Would God's Universe Be Beautiful if There Was No One There to Appreciate it?

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Nino said:
too bad you didnt forget it…this is old stuff…beauty is in the eyes of the beholder…a crippled kid all distorted is beautiful to his parents even if you dont see it…my painting of a little sick girl holding her teddy bear is very adorable…and have given it out to many people…not one ever saw anything remotely like you claim in your sophomoric thesis…tree falling down in the woods, of course it made a sound! I give talks in several of my daughters classes once a year…I teach age old values…(oops another smirk I am sure) regardless of the ‘hearing’ the teaching moment was there ,if they chose not to accept it so be it.not my fault if I presented it accurately. I tell people our economy is in such dreadful shape because our shelves are full of slave labor products from china…lets raise the tariffs again and thus give made in america workers and products a chance…if they dont listen…thats the way it goes…the truth is there for all to see. To make a joke out of ones Creator is to me,rather foolhardy…pardon me while I move to the other side of the room…on my shelf is a book titled: The Bible unmasked" by Joseph Lewis…a communist that also ridiculed the good books…it was published back in 1923…all of the various comments I have read here seem to have come out of that hate christianity book…mmm maybe its not out of print afterall.
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I am not sure what this is all about…
 
I am going to throw this in for discussions:

St. Thomas Aquinas said of beauty that it is “that which, when perceived, pleases,” among other things. Is it therefore beautiful when perceived by us or by God?

I think all God’s creation is inherantly beautiful, by its nature “It was good etc.” which is why I do not think that portrayals or pictures of nudity are immoral. I am not saying I think we should therefore be nude or immodest, but that portrayals are not necessarily so. Beauty is perceived, and therefore found in all places that God’s hand touch.
 
God’s “work” was beautiful long before we, (man), ever came to “see” it. HIS very existence is beyond our imagination. He is the Author of beauty, which means HE must be beautiful beyond belief, from all Eternity. Remember the Beatific Vision??? That’s GOD. God Bless, Memaw
 
EnchantedEve said:
I am going to throw this in for discussions:

St. Thomas Aquinas said of beauty that it is “that which, when perceived, pleases,” among other things. Is it therefore beautiful when perceived by us or by God?

I think all God’s creation is inherantly beautiful, by its nature “It was good etc.” which is why I do not think that portrayals or pictures of nudity are immoral. I am not saying I think we should therefore be nude or immodest, but that portrayals are not necessarily so. Beauty is perceived, and therefore found in all places that God’s hand touch.
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After Adam and Eve sinned, God clothed them, so that should tell us something about nudity after the Fall. HE didn’t cover their feet or their face, so that says a LOT for modesty.
God Bless, Memaw
 
Nino said:
too bad you didnt forget it…this is old stuff…beauty is in the eyes of the beholder…a crippled kid all distorted is beautiful to his parents even if you dont see it…my painting of a little sick girl holding her teddy bear is very adorable…and have given it out to many people…not one ever saw anything remotely like you claim in your sophomoric thesis…tree falling down in the woods, of course it made a sound! I give talks in several of my daughters classes once a year…I teach age old values…(oops another smirk I am sure) regardless of the ‘hearing’ the teaching moment was there ,if they chose not to accept it so be it.not my fault if I presented it accurately. I tell people our economy is in such dreadful shape because our shelves are full of slave labor products from china…lets raise the tariffs again and thus give made in america workers and products a chance…if they dont listen…thats the way it goes…the truth is there for all to see. To make a joke out of ones Creator is to me,rather foolhardy…pardon me while I move to the other side of the room…on my shelf is a book titled: The Bible unmasked" by Joseph Lewis…a communist that also ridiculed the good books…it was published back in 1923…all of the various comments I have read here seem to have come out of that hate christianity book…mmm maybe its not out of print afterall.
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A tree falling in the woods only makes waves that are or can be picked up by ears or recording instruments. Waves do not make the noise. They carry it to the ears, etc. God Bless, Memaw
 
The *angels *saw the creation of the human world! They saw that everything God did or made was good, from the tiniest to the greatest. Nothing was senseless or pointless along the way. Beauty was in the light, the earth, the wind, plants and animals…and in things we know only by science as well They did not have human senses but they saw and they heard.

