On Beauty and the Twisting of the World
[In this post, I am wrestling with two specific phrases in the second account of creation in the book of Genesis. I don't know of anyone else who is postulating these things, although it seems to me that J.R.R. Tolkien might very well have come to some of the same conclusions as me. Anyhow, I welcome any feedback concerning this post, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with some of my conclusions.]
The beauty of God is an aspect of His character especially revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, a phenomenon that has fascinated me for a long time. I find the following command particularly interesting, the injunction to "worship YHWH in the beauty of holiness" (See 1 Chronicles 16:29; 2 Chronicles 20:21; Psalm 29:2, 96:9). Not only is beauty paired with the concept of holiness, but also with the concept of glory (Exodus 28:2, 40). I don't often think of God as "beautiful" -- probably because He reveals Himself in male terms in Scripture, and I usually associate beauty with femininity -- yet, God affirms over and over that He is beautiful, utterly beautiful.
It is with these things in mind that a particular sentence in the Hebrew story of creation has captured my attention in recent years. Apparently, God had beauty in His heart when He created the world.
"And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."
God has already made it quite clear to Adam that the plants He created are for Adam to eat. Vegetation on earth serves a utilitarian purpose for the sustenance of human kind. In this second telling of the creation narrative, however, Moses (the author) includes an important detail that offers us a window in the purposes and character of God. Moses says that God created trees which were pleasant to the eyes and good for food. The artistic beauty of vegetative life is mentioned along with its pragmatic function in the world. Yes, food is fuel for the machine of the human body. But to God, food not merely fuel. Food is art.
Simply by putting these two little phrases "pleasing to the eyes" and "good for food" together, the author communicates something important concerning the character and personality of God. God does not merely meet the physical needs of humanity, He does so in a way that demonstrates His flair for the aesthetic, the colorful, the beautiful. God is not merely a cosmic brick oven spitting out our daily bread. God is an artist -- an artist who paints His very own beauty into the ordinary, everyday things of our lives like fruit and herbs and mushrooms.
But there is still more here. These two innocuous phrases are placed in a deliberate order: "pleasing to the eyes" comes before "good for food." The trees' function has already been stated, but this function seems secondary to the primary purpose of pleasure. Even more odd is that the pleasure mentioned is not of taste but of sight. The text does not say that God created food that was tasty and delicious, but food that was beautiful to the eyes. We know the wording is deliberate because later on in the story the order of these phrases is intentionally reversed.
What does this show us about God? In my opinion, these two short phrases demonstrate God's extravagant goodness. He gives good gifts to His people. He could have made our food ugly and reprehensible, and it would have been enough. But God is extravagant in His goodness, because He blessed us twice by filling our eyes as well as our mouths. And this artistic duality is not only true of God's gift of food, but His other gifts as well: sexuality and vocation, to name two.
So the earth is good and green; but then, something happens -- the great twisting of the world.
In his grand mythology of the land called Middle-earth, J.R.R. Tolkien hints at a certain philosophy of evil that I find compelling and that (I believe) is found here in the text of Genesis as well. Tolkien purports that evil is not in the same class as goodness. Evil is not a created thing, because evil is not creative. Only good is creative, for God is good, and He is never evil. When evil is introduced to the universe, nothing new is created or made. Rather, evil is the wraithing of good -- a twisting, a turning, a making of things upside-down that were once right-side up. This is how God can be the Creator of all things, and yet not be the author of evil.
In the Genesis story of the fall of humanity, the great twisting occurs in Gen. 3:6, "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate."
The order has been reversed. Under the enchantment of the serpent's temptation, the woman (and also the man, by assumption) no longer sees the world as God created it. They see that the tree is good for food, then pleasing to the eyes. They have exchanged the priority of vision of the artistic for the practical, of the beautiful for the dutiful, of the lavish for the mundane. They don't see God's extravagantly good gift of food, but rather wisdom for themselves. Sin has crept in even before the actual eating of the fruit, although it is not until Adam eats that the world becomes changed for the duration of this age.
