From a Christian standpoint, is there such thing as objective beauty? Can we say that some bodies are more aesthetic than others? Or is there some truth to the "pretty at every size" movement?
From a Christian standpoint, is there such thing as objective beauty...
Hunter Adams
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Caleb Foster
Also, is there a way to pursue physical beauty without falling in the pitfalls of pride and lust?
Joshua Hernandez
Let me essplain what I learned from Tolstoy and Plato. Objective beauty exists (God's creation is beautiful for one, as written in the genesis). However, the beautiful isn't the same thing as good, both have nothing to do with each other (demons are God's creations and therefore by default they are beautiful, but they aren't good). Remember how the devil seduced Tartini with their beautiful music? Beauty can be evil and sinful.
And regarding aesthetics, aesthetics are purely subjective matter. Fat people can be subjectively aesthetic, but they're not good for they bring health complications. So aesthetics and beauty are very similar, but not always the same. From what I understand is beauty is a concept understood by God while aesthetics is a concept understood by man. Beauty is something of a divine greatness and perfection while aesthetics only cater to carnal and mental pleasure. What men do understand is the concept of good. So, beauty, good, and aesthetics, I think they're three similar yet very different things that are, more often than not, contradictory to each other.
No such thing as physical beauty, there are only physical aesthetics and physical health (health = good).
Isaac Peterson
Well in things like art yes. With orthodoxy at least, that's why orthodoxy holds and maintains its traditions when it comes to writing our icons. But personally even before i found orthodoxy, i always thought new age 21st century art/architecture was hideous. I remember being at the Pittsburgh art museum with my family, and in the section where they have all the stuff that's new age, like once you start getting up into the 80s you notice this slow decline in beauty, by the time i got up to i think it was like 2014 was the most they had, the time i was there. I kept thinking, dude this is dumb the art dated from the 1800s/ 1900s and prior was more interesting. But that's what happens when you lose your metaphysical aspect in culture it becomes self evident.
Joseph Miller
Well apparently the more symmetrical someone's face/body is, the more likely they are to be perceived as "attractive" on average. So yes, objective beauty to an extent exists, though people certainly still have different tastes in what they like in a person.
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Christopher Butler
That's like your opinion bro. That metallic/crystal guy looks awesome. See? This is why aesthetics are completely subjective.
More likely maybe, but there are no absolutes here.
Christian Ward
There exists a provable subset of beauty in that which relates to the body as an extension of the mind.
Consider:
An overweight person. The extension of their mind in this case relates to their gluttony.
A fit person. The extension of their mind relates to discipline and will power.
Along this method of reasoning we could prove that there is a mapping between mental virtue and physical results. It is mostly natural that the virtuous tends toward a beautiful or glorious reaction while the inverse of this tends towards a disgusted or off putting one.
This is in essence the subset of provable objective beauty. For aspects of beauty that are the result of genetics the subject transverses a large tree of possibilities. We may say that someone was born with a defect that harmed their beauty which we gauge by the converged average of the result of the local gene pool. But it is not necessarily provable that they are ugly, rather they are the divergence from normal. Yet, you could still say in some cases this leads to a favorable result.
Another aspect of beauty resides in the external creations of man. Art, architecture, and prose are extensions of his mind, and can veil virtue, culture, or natural order. Or at least we would reasonably say that this would compose the criteria by which the beauty of the work was to be judged.
In most senses, including that which is naturally shrouded by the moral order God has ordained, we may be posed to say that all beauty is in fact objective. The ruler is carefully marked but human judges have shaky hands.
Noah Perry
What you're saying is a sense of aesthetics that is born out of evolutionary traits. We admire healthy bodies because being healthy gives us better chance at survival. It's not beauty as known by God, it's just aesthetics.
Tyler Nelson
Sure we do. And that's quite true. However, that's only a side effect of the main cause.
Healthy bodies don't grow on trees, they are they the result of some virtue. Be it self control, discipline, determination, or perseverance.
Which is why my main point is that beauty resides in the unseen things, we merely look to the external representations as proof of the internal ones.
Unless you don't find the results of self-control or discipline beautiful, which I have never seen coming out of anyone's mouth in my entire life.
Christopher Cooper
But what about the people that are unhealthy and ugly not because of their lifestyle choices?
Jackson Sullivan
Yes, yes.
