As I mentioned in my first blog, The Ethics of Beauty is a multidisciplinary work that includes commentary based on the work of Christopher Alexander, an architectural theorist. [1] Alexander’s books outline his theory of patterns present in architecture and art that the human eye finds pleasing and the human soul finds nourishing. Alexander believed there is fundamentally one timeless way of building, as old as the world itself. It involves creating villages, homes, and public buildings where human beings can feel a sense of belonging and find meaning.

For example, Alexander noticed that certain medieval towns and villages contained features that people found pleasing and that they experienced a pleasant living environment. This leads to the opinion that we can discover certain patterns in these examples, which, when assembled appropriately, create a beautiful landscape. These patterns are not static but dynamic and emerging, which humans can use when creating living spaces. A practicing Roman Catholic, Alexander recognized the religious implications of his work. He believed there was a connection between the order of nature, traditional practices, the beliefs of various cultures, and recent scientific advancements.

The Order of Nature

There exists in nature what is sometimes called “The Golden Ratio.” The Golden Ratio, also known as the Golden Number, Golden Proportion, or the “Divine Proportion,” is a ratio between two numbers that equals approximately 1.618. Usually written as the Greek letter phi, it is strongly associated with the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers wherein each number is added to the last. The Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on, with the ratio of each number and the previous number gradually approaching 1.618, or phi. [2]

Euclid’s Elements mentions the Golden Ratio from around 300 BCE. Euclid and other early mathematicians like Pythagoras recognized the proportion but didn’t call it the Golden Ratio. It wasn’t until later in human history that the proportion took on its current mystique. In 1509, Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli published the book De Divina Proportione, which, alongside illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci, praised the ratio as representing divinely inspired simplicity and orderliness.

The Golden Ratio is commonly found in the natural world and is regarded as pleasing by human beings. It appears in various aspects of nature, from the structure of seashells to that of certain flowers and other areas. Artists and others have discovered that the golden ratio is significant because humans find it aesthetically pleasing. Artists, architects, and designers have extensively used the golden ratio in creating visually appealing works of art.

Studies have shown that the golden ratio also impacts what features humans find beautiful. Certain ratios between aspects of the human face contribute to the sense of beauty, and people find certain ratios between the hands, arms, and other parts of the human body beautiful. The Golden ratio would seem to be an example of a feature of nature that contributes to the human experience of beauty and forms of foundation for aspects of the science of aesthetics.

The Roman Architect, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote De Architectura (c. 25 B.C.), remarked on a similarity between the human body and a perfect building: “Nature has designed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole.” He inscribed the human body into a circle and a square, the two figures considered images of perfection. In recent times, mathematical analysis of physical features humans find beautiful has disclosed the importance of symmetry to the experience of beauty.

Leonardo da Vinci utilized the Golden Ratio in his artistic works. Most famously, the Mona Lisa (1503) was created using what is known as the Golden Section, which is applied in modern design systems. This technique produces organic and natural-looking compositions that are pleasing to the human eye. In other words, not only does the perfect ratio influence our perceptions of human beauty, but people also recognize beauty by incorporating that ratio into their own creative works, both artistic and architectural.

Patterns in Architecture and Life

In his book, The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander outlines simple patterns that humans use to create physical spaces and enjoy them as we inhabit them. Some of these patterns include limitations on four-story buildings, sacred sites, access to water, promenades, shopping streets, the presence of educational institutions, marketplaces, the inclusion of all ages—such as old people and children—small public squares, holy sites, ample parking, and parallel roads. Regarding human homes, Alexander mentions common areas at the heart of the house, flow-through rooms, tapestries of light and dark, a couple’s private realm, the children’s private spaces, farmhouse-style kitchens, private terraces, adequate light, beds in alcoves, windows overlooking outdoor life, child caves, secret places, and outdoor gardens.

The point is not the specific applicability of each of these patterns to every city or home but the fact that they are suitable for human beings, who require a certain kind of space to thrive. Both publicly and privately, we need buildings scaled for humans, sacred places, a connection with nature, and a diverse community. These human needs create patterns that architects and artists can use to foster human flourishing. Conversely, there are particular patterns, exemplified by the Stalinist architecture of Soviet Russia, that people find stifling.

