Dynamic Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a Thomistic Perspective

Conclusion

227 Conclus ion Since the completion of the manuscript of this book, a number of books and essays have been published that deal with truth, goodness, and beauty in rich and thought-provoking ways, a testimony to the perennial interest of these aspects of being.1 Given our age’s quasi-obsession with physical beauty, it is no surprise that works on beauty seem to abound and that philosophers and theologians, among others, are reflecting on what has been called the forgotten transcendental.2 For those of us who have the good fortune to be able to dedicate time and thought to the study of the transcendentals and their connection to human knowledge and human action, the task seems particularly urgent now given the age in which we live. In a culture of cognitive and ethical relativism where the true and the good are put into question—if not altogether denied—the beautiful too has been relegated to the subjective realm. And yet, because of the interest which the beautiful evokes in all of us, it may well be through reflection on the beau1 . I am thinking here, for example, of John Rist’s What Is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), in particular his chapter titled “Divine Beauty: Nature, Art, and Humanity,” 143–200, and of Roger Scruton ’s brief but magnificent work Beauty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 2. See the introduction of this book, note 1. 228  Beauty, Order, and Teleology 228  conclusion tiful and our experience of it that we are able to uncover important truths about the human person and his deepest longings. In the third part of this book consideration was given to the relationship of aesthetics and ethics and more specifically to the beautiful as a true good and object of practical reason. The distinction between real goods and apparent goods correlates, as we have tried to show, to the distinction between what is really beautiful and what is only seemingly beautiful and thus a lesser sort of beauty. This distinction has been discussed in John Rist’s What Is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican. Since we all love the beautiful and the beautiful inspires us to act, there is a need to discern the truly beautiful from the apparently beautiful . While we are naturally inclined to the true good, we may experience the pull of our passions and evil habits that draw us away from what is truly good and beautiful. We can therefore find ourselves in a state of division and conflict; or, as Rist puts it, we may experience that we are divided selves, desiring and loving a variety of things that may well be only deceptively and seductively beautiful.3 We are in need therefore of correcting and purifying our desire or love for the beautiful; only such correction through virtue and ultimately through divine grace will enable us to perceive things in their true light and beauty. As we practice virtue and also beg for the supernatural help of grace to do what we cannot do through mere human effort, we will gain greater knowledge as to the nature of the true good, the truly beautiful, and heightened self-knowledge as well.4 In a secularized culture one might of course question the need for the supernatural power of grace, and yet, ultimately, moral beauty is impossible without it. In arguing for a Chris3 . See John Rist, Real Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and What Is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican, 169–70. 4. Toward the end of the third essay in this book where I speak of “a spiritual renewal ,” it is evident from what is said there that such renewal requires not only the practice of virtue but also docility to the workings of divine grace, for grace provides the strength that human effort alone cannot supply. conclusion  229 tian aesthetics and metaphysics, Rist shows how Augustine, indebted to Neoplatonism but drawing on the resources of Christianity , developed a personal account of true beauty: from the personal beauty of God in Christ, lesser beauties, in particular , the beauty of man made in God’s image, can be explained.5 When man prefers beauties that are not true goods, beauties that are in no way proportionate to the supreme beauty and the true goodness that is God, then he turns himself away...