The Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet

By Thomas Dubay

While everyone is delighted by beauty, and the more alive among us are positively fascinated by it, few are explicitly aware that we can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. Dubay explores the reasons why all of the most eminent physicists of the twentieth century agree that beauty is the primary standard for scientific truth. Likewise, the best of contemporary theologians are also exploring with renewed vigor the aesthetic dimensions of divine revelation. Honest searchers after truth can hardly fail to be impressed that these two disciplines, science and theology, so different in methods, approaches and aims, are yet meeting in this and other surprising and gratifying ways.

This book relates these developments to nature, music, academe and our unquenchable human thirst for unending beauty, truth and ecstasy, a thirst quenched only at the summit of contemplative prayer here below, and in the consummation of the beatific vision hereafter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9781681494883

Thomas Dubay

Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M., is a retreat master and spiritual director for religious communities around the country, as well as a highly regarded speaker at conferences and retreats for lay people in North America. He has hosted five different 13-part television series on the topics of spirituality and prayer, and is the best-selling author of such acclaimed spiritual works as Fire Within, Prayer Primer and Happy Are You Poor.

Book preview

THE EVIDENTIAL POWER OF BEAUTY

THOMAS DUBAY, S.M.

THE

EVIDENTIAL POWER

OF BEAUTY

Science and Theology Meet

Every experience of beauty points to infinity.

—Hans Urs von Balthasar

IGNATIUS PRESS    SAN FRANCISCO

Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

© 1999 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco

Reprinted in 2006

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-89870-752-6

ISBN 0-89870-752-8

Library of Congress catalogue number 99-73018

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

I

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

1  Charting Our Course

Our Subtitle. . . Deep Thirst for Endless Beauty. . . A Brisk Tour. . . A Needed Nudge

2  Beauty Beckons

The Common View. . . The Classical Analysis. . . Scientific Concept of Beauty. . . Glory: Divine Beauty. . . Transcendental Objectivity

3  Radiant Form

Philosophical Usage. . . The Enrapturing Form. . . Musical Form. . . Triggering the Divine. . . Music’s Moving Power. . . Creators of Musical Forms

4  Alive to Beauty

Sensitivity to Beauty. . . Intellect and Spirit. . . Impediments to Perceiving Beauty. . . The Burden of Jadedness. . . Seeing Supreme Splendor. . . Perfecting the Eye. . . Love Sees Deeply. . . Wonder and Praise

5  Ugliness

De-formity of the Ugly. . . Illustrations. . . Atheism / Materialism. . . Intellectual Poverty. . . Self-Inflicted Angst. . . The Primary Deformity. . . The Beauty of Repentance. . . The Ultimate Horror. . . The Problem of Scandal. . . The Silver Lining. . . The Evidential Power of Ugliness. . .The Sole Ultimate Solution

6  Convincing Power

Beauty’s Impact: Science. . . Theological Penetration. Revelation: Matrix of Modern Science. . . Concluding Illustrations

II

SAVORING THE SYMPHONY

7  Macromarvels

A Finite Feel for Infinity. . . Magnitude and Power. . . Our Prodigious Sun. . . Pulsars and Supernovas. . . The Blue Planet. . . The Big Bang. . . Addenda. . . Implications

8  Midimarvels

Numberless Varieties. . . Creative Oddities. . . Flora. . . Incomparable Performances. . . Experience of Our World: A Profound Mystery

9  Micromarvels

The Atomic World. . . Cell Cities. . . Implications. . . Wonder and Human Enrichment

10  Artistry and Design

Design: Artistic Planning in Nature. . . Resistance to Design. . . The Guise of Chance. . . . Design Accords with Science. . . Evidential Power of Designed Beauty. Evolutionary Ponderings

11  Anthropic Principle and Providence

The Big Bang. . . The Anthropic Principle. Stunning Specificities. . . Providence. . . Convergence Again

12  Crown of the Cosmos

Visible and Invisible. . . Grandeur of the Spirit. . . Consummating Completion

III

DIVINE GLORY

13  The Beauty of Sanctity

Human Beauty?. . . Illustrations. . . Works of Art. . . Heroic Virtue. . . Transforming Union. . . Saints: Tangible Icons. . . Biblical Summation. . . Impact of Sanctity. . . Inner Experience of Holiness

14  Splendor of Revelation

Biblical Jewels. . . Beauty of the Church. . . Spirit and Magisterium. . . Impact of the Divine Utterance

15  Glory Supreme

Speaking of the Unspeakable. . . The Christ Form. Screens before the Radiance. . . The Absolute Singularity. . . Specific Glimpses. . . Compelling Impact. . . Crucified Glory. . . Trinitarian Splendor. . . Trinitarian Effulgence

16  Afterglow

Alpha and Omega of Fascination. . . Attracting Power. . . Wonder, Joy, Prayer in Theology. . . Exegetical and Theological Anemia. . . Academic Conformism. . . Glimpses of Afterglow

Abbreviations

PART ONE

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.

—Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics

CHAPTER 1

CHARTING OUR COURSE

Every human person is drawn to beauty. A night sky can thrill, as can an exquisite orchid, a Mozart concerto, or a lovely face. John Henry Newman, an intellectual and literary giant, would on occasion weep with delight as he played his violin. The more gifted among us are sometimes so vibrantly alive that even created splendors touch them deeply. Because their receptive capacities to be enriched by and responsive to reality are deep, they grow to a maturity far beyond the usual. They live life to the hilt and themselves become works of art—to borrow a phrase from Saint Paul (Eph 2:10).

But few of us seem to be aware that the beautiful packs a power not only to fascinate but also to convince a mature and honest mind of solidly grounded truth. Rapid advances in the sciences are disclosing with accelerating frequency the breathtaking beauties of the universe, both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm, and in these splendors we are learning truths that transcend astronomy and microbiology in their implications and consequences. It is no exaggeration to say that almost everything one reads about in the various branches of science trumpets the beautiful, and in the process physicists, microbiologists, and biochemists are discovering new and exciting truths.

Likewise it is too little realized that the inspired word centuries ago never tired in proclaiming both the splendid elegances of the divine handiwork in our universe and in finding in them powerful indications of truth. So also the best both of classical theology and of recent developments in the field show a rapidly growing preoccupation with the aesthetic dimensions of revelation.¹ It can hardly fail to impress people interested both in the sciences and in theology that these two disciplines, so different in methods, approaches, and aims, are yet meeting in this and in other surprising and gratifying ways. Then, too, these meetings are interesting not only from the academic point of view but also because of their potential contributions to the enrichment of human life, both individual and communal.

The growing enthusiasm with which physicists, astronomers, and biologists express their admiration for the awesome splendors of our cosmos may not make headlines in the popular media and may not appear in our high school and college textbooks, but all the same it bespeaks a new awakening. Albert Einstein, for example, marveled that the universe is knowable, comprehensible, that is, that created reality can be understood by human minds. One who is not impressed by Einstein’s wonder is missing a great deal of insight into the universe in which we live our daily lives. The intelligibility of visible reality is a staggering fact that calls for serious pondering. We hope to offer a modest contribution to this pondering.

Biochemist Lewis Thomas was fascinated when he discovered that every species of animal to appear in the paleontological strata, as well as all those living today, is perfect according to its kind. Every type is expertly suited to fly run or swim, to reproduce, and to be nourished in remarkably effective ways—not more or less adapted, but perfectly so; not clumsy at first and then skilled; not more or less beautiful, but entirely so. We do not find awkward and crippled species in transitional stages in the past or in the present. Both Einstein and Thomas were on to something amazing, something that invites serious reflection: How could these extraordinary living beings come about? How can inanimate matter be mathematical and intelligible? How could animals suddenly appear with breathtaking beauty and with no record of imperfect transitional forms existing before them? Popular articles, high school and college textbooks tend to bypass these questions. Are the authors embarrassed that they have no answers? Our most thoughtful scientists know better, and they are saying more than we have space to recount with any fullness. But we must offer a few examples.

At the head of Part One is the arresting statement of physicist and Nobel prize winner Richard Feynman that you can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.² He is no isolated case. Robert Augros and George Stanciu have marshaled evidence to show that all of the most eminent physicists of the twentieth century agree that beauty is the primary standard for scientific truth.³ This we shall explain in its proper place, but we may note for now that the most reliable, creative, and profound theology being done today has the same message: the unmatched beauty of revelation and the lives of the saints who live it fully are two (among others) of the powerful evidences of its truth. This convincing impact of artistry is one of the ways in which contemporary science and theology are meeting. What we lack is a focused study of this convergence, and we lack also adequate explanations of how central to anyone’s human development and to any state of life a vibrant appreciation of beauty actually is. This practical relevance extends to a deepening contemplative prayer life, to a love for one’s vocation (be it marriage, priesthood, or the evangelical counsels), to the love for and practice of each of the virtues: humility, affability, honesty, chastity, love, and all the others. A heroically holy man or woman is the pinnacle of visible creation and a proof in the flesh that both science and revelation are right.