God can show His goodness more over time, but he doesn’t do pointless things along the way. We can’t say, well he just had to make man or it wouldn’t make any sense. We see things only from our point of view. God’s love doesn’t spring into existence when man is created. It is there all along in His love of Himself.
 
nkbeth said:
The *angels *saw the creation of the human world! They saw that everything God did or made was good, from the tiniest to the greatest. Nothing was senseless or pointless along the way. Beauty was in the light, the earth, the wind, plants and animals…and in things we know only by science as well They did not have human senses but they saw and they heard.

God can show His goodness more over time, but he doesn’t do pointless things along the way. We can’t say, well he just had to make man or it wouldn’t make any sense. We see things only from our point of view. God’s love doesn’t spring into existence when man is created. It is there all along in His love of Himself.
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I’m not sure anybody is saying that God HAD to make man or it wouldn’t make any sense. To be more specific, what I was speculating about was more that it wouldn’t make sense to create the universe with so much beauty, and then stop short of creating mankind. For then there would be no one to appreciate it.

Man is the pinnacle of creation, and the rest of the universe was made FOR US. We are not an accident that popped up someplace in the creation process.

There IS beauty in nature, in the universe, in the mathematical laws which define how the universe works, etc. But man is the only being in creation (excepting perhaps angels) who can see this beauty or begin to comprehend it, or appreciate it, or via free will give God glory for it.

If God had created the universe, and not mankind…what a waste of a universe!
 
ricmat said:
I’m not sure anybody is saying that God HAD to make man or it wouldn’t make any sense. To be more specific, what I was speculating about was more that it wouldn’t make sense to create the universe with so much beauty, and then stop short of creating mankind. For then there would be no one to appreciate it.

Man is the pinnacle of creation, and the rest of the universe was made FOR US. We are not an accident that popped up someplace in the creation process.

There IS beauty in nature, in the universe, in the mathematical laws which define how the universe works, etc. But man is the only being in creation (excepting perhaps angels) who can see this beauty or begin to comprehend it, or appreciate it, or via free will give God glory for it.

If God had created the universe, and not mankind…what a waste of a universe!
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Ha, ha, great post, great point. I think you captured St. Thomas’ thinking on this one.👍
 
Memaw said:
After Adam and Eve sinned, God clothed them, so that should tell us something about nudity after the Fall. HE didn’t cover their feet or their face, so that says a LOT for modesty.
God Bless, Memaw
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Oh, I agree. My wife wears long skirts and sleeves only, and I only wear pants and long sleeves (and often a tie). But I do not think representations of the beauty of the nude human body are necessarily bad(it depends, of course, on how it is presented!). The Church, as far as I have studied, does not seem to condemn it either. Of course, each person should judge for themselves how much they can perceive without temptation. Every person has different occasions of sin.
 
Rather than being just an accident of nature, as atheists (and it seems some Catholic theologians) contend, it seems that the universe was created for man, and it was only after the creation of man that the universe makes any sense at all.

God created the universe and saw that it was good. If we can equate the good with the beautiful, then the universe was beautiful even before man arrived to wonder at its beauty.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Rather than being just an accident of nature, as atheists (and it seems some Catholic theologians) contend, it seems that the universe was created for man, and it was only after the creation of man that the universe makes any sense at all.

God created the universe and saw that it was good. If we can equate the good with the beautiful, then the universe was beautiful even before man arrived to wonder at its beauty.
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But do you think God would have actually created a beautiful universe strictly for his own enjoyment?
 
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Would God’s Universe Be Beautiful if There Was No One There to Appreciate it?
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An academic question in some ways as God doesn’t need the universe or us, but as some others have pointed out “He saw that it was good” and then after the creation of man “very good”.
Also as we will still inhabit this world or somewhat like it in the after life, this universe will be beautiful in eternity?
Perhaps a thought for another thread!
Gerry
 
ricmat

*But do you think God would have actually created a beautiful universe strictly for his own enjoyment? *

No, I don’t think I said that. God created the universe for Man to enjoy … and also to master. Each phase of the creation He called good, because each phase was a preparation for the final product to date … us. But God also created the universe beautiful and awesome to give us a sense of his own majesty and power. Only the atheist sees nothing in all this but mere chance and a meaningless universe. For reasons known only to the atheist, or maybe *not even known *to him, he doesn’t want God to exist, and so he denies every possible sign that a Higher Power exists.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
ricmat
Only the atheist sees nothing in all this but mere chance and a meaningless universe. For reasons known only to the atheist, or maybe *not even known *to him, he doesn’t want God to exist, and so he denies every possible sign that a Higher Power exists.
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This makes me sad that you would believe that… 😦

An atheist rejects things without proof. As there is no absolute proof of God, God gets rejected as well. It’s often said that if God comes down to earth, every atheist would become a Christian. Now, of course there are some atheists who are just rebelling or something and are immature or would maybe still reject God in such a case, but those are the outliers on the bell curve.

