Aesthetics in Theology
I'm sensing a rising discontentment in the enunciation of Christian theology, particularly by a number of friends from my generation. And I stand with this discontentment. It pertains to the blandness of our theological language.
We say theology is our language of the divine. It is how we express our experience of our relational transactions with God. Hence, theology is beautiful, we say. At the same time, we pack it in a most hideously bizarre way of enunciation. We say things about God in a way that few can even understand, and codify our understanding of him (or lack thereof) in mysterious riddles. We advance claims that God is beautiful and seek to articulate that beauty, but we do it in the most aesthetically estranged ways.
We spew unbecoming propositions like "God is this" and "God is that", and "God is not this" and "God is not that". And the more we speak of God in such terms and in such a language, the more the subject of our description is found repulsive.
When others reject our claims, we say they've rejected the truth. Maybe it's not God or the ones who reject the truth who're the problem; maybe it's our language that's the problem. This may not always be the case, that's true. But nevertheless, it often is the case.
Our language of God is too bombastically brash. It is complex and sophisticated. But perhaps we are confused between sophistication and beauty. Beauty can be found even amidst simplicity of expression.
But things are changing. The aesthetically sensitive people are now beginning to say things about God in a way that reflects the gracefulness of his being. It is captured not merely in the descriptions themselves, but also through the language used.
Maybe, for a change, we should just start telling stories all over again, and cease trying to talk beyond ourselves. Our attempts to enunciate theology in a sophisticated way are simply too clumsy. Perhaps God didn't mean for theology to be articulated that way.
Stories captivate, because they have a capacity to capture our God-talk together with its beauty. And stories don't make God sound too boxy. It's a stark irony when we try to say that God isn't clumsy in such clumsy language. Like this post.
Editor's Note: This is a republication of the post from 21 April 2006.
Comments (5)
thanks for this post, bro.
i think beauty (symbolic, literary, iconic, graphical, emotive, etc.) is surely one of those areas we need to recapture in our theologizing...perhaps when the beauty is more often exuded/embodied, there can be less hair-splitting and divisions, as all eyes turn to Him who made it all beautiful... (am I making sense?)
Posted by alwyn | April 22, 2006 7:02 PM
Absolutely, Al!
Posted by SK | April 22, 2006 8:31 PM
Yeah, you realise that we have lots of Christian jargon that is distancing and isolating rather than inclusive. Jesus told parables, speaking the language of the masses rather than using jargon. But we have learnt to define things in terms like being "born again", having "salvation", receiving "grace", being "redeemed by the blood of the Lamb"... all good terms but incomprehensible to the outsider.
Posted by irene | April 4, 2007 12:21 PM
SK,
That's beautifully and bombastically articulated in an academic formated theologically informed sort of way.(Hmm, where the the footnotes?). I agree with you that we are now now so specialised in our theological disciplines and sub-disciplines that we are often incomprehensive to anybody except for those in our small inner circles. I am speaking from personal experience of medicine and theology.Maybe we need these or maybe we don't. Maybe God's kingdom or medical knowledge can be expanded by these super specialists. Or not.
However, there is a crying need for people who can straddle the two worlds, the world of the subspecialists and the world of people with common language. We need people who can explain the language of the specialist in everyday terms without diluting or distorting its content. Story telling is one form. However story telling has its limitation. We need specialists who can speak the common tongue.
You speakke inglish?
Posted by Alex Tang | April 6, 2007 8:43 PM
Thanks for the note, Dr Tang!
Yes, I'm sure storytelling has its limitations if measured by the modern propositional yardstick which asserts the value of observation from a distance rather than placing one's self within the scenario/story/situation/experience.
There's certainly value in employing any method which engages the listener and roots him/her within the Christian faith, which is after all, a story.
Posted by sk | April 7, 2007 12:26 AM