Our Subtitle

Our subtitle, Science and Theology Meet, refers to an increasing number of convergences in the recent findings of these two independent disciplines. The main title, The Evidential Power of Beauty, refers to one of these convergences, the compelling power of the beautiful to point to truth. In the course of our explorations we shall deal with several others, some of which are being noted in secular literature. Recently science writer Sharon Begley observed that current discoveries with the Hubble Space Telescope speak to questions so basic that they began in theology and only in this century became the province of science.⁴ Becoming the province of science does not of course imply that they are no longer the province of theology. Begley illustrates her observation with the questions of when and how the universe was created.

What, then, does convergence mean and not mean in these pages? We do not subscribe to the fundamentalist view that Scripture is somehow to be understood as a book of science, especially when in Genesis we read of the origins of the universe and of the human race. To consider these opening chapters as though they were videotapes of the beginnings is to miss the point, what should be an obvious point. The author knew as well as we do that he was not present at the beginnings so as to be able to describe as a reporter how the cosmos and life came to be. In a similar manner the morning newspaper is not presuming to tell us how the solar system operates when it announces that the sun is to rise at 5:42 A.M. or at what time the moon is to set. Yes, the Big Bang account of creation does appear very close to the creation-from-nothing theological doctrine, but it is cast into quantitative terms and is not prompted by salvific motivation, as is the Genesis narration. Science and theology have different aims and methods, and while they may make similar points, they come to their conclusions from two different angles.

Further, convergence does not imply that either discipline is attempting to prove propositions of the other, nor are we in this volume using science to bolster revelation or revelation to support science. Yet distinct does not mean isolated, having no points of contact, no meetings, no interinfluences. What is remarkable is how these two fields, so different in many ways, are coming to similar conclusions, sometimes to the very same insights about key human concerns. Beauty and its importance both for finding truth and for living a full human life are two of these concerns. Others will follow as we proceed in our study.

These meetings are normal not only because the God of nature is identical with the God of revelation but also because the scientist, the Scripture scholar, and the theologian are all human beings, and as such they have no choice but to be philosophical if they are going to think at all beyond the narrow parameters of their specializations. Any person who wonders is an incipient philosopher. Science constantly presupposes and uses metaphysical principles that it cannot establish on its own, that it must receive from philosophy/ metaphysics. For example, the principles of noncontradiction, of sufficient reason, and of causality, all metaphysical, are daily indispensable for any scientific specialization. It is amusing to find materialists who reject metaphysics in word and yet seem unaware that they are using metaphysical principles not only in their daily research but likewise in their very denial.

Being concerned with quantities and motion, the sciences obviously cannot give a complete account of reality or of the human situation. Yet, as we shall document at some length, the most thoughtful among contemporary microbiologists and biochemists are providing new and cogent evidences of purpose and design in the universe. They discuss these questions as honest men with minds open to conclusions their research demands. They reject preconceived ideologies that decide with no scientific evidence what their conclusions may and may not be. In other words, they demand adequate explanations that may pass beyond the limitations of motion and quantities. They reject the preposterous idea that the only way to know is through scientific methodology and it alone. That idea attempts to place the human mind in an iron prison empty of wonder and flights of intellect and spirit.

Because the God of nature and cosmos is the very same as the God of revelation and theology, it is not surprising that he would and does leave divine traces in both spheres. While these common traits do not imply a confusion of two levels of reality, they do point to their single origin. Both science and theology agree on the objectivity of beauty. While there is a subjective readiness in us, greater or lesser, for perceiving the splendid, both disciplines assume and insist that beauty is not merely in the eye of the beholder; it is primarily something out there. The sciences, and especially astrophysics, increasingly point out the endless specificities in the development of the actual universe from its first microsecond to the present time that make possible the appearance of human life. Were any of countless conditions even slightly different, you and I could not exist. Revelation and theology have for centuries likewise taught the same idea cast in religious terms, namely, that the purpose of creation is man, destined to be enthralled eternally in triune glory. This convergence we shall examine in its due place.