The Quality without a Name

For Alexander and the author of The Ethics of Beauty, patterns mediate what is called the Quality Without a Name into our lives. The Quality Without a Name is that feeling of wholeness that emerges when we ihhabit physically, mentally and emotionally good life patterns. This idea that certain patterns promote human flourishing goes beyond art and architecture. Pattisis writes:

The quality without a name that arises in good patterns and good ritual is a gift of the twofold anointing of the Holy Spirit; that is why it can have a “bittersweet” quality, why the experience of it can make us sad. The quality without a name is God’s uncreated glory fed to us through the created world when we respond to that world liturgically.[3]

For Pattisis, humans can experience living through the power of the Holy Spirit. God has revealed Himself through the word in nature. For Pattisis and Orthodoxy generally, that quality we find so hard to name is our participation in something divine. For Christians, this means participating in the life of Christ, whose life provides the ultimate pattern for human flourishing. In the end, the Quality Without a Name is that which we experience when we encounter the Transcendent God.

In the letters of John, the author describes God as Light and Love (1 John 1:5; 4:8), as the perfection of both order and relationship. This perfection of order, or symmetry, and relational unity, found perfectly in God, is mediated through the word of God into human existence and impacts human life and human flourishing. While Christians may have a unique experience of this perfection of being in relationship, all of creation and all of humanity participate in this creative grace of God and can experience the benefits or detriments of following or not following, of appreciating or not appreciating, and of submitting to or not submitting to the ultimate patterns of creation.

This is a particularly important insight: Whenever any human engages with the Beautiful, the Good, and the True, they are participating in the life of God. Therefore, Christians can make common cause with all those who seek the Good, True, and Beautiful in whatever way they do so. (We don’t necessarily agree with their motivations but admire and support their quest.)

Beauty is and is Not a Matter of Choice

The thoughts of Alexander and Pattisis imply that beauty is not something irrational or sub-rational. It isn’t merely an opinion or a prejudice. The recognition of beauty is ingrained in the created order and within human beings as part of that order. However, it must be appreciated by the whole person—mind, body, and soul. It encompasses a rationality that is deeper than other forms of rationality, including the recognition of Truth and Goodness within it. Once again, for Christians, this beauty, this Quality Without a Name, involves sensing the Uncreated Light of God and the Love of God made manifest in the Word by the power of the Holy Spirit.[4]

Patterns and Plato

For Patisis, the Patterns represent a modern interpretation of the Platonic Forms. For Plato, the Forms existed outside of nature and were not necessarily incorporated within it. For Pattisis, these forms signify the potential for recognizing beauty, which must be integrated into a specific work of art, home, or building to be acknowledged as part of Beauty. Rather than static ideals, the patterns are dynamic and are actively incorporated into works of Beauty.

If an artist simply repeats a pattern or slavishly incorporates patterns as a kind of preexisting blueprint into a design, the result is deadening repetition, not beauty. Imitation is not a form of beauty. It is creation by incorporation that creates a work of art. The archetype does not dominate the creative work; it is incorporated within it. Thus, every act of creation is a marriage of the universal and the particular.[5]

Uniqueness and Pattern

As an Orthodox thinker, Pattisis believes that each human being achieves perfection by seeking to incorporate Christ, the ultimate model for human existence, into their individual lives. When a person falls in love with God in Christ, they begin a process of divinization, incorporating that aspect of God they can, given their human imperfections and limitations.

