"Adorn the cross with roses"? Justice and human dignity, beauty and human flourishing

N Marais

doi:10.18820/23099089/actat.sup29.5

Abstract

What does beauty have to do with justice, justification, and salvation? Can the world be saved by beauty? In this contribution, some theological and rhetorical convergences and differences between the discourse on human dignity and the discourse on human flourishing are explored. The role of beauty, in these discourses, is a pivotal concern – especially as often justice and human rights shape the theological discourse on human dignity. A key proposed argument in this analysis is that justice is to human dignity what beauty is to human flourishing, and that these shape or mould the theological language with which salvation – the good news of the gospel – is articulated. The argument concludes by proposing that both forensic language and aesthetic language are born from the fold of Christian soteriology, and that not only the more static, forensic language of human dignity is required to speak about salvation, but also the more pliable, artistic language of human dignity.

Highlights

The idea of the beautiful is of no significance in forming the life of Christian faith, which sees in the beautiful the temptation of a false transfiguration of the world which distracts the gaze from “beyond” (Bultmann, quoted in Hart 2003:23).Of what use is beauty to soteriology? What does beauty have to do with salvation? Even what does beauty have to do with justification – and justice?2 Theologians David Bentley Hart (2003), Miikka Anttila (2010), and Mark Mattes (2017) have engaged the perceived tension between beauty and justice in the oft-quoted words of Bultmann above by appealing to soteriology – and to the cross and Christ’s crucifixion, in particular.3 In short, in the wounds of God lies the beauty of the gospel
In the wounds of God lies the beauty of the gospel. What may this mean for our thinking on human dignity – and human flourishing? What role does beauty play in these discourses, governed – as they often are – by the concern for justice and human rights?
“Western modernity is very inhospitable to the transcendent”; a relationship which he would come to describe as a “conflict between modern culture and the transcendent” (Taylor 2011:174). He identifies the development of modern notions of freedom with a rise in what he calls “exclusive humanism” (“based exclusively on a notion of human flourishing”), wherein there is no sense in which “human life aims beyond itself” (Taylor 2011:172, my emphasis – NM)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The idea of the beautiful is of no significance in forming the life of Christian faith, which sees in the beautiful the temptation of a false transfiguration of the world which distracts the gaze from “beyond” (Bultmann, quoted in Hart 2003:23). “divine dignity” is the foundation of “human dignity”, and “human dignity” is the revelation of “divine dignity” (Soulen & Woodhead 2006:8) This connection between God’s glory and human beings is more than a formal connection, in that it comprises an aesthetic connection, argues Fiddes (2009:5). Human flourishing expresses God’s glory and manifests the beauty of God’s relation not in its functionality or self-referentiality, but in its contextuality and concreteness, gracious givenness, relationality and responsiveness, as well as eccentricity This is the ground of the intrinsic dignity and value of human beings (Kelsey 2009:570). There may be important reasons to not equate human dignity with human flourishing

JUSTICE IS TO HUMAN DIGNITY WHAT BEAUTY IS TO HUMAN FLOURISHING

THE AESTHETIC APPEAL OF THE DISCOURSE ON HUMAN FLOURISHING

HUMAN FLOURISHING – IN A SECULAR AGE?

CONCLUSION