Naturalism is inadequate to account for beauty. Beauty growing out of naturalism is like a rose growing out of a dunghill. The rose is easy to explain if we assume the dunghill is not all that exists—that a seed was dropped into it from a source above it. And this is exactly the position of believers. Unbelievers should at least take a hard look at the possibility that beauty is no illusion. Beauty leads us to the certainty that just outside our field of vision is a living power who cares for us and wants us to experience delight.
But we must beware. Beauty exerts such a pull on our souls that many turn to it as the ultimate experience, trying to find fulfillment in what is only a pointer to a greater reality. We all have heard others say they find their greatest spiritual experiences in nature or art or music or their loved one. God’s greatest gifts can most easily become substitutes for God himself.
Beauty apart from its source is not enough to give us lasting joy; it is merely a guide to joy and an enhancement of it. God gave us beauty to lead us to Him. It is in relationship to Him that we experience the essence of beauty.
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