In fact, Pattisis goes beyond a merely human incorporation by implying that all of creation finds its “telos,” its proper end, as it incorporates the “pattern” of Christ into their limited level of existence:

All of creation does this, and this is the mystery of creation, its hidden side. Every existing thing is following this cruciform pattern, this path of loving God and loving neighbor, which is why when we sin against God or others, it is so painful to us. Because on the level of our existence as souls and bodies, as humans, part of us is still loving Christ (eros) in the logos of himself which he gives uniquely to us, and part of us is still choosing to die with him (agape) for the life of the world. [6]

In its unique way, all of creation—every created being, including humans—fulfills the twofold movement of God’s erotic love and self-sacrificial giving. It is part of God’s world and is in a relationship with God. I cannot help but see this as an application of a process-oriented way of viewing the world. According to process philosophy, reality has both a mental and physical pole. All of reality contains at least the potential for feeling and consciousness. This potential for consciousness means that the mental aspect of reality reaches all the way to its foundation.

One possible implication of this is that all of reality expresses, within its created limits, the love of God and the rationality of God through every act of its creation, maintenance, and ultimate passing away. Where conscious choices are made, as in the case of human beings, we either positively or negatively bring levels of love into our lives or the reverse. In either case, we are either bringing ourselves closer to the logos of God or further away. In either case, it increases the world’s loveliness or the reverse.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Adobe, “An Introduction to the Golden Ration” https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/design/discover/golden-ratio.html (Downloaded May 26, 2025

[3] Ethics of Beauty, at 427.

[4] This is what I have called the “Deep Light” and “Deep Love” of the triune God. See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love Rev. Ed. (Booksurge, 2016).

[5] Ethics of Beauty, at 436.

[6] Id, at 442.

The Ethics of Beauty challenges common Western ideas about the relationship between beauty, goodness, and truth. [1]From the perspective of Eastern Orthodoxy, the division of the church around the year 1000 A.D. over the unauthorized actions of the Roman Pope in adding what is called the “filioque” to the Nicene Creed without an ecumenical council initiated a process of division that ultimately led to the Reformation and the numerous Christian denominations we see today. [2] From a philosophical perspective, influenced by Augustine and later Thomas Aquinas, Western philosophy and theology subsequently developed what might be considered a “truth-first” approach to knowledge, including knowledge of the Good and the Beautiful. In the eyes of the Orthodox, this aspect of Western culture has resulted in the West’s intellectual, moral, and artistic decadence.

As a Presbyterian pastor and, therefore, student of Calvin and the Reformed tradition, I often noticed that our disputes focus not so much on liturgy but on fine distinctions of theology. This tendency has spread to the massive differences among Protestant groups on moral matters, most notably abortion, which the church has always condemned. These endless disputes may be connected to a misguided  “ Truth-First” approach to spiritual matters.

In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the church somehow takes precedence over any particular theological system, several of which can exist simultaneously within the greater church. In Protestantism, the tendency is to split over these kinds of disputes. But its very nature embodies a truth-first approach to faith.

Beauty First Worship

Perhaps even more importantly, the lack of a common liturgy creates significant theological and cultural vulnerability in many Protestant churches. One aspect I find restful about attending liturgical churches is that wherever I am on any given Sunday morning—whether the church is Anglican, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or a variant—I hear almost the same liturgy and, generally speaking, sermons on the same texts. With three readings, regardless of the quality of the sermon, I’ve heard an Old Testament text, a Psalm, a Gospel text, and usually a text from one of Paul’s letters. Finally, there’s also a communion service with a liturgy tied to the ancient liturgies of the church.

As a young pastor, I spent much time designing church worship services. As a former lawyer, I want things to be “logical.” I spent a great deal of time being sure that the worship service flowed logically. Then, when we began to develop what we call “contemporary worship,” There was a need to redesign worship services again, with the need for a “time of worship” near the beginning. [3]

When I first began attending an Eastern Orthodox service, I noticed some differences that I initially found disconcerting. For one thing, the service had a large amount of repetition. Things were said over and over again. It was a long time before I realized that this repetition was gradually drawing the congregation into an experience of the living God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then there was the incense, the icons, genuflections, and crossings. For a good Protestant, this can be a bit disconcerting. It was for me. Then I realized that Orthodox services deliberately draw the congregation into a physical experience of God. We smell the incense, visualize the icons, and cross ourselves; in other words, the Orthodox service does not merely appeal to the head but also to the body and emotions, what the ancients would’ve called “the heart.”

