I’ve been enjoy­ing the thread of dis­cus­sion started at Al Bain’s blog — Para­dox­i­cally Speak­ing — and the fol­low up threads on Simone’s… here, here, here, and here.

They’re about a favourite topic of mine — objec­tiv­ity and absolutes — par­tic­u­larly with rela­tion to aes­thet­ics and if I’m under­stand­ing cor­rectly how we can objec­tively define beauty based on the promise of the new creation.

Simone’s gam­bit in her first com­ment essen­tially nailed her def­i­n­i­tion to the prover­bial mast…

“Some­thing is beau­ti­ful if we sense (see/hear etc) in it some­thing that reminds us of some­thing we’ll know in eternity.”

I’m not sure I com­pletely buy in to this argu­ment. I think there’s beauty in things that don’t last, but it’s a tem­po­ral beauty (obvi­ously) and there’s some­thing about the fleet­ing moment that can be appre­ci­ated. Sin­gu­lar­ity is beau­ti­ful in a way that eter­nity can not be. I used the exam­ple of sport in par­tic­u­lar. Because I don’t know/think that sport will be a huge part of the new cre­ation, and while it should reflect hon­our and the best parts of human nature that will carry over into heaven — it actu­ally is fun for rea­sons that are less eter­nal. The thrill of com­pe­ti­tion. The adren­a­lin rush that comes with a tight fin­ish. A well exe­cuted play. These things are a mean­ing­less chas­ing after the wind in the eter­nal scheme of things.

Will we all have equal ath­letic prowess in the new cre­ation? I guess I’ve always just assumed so — but I haven’t done much thought on the matter.

If we’re all super ath­letes then sport is going to be a frus­trat­ing blend of per­fect attack against per­fect defence. An irre­sistible force against an immov­able object. How bor­ing. There’ll be no win­ning. So what’s the point. This is why I’m not wor­ried if they play Rugby in heaven — it seems fit­ting. Rugby is full of bor­ing stalemates.

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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