We all know beauty exists. We know it when we see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it. It stirs our souls, wakes us up, tunes our hearts to something harmonious and pleasant about the world. What is that something? I believe it is God. I believe all that is beautiful bears witness to God because God is the source and standard of beauty. As Jonathan Edwards puts it, “All the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of the Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.”

That means beauty is not a marginal idea in Christian theology. It’s central. And in a world where beauty is being deconstructed and descretated as Tim Willard describes in the article below, it’s also something Christians need to fight for and defend. Beauty doesn’t just make the world more pleasant and pretty, after all. It also stirs souls and points them to the transcendent Beauty their senses suspect must be real.