As for a meaningless universe, an atheist would assume that without a God, the meaning of our lives and the universe is thus defined by us instead of God. That is simply not the same meaning you believe in, but it does not mean that everything is meaningless to everyone all of a sudden when they become atheist.
 
ricmat said:
I’m not sure anybody is saying that God HAD to make man or it wouldn’t make any sense. To be more specific, what I was speculating about was more that it wouldn’t make sense to create the universe with so much beauty, and then stop short of creating mankind. For then there would be no one to appreciate it.

Man is the pinnacle of creation, and the rest of the universe was made FOR US. We are not an accident that popped up someplace in the creation process.

There IS beauty in nature, in the universe, in the mathematical laws which define how the universe works, etc. But man is the only being in creation (excepting perhaps angels) who can see this beauty or begin to comprehend it, or appreciate it, or via free will give God glory for it.

If God had created the universe, and not mankind…what a waste of a universe!
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God created all with us in mind to share HIS love and beauty with us. Now its our turn to share what HE has given us, (Love), with HIM and each other. God doesn’t waste anything, HE loves and shares. we are the wasteful ones. God Bless, Memaw
 
ricmat said:
There was a discussion on another thread about studying nature to find beauty in God’s creation, and thereby stand more in awe of God, and give him glory and honor (which I totally agree with). But I got to thinking about it more and went down this rather strange path of questions:
  • If a tree fell in the forest, and no one was there to hear it, did it make a sound?
  • If you threw a party, and no one came, was there really a party?
  • If Michelangelo had been stranded on a desert island, and painted his “Sistene Chapel” scenes where no one would ever see them or find them, would they have been great art?
[Aside: there is a scientific viewpoint that says that reality doesn’t actually become real (it is only potentially real) until it is observed by an intelligent agent such as man…which also relates to the above questions.]

and finally…
  • If God created the universe, but had not created man, would there be beauty in the universe? Does beauty need an observer to actually be real?
It is said that all creation sings forth the glory of God. Which is true. In general, the “natures” of creatures are such that they do God’s will (without question since they have no free-will). But if no one is there to see it and appreciate it, is it really there? Does it actually exist?
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I think the best answer to such hypotheticals is, “What tree?” The questioner has posited a hypothetical tree and then asks, “What will this hypothetical tree do?” This is like asking, “If pigs could fly how high would they go?” Who knows? Hypothetical trees and pigs can do almost anything.
 
liquidpele said:
An atheist rejects things without proof. As there is no absolute proof of God, God gets rejected as well.
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I’m not sure what absolute proof of anything entails. We don’t have to go too crazy with our skepticism or prescribe any standard for what people ought to believe. I think it is enough to want to have good reasons for our beliefs. Doesn’t everyone? But I’m with you in that I don’t think there is good reason to believe in God.
 
ricmat said:
But do you think God would have actually created a beautiful universe strictly for his own enjoyment?
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You can ask HIM when you get there but since God is all perfect, he contains all beauty within Himself, Beatific Vision is HE. God Bless. Memaw
 
Memaw said:
You can ask HIM when you get there but since God is all perfect, he contains all beauty within Himself, Beatific Vision is HE. God Bless. Memaw
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Right. But the universe is not the beatific vision. God didn’t need it for himself. God created the universe for us.
 
ricmat said:
Right. But the universe is not the beatific vision. God didn’t need it for himself. God created the universe for us.
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Reread your question!!, You asked if God would have created a beautiful universe for HIS own enjoyment. My point was that God IS Beauty and HE doesn’t need beauty. He did it for us, to show us HIS power and intelligence. I never said the universe was the Beatific Vision, I said GOD is. God Bless, Memaw
 
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