God's pleasure--the beauty creation possesses in his regard--underlies the distinct being of creation, and so beauty is the first and truest word concerning all that appears within being; beauty is the showing of what is; God looked upon what he had wrought and saw that it was good.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that beauty reflects the divine nature of creation and serves as a measure of goodness in the world.
David Bentley Hart's quote conveys the idea that beauty is intrinsic to creation and is perceived as a reflection of God's pleasure. It emphasizes that beauty is not only a characteristic of things but is also a fundamental aspect of their existence; it signifies the goodness with which God views creation. The notion that 'God saw that it was good' highlights the connection between beauty, existence, and divine approval, suggesting that recognition of beauty can lead to a deeper understanding of the world and our place within it.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a discussion on the philosophy of aesthetics.
For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity; sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.
But, in fact, materialism is among the most problematic of philosophical standpoints, the most impoverished in its explanatory range, and among the most willful and (for want of a better word) magical in its logic, even if it has been in fashion for a couple of centuries or more.
Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society.
Lest we forget, the birth of modern physics and cosmology was achieved by Galileo, Kepler and Newton breaking free not from the close confining prison of faith (all three were believing Christians, of one sort or another) but from the enormous burden of the millennial authority of Aristotelian science. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a revival of Hellenistic science but its final defeat.
[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.
If you have indeed been so highly distinguished, should you not ‘live no longer to yourselves, but altogether unto Him who died for you and rose again?’ Should any thing short of absolute perfection satisfy you? Should you not labour to ‘stand perfect and complete in all the will of God?’
There are so many - namely black and brown bodies - who have experienced a different America than what the mainstream American flag symbolizes.
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age - regardless of how they look on the outside - pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives.
Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
Never forget your real identity. You are a luminous conscious stardust being forged in the crucible of cosmic fire.
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