But notice where this strange wraithing occurs. It is not in the world, but in the people; Adam and Eve have become twisted in their minds, and then succumb to their evil desires. They were created in God's image, to establish His rule on earth, to make manifest the wonders of His glorious artistry in the world. They were not created to be like God, knowing good and evil; they were meant to know only untwisted good. God created the world good, as a majestic iron beam on which to build His edifice of humanity; but we have twisted ourselves for our own purposes, and we are left with a mangled, tetanus mass.
How does this twisted bar become straight again? Through Christ, of course, as the rest of the biblical story will go on to tell us. However, I believe there is a practical lesson from the text that we can apply. Tolkien might say it this way; through God's gift of art, we can once again recover the sight of God's extravagant goodness in the world around us. Rather than seeing the created world as resources for our consumption, we can view the earth as God's canvas on which He has painted the glory of His divine goodness. Food need not be fuel only, but art. Sex need not be for procreation only, but for pleasure as well. Vocation need not be simple craftsmanship in order to fill our bellies, but rather a labor of love, in which we can show our twisted fellowmen the beauty and wonder of God.
Labels: Essays
posted by Joel @ 6:07 PM
2 Comments:
Lovely written and thoughtful post. As someone who relishes food (no pun intended) for its interaction with all of my senses I believe it is a gift that demonstrates God's love for making it delicious as well as creativity for making it so varied. Additionally, I've always suspected that God created the food cycle - growth, harvest, preparation, eating, digestion - specifically to teach us lessons about God and our relationship to God. For instance, our bodies don't allow us to eat whatever we want (for long, anyway). Why is this? Why even create us to eat at all? And your discussion about what happens in the Fall, when humans' minds begin to twist the purpose of food, makes me wonder about our culture's practice of manufacturing food-like-substances that imitate real food but have zero or negative value for the body, or even genetically modifying foods to make them "more pleasing to the eye" while stripping them of essential nutrients? Are these actions sinful? Food for thought. (Sorry, that one was intended.)
Regarding your intro, I would have to disagree if you meant to say that God reveals Himself only in male terms. The Bible also describes God with feminine characteristics and often uses maternal analogies to describe God's actions or feelings toward people. Doing a quick scan I found 24 instances in 12 different books - several in Isaiah (42:14, 46:3-4, 49:14-15, 66:9,12-13) and Psalms, and also in the New Testament (Luke and I Peter).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Shannon.
First off, you're exactly right that God does, in fact, reveal Himself in feminine terms as well as male terms. My writing was imprecise. I was only referring to the use of the male pronoun for God, which is used consistently in both the Hebrew and Greek. You are right that, really, we ought not think of God as male or female (or perhaps we should think of Him as both?!?, just as we ought not think of the relationship of God the Father and God the Son in too similar of terms to human fathers and sons. I often think of God in male terms, perhaps because I am still struggling to think of God as my Father, like in the prodigal son narrative. And I do think God wants me to see Him that way. [By the way, there's a particular theological view out there that suggests that the Son and the Spirit, respectively, reveal the male and female dimensions of God's identity. That view might be taking it too far, but there's quite a bit of biblical evidence to support it (the Hebrew word for Spirit is feminine; the Spirit comes over Mary to conceive Jesus; the Spirit embodies the church, who is called the "bride" of Christ, and others...)]
I'm considering what you're saying about the food cycle, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about it before in those terms. Your questions lead me back to the conclusion that we probably ought to view food as a gift to us from God, an extravagant gift, that can be used and/or abused. You hint at the possibility of abusing the gift of food in the opposite way of Adam and Eve ... that making food into pure art but neglecting the "good for food" part is also sinful.
One aspect of the "food cycle" that has struck me before is the fact that we eat delicious, beautiful food and then defecate waste that is ugly and stinky. Many times I've walked up to take the Eucharist and held out my open hands, thinking that all I have to offer God is a big pile of dung. And in His grace, God takes that dung all away, and instead gives me bread and wine. It's one of my favorite metaphors for what God's grace is like. I don't always think about the Eucharist like this, but when I do, I'm always so grateful for the body and blood of Christ.
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