3
features of the Bible.
2
William A. Dyrness has examined seven Hebrew word groups that
refer to beauty.
3
At a scholarly level there are signs of a restoration of beauty.
4
At last
year's ETS conference Jo Ann Davidson presented a fine paper, "Toward a Theology of
Beauty: A Biblical Aesthetics."
5
Davidson focuses mainly on the aesthetic aspects of
Scripture (e.g., the poetic language of the Psalms), the aesthetic elements described in
Scripture (e.g., the temple), and the aesthetic as a legitimate category (i.e., alongside side
of the true and good).
6
Each of these works indicates that beauty is not dead in
Evangelical thought. Rather, these works portend that beauty may be awakening from its
slumber. However, my contention remains the same: Evangelical systematic theology
remains rather beastly
A. The Beastly Nature of Evangelical Systematic Theology
In order to prove the beastly nature of Evangelical theology I shall examine
several prominent systematic theologies.
7
I am focusing on systematic theologies
2
Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman, eds., A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993).
3
William A. Dyrness, "Aesthetics in the Old Testament: Beauty in Context," Journal of the
Evangelical Society 28:4 (1985): 421-432.
4
Popular Evangelical literature also has considered beauty from a theological vantage point. John
Piper, in his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1986),
defines God's glory as "the beauty of his manifold perfections" (31). Piper, however, does not expand on
beauty as an interpretative category; rather he prefers to use "glory." In Angels in the Architecture Douglas
Jones and Douglas Wilson have called for a return to beauty: "Sound theology leads always to the love of
beauty. When there is no love of beauty, we may say, reasoning modus tollens, that there is no sound
theology."
4
5
Jo Ann Davidson, "Toward a Theology of Beauty: A Biblical Aesthetics" (Nashville, TN: Paper
presented at the Evangelical Theological Society, November 17, 2000).
6
In addition, two articles that discuss aesthetics were published in the latest Westminster
Theological Journal. In "Beauty Avenged, Apologetics Enriched," Westminster Theological Journal 63
(2001): 107-122, William Edgar traces the reemergence of aesthetics in secular and religious discourse and
then argues for the incorporation of beauty into apologetics. Kevin Vanhoozer, in a fascinating article,
examines music and how music is not simply a pleasureful experience of sound waves but can be the
communication of truths via an aesthetic medium, "What has Vienna to do with Jerusalem? Barth, Brahms,
and Bernstein's Unanswered Question," Westminster Theological Journal 63 (2001): 123-150.
7
Treatments of historical theology are also deficient. For example, Stanley Grenz's and Roger
Olson's Twentieth-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), as the title suggests, surveys the major theological players in the last century.