yukaiakansyasai
User Name: You need to be a registered (and logged in) user to view username.
Total Articles : 0
https://yukaiakansyasai.ciao.jp/
Can one know what true beauty and goodness are? Is there an objectivity to these attributes, or are they merely what one perceives them to be? Let us focus on what God has created women to be and what society tells them to be. Does the truth lie in women being successful career women to the exclusion of their own feminine nature; in being dependent on the admiration of others for their self-worth; or in their being mere physical objects of pleasure? Or are they called to find the truth of their dignity in the model of Mary, Virgin Mother of God, who reflects and participates in the Divine Truth, Beauty, and Goodness of which all creation is called to reflect and share in? The question of truth, beauty, and yukaiakansyasai goodness is one that has intrigued men for centuries. The pagan philosophers seek to identify that which is True, Good, and Beautiful. For the Christian, however, there can be no other answer than that which affirms that the Triune God is the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. By His very essence God is all three. Everything else is so only by participation. We can know this because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2500 tells us that "even before revealing Himself to man in words of truth, God reveals Himself to (man) through the universal language of creation." All creation reflects its Creator; therefore, we can see something of Beauty itself in creation. Truth, beauty, and goodness, which are called "the transcendentals," cannot be separated from one another because they are a unity as the Trinity is One. Truth is beautiful in itself. And goodness describes all that God has made. "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good" (Gen.1:31). Man is the summit of the Creator's work, as Scripture expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of other creatures. "God created man in His own image..." (Gen. 1:27). Thus, man was not only created good and beautiful, but he was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ. The inner harmony of the first man, the harmony between the first man and woman (Adam and Eve), and the harmony between the first couple and all creation, is called "original justice." This entire harmony of original justice was lost by the sin of our first parents. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully "divinized" by God in glory. But he preferred himself to God and disobeyed God's command. Thus, Adam and Eve immediately lost the grace of original holiness, and the harmony in which they had lived was destroyed. They were separated from Beauty Itself. God, however did not abandon mankind, all of whom share in the sin of Adam, since "by one man's disobedience all were made sinners" (Rom. 5:12). In the fullness of time God sent His Son to restore that which had been lost. The Son, who is "beautiful above the sons of men," came to restore us to beauty. Thus, we turn now to beauty. Von Balthasar once remarked that when one is seeking to draw others to God, he should begin with beauty because beauty attracts. Beauty will then lead to truth and goodness. Hence, if one is going to begin with beauty then one must know what beauty is. I will make a distinction between two types of beauty, although only one of them is beauty in the truest sense of the definition. There is "seductive" beauty, which is often reflected in our current culture. This would entail whatever allures us to our self-destruction (morally or spiritually). It takes us away from what we were created for, union with Beauty Himself. This type of beauty I will return to, but first I want to establish a definition and proper understanding of what "true" beauty is. This is first and foremost whatever attracts us to our true fulfillment and happiness. In his book The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, John Saward, drawing on the work of St.Thomas Aquinas, defines beauty as: "the gleaming of the substantial or actual form that is found in the proportioned parts of a material things." In other words, while one can find beauty in the outward appearance, one must go deeper to the nature or the essence of the thing.
