Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beautyof a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

• 1 Peter 3:3-4

Your eyes will see the king in his beauty
    and view a land that stretches afar.

• Isaiah 33:17

From Zion, perfect in beauty,
    God shines forth.

• Psalm 50:2

“Balthasar’s theology is a contemplative theology or, as he called it, a ‘kneeling theology’. It is especially noted for the attention that he pays to Holy Saturday, the day in which Jesus lay in the tomb. Jesus’ ‘descent into hell’ becomes a key theme in his doctrines of the Trinity, Christ and salvation. He called it the centre of all Christology. It is the culmination of Christ’s kenosis, in which he empties himself not just to the point of death but to going down into hell.
“ ‘If theology is to be Christian, then it can only be a theology which understands in dynamic fashion the unsurpassable scandal of the Cross. Certainly, such a theology will understand the Cross as a ‘crisis’, but it will see the crisis in question as a turning-point between the old aeon and the new, in the tension between the ‘world’s situation’ and the ‘world’s goal’. What ensures the connexion between these two is no immanent evolution, but that inconceivable moment between Holy Saturday and Easter. (Mysterium Paschale. Chapter 2).”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) was a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest.  He became a Jesuit priest and a theologian, but he later left the Jesuit order.  They would not allow him to teach after he left the order, but he had never taken an academic position.  He wrote his books, the books on Aesthetic Theology covered seven volumes.  He lectured on those books.  Of the influential theologians of the past century, he was not invited to the Second Vatican Council, while most of the others were invited.  This may have been due to him leaving the Jesuit order.

His aim in Aesthetic Theology was not to replace anything.  He stated that Christian theologians had worked hard to establish the true and the good.  But God was a God of beauty, and within beauty we could see the presence of God.  Thus, he did not replace one for the other, but he recognized that there was beauty in creation.

In the quote above, he is trying to state that Jesus fully paid the price for our sin.  Some theologians and many pastors stay away from the topic of Jesus going to Hell.  There are Scriptures to support that however, some pointing at a distinction between Hell and Hades, being a holding cell for the evil spirits that were sent there previously.  But whatever the literal pattern on what Jesus did in those three days, once He passed from this world, He was outside of time and space.  He could go to Hell or Hades and address those spirits there and then partied in Heaven in the same day with the thief on the other cross.  But von Balthasar has a point in that our sins were totally paid for in full so that God the Father was satisfied with the sacrifice.  Our salvation came at a cost, and we must be ever grateful and in awe that Almighty God would do such a thing.

But as for God, this world is a beautiful place.  I had a dear friend at the Facilities Engineer office in Karlsruhe, West Germany, who wanted to return to the USA with her husband to Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  I asked why the desert.  And she beamed, telling me that you had never seen beauty until you have seen the cactus in bloom on the desert floor.  And to think, this world was even more beautiful before the fall.  The world was broken at that point.  So, how much more beautiful could it have been?

My wife and I went to nearly all the contiguous 48 states of the USA.  I think she missed Vermont, a state that I visited before we married, but I won’t quibble.  There were beautiful places everywhere we went.  Science can tell us why the colors of tree leaves change, but that is only the ‘How.’  Does the vivid colors make any difference?  I doubt it.  Red skies in morning, sailors take warning.  Red skies at night, sailors delight.  Words to that effect are spoken by Jesus and how the religious leaders know that one is an omen of stormy weather and the other an omen of clear skies, but do we really need that beauty?  What function does it serve?

I remember talking to a naturalist who turned a leave over in the month of June.  There was a hint of red in the veins of the leaf and he predicted when the first frost would be.  Sure, that kind of indicator is a nice thing to know, but could that information be transmitted in a less beautiful manner?

Oddly, when this theologian came up on my list, I had just seen, three days before, an episode of the television show Origins.  The guest argues that evolutionists claim the gorgeous feathers of a peacock are what attracts the ladies.  He spoke of a peacock who had these feathers clipped off, but then placed with the hens, it made no difference at all.  The plumage was there just for the cock to be beautiful.

I have no idea what Heaven will be like, but I recently wrote that I do not want to guess.  Heaven will be more beautiful and more wonderful than I could ever imagine.  Why would I want to limit what God has in store for me?

In the following 27.5 minute episode of Origins on Cornerstone Television Network, Ray Heiple greets Bruce Malone.  The episode is entitled Incredible Features, part 1.  It starts with seeing God in Beauty, many of those things have no function for the beauty.

May we keep our eyes open.  God has much beauty in store for us.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.