Art and Biblical Worldview--
How to develop Christian discernment
By Jay Wegter
God is the ‘Master Artist’
Our aesthetics are keyed to God’s own expression of truth and beauty. Jonathan Edwards saw beauty as consisting of the order in which parts are rightly related. By this he meant that the things which make up an object of beauty (whether the creative work of God, or the craft of a human artisan) are ‘rightly set’ or rightly related (Albert Mohler, A Christian View of Beauty, Part One, p. 3).
God’s truth and goodness determine the standard of beauty. The beauty that God has placed in the creation is immediately related to His goodness. For Adam and Eve were placed in paradise—a place of limitless beauty—thus God’s bounty and goodness are joined to beauty.
Beauty is related to order because God has given us a standard of unity, proportion, and clarity (Thomas Aquinas). God has created a nearly infinite number of living things which are complexes containing parts. The individual parts (in an organism or plant) bear a precise relationship to the whole.
The standard of beauty is fixed; it is not evolving. God finished His creative work on the sixth day and rested on the seventh. There is no possibility of progress in the sphere of beauty because beauty is not evolving. The standard has been set once and for all by God when He pronounced all that He had made exceedingly good (Gen 1:31). God’s unspoiled creation formed the original ‘canon’ (or standard) of what is beautiful.
Beauty is to be admired and appreciated for its goodness—but beauty is not to be worshipped. Beauty is intended for our enjoyment that we might bless and glorify our Creator who is good—and who has placed His goodness in the creation as a testament to His creatures of His benevolence (see Mortimer J. Adler, Six Great Ideas, pp. 64-123).
Thus the doctrine of creation is the starting point when thinking about beauty and creativity within Biblical worldview. God’s creative work is both beautiful and functional—colors, sounds, patterns, textures, and fragrances fill God’s creation. Not only is creation evidence of God’s infinite wisdom and power; it also testifies to His creativity and artistic imagination (Leland Ryken, “The Creative Arts,” in The Making of the Christian Mind).
Art that is Beautiful communicates Truth
God the Master Designer has joined form and function in what He has made. The Lord highlights His own creativity and imagination when speaking to Job
about the diverse behaviors and lifestyles of the creatures He has made (Job 38-41).
The original systems, plants and animals, and relationships in our world are purely the thought of God. The Creator has given us the concepts; the categories; and the first principles. It is these which we work with in the aesthetic realm. God has set the standard of beauty—it is not evolving because He has provided, and immutably set, the categories for reality.
Beautiful art communicates truth because it says that if God made it—it is worthy of being depicted in art and talked about (Francis Schaeffer). God as Creator has filled His creation with subjects that are not immediately religious (galaxies, forests, birds, whales, mountains, and brooks).
Therefore, art within the Christian worldview is not always identifiable as ‘religious’ (that is not containing symbols and themes that are immediately recognizable as religious). Christianity is not just salvation—it is total truth which concerns the world in its totality and the cosmos itself. Man’s emotions, body, values, and surroundings are therefore important subjects in God’s world because the individual is made in the image of God and possesses an immortal soul. In a word, the individual counts (Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible).
By contrast in much of modern art man is but an abstraction; a symbol void of divinely bestowed dignity. Contemporary art tends toward nihilism—man is flattened out into an abstraction without purpose and significance—he is frequently pictured as adrift in a meaningless world ruled by chance instead of placed in a purposeful world ruled by an all-wise and infinitely good Creator.
Man as the image of God is ‘creatively receptive’ of God’s truth and beauty.
By ‘creatively receptive’ means that man is designed by God to receive divine revelation (general). In art creative receptivity manifests itself in countless combinations. When an artist incorporates a tulip motif into a stained glass window; he is being creatively receptive. In other words, he is taking what God has made and using it creatively.
We show our creativity by using what God has made in aesthetically pleasing ways; it is part of our stewardship. We see this in the design of musical instruments—yet another example of a manmade union of form and function (trumpet, violin, and kettle drum are made of different materials given to us by God).
God gives a wonderful example to mankind of creative receptivity when He gives the ‘blueprint’ for the tabernacle in the book of Exodus. Instead of a structure of sanitary white; He employs bells, flowers, precious stones, sculptures, symbols, angles, animal likenesses, color tapestries, sweet fragrant incense and anointing oils.
Instead of commanding the construction of a tabernacle that is solely raw utilitarian; it is filled with aesthetics. In essence, He is guiding man in the process of creative receptivity; He is setting an example of constructing something that is creatively receptive. Craftsmen are selected to work in gems, hardwood, textiles, metallurgy, and gold leaf. The end result was that the sacred tent (and it accoutrements) was for glory and for beauty (Ex 25:33-36; 28:2, 40; 39:24).
