S1-E2: The Good, The Beautiful and The True
S1: Theology and Imagination
E2: The Good, The Beautiful, and the True
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
(470-399BC)(428-348BC)(384-322BC)
Academic disciplines have their heroes. Western philosophy has its big three seen here.
The triad of Greek philosophers introduced and developed the idea of the good, the beautiful, and the true as transcendent properties of being. In Christian traditions, these human properties have been expressed through religious icons that educate and inspire concerning the God of the Bible. Over two millennia since their introduction, the good, the beautiful, and the true have been philosophically redeveloped into dimensions that now describe the entire spectrum of human experience. However, their expression as religious icons that educate and inspire has diminished since the Protestant Reformation. Such a diminishment is commonly referred to as iconoclasm.
Two problems are presented in iconoclasm. First, iconoclasm removes objects that educate and inspire concerning the God of the Bible. Second, it reduces the work of the Holy Spirit in the artisan who creates icons, and in the individual, who is educated and inspired by them. In this blog, I will discuss the ways the Holy Spirit works in an Old Testament artisan to create religious icons that can educate and inspire postmodernists today about the God of the Bible.
King David wrote, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” Undoubtedly, the second king of Israel was inspired by the visual impact of the artisan. What he gazed at was good, beautiful, and true.
The story of Bezalel and Oholiab highlights the three expressions that David gaze at: “See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him [Oholiab implied] with the Spirit of God, with wisdom [the good], with understanding [the beautiful], with knowledge [the true] and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.”
Such individuals tend to look through icons, not at them. In doing so, they often see that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
In this blog, I will discuss the ways the Holy Spirit works in an Old Testament artisan to create religious icons that can educate and inspire postmodernists today about the God of the Bible.
The first time Bezalel and Oholiab are mentioned in Scripture is at the moment they are filled with the Holy Spirit. Bezalel and Oholiab were likely bricklayers making bricks with and without straw, working alongside the other able-bodied men enslaved in Egypt. In this capacity, it is quite probable that both men were or became practical in their work. However, the leap from bricklayer to artisan is considerable, even with access to the Egyptian resources of gold, silver, and other precious material used in the tabernacle.
Several issues in the story of Bezalel and Oholiab help address the problem. First, both men had a posture of willingness. Second, their hearts were stirred by the Holy Spirit, showing an internal and spiritual work in them. Third, they were given wisdom, understanding, and knowledge by the Holy Spirit not to exhort or edify people through speech but through craftsmanship. Fourth, these abilities from the Holy Spirit resulted in the dexterous work of the tabernacle and its furnishings. Fifth, though Bezalel and Oholiab were utterly dependent on the infilling of the Holy Spirit, they did not lose their independence. Sixth, though specific instructions were given for the creation of the tabernacle, other details were left to the imagination of Bezalel and Oholiab. Seventh, and probably the most important, both men were the first people in the Old Testament referred to as being filled with the Holy Spirit who were not classified as prophets, priests, or kings.
Religious icons are important for postmodernists in their education and inspiration about the God of the Bible.
Reading the story of Bezalel and Oholiab to illustrate a theological idea about the Holy Spirit may cause one to fail to grasp a fuller theological meaning conveyed by the text.
There is more in the story than clever craftSmanship or a simplified theological idea about the Holy Spirit.
Biblical stories invite us to accept them as our story. We do not examine them merely to extract a theological principle.[8] How utterly boring. The reader must not throw away the husk in order to get to the kernel of wheat, or doctrinal idea. The husk is important for a fuller theological meaning.
An icon can be likened to the husk that educates and inspires about the God of the Bible, while God himself is the kernel of wheat. Similar to Orthodox tradition, postmodernists tend to look through icons, or the husk, instead of at them. They seem to intuitively know the husk is not the exact representation of God but a means to the end. Again, David wrote that he wanted to seek the Lord by gazing at the visual objects created by artisans.
Without these objects, David’s search would be aimless.
In many ways, iconoclasm from the Protestant Reformation wanted to separate the kernel from the husk because icon itself had become the focus, and in many cases, an alleged means of redemption. Instead of freeing the God of the Bible from the indulgent focus on icons, the Reformation dispatched what David calls “the beauty of the Lord.” The beauty of the Lord is something others can see.
The first thing that can be learned about the Holy Spirit’s work in the artisan is that God highly values craftspeople and their crafts.
Martin Luther, one of the leaders in the Protestant Reformation wrote, “The idea that service to God should have only to do with a church altar, singing, reading, sacrifice, and the like is without a doubt the worst trick of the devil…The whole world could abound with the services to the Lord…not only churches but also in the home, kitchen, workshop, field.”
If the story of Bezalel and Oholiab invites readers to accept it as their own story, Luther is correct. The artisan that creates visual icons capturing the good, the beautiful, and the true of the Lord is equally important to the one who verbally teaches about the Lord.
