Science, Beauty and Contemplation
"The task of the Christian imagination in front of science is not to try and replace it with some kind of “different” science, but to bring it back to its original contemplative and aesthetic impulse. In my experience, whenever this happens not only science is purified of the incrustations of ideology, but it is also revitalized and re-energized as science. In fact, when science is no longer rooted in reason’s original attitude, i.e. wonder in front of the harmonious forms of creation, science immediately suffers. It succumbs to technical formalism, sociological trends, external pressure for technological returns, etc. Conversely, the great scientific revolutions were started by people whose imaginations were fired up, in one way or another, by beauty. Thus, the simple way in which Christian scientists can help science is by witnessing in their work that the human attraction to the beauty of the cosmos is not a delusion, but rather a prophecy of the incarnation of the Word through whom the cosmos was created. Needless to say, nowadays this kind of testimony is sorely needed, in science but also in many other aspects of our civilization."
https://catholicscientists.org/articles/science-beauty-contemplation/
more:
Reductionism is not good science
The Catholic Tradition and science
The Faith-Science “War”
#beauty #science
"The task of the Christian imagination in front of science is not to try and replace it with some kind of “different” science, but to bring it back to its original contemplative and aesthetic impulse. In my experience, whenever this happens not only science is purified of the incrustations of ideology, but it is also revitalized and re-energized as science. In fact, when science is no longer rooted in reason’s original attitude, i.e. wonder in front of the harmonious forms of creation, science immediately suffers. It succumbs to technical formalism, sociological trends, external pressure for technological returns, etc. Conversely, the great scientific revolutions were started by people whose imaginations were fired up, in one way or another, by beauty. Thus, the simple way in which Christian scientists can help science is by witnessing in their work that the human attraction to the beauty of the cosmos is not a delusion, but rather a prophecy of the incarnation of the Word through whom the cosmos was created. Needless to say, nowadays this kind of testimony is sorely needed, in science but also in many other aspects of our civilization."
https://catholicscientists.org/articles/science-beauty-contemplation/
more:
Reductionism is not good science
The Catholic Tradition and science
The Faith-Science “War”
#beauty #science
The Society of Catholic Scientists
Science, Beauty and Contemplation
The real roots of science lie in wonder at the beauty of the cosmos, which also the cure to reductionism ideology.
Beauty as orderliness of the soul
"The need for beauty, which manifests itself in the child when it seeks light and in the wild man when he craves shine, can be developed and guided so that it becomes a lever in life. Such is the mission of literature and the fine arts.
The higher their level, the higher the status of the nation by which they were created. They betray the development of societies, and by their decline they herald their imminent collapse. The conception of beauty and the love of beauty are of the utmost importance for each individual person, as well as for society in general. Insofar as people have a sense and a lust for beauty, insofar as they understand that it consists in eternal truth, in eternal principles to be known and respected, this true beauty, based on balance, harmony, expediency and order, is encountered in their works, and also in life."
Jadwiga Zamoyska, "On Work"
#beauty
"The need for beauty, which manifests itself in the child when it seeks light and in the wild man when he craves shine, can be developed and guided so that it becomes a lever in life. Such is the mission of literature and the fine arts.
The higher their level, the higher the status of the nation by which they were created. They betray the development of societies, and by their decline they herald their imminent collapse. The conception of beauty and the love of beauty are of the utmost importance for each individual person, as well as for society in general. Insofar as people have a sense and a lust for beauty, insofar as they understand that it consists in eternal truth, in eternal principles to be known and respected, this true beauty, based on balance, harmony, expediency and order, is encountered in their works, and also in life."
Jadwiga Zamoyska, "On Work"
#beauty
Ecce Verbum
Beauty as orderliness of the soul "The need for beauty, which manifests itself in the child when it seeks light and in the wild man when he craves shine, can be developed and guided so that it becomes a lever in life. Such is the mission of literature and…
Augustine on Beauty
From his Confessions
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
•Augustine ponders this perennial question of “what is beauty” and comes to conclude that that which is beautiful is something that cannot be seen with our eyes, but rather it is the knowledge of the very source and Creator of all beauty, God Himself through light of faith and virtue.