Whether in the visual arts, drama, or literature; the creative process utilizes the ‘symbolic vocabulary’ of God’s world. By ‘symbolic vocabulary’ is meant that all that it is around us belongs to God’s world. The world in its unfallen state was the unblemished thought of God. When artists and writers express themselves creatively, they are employing the ‘symbols’ which exist in the real world (Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible).
All effective communication depends upon the use of these symbols (home, family, mother, father, tree, cow, friendship, mealtime, sleep, work, dress, stars, emotions, etc.). Without the use of symbols; we cannot know what the artist is saying.
“Abstract art” may contain color and design; but without symbols it remains in the category of ‘non-representational’. It misses an entire dimension—it has an undefined relationship with the viewer. It is alienated from the viewer so to speak—it does not connect so as to communicate.
‘Evil Art’ has certain Presuppositions which stand behind it.
Art forms add strength to the worldview which ‘shows through’, no matter what that worldview is—or whether the worldview is true or false (Schaeffer). The presuppositions of the Enlightenment which fed into the thinking of the French Revolution—sought to throw off the moral truths of God’s Word. The Bohemian ‘freedom’ concept promulgated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau lauded the idea of the autonomous man who lived above reason and the moral government of God (Schaeffer, Art and the Bible).
The lie that man can ‘be free’ by throwing off God’s Word permeates the cultural arts today. In nihilistic art, man is ‘junk’—he is nothing but a trivial biological machine without freedom, dignity, or purpose. In the paintings of Francis Bacon (20ᵗʰ C.) the brokenness of man is depicted in the artist’s very intentional painting style which uses gore and deformity to communicate the human condition. “Bacon painted half-truths. He presented deterioration and hopeless despair, but he did not present mans’ honor and dignity” (Solomon and Williams, Art and the Christian).
The three great themes of redemptive history—Creation; Fall; and Redemption are inseparable from ‘truthfulness’ in art. The ‘minor theme’ in biblical worldview is that men have revolted from God—and as a result, evil, death, and decay are reigning. The ‘major theme’ in Christian worldview is that life is not absurd; but meaningful. God has created us in His image—this is His world; it operates in a certain way; true morals exist. God’s own character forms the law of the universe.
Majoring in the ‘minor theme’ is the content of so much of contemporary art. Modern art galleries feature art pieces which major in man’s lostness, depravity, inhumanness, and brokenness. When the ‘minor theme’ is turned into the major theme; pessimism reigns; and is treated as ultimate reality. Granted, the sinful human condition captures a ‘shard’ of reality; but misses the major theme entirely. Life is indeed absurd apart from Christ—nihilism, pessimism, and hopelessness dominate life without Christ. ‘Evil art’ is man seeking to make sense of the world without Christ.
Modern sinners prefer the ‘absurdity perspective’ of life in order to free up their lusts and justify their apostasy from God. Man was created as a complex unity—he was designed to find wholeness and unity in the worship of his Creator. Idols fragment that unity. They are false integration points. Therefore in ‘evil art’ we see false solutions to man’s dilemma. Examples include the flowery romanticism of nature worship as well as sexual eroticism, humanism, utopianism, Marxism, etc.
Ryken makes the following observation, “Human depravity and evil are one of the leading subjects of art. The fallen nature of people makes it possible for the arts to express falsehood and to have an immoral effect on an audience” (Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective, quoted in “Lost Arts” by Tamela Baker, Moody Monthly Magazine, June, 1995).
Artists who ‘normalize’ immorality in their art are responsible for their willful rejection of divine revelation. God’s good gifts—the overflowing bounty of His generosity—more often than not are set within a moral context. Work, food, resources, sexuality, relationships, and ownership are all gifts of God which have a moral context. The misuse of God’s good gifts (their removal from the moral context in which they are given) results in selfish ambition, sexual immorality, idolatry, violence, and greed.
Art based upon the worldview of secular humanism sends the message that life’s joys and pleasures are ours for the taking—and not a sacred trust with a moral context set by the divine Giver.
Like Great Music and Literature; Excellent Art enriches our Lives—by bringing us Satisfaction and strengthening our Biblical Worldview.
When a Christian spends the day in an art gallery or an evening at a concert; he or she is engaged in a noble activity. Says Ryken, “To be artistically creative, and to enter into the creativity of others, is to exercise the image of God within oneself” (Leland Ryken, quoted in “Lost Art,” by Tamela Baker).
