Art Needs God
Toward the end of his life Charles Darwin confessed that he had lost nearly all enjoyment in poetry, music, and scenery. Earlier in his life he loved poetry, but he writes in his autobiography,
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music…I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.[1]
Similarly, David Hume was so depressed about his skepticism about any real authority or rationality that he resorted to diverting his mind with conversation and backgammon with friends because he couldn’t bear to contemplate life according to his worldview. Yet, when he returned to the subject he found the topic he despaired. [2] Apparently, ignorance was bliss for Hume, but it was short lived.
This won’t be surprising to many. Naturalism naturally kills enjoyment of art, beauty, and music. According to a materialistic worldview, what is scenery, really? Just random atoms colliding being viewed and interpreted by random atoms in my brain. The irresistible logic of it all is meaninglessness.
C.S. Lewis had this to say on naturalism’s devaluing effect on art and beauty:
The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behaviour of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so far you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live.[3]
It seems the only way to enjoy beauty without God is happy inconsistency or willful ignorance.
But if, on the other hand, we are made by an eternal, loving, Trinitarian God and we’ve been shaped in his image, then it gives meaning and purpose to our life and fills scenery and poetry with beauty. We have souls that will live forever, we’ve been given a rational mind to comprehend truth, eyes to take in beauty, a good and loving God makes sense of our conscious state and gives it meaning. We know that the beauty we see and sense is real because it comes to us from a God who loves us and made a beautiful world for us to enjoy because of that love. God is the enduring and constant force that binds the subjective and the objective together in a reality that allows for science. Albert Einstein even believed this to be necessary and true.[4] It’s the reason, deep-down we long to thank someone for a stunning sunset, or stirring melody.
Art Points to God
Further, the reason we enjoy art, scenery, and music is because we are made in God’s image, and all of those things point to God. Jonathan Edwards argued that the reason we enjoy beauty in this life is because it is on some level an analogy to God.[4] So, the reason we enjoy a beautiful sunset over the mountains is because it reminds us, even subconsciously, of the beauty of God. The reason we are pleased when justice is served is because it’s an analogy to God’s justice. The reason we love harmonies in music is because it’s an analogy of the unity yet diversity in the Trinity. We are endowed with this intrinsic knowledge of God at birth. Paul explains in Romans 1:18 that all men know, but suppress the truth of God in their hearts. He continues in Romans 1:19-20:
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.
The truth of God, and knowledge of his invisible attributes and divine nature have been clearly shown to us in the things that have been made. Naturally, because of sin, we suppress this truth, but like a balloon being held under water, it cannot stay submerged. Beauty ultimately proclaims God’s glory. So does art. So does music. So does justice.
This is why when you talk to artists or nature lovers, if they aren’t Christians, they often espouse some form of spirituality. Even subconsciously people know that the enjoyment they get out of creation connects them in some mysterious way to something greater than the physical matter that makes up this creation. As Edwards writes, “All beauty found in this world is just the diffused beams of God’s beauty and glory.”[5] Apart from God we can’t truly enjoy beauty, but with God we enjoy it most richly. Christianity is indispensable for not only enjoying beauty and art, but creating it.
Art and beauty need God, but we also need God.
We Need More than Art
Art is a blessing, but as the late Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck argues, art can only deal with the ideal.[6] It can’t enter into the here and now with us like faith can. A piece of artwork, a song, or a movie can’t ultimately comfort us in life and death, wipe away our tears, or atone for our sins. As Bavinck argues, though art can lift us above reality it cannot change reality like God can. It can cause us to ponder the realms of glory but it cannot induct us into it. Pleasure in beauty and art is felt most palpably when it stems from true ideas. The eternal, unchangeable God of all creation is the essence and source of all truth and beauty, and therefore faith is indispensable to art.
But not only does art need God, we need God. In fact, our story with God is the pinnacle of beauty.
God, the most beautiful one, whom all the beauty on earth points to, entered into our sin. He left pure beauty in heaven to enter into our ugliness and die a cursed death on the cross that we deserved. After three days he rose from the grave conquering sin and death and promises to give eternal life to all who trust in him, and take them to be with him in glory (John 3:16; 14:2-3).
J.R.R Tolkien argues that the truth of God and his resurrection is imprinted on our hearts, which is why deep down we all love happy endings and feel they are true to reality.[7] Tim Keller points out that only in the last 50 years have happy endings become artistically distasteful.[8] People believe that because life is messy and unhappy, movies should be too in order to have artistic credibility. This is the effect of the spread of a materialistic worldview. Creative works gain popularity when they resonate with the worldview of its consumers. But deep down we know the truth of God’s invisible attributes, his divine nature, and his redemption. We suppress it, and yet we want it. It’s not true because we want it; we want it because it’s true.
God needs nothing, but art needs God to be enjoyable; scenery needs God to be beautiful; music needs God to be pleasurable; artists need God to be creative, and we need God to enjoy art and beauty, as well as the most beautiful thing of all – our redemption and reconciliation with him forever.
[1] Francis Darwin, ed., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1885) quoted in Os Guinness, ed., The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Navpress Publishing Group, 2001). 152.
[2] John M. Frame, A History of Western Philosophy and Theology (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2015). 203-04.
[3] C. S. Lewis, Present Concerns, 1st edition (Harvest Books, 2002). 76.
[4] Herman Bavinck, Christian Worldview (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2019). 38-41
[5] The Nature of True Virtue in Jonathan Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards. 2 Volume Set (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1979). 27-30.
[6] Edwards. 14.
[7] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2004). I:267.
[8] On Fairy-Stories in J. R. R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf (London: HarperCollins, 2001). 68-70.
[9] Timothy Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (New York: Dutton, 2011). 226.
Mike McGregor
Mike McGregor (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary) is Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter at @m5mcgregor.