“How can we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is a beautiful thing, or beauty itself? Can anything compel us that is not beautiful and fitting?”(p.75)
•As such, beauty has its place, beauty temporarily exists to attract and raise its perceiver to a higher order of being, to reflect the beauty of its originator, the Creator of all beauty, God Himself.
•Augustine reflects on his discovery of true beauty in persons who are virtuous. He says,
“I was drawn to the peace I found in virtue, and repelled by the rancor I found in vice, attributing the former to unity, the latter to division.”
•Virtuous people just seem easier to be friends with; they tend to put others first and themselves last. Whereas, the person who lacks virtue is often difficult to be friends with, hard to be around, cynical, critical and a source of division. He continues,
“Unity was the sphere of the ordered mind, of real truth and the highest good, while in division I thought I saw some status of the disordered mind, of the highest evil as a reality, having not only a state of its own but a life as well…I called unity the Monad, pure mind without gender, and division I called the Dyad, pure anger to hurt and lust to despoil. It was my ignorance speaking, since I had not grasped or been told that evil has no reality of its own and mind is not the highest and changeless good.”
•It is much easier to destroy than to create, to divide than to unite, to criticise than to praise, to create chaos than to maintain order, so too in our own lives. Our minds can change. This is a great thing, but the fact that our mind can change itself is also a sign of our inherent lack of unity of the mind, with our body and soul, all of which yearn for balance, order, the ideal, and the truth in order to achieve interior peace of person, overall. We need to start with peace in our soul in order to have order in our mind and body. Augustine says,
“You, Lord my God, ‘light a lamp for me to bring light into my darkness.’ For ‘we all partake of your fullness,’ since you are ‘the true light, giving light to every man who comes into this world. In you ‘there is no alteration or dimming by time.’ (p.78)
•Physical beauty is subject to time, experiencing deterioration. That which is not altered by time is holiness. Holy people reflect eternal beauty by virtue.
#beauty
From his Confessions
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
•Augustine ponders this perennial question of “what is beauty” and comes to conclude that that which is beautiful is something that cannot be seen with our eyes, but rather it is the knowledge of the very source and Creator of all beauty, God Himself through light of faith and virtue.
“How can we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is a beautiful thing, or beauty itself? Can anything compel us that is not beautiful and fitting?”(p.75)
•As such, beauty has its place, beauty temporarily exists to attract and raise its perceiver to a higher order of being, to reflect the beauty of its originator, the Creator of all beauty, God Himself.
•Augustine reflects on his discovery of true beauty in persons who are virtuous. He says,
“I was drawn to the peace I found in virtue, and repelled by the rancor I found in vice, attributing the former to unity, the latter to division.”
•Virtuous people just seem easier to be friends with; they tend to put others first and themselves last. Whereas, the person who lacks virtue is often difficult to be friends with, hard to be around, cynical, critical and a source of division. He continues,
“Unity was the sphere of the ordered mind, of real truth and the highest good, while in division I thought I saw some status of the disordered mind, of the highest evil as a reality, having not only a state of its own but a life as well…I called unity the Monad, pure mind without gender, and division I called the Dyad, pure anger to hurt and lust to despoil. It was my ignorance speaking, since I had not grasped or been told that evil has no reality of its own and mind is not the highest and changeless good.”
•It is much easier to destroy than to create, to divide than to unite, to criticise than to praise, to create chaos than to maintain order, so too in our own lives. Our minds can change. This is a great thing, but the fact that our mind can change itself is also a sign of our inherent lack of unity of the mind, with our body and soul, all of which yearn for balance, order, the ideal, and the truth in order to achieve interior peace of person, overall. We need to start with peace in our soul in order to have order in our mind and body. Augustine says,
“You, Lord my God, ‘light a lamp for me to bring light into my darkness.’ For ‘we all partake of your fullness,’ since you are ‘the true light, giving light to every man who comes into this world. In you ‘there is no alteration or dimming by time.’ (p.78)
•Physical beauty is subject to time, experiencing deterioration. That which is not altered by time is holiness. Holy people reflect eternal beauty by virtue.
#beauty
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CHURCH FATHERS: Confessions (St. Augustine)
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