Deep Thirst for Endless Beauty

You and I, each and every one of us without exception, can be defined as an aching need for the infinite. Some people realize this; some do not. But even the latter illustrate this inner ache when, not having God deeply, they incessantly spill themselves out into excitements and experiences, licit or illicit. They are trying to fill their inner emptiness, but they never succeed, which is why the search is incessant. Though worldly pleasure seeking never fulfills and satisfies in a continuing way, it may tend momentarily to distract and to dull the profound pain of the inner void. If these people allow themselves a moment of reflective silence (which they seldom do), they notice a still, small voice whispering, Is this all there is? They begin to sense a thirst to love with abandon, without limit, without end, without lingering aftertastes of bitterness. In other words, their inner spirit is clamoring, even if confusedly, for unending beauty. How they and we respond to this inner outreach rooted in our deep spiritual soul is the most basic set of decisions we can make: they have eternal consequences.

We ask, then, more specifically about the fundamental human needs that color everything else we meet in life and everything we do or fail to do—for weal or for woe. To become psychologically and spiritually men and women, what has to happen within us personally, individually, communally? First of all, we need to begin to wonder, to be alive to reality, to respond to what surrounds us. Self-encasement is death, sooner or later. God loves to astound us, for every single thing he has made is amazing, all the way from the sharp micro mountain ranges on the surface of an ordinary egg when viewed under a powerful microscope, to the incredible technologies within any living cell, and on to the mind-boggling enormities and power in a single one of the 50 billion galaxies in our cosmos. Wonder is the normal response to splendor. This is why the best of scholars and teachers share in their separate disciplines a common trait, an indispensable characteristic, namely, that of marveling at reality, of looking for explanations and causes. Their classes come alive. They all suppose that reality makes sense, that there are sufficient causes for phenomena. Great minds constantly ask questions, often in astonishment. Theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger has noted that the first requirement of the scientist is to be curious. He must be capable of being astonished and eager to find out.⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas was of like mind and habit, for he was continually wondering, asking questions in his theologizing. Healthy people seek explanations. Beauty is crucial to the human enterprise because it triggers wonder.

We need, secondly, to experience delight. God made us for ecstasy, a joy so glorious that it cannot be described (1 Pet 1:8). This is our final destiny, the beatific vision, says Revelation. One cannot imagine a more splendid doctrine.⁶ And more: we are to experience foretastes of it in this life, on both the natural and the supernatural levels. Edward Oakes reports Hans Urs von Balthasar’s own description of his early thrills in hearing classical music as a boy: "From those first tremendous impressions of music, Schubert’s Mass in E-flat (when I was about five) and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique (when I was about eight), I spent endless hours at the piano."⁷ The boy was already deeply in touch with reality. No surprise that he grew up to merit being called the best-educated man of our times.

Our third need satisfied by the beautiful is personal enrichment. While secular culture and an education in the liberal arts do not necessarily assure moral integrity, they do contribute to the rounded maturing of the citizen. Far more important, however, is an enlightened appreciation for nature together with a deepening contemplative prayer life and an immersion in authentic liturgical worship. Men and women blessed with all of these experiences become themselves beautiful and sources of enrichment for those who are privileged to know and love them.

Pursuing and finding truth, that is, being in touch with reality as we actually find it, is a fourth need, and fundamental to all the others. A cabbage needs no companions to be a perfect cabbage, but men desperately require all sorts of other people if they are to achieve their aims in life: parents, siblings, friends, teachers, writers, musicians. Maturing, fulfilling, and happy relationships are replete with experiences of the beautiful, and no life is complete without them.

A genuine falling in love, our fifth need, is a capitulation to the beautiful. Falling in love here does not refer to superficial infatuations or egocentric lust but rather to a selfless commitment made to a fascinating beloved. While this is seen in ideal and holy marriages, it is especially clear in the case of saints who are head over heels in love with the supreme Beloved, whose name is God. Saints see and are smitten. The heroic response is the only response. They know from experience that anything less than Everything is simply not enough.

In his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevski placed on the lips of one of his characters the observation that beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men. The one is supreme Glory (the biblical name for supereminent beauty); the other is supreme ugliness. Though our free wills make the choice, it is beauty that provides the powerful attraction to the only victory that ultimately matters in this peak of all combats.

