Tall trees and warm sun. Bright stars and cool nights. It is early fall in the high country and our Sierra Nevada mountains are a truly beautiful place. Consider for a moment the beauty that surrounds us. It seems a common conviction that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Is it? Consider these questions: Is something beautiful because we think it is? Or, is something beautiful because God made it that way? Let me suggest this for your consideration: beauty is actually not in the eye of the beholder. Rather, beauty is built in to our world. Beauty is something much deeper than a mere emotional response that occurs within us – it is an objective quality of creation. From the very beginning, God created trees that were “pleasant to the sight” (Genesis 2:9) – and in the order of creation such natural beauty existed prior to man. That beauty was placed there by God for our delight and is a reflection of His character (Romans 1:20, Psalm 19:1-2).
If beauty does indeed exist as an intrinsic quality of God’s creation, then judgments of beauty are a matter of objective right and wrong. If one were to look at the Sierra Nevada mountains and claim they are ugly, such a judgment could not be categorized as “true for them”. Such a judgment would be simply and objectively false – just as false as if they believed 2+2=5. Beauty, like math, is objective – and the answers are not in the eye of the beholder. If someone believed 2+2=5, we would encourage them to work on their understanding of math until they got it right – until they “saw it”. If someone believed the Sierra Nevada mountains to be ugly, they would need to work on their understanding of beauty until they got it right – until they “saw it”. It is not for us to decide what is beautiful; it is for us to recognize what is beautiful – and to give God praise for it.
The Bible tells us to think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is admirable” (Philippians 4:8). This is not a command for us to dwell on those things that we believe to be true, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. We are to dwell on those things that are true, right, pure, lovely, and admirable. In other words, qualities such as “lovely” and “admirable” are qualities inherent in certain things (lovely and admirable things) not mere descriptions of how we feel about them. It is entirely possible for us in our sin to think that some things are lovely and admirable when they are, in fact, not.
What then is beauty? Beauty is goodness made evident to our senses. Goodness is objective in nature and is both grounded and demonstrated in the character of God. When God created the world He made it good (Genesis 1) and He made it to reflect His character (Psalm 19:1-2). The creation itself reflects God’s character and when we see that reflection, we see beauty.