Beauty is in short supply in the world today.
Out in the secular world, marriage isn’t beautiful. Family isn’t beautiful. Work isn’t beautiful. Art isn’t beautiful. Music isn’t beautiful. Entertainment isn’t beautiful. Politics and civics aren’t beautiful. And I could go on and on.
And in case you don’t agree with my assessment, just ask yourself: How many of these things, at least in the sense of how they are displayed in mainstream Western society, point attention clearly to the Creator? Or even, how many of these things are fulfilling and satisfying?
Beauty is that which mirrors the perfect nature of the Beautiful Creator. Beauty isn’t subjective; it is objectively measured by how well a thing conforms itself to what God is and has done. A painting is beautiful insofar as it harmoniously depicts God’s natural world. A musical composition is beautiful insofar as it stirs human emotion and intellect as God created humans to be righteously affected and moved. A woman is beautiful only insofar as she is (both in character, composition and activity) what God created her to be. Same goes for a man.
And also the same goes for all other creatures God has made. But, interestingly, all the other things in nature always exist and behave as they ought. So they are always beautiful, except for those elements of their existence which pertain to the curse (death, disease, decay, etc.). Only mankind has the ability to not be beautiful by volitional choice. And we do that well.
So. What is the remedy for all this non beauty around us? I’d, obviously, argue that it’s education. And, Classical Christian Education to be precise.
And as the title indicates, I’ll develop my argument around three prepositions which help explain beauty’s relationship to CCE: It’s done in beauty (or, in a beautiful way). It’s done with beauty (or, by means of that which is beautiful). And it’s done for beauty (in order that the student might be beautiful).
But, first, a needed black backdrop.
The proper Augustinian understanding of the natural human condition is, essentially, that we are un-beautiful as those who are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). It is true that the image of God remains in all men as concerns our worth, ability to perceive general revelation, and accountability to God’s law. But this does not contradict the fact that we are without spiritual vitality from birth (Hebrews 11:6 — “without faith it is impossible to please God.”).
So the first and primary need for all humans is a divine operation of sovereign grace. This is what Paul refers to in Ephesians 2:5 as being “raised together with Christ.” Without the resurrection life of Christ in our souls, we are doomed to remain in the not beautiful state of living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and [are] by nature children of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:3) This means that, in a very real sense, the only education in/with/for beauty is evangelism. Coming to faith in the Gospel, by means of being taught the Gospel, for the purpose of being transformed by the gospel is the most beautiful (and beautifying) thing a human soul can experience in this life.
But in the course of teaching students the Gospel, we also teach them other things which also beautify them to various extents. History and math and language, etc., all have a place in the panoply of beautifully beautifying human disciplines.
Education In Beauty
By this I mean that education should be done beautifully. My kids recently began attending a new school, and upon entering their new classrooms I saw eyes light up with the beauty of the rooms. Not that so-and-so’s room was a page out of last month’s Magnolia magazine, but that it was a proper reflection of the order and decor which befits a Western learning environment. In that way, the setting for education is to be beautiful.
Further, the manner in which education occurs should be beautiful. And here is where we get to a word that I love to associate with beauty; not just because I like to, but because it’s an obvious complement to it. It’s the word order.
If you look at anything that God made (and he makes all things beautiful), then you’ll be struck by its obvious order. Have you every considered that, from astronomy to zoology, God’s creation is so very much an orderly thing that people can get doctorate degrees in the study of it. And we put telescopes in space which reveal things which are so well put together that even the most God-hating scientists have to question their theories about order from chaos.
And if a spiral galaxy and the process of oxidative phosphorylation across the inner membrane folds of a mitochondrion, and if all the systems in between function an a beautifully orderly way, then shouldn’t a child’s education be the same?
There is a proper (and beautiful) path by which education should occur. It’s essentially the path which puts the kind, authoritative teacher in the driver’s seat, and the teachable in-need-of-refining student in the, well, student’s seat. And it’s the path which begins with the learning of tools (grammar) which are then be applied to reasoning (logic) which can then be applied to creating (rhetoric). In opposition to the utilitarian (“the ends justify the means”) educational pursuits of the world, CCE uniquely seeks to discern an orderly means of education from God’s created order and his Word. And by building an educational system from the foundation of Creation Order and Scripture, we build something that is itself beautiful and beautifying for the student.
Education With Beauty
It makes sense that, if our system and approach to education should be beautiful, our educational source material should also be beautiful. You wouldn’t hire Frank Lloyd Wright to design a house for you, and then try to build it out of junkyard materials (although, that sounds like the theme to some kind of TV show that someone is bound to try to make one day).
And so this is why we hear about the “Great Books” and about Latin and History and rigor in the Classical Education world. These and other content areas are rich in beauty, because they reflect the orderliness of God’s creation. In case you’re wondering, here’s how:
To start, there are certain books which have withstood the test of time to be regarded as definitive artful preservations of history, religion, culture and philosophy. In other words, certain books do a better job than others of giving us today a glimpse of the humanity of yesterday. Further, authorship is a rhetorical (creative) production, and so when its done well we can learn about what makes for good logic and grammar, too. Great books are, therefore, a beautiful source from which to draw when piecing together a beautiful education.
History is beautiful not in the sense that humans always do beautiful things. But rather it’s beautiful insofar as it rightly reflects the humanity and Providence of old. If God does all things in a beautiful way (even that which appears bad to us… just consider the Cross and you’ll see what I mean), then it is beautifying for a person to understand what God has done in history.
Latin is beautiful (along with other languages) because it teaches us the orderly means by which our native language came to be. And language itself is deeply and inherently beautiful and beautifying because it is the means by which God has specially revealed himself to us. Language is a gracious and deliberate gift, not an afterthought, and by it we can come to know our Redeemer and Maker. That’s beautiful.
Arduous study is beautiful because it means that a soul is doing what God created it to do — to work. I know that our 3rd grade sons might not appreciate the beauty of chores and reading and homework, but there’s beauty in them nonetheless. God made us to work, even if the Fall made work hard. We ought to persevere through the hard and teach children to do the same, for in so doing we train them to be beautiful humans as God designed them to be.
Education For Beauty
The goal of CCE is to make a student beautiful. And by this I mean that our aim should be to see the Gospel bring forth the beauty of Spirit-wrought fruit in the lives of students. This, again, doesn’t mean that the Gospel is the only truth to teach a kid, but we should never lose sight of the primacy of it while teaching Grammar and Math and Botany.
The Gospel isn’t to be stapled on to a lesson like a piece of candy to mom’s “I love you note” in your lunch. It’s rather the thing that the entire lunch should point a kid’s attention to — a Christian student ought to see in every part of his education that his heavenly Father has provided for his deepest need through the sacrifice of the Son.
In all disciplines we can naturally lead to the beautiful Gospel. Math shows the order and logical designs of the Creator, and his Word pieces together the doctrine of the Gospel in just the same kind of intricate precision and detail. Literature unfolds the corruption of man’s heart and the futility of living apart from his ways. And only the Gospel can fix man. Art reveals that colors and images on paper can open our minds to bigger truths that they convey, much like the rich imagery of the Gospel’s unfolding throughout Scripture weaves together like a perfect piece of royal tapestry.
I hope it’s clear to see that beauty and education are not distinct issues. They are one and the same, really. We should teach students to love beauty by means of beautiful truths presented in a beautiful manner. And always aiming at the beauty of the Gospel of Christ.