As a Protestant, I am accustomed to sermons being the center of the entire worship service. Pastors spend a lot of time preparing sermons, which can be between 30 and 40 minutes long. In liturgical churches, it’s rare to have a sermon longer than about 15 minutes. The center of the worship service is not a pastor, preaching a sermon, but the entire liturgy itself, especially the Lord’s Supper. The sermon is only a portion of the whole, not necessarily the service’s most important feature. Remarkably, I remember more of these 15-minute sermons than most of the 40-minute sermons I hear. I think holding yourself to fifteen minutes helps pastors and priests be succinct and focused in what they say.

Beauty-First Worship Space

For most of my professional career, under the influence of the “Megachurch Movement,” especially the views of Willow Creek, pastors with whom I’ve been familiar and churches I’ve known have been very reluctant to create traditional worship spaces. In evangelical churches today, it is common to have screens, a stage, a Praise Band, and other features in worship areas. The worship area resembles a setting for a rock concert. The reason is both cultural (“people feel more comfortable”) and practical (the setting is appropriate for the way the worship is designed).

In Orthodox churches, the entire church is opulently decorated with icons. An altar is behind a screen, where the priest conducts many worship service activities. Typically, Eastern Orthodox churches have a very traditional Orthodox architecture. When you’re in an Orthodox church, you don’t wonder for one moment whether you’ve drifted into a rock concert or you’re in a church. You’re definitely in a church.

I’ve had the opportunity to visit an Orthodox congregation in Austin, Texas, one of the most secular cities in America. It is filled with young people, all worshiping in a facility I was warned never to create. I’m not sure my earlier views were correct. Perhaps more importantly, the absence of beauty in many Protestant churches exemplifies a truth-first approach to religion. A service surrounded by art, highly crafted handiwork, and lovely vestments is a beauty-first worship service.

Truth in a Beauty-First Church

Lest you think that somehow, these beauty-first worship services lack intellectual content, each of the churches I visited has had bookstores filled with theological books that one does not usually see even in evangelical churches with bookstores. It is customary to find copies of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation in an Orthodox bookstore. Thus far, I haven’t seen any copies of the Left Behind Series or other mass-market Protestant literature. Perhaps more to the point, it’s unusual for the sermon not to include some theological discussion of the passage as it relates to Nicene faith. In addition, vast amounts of the liturgy are taken from the Bible.

Even the process of becoming a member is saturated with the Bible, the Orthodox tradition, Orthodox theology, and Orthodox worship. One member of an Orthodox church that I have come to be friendly with has a five-volume set of the history, tradition, theology, and worship of the Orthodox Church. It’s well over 2000 pages long. He read it as he became a member of the church. He’s the very same person who loaned me a copy of The Ethics of Beauty, upon which these blogs are based. Before becoming Orthodox, this person and his wife had been active members of more than one Reformed congregation. Both of them are highly educated, and they did not find the Orthodox beauty-first approach lacking concern for either truth or goodness.

Social Implications

In closing this week’s blog, I want to highlight the connection between a Beauty-First approach to theology and creating a beautiful society. I’ve had the opportunity to travel widely in both capitalist and Marxist countries. One of the things I find striking is the ugliness present in much of Western society and a significant portion of what we observe in the communist world as well. Somehow, an intellectual focus on Right Philosophy and Right Theology can blind leaders to the necessity of building a wholesome society where people can thrive. From this focus, we ultimately derive the scientific, materialistic, and technological focus that drives our culture.

I may talk more about this next week, but a Beauty-First approach is almost inevitably organic. It rejoices in the “small garden.” It believes that families are more important than political units. It believes that small businesses where people can use their talents and abilities are superior to great corporations, in which most people are simply units of production. It believes that society should not be overly “master planned,” but space should be given for the gradual emergence of an order created by beauty-seeking individuals. One of the essays in The Ethics of Beauty draws on the work of Jane Jacobs and his entitled “The City as a Liturgy.” The idea is that a thriving form of city is a joint movement of its citizens, freely undertaken, following a form or pattern of life that leads to human flourishing.

