Is Beauty a glimpse of the divine?

Question

We can see beauty in many things, it cheers us up but is not the same for everyone and it is usually transient, or our appreciation is. I remember an old hymn, 'God is Love, God is Truth, God is Beauty, praise...'

Answer 1

To the human eye Beauty symbolises life. We adore Beauty because we truly and naturally believe that life is beautiful. We inherently understand that Beauty and Life are synonymous to eachohter. We find all things beautiful have life enhancing influence upon us. In fact Beauty is an expression of balance, harmony and growth or perpetuation. These are the essential attributes of life, or one can say the conditions for life. We commonly believe that life has divine origins. And if there were no divinity then we would not be able to contemplate it so fervently and religiously. So, if life is from the divine then Beauty, the best we see in life, must be a glimpse of the actual source of all life.

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Answer 2

You can see the beauty in a lot of things. With a sense of innocence, yes I think that can definitely be a glimpse of the divine. I don’t think what our culture thinks of as beauty, per se is beautiful or divine. In many ways it is a representation of evil. I saw a documentary on PBS called “The Teachings Of John” about a man with Down’s Syndrome who was given up and then re-adopted by his family. John couldn’t talk, couldn’t really take care of himself, and he certainly wasn’t cute in any way, but there was an aura of beauty and innocence about him. I’d contrast that with, many truly physically gorgeous specimens of humans I run into here In Los Angeles. Some of these creatures are so gorgeous you can barely look away, yet their greed, spite, and selfishness crackles off of them like electricity.

Answer 3

I think that it is possible that beauty is a glimpse of the divine. Perhaps the divine appears to different people in different ways. But, do you also think that the ugly could also be a glimpse of the divine too?

Answer 4

'Cognition of "beauty" involves the interpretation of objects as being in balance and harmony with nature, which in turn elicits a sense and experience of attraction, affection, and pleasure.'

I think beauty quite possibly is a sense of the divine, yes, if you want to put it like that. We live in a very image-obsessed age, though. You could have written 'we can sense beauty in many things' but instead you wrote that 'we can see beauty in many things', which highlights just how much we think of visual image as the dominant sense where beauty is concerned.

Answer 5

Something that is beautiful will eventually die. You cannot call something beautiful if it does not die...it won't give us any chance to miss its presence and recognize the beauty of it. Something that's divine will remain divine forever. Beauty can't be equated to divine.

Answer 6

Considering everyone's idea of beauty is different ("Beauty is in the eye of the beholder") it would also depend upon one's definition of the divine according to their religious beliefs.
But the two concepts do tend to go hand in hand.

Answer 7

In this case I am god but I can not say this admitidly or else I am vain then that makes it a sin and degrades me from the status of absoulute beauty. Right?

Answer 8

of course, and very poetically stated too. ugliness would therefore be an inability to see the divine. if god is everywhere then everything should be beautiful.

Answer 9

God is Love,
Love is Blind,
Ray Charles is Blind
Ray Charles is God.

Answer 10

Not sure about the god bit but Jung would say
that it is have a read ...