There is truth in that we should not judge people based on their physical appearances. Indeed, we should not judge them at all, but we can rebuke and speak the truth about what is good ought to be done. Unhealthy lifestyles should be avoided as they are sinful and show disregard for God's gift of our bodies. The "prety at every size" movement is entirely composed of vain self-worship that glorifies unhealthly body compositions.
Same way we avoid falling into pitfalls of sin over anything else good—do not make it an idol. We admire the creation but worship only the Creator.
You've got it wrong, brother. Beauty and Good both come from God and go hand-in-hand with Him.
Demons, like all things, were created beautiful and good. However, they used their free will to oppose God and are now oriented away from God, beauty, the Good, and toward nothingness.
All the most effective snares of the devil take something good from God and corrupt it. There's just enough left of God's there to draw you in but not to save you. Take, for example, any number of political ideoplogies that take one good thing as its goal (e.g. care for the poor) and orient everything to evil for that end (e.g. communism).
Additionally your false category of physical "aesthetics" as distinct from "beauty" is downright confusing.
What does this mean? Beauty (in which I would include what you term "physical aesthetics"), like the Good, and thus inded like God Himself, of course cannot be "understood" by mere created minds, but that does not invalidate it in any way nor does that mean we cannot experience it. Have you never had a sublime, almost divine experience of beauty admiring a fine piece of art or listening to a masterful musical composition? Every classical Christian liturgy is oriented around the use of beauty (in art and music especially) to aid us in prayer and communion.
That people disagree about something does not mean that it is subjective. I doubt you would posit that since different cultures and indeed different individuals have different ideas about what is moral that morality is therefore subjective.
Jaxson Reed
-don't use roids
-don't go into meme diets (keto, paleo, vegan, etc)
-always dress modestly
Anything else?
Samuel Carter
Look into Genesis.
1:10,12,18,21,25
1:31
The Hebrew word for "good" is also translated as "beautiful" or "pleasant" (in a visual way). So God infact looked at His Creation and deemed it beautiful.
Therefore, there is objective and non-negotiable beauty - people are just untrained or mis-trained to see it. Take for example a great musical piece by Bach. Those are objectively beautiful, just like for example the sculpture in your picture. A real artist does things, not because he wants to have fun or make money or have a pastime - he or she does it to create beauty, because creating true beauty is always inspired by God.
Beauty is also another thing. Not only visual or hearable, beauty is also within every human as the Creation of God as He created us in His image and likeness.
Then, you have those that try to imitate beauty - and you always see that it is an imitation of what is truly beautiful. See for example contemporary music that is created to kill time and to make money or to "bring a message". Or "re-interpreted" classical Greek art. There's no such thing for "differences in taste" for beautiful things. This is just learned and trained inability to recognize what is true beauty - because the mind got stuck in a rather infantile stage where truly inspired things are recognized as "trash" or "not my thing" while in the next moment, they turn and listen to Burzum and tell you how incredibly awesome this music is. [just an example]
And regarding the last question, that was answered in reply 2.
Josiah Gonzalez
...
Nathaniel Long
We could have had a discussion, but then you used that infantile ((())) Zig Forums-crap. You just disqualified yourself entirely from anything that could've been meaningfully discussed in here.
Samuel Cook
being this offended that the femminism movement is headed by (((babylonians)))
Not an arguement. If you have a problem with the "preety at every size" femminism movement, then focus on things like their ignorance of leviticus 18:22 or 1 corinthians 11:3. Also remember they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth john 4:24. It is true that (((babylonians))), or fake jews, are the head of the femminism movement.
Daniel Rodriguez
This reminds me of an apologetical "strategy" - the Argument from Beauty. Look that up. Also while you're at it - look up the documentary "Why Beauty Matters". Terrific stuff, one of my favourites.
Grayson Reyes
In culture yes. People like to sell things. They dictate what is "beauty" is. Don't listen to it. Become strong. Healthy, as some here have said.
You are known.
You are seen.
You are loved.
There is nothing to fear.
Jordan Adams
Yes, it's called God :)
Nicholas Clark
If you view exercising as something that is fun to actually do or do it for the practical aspects of being stronger then it is possible. However, if you lift for sloots then it is too late.