The liturgies we follow each week in church should be designed to build in church members a form or pattern of life that leads to human flourishing. This form or pattern of life cannot help but impact how they view their families, neighborhoods, cities, and larger political entities. It cannot help but impact how they view their businesses and economic life. We will not build the City of God in its entirety in this world. But we can make a beginning.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat difficult to follow for a layperson. I am going to try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] In the West, we speak of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the “Father and the Son” (filioque).  As approved by the Council of Nicaea, the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) spoke of the Spirit as proceeding from the Father. No ecumenical council ever approved this; the Pope authorized the addition on his own authority. The Orthodox believe this was a theological mistake and an error of church organization: no pope can modify the church’s dogma. I believe they are correct on both counts.

[3] Contemporary worship often includes a “worship time” featuring several songs at the start of the service. Band members and attendees have told me that this period is designated for worship, whereas the sermon is considered the time for teaching. However, the Orthodox tradition would strongly disagree with this idea. They believe that the entire liturgy constitutes worship, and in this regard, they are correct.

The Transforming Beauty of Motherhood

I’m beginning this blog on Mother’s Day. Once each year in May, we all celebrate our mothers and motherhood. As I pondered Mother’s Day, getting together flowers, making a card, and arranging for dinner, I was captured by the thought that Mother’s Day is not enough. The American Mother’s Day may mask the fact that we don’t value motherhood much at all. If this is true, then Timothy Pattissa’s book, The Ethics of Beauty, serves as a much-needed corrective. [1] For Pattisas, motherhood lies at the foundation of society, the family, and any reasonable social order. And, of course, for the Orthodox and Roman Catholics, there really can’t be any discussion of motherhood without some mention of Mary.

The gospel of Luke records the visitation of Mary by the Angel Gabriel:

And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary: for you have found favor with God. And, behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:30-33).

Mary responds with an act of acceptance, “May it be to me according to your word” (v. 28). As Pattisas notes, Mary opens her womb and life to the life of God in an act of holy hospitality.

This act of hospitality by Mary has a theological significance beyond the mere acceptance of Mary. In opening her womb to the Holy Spirit and embracing God from the moment of conception, Mary becomes the “Theotokos,” the mother of God. The Incarnate Word has a mother, and with Joseph, a family. Thus, marriage and family are not a mere human institution; it is a divine institution made holy by God’s participation in the human condition from conception forward.

In this act of “holy hospitality,” Mary has become the human agent of God’s entry into the world in a great act of divine condensation to the human condition, In the incarnation, God makes visible in one human life what has been invisibly true from the beginning of time: Love and family lie at the center of human life and human society. Just as Mary consented to bear Jesus, our human mothers in their own act of divine hospitality welcomed us, nurtured us, fed us, clothed us, watched over us, taught us, and sent us on our way into the world.

Every conception is and should be seen as an act of divine hospitality welcoming a new child made in the image of God and intended to be a child of God into the world. This sits at the root of a Christian attitude towards the value of human life. This sits at the Christian view of the importance of motherhood, of family, of the home and homelife, and of the gradual entry into the world of God’s universal family through the church. The mother provides the womb of the family, the family offers the womb of social interaction and life, and society forms the womb of human life and culture in the broadest sense.

Motherhood and its importance have profound importance for our notions of society, for all of human society is founded on and depends on motherhood. Pattisas likens the emergence of human society from motherhood by analogy to fractals. The emergence of order in chaotic systems is the emergence in ever more complex ways of the original fractal order on which it is based. In other words, the order of society is dependent upon the order of the family as it exists from the moment of conception.

We see all around us the consequences of ignoring this reality. If a well-ordered and fruitful human society depends upon the womb’s hospitality, then the reverse is also true. The disorder of our society begins with the disorder of the womb. It starts with the disorder of human sexuality, committed marriage, holy conception, loving, birth, and nurturing care.

