Sect. 75God, the Absolute BeautyGod, the Absolute Beauty
I. God is the highest Good, and consequently the most beautiful good. This implies that God is not desired merely as a means to an end, but as desirable in Himself, on account of His essential perfection; that God is not merely lovable on account of the benefits He bestows, but lovable in Himself and for His own sake; and that He is admirable not merely on account of His works, but on account of His internal perfection.
II. God is, moreover, the absolute Beauty, and the self-subsisting Ideal of all that is beautiful, because in His infinite perfection He contains eminently whatever can make creatures the object of pleasurable contemplation. To Himself God is the object of eternal joy, and the delight which He finds in the contemplation of Himself moves Him to impress beauty upon His external works. To His intellectual creatures He is the only beauty which can fully satisfy their craving, the ideal of which all created beauty is a faint copy.
The Divine Beauty, however, is not the result of the harmony of parts or of anything that presupposes composition. God’s Beauty resides in the absolute simplicity of His perfection, in virtue of which each element of it is refulgent with the beauty of all.
Holy Scripture usually mentions the Divine Beauty as Glory. Cf. Wisd. 13:3, and also 7, 8; Ecclus. 24. Among the Fathers, see St. Basil, Reg. Fus., Disp. interr. ii.; St. Hilary, De Trin., l. i.; Dion. (Vulg.), De Div. Nom. c. iv., § 7.
III. The Divine Beauty contains the type of all that is beautiful in creation. We find it copied with various degrees of perfection in every work of God’s power and wisdom. It appears most faintly in the beauty of mathematical proportions, which contain a certain unity in multiplicity, but abstracted from all reality. The inorganic substances, especially the nobler metals and gems, represent more of the Divine prototype. But the best image of the Divine Beauty, in the inorganic world, is light. Light not only has its own beauty, it also lends beauty to all other material things. Its rarity is the nearest approach, as far as our sensitive knowledge goes, to the Divine simplicity. Organic beings represent the Divine Ideal of beauty in the manifold energies proceeding from the unity of their organization. Created spirits reflect the Divine Beauty in their life and motion, knowledge and love.
The Divine Beauty shines most perfectly and sublimely in the Blessed Trinity, which is the highest development of Divine perfection; in It we can easily detect all the elements of beauty, viz. unity and multiplicity, the splendour of perfection and life, the resemblance of the image to the ideal or prototype. In fact, there is no greater unity in multiplicity than the perfect identity of the Three Divine Persons; no more perfect unfolding of essential perfection and life than the trinitary fecundity in God, wherein the whole Divine Essence is communicated—the whole wisdom of the Father uttered in His Word, the whole love of the Father and the Son poured forth in the Holy Ghost; and there is no greater resemblance of any image to its prototype, than the resemblance of the Divine Word to the Eternal Father. By appropriation, beauty is especially attributed to God the Son, because He is the splendour of the glory of the Father, the perfect expression of the Divine perfection.
I. God is the highest Good, and consequently the most beautiful good. This implies that God is not desired merely as a means to an end, but as desirable in Himself, on account of His essential perfection; that God is not merely lovable on account of the benefits He bestows, but lovable in Himself and for His own sake; and that He is admirable not merely on account of His works, but on account of His internal perfection.
II. God is, moreover, the absolute Beauty, and the self-subsisting Ideal of all that is beautiful, because in His infinite perfection He contains eminently whatever can make creatures the object of pleasurable contemplation. To Himself God is the object of eternal joy, and the delight which He finds in the contemplation of Himself moves Him to impress beauty upon His external works. To His intellectual creatures He is the only beauty which can fully satisfy their craving, the ideal of which all created beauty is a faint copy.
The Divine Beauty, however, is not the result of the harmony of parts or of anything that presupposes composition. God’s Beauty resides in the absolute simplicity of His perfection, in virtue of which each element of it is refulgent with the beauty of all.
Holy Scripture usually mentions the Divine Beauty as Glory. Cf. Wisd. 13:3, and also 7, 8; Ecclus. 24. Among the Fathers, see St. Basil, Reg. Fus., Disp. interr. ii.; St. Hilary, De Trin., l. i.; Dion. (Vulg.), De Div. Nom. c. iv., § 7.
III. The Divine Beauty contains the type of all that is beautiful in creation. We find it copied with various degrees of perfection in every work of God’s power and wisdom. It appears most faintly in the beauty of mathematical proportions, which contain a certain unity in multiplicity, but abstracted from all reality. The inorganic substances, especially the nobler metals and gems, represent more of the Divine prototype. But the best image of the Divine Beauty, in the inorganic world, is light. Light not only has its own beauty, it also lends beauty to all other material things. Its rarity is the nearest approach, as far as our sensitive knowledge goes, to the Divine simplicity. Organic beings represent the Divine Ideal of beauty in the manifold energies proceeding from the unity of their organization. Created spirits reflect the Divine Beauty in their life and motion, knowledge and love.
The Divine Beauty shines most perfectly and sublimely in the Blessed Trinity, which is the highest development of Divine perfection; in It we can easily detect all the elements of beauty, viz. unity and multiplicity, the splendour of perfection and life, the resemblance of the image to the ideal or prototype. In fact, there is no greater unity in multiplicity than the perfect identity of the Three Divine Persons; no more perfect unfolding of essential perfection and life than the trinitary fecundity in God, wherein the whole Divine Essence is communicated—the whole wisdom of the Father uttered in His Word, the whole love of the Father and the Son poured forth in the Holy Ghost; and there is no greater resemblance of any image to its prototype, than the resemblance of the Divine Word to the Eternal Father. By appropriation, beauty is especially attributed to God the Son, because He is the splendour of the glory of the Father, the perfect expression of the Divine perfection.
Seção 26% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.