A Brisk Tour

Since the subject of this book is not a conventional theme, it may be useful to offer a sketch of where we plan to go and what shall be some of our main concerns.⁸ After this introductory chapter we shall begin by clarifying our concepts in chapter 2, Beauty Beckons. Just what is the beautiful, and why is it what it is? Is it mainly in the eye of the beholder, as is often said? Is there something subjective about it, or is it only objective, that is, out there in the orchid and in a Beethoven symphony? What are the characteristics of an elegant object, and how do our best thinkers define our concept? What does science say about the nature of beauty? Why do we men enjoy and even thrill in the beautiful, whereas mere animals give not the least hint of appreciating a rose bloom or a Straussian waltz? Why is the theme of our book so immensely important for you and me, while it seems to have no significance for squirrels and ducks?

In chapter 3, Radiant Form, we delve into the profound source in each reality that accounts for its particular traits and splendor. We ask: What in the tulip causes it to be so appealing? Why does the charm of a swan differ from that of the palm tree? What is it about superb music that so uplifts and delights, even thrills, the human spirit? Why do the noblest men and women at times weep for sheer joy during a concert or at contemplative prayer or during reverent liturgical worship? What secret power touches them? And what can be said about that inner energy?

Chapter 4, Alive to Beauty, prompts us to raise this question: If beauty is objective and not simply in the eye of the beholder, how can the same painting or poem or landscape captivate one person and leave another completely unmoved? Why do some people marvel at a leaf, or the clear eyes of a baby, or the night sky, while others find all this boring and are content to kill time? While the following question may strike normal people as obvious and therefore silly, it is worth asking, for I have never seen a materialist give a plausible explanation: Why do mere animals neither write nor read books, open no museums, found no schools? Why do they invent nothing? As we respond to these questions we will be considering the subjective conditions for perceiving the beautiful.

Chapter 5, Ugliness, keeps us honest. It would be disingenuous in our admittedly upbeat volume to attempt to evade or to cover up the huge amount of evil and ugliness in our world. One does not usually have to live long to experience disillusionment, betrayal, verbal or physical abuse, rampant dishonesty, not to mention having to live in a pornographic milieu, sometimes under leaders who unfortunately reflect in their lives and policies ignoble traits of their nations. The cynic may say, And you are talking about all creation being charged with beauty? Come on, face facts. In chapter 5 we do face facts, and we respond to some relevant questions: How do we account for God’s permission of evil, even horrendous evil? If everything he has made is good, as Genesis five times remarks, how do we explain obvious uglinesses in our world, especially moral deformities? Does ugliness have what we may call a reverse evidential power? Do erroneous ideas and systems betray themselves by their consequences, by their very perversions? Why do sexual immoralities in their manifold manifestations not only dull but even destroy innocence both in children and in adults? And why does the loss of innocence (unless it is healed by repentance) diminish and perhaps obliterate a capacity to rejoice and thrill in the beautiful? Why does elegant music raise our spirits, while hard rock degrades, impoverishes, is addictive? Answering these queries actually furthers the purpose of our work.

Our study takes its title from chapter 6, Convincing Power. At this point in our tour we will be better prepared to understand how and why the beautiful possesses an evidential power in pointing where truth lies. This probative energy silently shouts out from its radiant form: This is so; this is real, authentic, good, and true. The perceptive person needs neither research nor computation nor reasoning to know immediately that something is right in a Mahler symphony. A lovely face, especially when it reflects inner innocence shining through captivating features, directly proclaims a matchless artist. To speak then about chance is ludicrous. We likewise show how both science and theology are of one mind about this evidential power of the beautiful.

The next three chapters deal with our visible universe and the rapidly unfolding wonders that the sundry sciences are daily reporting. Chapter 7, Macromarvels, offers examples found in our enormous universe together with comments on them. These are wondrous beauties on a cosmic scale, many of them difficult to believe. Chapter 8, Midimarvels, deals, as the name suggests, with captivating splendors midway between the immensely huge and the incredibly small: the world easily accessible to our five senses: mainly plant and animal life together with our human situation. Chapter 9, Micromarvels, considers the bewildering, fascinating, baffling, and awesomely intricate and tiny world of atoms, subatomic particles, molecules, and—most stunning of all—living cells and microbiological systems.