“Pantocrator,” the word we translate as “Almighty” in the creed describing “God the Father Almighty,” can mean “Almighty,” but it can also mean “All Embracing”. If we believe that God is a God of love, and if we think that an all-embracing Divine Love sits at the foundation of the created order, then all of creation reflects the womb of God. What Mary and our earthly mothers consented to reflects God’s embracing and nurturing love. It is this love that entered the world in Christ, and it is towards this love that Mary, the mother of God, showed holy hospitality.

It is also to this love that we respond by faith. In the gospel of John, there is a long discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus, in which Jesus teaches Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of God, we must be born again. In part, it reads as follows:

Nicodemus saith to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say to you, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:4-5).

Just as Mary welcomed the Holy Spirit into her womb, we welcome Christ into the womb of our hearts.

I think this way of looking at faith is a healthy complement to the legalistic and contractual view of salvation that emerged from the Reformation. Our faith in Christ and welcoming God into our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit is precisely analogous to human conception. We open our hearts by faith and welcome the seed of divine life into our human life. Just as the ovum welcomes the sperm in an act of passive hospitality, so we welcome God into our lives (faith alone) in an act of passive hospitality (grace alone) by which we are born again into the family of God (the Church Universal) as children of God.

This conception and new birth is our birth into a family. We must be nurtured and grow in the faith (Christian discipleship), as we learn to be part of God’s family of worship, prayer, and service to the world. This involves a continuing act of birth and rebirth in Christ as we mature in God’s family into which we have been born anew. As Pattisas puts it:

Yes, if we would be born again as Christ commands us to be (Jn 3:3), then we must allow him to be resurrected, or born again, within us. Now Paul uses the words “formed within us” in Galatians 4:19 but he uses these words of connection with the “pains of childbirth,” so “resurrection“ is a valid paraphrase for being born again for us to be born again, Christ condescended to be born again within our hearts. [2]

This passage from Galatians is of special importance. Paul is admonishing the Galatians who have drifted away from appropriate discipleship. He describes himself as in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is fully formed in them. In other words, Paul has welcomed the Galatians into the womb of his loving care for them that he might give them birth and form them fully into the Christian family. In other words, our Christian birth and maturity are not transactional but organic and should be seen in light of human childbearing. The church itself is to be seen in light of the Theotokos and Mary’s act of holy hospitality and the holy hospitality our human mothers showed in giving us birth.

This realization of the importance of motherhood to human civilization has significant consequences in other areas. For example, if the universe and our world resemble the womb of a mother giving birth to creation, then just as we care for pregnant mothers and the womb that bears our children, we will care for the creation that is very much like this womb. We will not abuse it. We will not treat it as unimportant. We will nurture it. We will care for it. We will see that we don’t in any way do anything that would deprive future generations of the womb in which human society grows and upon which it relies for nourishment.

America’s Mother’s Day is a secular holiday, and most of us, if we can and are inclined, take our mothers to church. However, Christians ought to see it as a holy holiday—more like Christmas and Easter than like the Fourth of July. Our mothers embody a divine mystery in giving us life. They embody the reality of a God who is love, who nurtures his creation, and who gives birth to beauty, health, wholeness, and all the blessings of life we can enjoy.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat difficult to follow for a layperson. I am going to try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] Id, 408

This begins a series of blogs based on Timothy Patisas’s book, The Ethics of Beauty. [1] Philosophers categorize the world into three domains: epistemology, the study of what we can know about the nature of truth (The True); ethics, the examination of the nature of goodness and how we should act (The Good); and aesthetics, the exploration of beauty (Beauty). Western civilization has tended to emphasize truth and what we can know, and it has treated the good and the beautiful as secondary characteristics. The position taken in the ethics of beauty is that this is wrong-headed.

Indications of the Importance of Beauty

To determine whether the author is right, we have to ask the question, “Is there any evidence that indicates that it might be true?” I think there is. For example, mathematicians and physicists often view the beauty and elegance of an equation as indicative of its truth. One of the reasons why quantum physics and relativity theory gained acceptance is the sheer beauty and elegance of the mathematics involved.

Another indication might be the study of beauty itself. There have been a considerable number of studies of human beauty, many of which have looked at the symmetries that often characterize human beauty among cultures. Lost in this analysis is the fact that we already knew this person was beautiful before we understood mathematics or the science of that beauty.

