For many years, I’ve been trying to teach my introductory theology classes through the lens of beauty. Over the last year or two, I started to write down what I say in class, and then started to write down things I’ve never said in class but probably should. Writing is a wonderful way to figure […]
Author: Laura Smit
“No Beauty We Could Desire”: An Exercise in Poetic Theology
The Futile Hunt C. S. Lewis begins his poem “No Beauty We Could Desire” by acknowledging the possibility of natural theology, a path to God that leads along the way of affirmation. This kataphatic approach understands every good quality in the creation as pointing to God, who is then understood as both the source and the […]
Introducing Brendan Sammon (Interview Review)
“Beauty is that which allows desire to turn into knowledge. All human beings are desiring something. Which means, of course, that love is very much bound up with the act of knowing. That goes against what we’re typically conditioned to think: if I’m supposed to know something, I can’t love it; I have to bracket […]
“The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis (Sermon Review)
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. . . . […]
Robert Reilly on Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony (Music Review)
“If you have never wept for joy at, or been shaken to the roots of your being by, music, here is the music to do it. Should I ever have the privilege of hearing God’s orchestra play, I am not sure what I will hear. But if it is Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, I will know […]
“Add to the Beauty” by Sara Groves (Song Review)
“And I want to add to the beauty To tell a better story; I want to shine with the light That’s burning up inside. . . . This is grace: an invitation to be beautiful.” SARA GROVES “Add to the Beauty” from the album Add to the Beautyby Sara Groves,INO Records, 2005. https://youtu.be/9htYsEbIADU
Why Beauty Matters (Film Review)
“Beauty has been central to our civilisation for over 2000 years. From its beginnings in ancient Greece philosophy has reflected on the place of beauty in art, poetry, music, architecture and everyday life. Philosophers have argued that through the pursuit of beauty we shape the world as a home. We also come to understand our […]
David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Review Essay)
It takes time to absorb David Bentley Hart’s sprawling and difficult book, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans, 2003). Most reviews that I have read are full of qualifiers, noting that there is far more to this book than can be captured in a summary, and often admitting candidly that the […]
Ravished by Beauty, by Belden Lane (Review Essay)
Belden Lane’s Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford 2011) is a lovely book. It is a book that uncovers beautiful dimensions to the Reformed tradition. It is accessible, winsome, personal and inviting. Lane does a particularly good job of summarizing some often overlooked and valuable aspects of the Reformed tradition. He dispels many […]
Jonathan Edwards on Beauty (Book Review)
“There is an infinite fullness of all possible good in God, a fullness of every perfection, of all excellency and beauty, and of infinite happiness. And as this fullness is capable of communication or emanation . . . so it seems a thing amiable and valuable in itself that it should be communicated or flow […]