God's Appreciation of the Aesthetic

I suppose I first thought of this subject when we lived in Belize and realized that there were so many beautiful flowers out there in the hills and mountains that nobody would ever see. It seemed God made this beautiful hidden beauty simply for himself to enjoy. It didn't matter that no one else was aware of the flowers. I was so impressed with this beauty that I began to video some of these flowers and greatly magnified them on the screen.

There are many other amazing matters reflecting an interest that God had in his creation that has little
relevance to mankind or the rest of creation. Take color, for instance. There are very few practical values of hues- well perhaps for bees to find sources of sweets, but are not many animals color blind? Color is for beauty, which people enjoy just like God who created it for himself and us.

Or take tastes. Why should anything be sweet, or salty, or sour, or like any taste? People would eat out of hunger even if there were no tastes. Like color, taste has very little practical value except to give pleasantness to eating beyond the need to eat and feel better. Taste makes eating pleasant as a bonus to eating. There are various things we eat for the pleasure of eating, not for their necessary or value to our bodies. We eat butter on bread for taste, not nutrition. Likewise as suggested, sugar has no essential function to the body that can't be met just as well other ways. The whole soft drink business flourishes not for its practical value to the body- but for the pleasure of drinking pleasant tastes. Foods are flavored for aesthetic reasons, not for practicality and nutrition, usually. There are aesthetic bonuses to eating beyond necessity.

Or why should sex be pleasurable? The procreative act could simply be a matter of choice and practicality like eating when we want to have children,. But there is a bonus of ecstasy far beyond the “Task” of creating a new life. You might imagine the sheer joy God had in creating man in his image, a joy of creating human life "in his image". This elation he passed on to mankind, as we create new life generation after generation.

You can also consider the sheer exultation of flinging out the planets and galaxies and the most distant stars as celestial bodies so vast and distant that the earth would have been no more than a mud puddle in comparison. At the other extreme in size, the hobby of creating the smallest units of matter, far sub atomic where electrons gleefully dance around protons with the speed of light. That is still intriguing scientists to discover. Stuff could simply have been made simple stuff. God didn't stop at just doing it the easy way. No, he tinkered with sub-matter, and no doubt enjoyed doing it with greater enthusiasm then any inventor of things in the modern world. We take pride and joy in our creations, trivial as they may be in comparison to the complexity of matter. Whether they are material like a computer or “i-machines”, or intellectual as in writings, or artistic as in paintings or architecture. It seems we have the compulsive joy of creating just like our Creator, how be it in a miniature pattern, perhaps a bit like a child playing in the sand on a beach by an ocean.

What is our greatest aesthetic investment? What is God's greatest project? Did he just set everything up for the fun of making it and admiring it; just standing back watching his universal machine work? I can't believe God would then only stand at a distance in amusement, when there is so much to communicate with his most intelligent creature- which we assume we are! And does he only try to communicate with us? How about all higher mammals who have some intelligence? But the even insects seem to have some intelligence- bees can communicate to each other and dogs howl, and endlessly other creatures are able to communicate. Why would not God want to have a relationship with all creation? I don't know what molecules would say to each other or to him. Who knows?

Several days ago I was watching over our grandson, Baby Noah, now 8 months old. He crawled through the grass, back to me, over me, stabilizing himself by holding on to me. He toyed with everything his hands touched and then went on to other matters. It seems he was trying to learn all about his world and his place in it. He didn't use any words to communicate with me. Yet we did communicate to each other. How I wished he could talk to me! He seemed to know me, that I cared about him, that he was safe with me. So I believe God's greatest aesthetic interest is in continuing with his creation, ever waiting for all creation to respond to him. He tries again and again in all ways imaginable, to tell us that he is there for us. He longs for us to communicate with him on the level of our maturity. Sometime Baby Noah will speak to me. He know me- somewhat. But it is his development that is in process. He was created to relate. He will in his time. We suppose much of material is inanimate. Maybe not. God's greatest goal is that all creation would recognize him and respond. At least we know that we who call our selves mankind can respond. That, I believe is God's greatest aesthetic goal and appreciation.