On “The Argument from Beauty”
The author then delves into what he calls the argument from beauty.
He starts off his battle sarcastically as usual, talking about how he chose a disc of „religious music‟ by “Bach” to listen to on some radio show although he is an anti-religious man! He also draws in the point that Raphael and Michelangelo would have not been any less talented, had they been atheists, and brilliantly he states that had Christianity not been the prevailing faith in their time, who knows what else they might have painted?
The moral? The existence of the creator – or basically: belief therein - has “nothing” to do with man‟s ability to enjoy “beautiful” things!
Well, there are two separate issues here that cannot be addressed as one!
1 - The position that the existence of the creator is irrelevant to enjoying beauty,
2 - The position that faith in the creator is irrelevant to enjoying beauty.
Yes, one‟s faith or religion may have nothing to do with his ability to create “Art” or to enjoy beauty, in the sense that all humans are generally capable of enjoying beauty, regardless of their faith.
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However, it is evident that those who believe in a supreme creator who deserves gratitude for this beauty, and whose attributes fully justify this beauty, and have faith in a next-life of even a far more glorious and beautiful nature than this one, are much happier and much more self satisfied and contented by experiencing beauty, - at the very least rejoicing in the hope that death will not take this beauty away from them - hence enjoy it far more immensely on a spiritual level than those who merely see molecules and chemical reactions underneath!
In many occasions atheists may complain that it means nothing to say that everything has to have a meaning because it doesn‟t! Well they‟re wrong! Because this is not some functionless or purposeless property in human reason; the ability and the need to obtain convenient meanings and purposes for every phenomenon in this life, not to mention answers to the big questions of existence that really define who we are and why we are here! They cannot explain it! It is not a sickness that could be cured by simply making up any myth and placing it there! It is not a disease that will be cured by furthering knowledge of science and of nature or “raising one‟s consciousness”! It‟s the way human reason works, the way we humans make sense of things! The fact that Darwinism leaves its adherents empty or desensitized in those areas, does not render them redundant!
The problem with atheists is that they claim they do not need any external source to guide them to those basic answers! They‟d rather spend their entire lifetimes searching in vain, in all the wrong places, than search in any book that claims to have this wisdom sealed by prophet-hood from the creator Himself! So the question of meaning to them holds no “meaning” or significance at all! But that‟s not how healthy humans are! That‟s the outcome of a miserable mind and heart that had been mutilated by Darwinian nonsense!
Beauty, whether they do realize this fact or not, with meaning and purpose is far more “beautiful” and “enjoyable” than this grim materialistic blankness with no end or transcendental value whatsoever! Such is how man is made! He needs to conceive of meanings that correspond to those things that impact him deeply, maybe even more than he needs to eat or drink; even an
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atheist cannot escape this natural need! This property in man is not a psychological defect or an evolutionary tactic developed in him for the sake of a miserable „struggle for existence‟, it‟s a self-evident necessity, proprietary of the way humans think!
Am I claiming this mere fact – in itself - to prove that there has to be a creator? No! (Although any sane man should view it to point to no other direction!) I‟m only making the point that the approach adopted by the author here, in attempt to dissect those endless things that drive – in their totality - every reasonable man to conceive of a perfect creator, is not doing him any good on his cause to disprove that creator!
On the other hand, to claim that the existence of the creator is also irrelevant to the issue of beauty (both in the existence of beauty and in the human ability to enjoy it) this is so far away from the truth! The concept of beauty in itself is not one that should be approached by means of mathematical equations and numbers! It cannot be “gauged” or “weighed” or assigned a physical dimension to measure it! It is the sensual impact of the perception of certain physical objects or events on the human spirit (or state of the mind). Sick people cannot see beauty in a beautiful rose not because the rose is not in itself beautiful, but because the mechanism within them that enables them to “feel” and “enjoy” its beauty is malfunctioning.
The question now is, in a world perceived by a Darwinian who believes that everything exists for the material struggle of genes to survive, and that there is no such thing as a “spiritual dimension” to human life, where exactly does the ability to enjoy beauty stand in the “evolutionary ladder”? How can an evolutionist explain “why” it ever came into being in the human psyche? Well, he can‟t! We certainly don‟t need to enjoy beauty in order to multiply for the sake of our genes to survive, do we? He may answer saying: Of course we do, because without enjoying beauty we would be depressed and would malfunction, hence fail to reproduce! I would say: “But the question remains; why is it that without enjoying beauty we would be depressed? I mean, you still cannot explain the phenomenon itself, why is it that humans – apart from all other species that walk the Earth, have to feel happy and satisfied – one way or another – and keep searching for this contentment, in
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order not to go sick and eventually commit suicide? Why do we never see an ape – for example - committing suicide?!
We actually do not need – in the light of the Darwinian world-view - to be any more “advanced” in any aspect of our existence on this earth, than apes or pigs for that matter! So why are we so advanced, while they are not? They would only have “chance” to resort to! It is only by chance that this mutation came to be, they would say, even against what natural selection should be doing!
Dawkins I suppose would say: “well, I may not have a place for the ability to enjoy beauty in the evolutionary ladder, with respect to your argument, but maybe somebody will tomorrow, and this certainly does not make it proof for the existence of a creator!”
And then I would say: “Again, it is not the theist who is in the position where he needs to “prove” why he believes there has to be a perfect supreme creator for a perfectly magnificent “and ultimately beautiful” system; it is the atheist who carries the unbearable burden of proving otherwise! It is he who has to offer clear acceptable reasons why he defies this natural flawless reasoning and believes otherwise! You cannot prove the obvious by doing anything more than demand the denier to just open his eyes!