From an ethical perspective, the ethics of beauty emphasizes the aesthetic beauty of the good life and suggests that beauty comes first. Once again, to provide an example, there’s something beautiful about the life of Mother Teresa. We could list all the good things she did, analyze the wise advice she shared throughout her life, and examine the ministries she established. However, somehow, we recognized her life as beautiful before we learned all those details. Beauty preceded goodness.

Challenge to the Enlightenment

Beginning with Plato, Aristotle, and the early Greek philosophers, Western civilization has been deeply interested in the question of truth. During the Middle Ages, the primary question was the nature of religious truth. In the modern world, the primary question has been the nature of material or scientific truth. Since the Enlightenment, Western civilization has been inclined to view. Scientific truth is somehow privileged over all other forms of truth. What Patisas calls “The Beauty First Approach” represents an alternative to modern thinking. It privileges beauty over scientific truth.

In his argument, Patisis draws from Western literature, architectural theory, orthodox theology, Wendell Berry’s works, and other sources. I believe he makes a compelling case. Focusing on beauty, aesthetics, and harmony may provide us with a clue about how to escape the deadening moral decay associated with the decline of the modern world and the avant-garde decorators in some forms of postmodernism.

The Greeks used the word eros, from which we get our word “erotic,” to describe that kind of love that is evoked by the attractiveness of that which we love. I like to say that erotic love is not sexual primarily, though it includes sexual love; it’s an evoked love. The beauty of the beloved evokes in us love. For example, if I love a painting, the beauty of the painting evokes that love. If I love a particular scientific theory, it’s the beauty and fruitfulness of that theory that evokes my love. If I love a specific form of life, it’s the beauty and attractiveness of that form of life that captures my desire. In other words, Beauty First.

The Religious Basis

During my pastoral years, there was a praise song that we used to sing quite a bit. It was called “Beautiful One”

Wonderful, so wonderful is Your unfailing love
Your cross has spoken mercy over me
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart could fully know
How glorious, how beautiful You are

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Powerful, so powerful, Your glory fills the skies
Your mighty works displayed for all to see, beautiful
The beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to see
How marvelous, how wonderful You are

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You, Jesus

You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

And You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You. [2]

This Christian praise song beautifully illustrates the point that the author is trying to make in The Ethics of Beauty. It also gives us a clue as to what is sometimes wrong with Christian evangelism and discipleship: We fail to emphasize God’s beauty and the beautiful life Christians are called to live. This is a point lost on me for a great deal of my Christian life and discipleship.

When I’m in Austin, Texas, I have the opportunity to visit a rapidly growing, vital Eastern Orthodox congregation. My wife and I are not Orthodox, and getting used to their worship took us a while. Nevertheless, having been to several worship services by now, we’ve learned that some things the Reformers criticized about Orthodoxy are subject to question. For example, when you enter an Orthodox church, you’re surrounded by icons of Christ, Mary, his mother, the apostles, and the church saints. These icons are beautiful. Much of the service is sung in a kind of rhythmic chanting. The responses are beautiful. The entire liturgy of the service is designed to create a sense of the holiness of God in his transcendent beauty. Instead of emphasizing the Cross and the sacrifice of Christ, the focus is placed upon the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ. In other words, the beauty of the resurrected Christ sits at the center of the service. In other words, the orthodox worship service takes a Beauty First approach to God.

Conclusion

In the next few weeks, I will post several blogs, teasing out the implications of a Beauty First approach to life. Interestingly, a beauty approach to life has much to say about how we should live. It has something to say about what is good and what is true. It also has something to say about the societies we should try to build. It has something to say about the ugliness of war. It has something to say about the kind of houses we should build and the kind of cities we should try to create. It has something to say about how one overcomes psychological trauma. It has something to say about the ugliness of war. It has something to say about how one overcomes psychological trauma. I hope readers enjoy the blogs.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat challenging to follow for a layperson. I will try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] Jeremy Camp, Beautiful One Released by Encounter Worship (2008).