Abstract
Abstract At the first sight, Luther and aesthetics make an unusual combination. Luther is not generally esteemed as an aesthetic thinker. Nevertheless, beauty plays a major part in Luther's theology. The idea of beauty in the young Luther's thinking is paradoxical by nature: That who is ugly in one's own eyes, is beautiful in God's eyes. Luther also describes the doctrine of justification in aesthetic terms: God is the supreme beauty, whereas humans are disfigured by sin. In his grace, God gives his beauty to us and takes our ugliness upon himself. Making righteous is here tantamount to making beautiful. The perception and appreciation of beauty is accordingly a consequence of faith. Faith makes one attentive to the goodness of the creation. Ultimately, faith alone can say that whole the earth is full of God's glory, while reason sees nothing but wickedness and misery therein. Beauty is, for Luther, based on light, a phenomenon that delights and overwhelms the human heart immediately.
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