What Our Sense of Beauty Tells Us about Reality
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” You’ve heard it all your life, and it’s easy to believe it’s true because our aesthetic preferences differ so broadly. I like Beethoven; you like jazz. I like mountains; you like seashores. I like Michelangelo; you like Monet. Our differing tastes make it easy to assume that beauty has no objective standard.
These differences are minor, however, compared with the vast sea of agreement about beauty. Everyone sees beauty in swans, butterflies, and roses, but you never hear anyone gush over scorpions, tarantulas, or warthogs. We love foam-capped ocean waves but not scum-coated swamps. This widespread agreement about beauty suggests that the eyes of beholders...
Artist and writer Thomas Williams was formerly the art director for Word Publishing. He is the author of The Heart of the Chronicles of Narnia (Thomas Nelson) and fourteen other books of light theology and fiction. He is co-author with Josh McDowell of How to Know God Exists.
Get Salvo in your inbox! Josh McDowellJosh McDowell is an internationally known speaker with Cru and author of over 120 books, including the perennial bestsellers More Than a Carpenter and Evidence that Demands a Verdict. He is co-author of the recent apologetic How to Know God Exists. Follow him on his website at josh.org.
Get Salvo in your inbox! This article originally appeared in Salvo, Issue #71, Winter 2024 Copyright © 2024 Salvo | www.salvomag.com https://salvomag.com/article/salvo71/beyond-the-rainbow