Chapter 10, Artistry and Design, considers the beauty displayed in the awesome planning, design, and therefore sublime art found everywhere in nature. If a lily were the only flower on earth, exhibits of it would be staged in major cities of the world, and long lines would form for the privilege of drinking in its exquisite artistry and splendor. We shall illustrate the omnipresence of design in nature, and we shall analyze the resistance to it in segments of academe. Biochemist Lewis Thomas eloquently expresses both for the ordinary person and for the thoughtful scholar the bankruptcy of a random chance view of the universe. Its explanatory value is nil, and so actually it is an evasion. Says Thomas, "I cannot make my peace with the randomness doctrine: I cannot abide the notion of purposelessness and blind chance in nature. And yet I do not know what to put in its place for the quieting of my mind. It is absurd to say that a place like this place is absurd, when it contains, in front of our eyes, so many billions [sic] of different forms of life, each one in its way perfect."⁹ What Thomas could have put in the place of the absurdity of random chance is what our study is all about. One bluebird in its way absolutely perfect is staggering evidence of art and design.

In chapters 11 and 12 we jump to a new level, that of man. In chapter 11, Anthropic Principle and Providence, we reflect on the stunning specificities that have characterized our universe from the first micromoment of the Big Bang to this hour. Endless details had to be, and continue to be precisely thus and so, or the appearance of human life could not have happened. Astrophysics, biochemistry, and microbiology abound in new evidences of the elaborate planning in the finest of details for the coming presence of man and for the continuing existence of each of us. Chapter 12, Crown of the Cosmos, considers the pinnacle of the universe, man. Revelation has taught the unrivaled supremacy of man from the very beginning of the book of Genesis, and science in our day is unfolding the same doctrine—a bit tardy, but better late than never. Another prodigious convergence worthy of close attention.

In chapter 13, The Beauty of Sanctity, we enter more expressly into the realm of supernatural glory / beauty. While most of our contemporaries have a vivid sense of bodily perfection and pursue it relentlessly, rather few seem to have much of a clue as to what beauty of soul might be. We readily grasp what it means to excel at basketball, ballet, or scholarship, but what heroic virtue and personal splendor might entail is another matter. Yet those who read lives of the saints marvel at the radiance of their selfless love, their transforming intimacy with their divine Beloved, and their tremendous evangelizing impact on others. To grasp this wondrous loveliness more fully, we shall explore the concepts of both heroic virtue and the transforming union of contemplative prayer, to which all of us are called by God. Just as a world-class symphony concert is an elegant and harmonious unity of dozens of instruments and thousands upon thousands of notes producing dazzling melodies, so also the tens of thousands of details in a virtuous human life synchronized by free will decisions and orchestrated by prudence are fired by love into the matchless beauty of holiness. Shortcut ways to get a feel for what we have in mind are the lives of the saints or an intimate acquaintance with a heroically holy man or woman. There is nothing so beautiful on the planet. This we explain in chapter 13.

Chapter 14, Splendor of Revelation, takes us to the sheer beauty of the revealed message itself, and we review its transforming power in the lives of people who embrace it wholeheartedly. Among worldviews (including materialism, secularism, and atheism) and various world religions, only biblical revelation satisfies six basic criteria of validity: (1) divinely authoritative and historically solid foundations; (2) the complete satisfaction of the noblest human needs, desires, and aspirations; (3) a celestial and radiant beauty far surpassing the best of merely human ideas and projects; (4) an intellectually sound coherence that no other outlook can match; (5) the transforming impact and power of the message itself: it makes saints of heroic goodness; and (6)a founder / exemplar of the matchless stature of Jesus. Central to this revealed message, of course, the Church the Lord himself founded: she likewise possesses these six criteria. We note also how she has attracted, throughout the centuries, and continues to attract the best of the intellectual classes, that is, men and women of the highest moral values, who see in her beauties not of this world.

In chapter 15, Glory Supreme, we speak of the unspeakable: purest trinitarian beauty with no limitations whatever. So unique is this splendor that Scripture has a special word for it: the glory of the Lord. We need to explain how we, so limited and finite, can even dare to think and write about the wholly unlimited, infinite One: the question of analogy. Then we reflect on the Christ form, the radiance of the Father’s glory, a glory beyond price, as Saint Paul puts it. And who, we ask, has the eyes and purity of mind and heart to be able to appreciate him? Which raises the question of the screens we place before this splendor of the absolute singularity that Jesus is and the