauty of Creativity
6. The Beauty of Explanation: The Human Condition
7. The Beauty of Explanation: The Solution
8. The Beauty of Hope

(See the introduction to Part 1, The Beauty of Christ, for the purpose and context of the entire series.)

Posted: Sun - March 18, 2007 at 07:14 PM |

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The Beauty of Creativity

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson