Below you’ll find the third set of notes from Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper’s three breakout sessions from the Acts 29 Network’s recent LEAD conference in St. Louis:
The Alternative to Hierarchical Culture and Beauty - the Diversity of Creation
Instead of rooting aesthetics in a moral absolute - like the character of God - we can root them in the extraordinary diversity of creation. We recognize that creation is wildly diverse, and that while it’s okay to have preferences in regards to aesthetics, there is no moral advantage and no righteousness in our aesthetic choices.
From Harold Best’s Creative Diversity, Artistic Valuing and the Peaceable Imagination, was the Keynote speech/paper to the National Association of Schools of Dance, September 1993; it also appeared in Arts Policy Review, May/June 1994. Copyright © 1994:
Listen to this. In the way God imagined and crafted, He showed us from the beginning that everything that He made has worth, yet serves a purpose; and everything that serves a purpose has worth. Thus for God and therefore for us, quality and usefulness must go hand in hand…
Listen to this. God has shown us that He is no less the caring craftsman, no less interested in quality when making a grape as when flinging out a galaxy— the one quickly eaten, used up, gone in a trice, the other enduring for billions of years. From this we learn that the dispensable and the monumental, the simple and complex, the small and the grand, the transient and long lasting are to be crafted with equal care and integrity. For with God, there are not two creations: a cheapened one for consumption and throwing away and another sophisticated one  for the museums, the critics, and the ages. There is one creation, imagined and made by the One whose integrity never changes from creational act to creational act.
Listen to this. God has shown us that even though He loves each thing He makes and calls it good, He somehow allows a particular bird of paradise or duck-billed platypus to be more beautifully formed than another bird of paradise or another duck-billed platypus. But this does not mean that a bird of paradise is more desirable than a duck-billed platypus—just try to get one to set up housekeeping with the other. Long before our solemn litanies of aesthetic universalism were replaced by our simpering dances around the multicultural tree, it was God who set down the first principles for a discerning and authentic pluralism, namely that there are diverse kinds of quality, each to be sought out within the kind. Just as the beauty of a platypus is not to be interpreted by that of a bird of paradise, so the beauty of a Guatemalan lullaby is not to be interpreted by that of a Renaissance dance.
A Pluralist Aesthetic
Pluralism describes the way we center our conversations about beauty - not around the singular platonic ideal of beauty, but around the diverse creative chaos of creation, each thing seen as of a kind, understood within a context and history.
- What about beauty and quality? Are they eliminated in an egalitarian embrace of diversity? Not at all - but they’re judged as relativities rather than absolutes.
- Goodness inherent in all created things.
- Sin inherent in all created things after the fall - either in the handiwork of humans or in their effects upon creation.
- Each of us operating from our own cultural center, discerning the depths of goodness and excellence.
- Excellence can be seen in things created with integrity and attention to detail - like God’s own handiwork.
Summary
- Creativity was given to humanity as part of our image-bearing capacity.
- Culture emerges as humans exercise their creative abilities in relationship to God, creation, and one another - for good or evil.
- Culture is universally affected by sin because humanity is universally affected by sin; therefore no culture has a corner on morality or excellence.
- Beauty is not a matter of perfection or achievement of an ideal, but is a characteristic of God’s handiwork in creation, which sets the framework for our own creative endeavors.
- Artistic judgment and valuing is then a matter of culturally influenced (conditioned?) subjectivity whose center and reference point is God’s handiwork in creation, not an abstract absolute definition of beauty.
What does all this mean for the church?
- In the same breath that we say to embrace the creative spark however it’s emerging, we need to be about the business of confronting people’s idols, and aesthetics are a world of idols.
- The best way to prevent this in a plant is to embrace variety.
- Whatever stuttering expression of diversity we might be able to cultivate is our small way of prophesying to the coming days of “Every Tribe Tongue and Nation” worship.
- In a broader sense, we need to call all of our people out of their cultural snobbery.
EXPLORE PART ONE OF THIS SERIES: “A THEOLOGY OF CREATIVITYâ€
EXPLORE PART TWO OF THIS SERIES: “BEAUTY, CULTURE, CONTEXTUALIZATION”
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Hey Mike, interesting stuff - however, I’d caution you on a few points:
From part 2: “The implication that emerges if beauty is an absolute that is tied up to the nature of God is that beauty is then a moral issue.”
From Part 3: “Instead of rooting aesthetics in a moral absolute - like the character of God - we can root them in the extraordinary diversity of creation.â€
You’re making some leaps that are not quite logical, and some reductions that I think will lead you somewhere you don’t want to be.
Of course, I’m making these comments based on your notes, and not your talk – so I may not have read you clearly!
At the outset, let me say I agree with you that our cultural blinders and idols (be it western classical-oriented , post-modern-emergent-oriented, or some other –ism-oriented one out there) must be combated and in some cases torn down. To judge all music by Mozart is arrogant and limited. In the end, I think we will find a great more in common than in difference across cultures as to what constitutes beauty, and in the mean time work
However…
First, You seem to be equating human morality – what our culture says is right – with God’s righteousness / holiness; the former is a mix of rules to keep society together, ways to make us feel “righteousâ€, and a poor reflection of the holiness of God. The latter is embodied in Jesus. We make that equation way too often and it gets the church into trouble.
Second: You seem to say that since aesthetics – how we judge what is beautiful – is culturally conditioned, then there must be no ultimate standard of beauty. The mere fact that we all seek to judge what is ‘beautiful’ – regardless of our cultural context – indicates there must be something to judge it against.
The flaw that we run into (due to our fallen nature) is the arrogance that we “understand†what true beauty is. However the answer isn’t to say there isn’t one so there is no way to judge, the answer is to say we have limited vision and understanding of what true beauty is so don’t be arrogant in your judgments.
Third, if you put the judgment of beauty in the same camp as a post-modern judgment of morality, you fall victim to the post-modern error that we have no say whatsoever in what beauty is. At that point, one person can say two lovers having sex are beautiful to her, and another can say a man raping a woman is beautiful to him, and we must say both are correct (since we don’t want to judge their individual assessment of beauty).
Finally, the statement that “if beauty is an absolute that is tied up to the nature of God then beauty is a moral issue†and “we can root [our aesthetics] in the extraordinary diversity of creation†leaves God either unable to show his beauty since there is no standard, or leave Him open to judgment about his beauty. For instance, if my judgment of beauty is tied to the “diversity of creation†then I can look at God who is infinitely “other†and singular (“Hear o Israel, the Lord your God is Oneâ€), then he can not be beautiful because he is not diverse.
The answer? That
- God is Beautiful;
- Who we are, the things we create or see and call beautiful are a reflection of his beauty
- all cultures and peoples reflect Him somehow (for we are made in His image) so we must look for the Beauty in each culture and in each individual work of art
- Don’t be arrogant in our assessment of beauty, neither be naive to assume there can be no judgment of it at all
Anyway, a VERY long comment, FWIW…. Wish I was there to hear your talk!
Hi RJ,
Thanks for your comment. I think you’ve misunderstood me. I’ll try to clarify.
Before I get to your points, let me restate a couple of things:
I believe that Biblically, we see God’s character and beauty set aside as holy and superior to all creation in a dramatic, categorically unique way. The scriptures speak of God’s glory and beauty manifesting in a way that is unique and (frankly) dangerous. God’s beauty and holiness is so great that his presence can kill us. God’s beauty is uncreated - it is part of his eternal character. It’s a beauty we’ve never seen directly. To talk about this kind of beauty in a conversation about aesthetics is like talking about God’s holiness in a conversation about football penalties. While some might argue that the connection is there, I would stand with thinkers like Harold Best who say that there is a much better, biblical, and God-centered way to have conversations about aesthetics.
Which brings me to creation. If we understand creation as being God’s handiwork and revelatory of what he values in beauty, excellence, and the character of creativity, we have a much more helpful framework for talking about aesthetics - one whose diversity helps us avoid cultural biases and embrace the kind of range of creativity that he embraces.
To your points:
Your first point - you misunderstand me. In no way would I ever advocate an understanding of righteousness that was relativistic or culturally conditioned. My point in this discussion is to distance a discussion of ethics from aesthetics (or to at least create a little space). Aesthetic beauty in art and music is not a moral issue, though it’s an issue that’s worthy discussion. It comes under the heading of excellence, not ethics.
Your second point flip flops my argument. My argument is that God’s handiwork in creation demonstrates a diverse tableau of beauty, all of which is good and beautiful. There is much in the Christian discussion of art and beauty that pulls of platonic ideals and romanticism. This kind of thinking ends up searching for artists who represent the “highest” examples - the ones who got art right. All art is then judged against this art as the standard. So Luciano Pavarotti is considered greater than Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, when comparing what they do is very much like comparing apples and oranges: two beautiful things, created by God, that are gifts to creation.
I agree with your comments about our tendency towards arrogance, but I would say that the tendency comes from moralizing our preferences. I am not saying there’s no place to look for judgment and standards, I am saying that the place to look is not a singular ideal wrapped up in God’s holiness and character, but in the standards he’s demonstrated in his handiwork. (Again, because God’s holiness and character are uncreated and unseen).
That’s not to say absolutely that beauty doesn’t point to him, but I would say that it points in a way similar to creation “declaring the glory of God” as the Psalms say, or as Romans 1 says.
Third - it’s a long leap to say that an argument that beauty is rooted in creation’s diversity leads to moral arguments that justify rape. I’m not sure how you’re making that leap from the case I’ve made.
As for the last comment, I think your misrepresenting the argument. Again, I would say that God’s beauty is a singularity - it’s entirely unique, uncreated, and invisible. To compare him with an understanding of aesthetics is out of place. It’s like discussions of God and time/space - applying categories that help us understand creation to God, who is entirely outside of the category. (Also - not to nitpick, but if diversity were the standard of judgment, God qualifies entirely because he is Trinitarian.
)
As for your answer, it doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem that faces artists: How do I understand beauty? What is the standard of beauty that I should excel towards? For Francis Schaeffer and CS Lewis, that question finds its answer in the manner you suggest - all beauty is a reflection of God’s beauty, and the best in art reflects that beauty more accurately than others. Notice, of course, how western-centric their standards were, and how it gravitated towards their cultural preferences.
I would STRONGLY encourage you to check out Harold Best’s “Unceasing Worship” - it’s the book that convinced me of this argument and got me thinking in this direction.
Hey Mike - Thanks for the thoughtful reply! Yes, I wish I had heard your talk - hearing it expressed here is much clearer than what I read (or maybe there was too much coffee involved on my part!).
Knowing what you guys are up to down there, I guess I was surprised at what I thought I was reading (and consequently verbose and quick in my response). Let me know if those talks are online somewhere, I’d love to hear them.
What I read sounded closer to an enlightenment view of truth, i.e. we don’t need God to define truth (or beauty) for us, we can decide entirely on our own - so my comments were more geared against that idea (and thus against a pure relativist post-modern equivalent), than what you’ve expressed above.
I’ll have to go back and re-read Best (I’d read parts of it a year or two ago). I’m still not clear on how you think a Schaeffer/Lewis view leads to a more western-centric view of art, unless you use their opinion of what “good” art is, and only certain “good” art reflects God’s beauty “accurately” - and I can certainly see them taking a western-centric position on that. I guess since I think that’s a silly notion in the first place I tend to look for the beauty in every culture and how that reflects God’s glory. For us as artists today, I think that should push us to study all aspects of beauty in every culture, to appreciate it for what it is, learn from it, and let that inform our own works. Starting from the point of view that each culture will reflect somewhere an aspect of God, and therefore has its own beauty, allows me to look for things I don’t understand or can not immediately appreciate and from that learn and grow myself. Hope that makes sense.
Thanks again for the clarification, and I look forward to hearing the new disc!
rj
Thanks RJ, we can’t wait to put it out there!
The Schaeffer/Lewis thing is (I think) mostly a subtle error (though I think Shaeffer’s assessment of much contemporary art - along with Rookmaaker - was flat wrong!). Lewis’s argument regarding beauty in The Great Divorce gets very platonic and has some weird implications for creation - but that’ll get its own post in the future (hopefully with some help from Harold!)
Grace and peace,
MC