Jace Gomez
Not quite right. Look this up
catholic.org
Therefore, the good has more to do with morals rather than pleasing appearance (aesthetics) or God's admirable quality (beauty, as described by Aquinas). Only pagans like Aristotle roll good, beauty, and aesthetics into one, christians aren't supposed to hold the same belief.
What is it that you found confusing? It is indeed not an easy concept to grasp, but actually it's simple. Aesthetics is related to the pleasure we achieve upon witnessing an object, and as with most kinds of pleasure, it's purely subjective. Beauty is simply God's quality, something we praise Him for, and it is objective. Good is our moral quality, partially subjective because while God wants us to be good we possess limited knowledge and intellectual limitations to understand Him perfectly, but that doesn't mean we can't understand it at all (Romans 1).
We experience it everywhere and everyday in our lives. The omnipresence of God means everything he created is beautiful, even the ones that
The truth is, there is nothing "divine" or mysterious about music and any art for that matter. The feelings that you believe to be divine is nothing but what Tolstoy called "pleasurable beauty" (What is Art). In other words, hypnotism through aesthetics. It's very apparent in art pieces such as the majesty and glory of Wagner which are hollow in good values.
They aren't beautiful in themselves, but they're capable of transmitting the emotional language to inform us about the beauty of God. Because that's the good quality of art, the purpose of art, it's an emotional transmitter of the feelings of the artist. And it isn't done for the purpose of "aesthetic hypnotism" in mind, a mere entertainment to pleasure our mental state.
Of course it means subjective, when some disagree with you. But God's beauty is objective, because no one can disagree with God.
Morality is only partially subjective, as I've explained.
Nicholas Martin
They easily dictate what beauty is because even people like you are clueless about the real definition of beauty. You and the art academia mix up the objectivity of beauty and the subjectivity of aesthetics, and you rarely acknowledge the good part of art even though goodness should be the most determining factor in creating a good art.
Parker Allen
Dont forget the jews in the media that peddle this (((feminism agenda))) on top of the sodomite agenda and the satanic left's agenda
To the user that complains about the truth:
John 8:32
John 8:44-45
>(((Ye))) are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Jeremiah Anderson
I posted this in another thread, but it was nuked along with a bunch of the Tolstoysperg's posts (probably ) after he derailed two threads so he could sperg about how beauty (specifically, what he now refers to as aesthetics) is for pagans and how much he hates anime.
Beauty is a reflection of truth in some way. From physical forms of beauty such as colour theory's basis in the nature of light, to beauty in the human form being tied to signs of health such as strength, fertility, good diet or genes, to beauty stemming from moral, philosophical, or theological truth (often seen most vividly in the midst of great trials and suffering), and to great mysteries such as music, beauty ultimately points towards something greater or deeper than simple aesthetic quality: it points towards the truths behind God's created order. In short, beauty is a sort of general revelation complimenting the special revelation found in the holy scriptures.
What then of beauty seen in the ungodly or imperfect? Ultimately, man, creation, and even the devil himself are fallen corruptions of what was once purely beautiful. Thus, there are still hints and pieces of beauty, flashes or even sustained visions of something greater, found in pieces of truth scattered throughout peoples' works, beliefs, and actions across time. Stumbling across these is encouraging and uplifting, but should not be mistaken as something born from fallen world's attributes in place of of attributing them to the truth they reflect.
Deceptive beauty is make-up: a thin coating to hide or obscure serious underlying problems. Unlike imperfect beauty, it is not some leftover of genuine truth but an imitation of something the wearer does not possess. It is dangerous, yes, but can be recognized and seen through with careful observation, experience with previous cases of deceptive beauty, recognition of genuine beauty, and guidance from the scriptures.
A rejection of beauty, even in a misguided attempt to protect one from deception or naively following imperfect beauty, is still an ignorance or rejection of God's underlying truths and thus spiritually dangerous. It is no coincidence that as men fall further away from God, morality, and basic general revelation, eventually they shed all remnants of beauty. Even the deceivers abandon aesthetics altogether in favour of championing pure ugliness and corruption, their makeup no longer needed in a world so far up its own asshole it fancies itself wise for rejecting beauty.
Do not fancy yourself wiser than God. On its own general revelation is not enough to save men from damnation but it pushes them towards something greater, something which the Holy Spirit can and has used throughout the ages.
Evan Turner
I really need to practice writing more often.