It would seem that non-Trinitarian ontologies cannot secure a notion of beauty, and this seems to be the case because of the tragic ontologies that dominate non-Christian thought.
1) Beauty is fittingness, a matter of harmonics. Thus, beauty requires that there be plurality. Need at least two for things to “fit” and “be fitting.”
2) Non-Christian ontologies either see difference as a contamination of an original unity (Derrida’s Plato), and hence ugly; or see difference as violent and irresolvable, in which case too beauty is lost. Whereas Trinitarian theology affirms that difference is primal, but that it is harmonized difference.
3) In Platonizing systems of thought, the One is beauty. But this is still problematic, and not just because one cannot harmonize with itself. It is problematic also because either a) the viewer of the beauty is absorbed into the One, leaving no one to experience the beauty or b) the viewer/experiencer of beauty is NOT absorbed, which means he remains a contaminating supplement. We are left with a beauty that no one can appreciate, or a beauty tarnished by the presence of the “other” alongside the one.
4) The best such Platonizing systems can offer is a longing for beauty that is never realized. Whereas in Christianity, the believer is caught up in the harmonics of Trinitarian beauty.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
More from Theology
Continue reading related articles
In Praise of Thomas
Gotta love ol’ Tommaso d’Aquino, a.k.a. Thomas Aquinas. The margins of my various copies of his works are full of notes of disagreement and question marks, but still: His toss-off arguments are usually deeper than the sustained arguments of lesser theologians. Here’s a pot pourri from the early part of…
Hoping For Love
In his 2007 encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi , Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI observes that the experience of loving and being loved is a moment of “redemption.” Love gives new meaning, new joy, new energy. Every love is a new birth. We long and hope for love. We want it…
Is All That's In God God?
Divine simplicity is often summarized in the axiom, "All that's in God is God." If this is taken at face value, though, it conflicts with Trinitarian orthodoxy. 1) By this axiom, the Persons are identical with the essence of God. 2) But the Persons have (or are) identifying particularities or…
In Medias Res
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.