The Cost of Beauty

Everyone is attracted to beauty, and they will always be. The core of a correct Judeo-Christian understanding of beauty is that it has a very high degree of goodness, and that it is not for something. That it, it is in a sense, gratuitous. However, this does not mean, nor will ever mean it is free, and I will explain why I say this. 

 

The Hebrew word for “beauty” is “tob” and since Hebrew is a language based primarily on consonants, I believe “tob” is actually the linguistic source of “beauty,” since in Hebrew many character inversions are understood to be the identical word, sot “tob” or “toewb” becomes “boewt” when inverted. Modern English bibles most often translate “tob” as “good.” However, I don’t agree with this translation. I feel this way because it appears to dilute the intense nature of the beauty of God, and because God didn’t create all beauty (and therefore goodness) so that it can be useful for us, but He created it for its own sake (for His purposes). So translating it as “good” cheapens it in two ways in English. One is that it’s saying it’s not as good as it really is, and the other is saying it’s for some purpose useful to humans, whereas it really is useful primarily to God, and its purpose is not for our enjoyment. 

 

In the bible, “tob” is used a lot - when someone treat another well, the treat them beautifully. When things go well for a person, they go beautifully for them. When God created the universe, He saw it was beautiful. We often use “good and evil” as opposites, but this isn’t how it is in the Hebrew bible, it’s “beauty and evil.” So our translators, by translating “tob” so often as “good,” are making the opinion that God’s goodness isn’t “that” good. Which is one of the reasons I don’t like most modern English translations. They were clearly translated by someone or some persons who weren’t that convinced about God. So their translations are deficient. 

 

Everyone is attracted to beauty, in part because that is how God made us. But pagans and heretics among us like beauty because it is useful, that is they can get money or some worldly thing they want because of it. It is the contradiction of the prostitute, they are desired because of their beauty, but prostitution offends God, because we are using beauty for some selfish personal reason (for both the prostitute and the person who gives them money for their services). It is a disordered and therefore offensive to God use of our bodies, and also the use of beauty for selfishness. Furthermore, prostitutes are often victimized and used as slaves, which further offends God (perhaps more than the initial sin), and which brings upon those who do such things God’s wrath. Indeed, unless they repent they will be damned. Many beautiful saints were former prostitutes, such as St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Mary of Egypt, and they show with their history and their bodies that through God it is possible to leave the selfishness that allowed them to be trapped in their sins and become beautiful witnesses to God, and suitable for heaven. Indeed, St. Mary Magdalene was even an apostle, seen suitable to anoint Jesus king like a prophet, and anounced His resurrection to the apostles. Her beauty in repentance far surpasses any beauty she used to seduce her customers in her former life, and because she repented of her sins, she was found not only suitable for the glory of heaven, but indeed even to join the ranks of the apostles. 

 

But though beauty must be appreciated to some extent from the perspective of its gratuity (in that God freely gives it, and it is for its own sake, not meant by us to be used for ourselves), it is not however ever free. The beauty of the cross cost Jesus His life, and He needed to suffer greatly for it. It is also that no flower blooms without there being a soil prepared for it, and rain and the opportunity to sprout be given it. So every beautiful human, even in the “bloom of youth” as it is called, gets there as the product of some protection by the beautiful person themselves, or by some protector of them. All beauty also has a cost in suffering. Many women consider high heels to be beautiful, but in order for them to wear them, they must experience suffering in their feet and the rest of their body. This is a physical reality of high heels, but women still wear them on a daily basis for the sake of beauty. Sometimes this is because of vanity, but the woman pays the price of suffering to wear them regardless of why they wear them, and there is some signal of beauty present in this cultivation of the self for the sake of others no matter the intention. So Judith washed and adorned herself to make herself desirable to Holofernes, and by doing this, she saved her people. So beauty has a tangible power, but again, it has a cost. 

 

Again, God created beauty to attract us to Him, and therefore heaven, but our salvation did not cost Him nothing. He paid the price for us by dying on the cross for our sakes, the fruit of terrible suffering. So that every beauty, every blessing that we are given, from the day we are born until the day we die and are judged, was in part purchased by this beautiful sacrifice of His. So not beauty, and no blessings are ever really free, they had a price, and that price was very costly. So it is too that whenever you see a beautiful person, that person paid and is still paying a cost to be that beautiful, and there are others who worked to protect them and enable them to exhibit the beauty that they are. Sometimes this is the product of selfish intentions, but the beauty can and should be seen as for its own sakes, as that is how God sees it. And we should never just witness beauty and consider it only for ourselves. No, it should always point us to God, who is the ultimate source of it, and He gives it to us always so that we will be converted, not for any selfish purpose. It is in that light that we should always be very reverent regarding beauty, and glorify God in every instance of it.

 

Also, all beauty is a blessing, whether we glimpse it or possess it in some way, but all our blessings are given to us for a purpose. Instead, they are all orientated towards our salvation. That is why in Deuteronomy, Moses said that there would be either blessings or curses upon Israel, and that they would choose which one they would get. If they worshipped only The Lord and behaved according to the ways that Moses taught them they should behave, they would receive many blessings (great beauty). However, if they didn’t, they would be cursed by these blessings being taken away, and it would not be beautiful for them. We all know how this story turned out; Israel abandoned God’s road, and worshipped other Gods, and the beauty and blessings of The Lord were taken away from them, and they had to endure great suffering. But that suffering wasn’t pointless, God permitted it so that they would be saved. Beauty is like the carrot leading us to heaven, suffering is like the stick. God would prefer we all be attracted there, but He also prefers we suffer than that we be damned. There are many who suffer but are also damned, but to some extent we have a choice how we choose to see it. Still, it is more beautiful that we choose God because of the experience of beauty than it is that we choose Him because we have been bereft of beauty in suffering, and we realize we coveted it. But in every way, God works to try to arrange our salvation. For those who are damned, in every case there is some perpetual covetousness or irrepentance that stands in the way, which they chose (even if they didn’t realize it). As Jesus says, this is the majority of humans. So if we don’t want to be caught up in selfishness, we must continually repent, continually be grateful to God for all His beauty and blessings, and choose Him before all else in this world, and do so perpetually. This is the only road to heaven. 

 

So again, though beauty is intended, and is most beautiful for its own sake, it is never really free. There is always some person paying its price, with the ultimate payer being Jesus on the cross. While the crucifixion was ugly in a sense (because of the temporary desecration and destruction of Someone who was so beautiful,) yet it is also the most beautiful event of human history. Thanks to that outpouring of beauty, all of us were saved. But it did not cost Jesus nothing. That is why God sympathizes with us so intensely in our suffering. Jesus suffered a horrible death, and God suffered watching His Son go through a horrible death, but they did not endure this suffering for nothing. So as a result, we should every day repent our sins and have tremendous gratitude for the sacrifice that God made for our sakes. This sacrifice, God’s offering of Himself, is the most beautiful thing that has ever occurred, and so everytime we experience beauty in this world, it should point us to God’s infinite and all encompassing beauty. Also, it should also drive us to show beauty to others in the ways it is given to us to be able to be beautiful, because this sign, this witness of ours may be efficacious in helping to allow their salvation, which is the end goal of everything God does for us. But as I mentioned, that beauty, that salvation wasn’t free, so we should always be respectful and grateful for the price that was paid, and the price that any beautiful person continues to pay for it even now.