Consequently, the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament artisan is not to glorify the craftsman, the craft, or to make the service of the artisan more or less esteemed than other forms of service. It is to create the good, the beautiful, and the true of the Lord for others who seek the God of the Bible.
Such a perspective is attractive to postmodernists because of the value they place on inclusion and equality.
The second thing that can be learned is the cooperative nature between the artisan and the Holy Spirit.
A similar significance is seen in Solomon. God gave the third king of Israel breadth of mind to speak 3000 proverbs, compose 1005 songs, have a strong grasp of dendrology, zoology, ornithology, entomology, and ichthyology. As a result, people from all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world.
The reader can only assume based on the cooperative nature of the Holy Spirit and their human experience that Bezalel and Oholiab applied themselves in learning all they could through hard work. The Holy Spirit gave them wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to produce icons that reflected the good, the beautiful, and the true, educating and inspiring others about God. To assume they woke from their sleep one morning with certain skills and abilities is an argument from silence. It would be safe to assume the Holy Spirit “broadened,” like with Solomon, their bricklayer skills and abilities. Consequently, the work of the Holy Spirit in the artisan builds on something that pre-exists to create the visible beauty of the Lord for others who seek the God of the Bible. If so, their bricklaying abilities must have been admirable.
The fourth thing that can be learned about the work of the Holy Spirit complements the cooperative nature of His work in the use of human imagination to produce typological work.
Typology is more than mere symbolism. Meaning is not arbitrarily associated but it is present because the principles of God’s salvation are eternal. Those principles were the same for Israel as in the cross and resurrection of Christ. As such, the meaning of the tabernacle was a bold statement of “God with us”.[14] It is doubtful that Bezalel and Oholiab comprehended the weight of responsibility that lay on their shoulders. The tabernacle displayed many theological themes in its construction and function. Nevertheless, everything they created as icon was the lens for ‘God with us.’
Consequently, the work of the Holy Spirit in the artisan builds on something that pre-exists to create the visible beauty of the Lord for others who seek the God of the Bible.
Similar to the definition of faith in the Book of Hebrews, imagination is the ability to see something unseen rooted squarely in the human experience of the Holy Spirit. One can only speculate on the lack of comparable images Bezalel and Oholiab had to work with in order to create icons that educate and inspire others about God. The best way to describe the immense responsibility on the artisans as they were filled with the Holy Spirit is something that J. R. R. Tolkien said was “arresting strangeness”. Such a phrase distances itself from an intellectual definition offered by psychology, a fantastical definition offered by writers of fiction, and a highly complex definition offered by neurology. Arresting strangeness is a poetic way of describing the interacting work of the Holy Spirit with the artisan who probably had very few comparable resources.
Similar to the definition of faith in the Book of Hebrews, imagination is the ability to see something unseen rooted squarely in the human experience of the Holy Spirit.
For example, Egypt was populated by religious pluralism, as indicated in its architecture and ritual, but was there anything like the tabernacle, its function, or its meaning? Consequently, the tabernacle has a sense of strangeness about it. Imagination was a necessary human characteristic for Bezalel and Oholiab in their work.
Therefore, it is not difficult for the reader to assume that Bezalel and Oholiab were arrested in their hearts as the Holy Spirit inspired their imagination to create iconic work that would inspire and educate others about the God of the Bible.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the story of Bezalel and Oholiab has the potential to educate and inspire postmodernists about the God of the Bible. Both men were included and valued as artisans and were equally important in their service to God as any priest, king, or prophet. Value was attributed to them by the Holy Spirit, as indicated by the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding He gave them. As a result, Bezalel and Oholiab created icons as the good, the beautiful, and the true.
Imagination was a necessary human characteristic for Bezalel and Oholiab in their work.
The cooperative nature of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Bezalel and Oholiab point to an internal human experience rather than exterior qualifications. Any exterior cultural markers do not qualify an individual in the Holy Spirit’s cooperative nature. As such, inclusiveness and equality become synonymous with a willing heart. Postmodernism tends to shy away from exterior cultural markers as qualifying characteristics. Gender, age, race, marital and educational status do not qualify an individual for the cooperative nature of the Holy Spirit beyond a willing heart.
Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit builds on elements of skill and ability that pre-exist in a person. The skills that Bezalel and Oholiab developed through toil coupled with the willingness of their hearts to serve, when empowered by the filling of the Holy Spirit, created a work that glorified God in a way that they could not have accomplished on their own. Whatever the postmodernist has in his or her heart, the Holy Spirit will arrest it with strangeness by employing the human characteristic of imagination. As a result, authenticity that postmodernists look for will not be difficult to find in individuals who are filled with the Holy Spirit. Through the work of Spirit-filled artisans, others may see that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
The cooperative nature of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Bezalel and Oholiab point to an internal human experience rather than exterior qualifications.