Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty
- The Three Transcendentals.
.
by Peter Kreeft
There are three things that will never die:
truth, goodness, and beauty. These are the three
things we all need, and need absolutely, and
know we need, and know we need absolutely. Our
minds want not only some truth and some
falsehood, but all truth, without limit. Our
wills want not only some good and some evil, but
all good, without limit. Our desires,
imaginations, feelings or hearts want not just
some beauty and some ugliness, but all beauty,
without limit.
Three Attributes of God
For these are the only three things that we
never got bored with, and never will, for all
eternity, because they are three attributes of
God, and therefore all God’s creation: three
transcendental or absolutely universal
properties of all reality. All that exists is
true, the proper object of the mind. All that
exists is good, the proper object of the will.
All that exists is beautiful, the proper object
of the heart, or feelings, or desires, or
sensibilities, or imagination. (This third area
is more difficult to define than the first two.)
...
We are head, hands, and heart. We respond to
truth, goodness and beauty. We are this because
we are images of God. Each of us is one person
with three distinct powers.
Image of the Holy Trinity
God is one God, but in three distinct persons.
The Son, the Logos, is the mind of the Father
and performs his good will in redeeming the
world. The Spirit is the poet, who composes and
choreographs the operatic love between the
Father and the Son in both creating and
redeeming, and so is the Sanctifier, the
saint-maker – and the saint is the most
beautiful thing on Earth.
As the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son,
children proceed from husband and wife, the holy
family on Earth manifesting the holy Trinitarian
family of heaven, though very imperfectly and
obscurely, through a glass darkly. As the Son,
though equal to the Father in all things,
willingly and lovingly submits to the Father’s
good will, the loving wife lovingly submits to
the loving husband’s loving good will, though
she is equal to him in all things. For this is
not politics, but music; not equality, but
harmony; not justice, but love…
Beauty derived from truth
and goodness
According to Aquinas, beauty is “that which,
being seen, pleases.” Though beauty is derived
from truth and goodness, it has the greatest
power over our souls. This is why most
addictions come from something that appears
beautiful, whether Gollum’s ring, a false
“precious” (The Lord of the Rings
trilogy), or a drug or alcohol high, which is a
false mystical experience, or a false love that
apes married love but lacks its truth. And
therefore the only effective cure for addiction
must come from something that appears even more
beautiful than the addiction. As Aquinas says,
the only thing strong enough to overcome evil
passion is a more powerful good passion.
The beauty of a sober saint, to which the
alcoholic aspires, is a powerful cure for
alcoholism. The beauty of the bloody love of
Christ can overcome the beauty of the forbidden
love of a beautiful body.
Augustine in his Soliloquies imagines
God asking him, “What do you want to know?” And
Augustine replies, “Only two things: Yourself
and myself.” That is not narrow; that is broad.
For a self, or person, involves all three of the
things we need and want infinitely: truth,
goodness and beauty. So there really are six
things we want to know in knowing these two, but
the six are really three, since our three are
reflections of God’s three.
[Excerpt
from Peter Kreeft’s essay, “Lewis’s
Philosophy of Truth, Goodness, and
Beauty,” published by IVP Academic, 1st
edition, 2008.]
Peter
Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of
philosophy at Boston College and also at the
King's College (Empire State Building), in
New York City. He is a regular contributor
to several Christian publications, is in
wide demand as a speaker at conferences, and
is the author of over 55 books including: Back
to Virtue; The God Who Loves You; Heaven,
The Heart's Deepest Longing; Everything
You wanted to Know About Heaven; Your
Questions - God's Answers; How To Win The
Culture War. See more of his work at
his online
website.
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