from "The Beauty of God's Holiness" by Thomas L Trevethan:

Beauty and the creation of beauty (arts and craftsmanship) have a central place in God's scheme of things. It is a strikingly beautiful world in which we are blessed to live - beautiful in diverse and wonderful ways. All of this aesthetically delightful profusion is the handiwork of the Creator. His love of beauty cries out to us from all that he has made. God's holiness includes beauty and aesthetic design.


Indeed, the Lord himself is the supremely beautiful One, and beauty in the creation reflects the unsurpassed beauty of his person. Scripture makes a special connection between holiness and beauty. We are summoned to "worship the lord in the beauty [splendour] of his holiness" (Ps 24:2; 96:9; 1 Chron 16:29).

Jonathan Edwards observes,

For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent: and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory; God...is the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty.

We conclude, then, that beauty is crucial to life. Beauty is anchored objectively in God's own character and expressed in all that he has made. Certainly God could have made a merely functional world devoid of aesthetic qualities. He did not have to fill the world with symmetrical and complementary forms. Gray grass and olive drab flowers could have been the order of the day. He did not have to fill the air with lovely sounds, various pitches and timbres to delight our ears and stimulate our imaginations. All might have been the soul deadening drone of machine, grinding out its daily quota of goods. Thankfully, it is not so! God has crafted the world not just to function but also to delight. He has made us as his image bearers, able to shape the stuff of creation into aesthetically delightful forms and able to delight in the beauty he and we have made. He has made glorious provision not only for survival but also for joy, not just for life but for a real and satisfying quality of life.


Beauty is not an optional extra to be tacked onto life if we have the time and inclination. We shrivel up and die in our spirits, we fail to realise our true identity as creatures of the Creator, if we surround ourselves with ugliness or a drably functional artificial environment. Remember that the tabernacle, the most holy place in Israel, was provided with the most beautiful and costly artistic decorations. So the Holy One's demand on us is a life of active creativity and enjoyment of beauty. The creation and enjoyment of beauty are central, indispensable parts of our calling as men and women living under the good Creator in a good creation.