Beauty and Forgiveness - by Peter Bouteneff
This reflection is drawn from a paper delivered at
the Monastery of Bose, 5 September 2019
Beauty has been the subject of philosophical and religious thought since antiquity: beauty as a name of God, beauty as linked hand-in-hand with truth, beauty in its subjective and objective dimensions. It is receiving a lot of scholarly attention in our day as a theological subject. The role of beauty in the spiritual life of the human being is both everywhere and nowhere. Everyone quotes Dostoevsky’s “Beauty will save the world” but most people are happy to leave it there, as a generically inspiring dictum that is supposed to speak for itself. Taken on its own, Dostoevsky’s phrase does make the fundamental suggestion that beauty carries a transformative and healing force. It seems to me that one aspect of the healing capacity of beauty might have to do with forgiveness.
On my way to offering some modest reflections on links between beauty and forgiveness, let me offer the briefest possible working definition of each, for the purposes of this essay: Forgiveness – the release or remission of another’s offenses. Beauty – goodness that delights the senses and/or the intellect. If these are acceptable, I offer three fundamental observations about their interrelationship.
1. it is beautiful to forgive. To forgive someone, and to be forgiven by someone—by a sister or brother, by a spouse, by a community, and most especially by God himself—is a thing of beauty. It is good, it is delightful, and it is extraordinary. Let us hear an English translation of the Septuagint rendering of Psalm 132 (133), which, we will note, opts to render καλός as “beautiful”:[1]
1 Behold, what is more beautiful or what is more pleasant,
than that kindred live together?
2 It is like the perfume on the head,
which descends upon a beard,
the beard of Aaron,
which descends upon the fringe of his clothing.
3 It is like the dew of Haërmon,
which descends onto the mountains of Sion,
because there the Lord commanded the blessing:
life forevermore.
Ιδοὺ δὴ τί καλὸν ἢ τί τερπνόν,
ἀλλ᾿ ἢ τὸ κατοικεῖν ἀδελφοὺς ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό;
2 ὡς μύρον ἐπὶ κεφαλῆς
τὸ καταβαῖνον ἐπὶ πώγωνα,
τὸν πώγωνα τοῦ ᾿Ααρών,
τὸ καταβαῖνον ἐπὶ τὴν ᾤαν τοῦ ἐνδύματος αὐτοῦ·
3 ὡς δρόσος ᾿Αερμὼν
ἡ καταβαίνουσα ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη Σιών·
ὅτι ἐκεῖ ἐνετείλατο Κύριος τὴν εὐλογίαν,
ζωὴν ἕως τοῦ αἰῶνος.
As we reflect on this well-known psalm, we find that unity of persons is a thing of unsurpassed beauty, like dew on the mountains. Furthermore it is substantive. It is enduring; it has to do with eternal life: “life forevermore.” To the extent that we become fully aware of this beauty, we realize too that harmonious relationships are not to be taken for granted, because harmony is rare, it is extraordinary.
Other psalms speak often enough about war and strife, which are often linked with a very personal betrayal. We read, in Ps 54 (55):
9 … for I see violence and strife in the city.
10 …and mischief and trouble are within it,
11 ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud…
12 It is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him.
13 But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.
14 We used to hold sweet converse together; within God's house we walked in fellowship….
From psalms such as these we sense that discord, whether generalized and personal, are effectively the “default mode” of fallen human life. And by contrast, harmony, concord, and forgiveness, are things of beauty, they are oases in the desert. They are, effectively, a thing of grace: while they involve our concerted work, harmony, concord, and forgiveness are gifts that are unmerited. So forgiveness is beautiful, and a gift of grace.
2. Beauty and forgiveness can both be acts of creativity. Both begin with the divine initiative, and then may be interacted with and shaped by human choice and creativity. It is a beautiful thing to forgive and be forgiven, but particularly within a broken world that tends so readily towards conflict, forgiveness requires a deliberate rethinking, an intentional refreshment, an alternate path. In a death-tending world, thoughts and actions that move towards life are acts of inspired creativity.
3. Beauty has the capacity to evoke forgiveness. Simone Weil—the great 20th c. French Jewish philosopher/mystic—says that there are but two things that are capable of piercing the human heart: one is affliction, and the other is beauty. Beauty has this capacity because it passes through all of our mental filters and defenses. “Beauty” she writes, “captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul.”[2] In the face of true beauty we are helpless; our soul is pierced and our attachments—and grudges—must fall away.
We recall the role of beauty in the conversion experiences of some of the great modern theologians and philosophers, such as Vladimir Soloviev and Sergius Bulgakov, whose hearts and rational minds were pierced by works of art and architecture. But beauty works on our relationships with others too, in ways that surely lead to forgiveness. Our attachments to the faults of others, our grudges against their offenses, these have no more power. Why? Because of the beauty of this landscape, this person, this piece of music, this work of art. We have been cut to the heart. We are silenced. We are humbled. And genuine humility properly leads us to forgiveness of others. The ascetical writers frequently remind us that if we are sufficiently humble it becomes impossible to judge others or hold a grudge against them. Humility is required both in order to forgive others, and also to accept the forgiveness of others.
Beauty’s capacity to save the world rests in part on its relationship to humility and detachment. On the one hand, forgiveness and harmony are things of beauty, gifts of grace that in turn require our creative engagement. And on the other hand, the experience of beauty can bring us to our knees, so that we untie the bonds that bind us to our resentments and may forgive each other in humility, and be forgiven in humility.
[1] New English Translation of the Septuagint, slightly altered.
[2] Gravity and Grace (Lincoln: U. Nebraska Press, 1997 [1977]), p. 204