beauty

Beauty is one of the three foods of the soul, the three most vital human needs, along with Truth and Goodness. These are the three things we all want infinitely and absolutely. They are the three attributes of God that our very nature tells us about. They are the three ideals that raise us above the animals. Christians have succeeded, and are still succeeding today, quite famously in the first of these two areas. Christian philosophy is the most intelligent of philosophies, and Christian morality is he most holy of moralities. But Christianity no longer produces the world's most beautiful and arresting art. Modern man is not rejecting Christianity because it looks stupid or wicked but because it looks boring: dull, hokey, embarassing, "square," sissified, bland, repressive, platitudinous, preachy, dreary, "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." Its pictures are no longer moving pictures. They do not move hearts. The secular media makes the magic now.

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Christ's beauty is a beauty that breaks our hearts. It is "no beauty we could desire" unless our hearts break first. Deep truth heals your mind, and deep goodness heals your will, but deep beauty wounds your heart.

Deep beauty hurts.

- Peter Kreeft in Envoy Magazine