What Standards of Judgment for Actual Works of Art may be derived from the Christian Worldview?
What kinds of questions can be used for evaluating a work of art: 1.) Does the work of art show technical excellence? (2.) Does the work of art possess intellectual content and validity? 3.) “Does it call my attention to something about either reality or modern culture that I need to know?” 4.) “What is the nature of the gulf between this particular work and my Christian values?” 5.) “Does my contact with this work have a negative effect upon my Christian beliefs or morals?” 6.) “Does my contact with this work make me more capable or less capable of being God’s person in the society in which He has placed me?” (Leland Ryken, Culture in Christian Perspective, is quoted in the article “Lost Arts,” by Tamela Baker).
Art is not created in a ‘Worldview Vacuum’
The artist will ‘view’ life and depict life through his or her worldview. When a person is optimistic about life without God; he will lose his or her freedom. Freedom is only found in God’s moral order—restored in Christ. The utopianism—found in so much of contemporary art—is not neutral. It is overtly hostile to freedom and dignity in Christ.
To live, and work, and create—as if one is NOT made in God’s moral image (and as if it is not a moral universe) is to be enslaved and corrupted in sin. Sin is that which slays the life of God within man. By sinning man further breaks the moral image of God —and further fragments the unity which comprises a human being (H.R. Rookmaaker, The Creative Gift).
The Christian understanding of aesthetics directly opposes the world’s conventional wisdom concerning beauty.
Biblical worldview suggests that what is beautiful is simultaneously the good, the true, and the real (Albert Mohler).
Our Christian worldview ought to bring us to a greater awareness of the ‘transcendentals’ which are inseparable from beauty—namely that every question of beauty is joined to a moral context and a truth context. It is precisely at this point (the unity of trancendentals) that biblical worldview is on a collision course with the world’s philosophy of beauty. The world is eager to call something “beautiful” which is NOT good, or true, or (in many cases) real. We as believers are called to be ‘salt and light’; therefore a substantial part of living out our Christian worldview is to keep these transcendentals joined (goodness, beauty, truth, and reality). We violate Scripture and depart from Christian worldview if we “sever the good from the true, the true from the beautiful, the beautiful from the real, and the real from the good” (ibid.).
Since the Fall, we humans have willingly severed the unity which exists “between the good and the beautiful, between the true and the real, and between the beautiful and the true. Why would we want to call something that is ugly ‘true’ [or ‘good’]? . . . . [It] is a symptom of human sickness, and that sickness is sin” (ibid, p. 3).
Since the beginning, Satan has sought to tempt by means of a false understanding of beauty. By his lies the evil one separates beauty from truth and goodness—then draws into sin by offering evil as a greater allure than good. The restored union of transcendentals, which the Gospel alone can bring, is the destiny of the cosmos. In speaking of the beauty as an evangelistic category, Dostoevsky put it this way in The Brothers Karamazov, “’Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men.’ . . .[T]he evil one tempts with prettiness, and lies about beauty, and corrupts the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real, sundering them from each other and celebrating confusion. . . Evangelism then is a matter of restoring unity of the transcendentals. . . [That unity] can only be put back together again by the One who created the world, and thus redeems” (ibid., p. 3).
Says Mohler, “Beauty for us is an evangelistic mandate, a missiological purpose. We are the people who know what beauty is. . . we have seen it in a foretaste, and we have been promised it in an assured promise. In this life we live amidst the pretty, the corrupt, and the artificial. We live among those who do not believe beauty exists, and among those who think beauty can be manufactured. In such a context, we are the ones who have to say we know beauty, and it is none other than Jesus Christ the Lord” (ibid., p. 3-4).
When He returns; the reconciliation He accomplished at the cross will be consummated. He will ultimately make a new heavens and a new earth “in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:14). “[I]t was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself. . .” (Col 1:19-20a).
Discussion Questions:
- What do we mean by “God is the Master Artist?”
- Define the concept “Creative Receptivity” in relation to art.
- What is the connection between beauty and the joining of form and function?
- Why does Francis Schaeffer use the term ‘evil art’ when speaking about certain art pieces?
- Explain the phrase, “’Creation, Fall, and Redemption’ are inseparable from truthfulness in art.”
- Why does excellent art enrich our lives and strengthen our worldview?
- What are some standards of judgment Christians ought to use when judging a particular piece of art?
- Explain the phrase, “Art is not created in a worldview vacuum.”
- When Satan tempted Eve, how did his lie separate goodness, beauty, and truth?
- What are some of the elements of the world’s philosophy of beauty and how does that philosophy produce damage, de-humanization, and enslavement?