"It ministered to me" as justification for bad art

[Mr. Bultitude]

My pastor said to me in an email:

If beauty is relative, how then can the acid of relativism when put at the center of any discussion of beauty be prevented from corroding truth and goodness? Interesting that any terrible music offered up by Christians is justified by "well, it ministered to me" but we would never accept someone saying that he has a right to heresy because it ministered to him. Likewise, someone may justify some immoral act on the basis of it somehow blessing, ministering, or serving him but we would never accept that justification for the act. And yet, "I like it" or "it ministers to me" is the ultimate conversation stopper when it comes to aesthetic evaluation of music or visual arts.

This comes from a wider discussion of beauty/aesthetics as reflections of the inherent and objective beauty of God and his revelation. The comparison between bad music and heresy/immorality seems jarring to me though. What do you make of it? Is it warranted?

 

[py3ak]

I think two things are equally obvious. One is that aesthetics are not entirely subjective. The other is that demonstrating their objectivity is absurdly difficult.

What we must not do is fall into the pride of aestheticism. C.S. Lewis speaks extremely well on this subject in Christian Reflections:

If any real disagreement remains between us, I anticipate that it will be about my third point—about the distinction there drawn between the real spiritual evil carried or betrayed in a book and mere faults of taste. And on this subject I confess that my critics can present me with a very puzzling dilemma. They can ask me whether the statement, 'This is tawdry writing', is an objective statement describing something bad in a book and capable of being true or false, or whether it is merely a statement about the speaker's own feelings—different in form, but fundamentally the same, as the proposition 'I don't like oysters.' If I choose the latter, then most criticism becomes purely subjective—which I don't want. If I choose the former then they can ask me, 'What are these qualities in a book which you admit to be in some sense good and bad but which, you keep on warning us, are not "really" or "spiritually" good and bad? Is there a kind of good which not good? Is there any good that is not pleasing to God or any bad which is not hateful to Him?' And if you press me along these lines I end in doubts. But I will not get rid of those doubts by falsifying the little light I already have. That little light seems to compel me to say that there are two kinds of good and bad. The first, such as virtue and vice or love and hatred, besides being good or bad themselves make the possessor good or bad. The second do not. They include such things as physical beauty or ugliness, the possession or lack of a sense of humour, strength or weakness, pleasure or pain. But the two most relevant for us are the two I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, conjugal eros (as distinct from agape, which, of course, is a good of the first class) and physical cleanliness. Surely we have all met people who said, indeed, that the latter was next to godliness, but whose unconscious attitude made it a part of godliness, and no small part? And surely we agree that any good of this second class, however good on its own level, becomes an enemy when it thus assumes demonic pretensions and erects itself into a quasi-spiritual value. As M. de Rougemont has recently told us, the conjugal eros 'ceases to be a devil only when it ceases to be a god'. My whole contention is that in literature, in addition to the spiritual good and evil which it carries, there is also a good and evil of this second class, a properly cultural or literary good and evil, which must not be allowed to masquerade as good and evil of the first class. And I shall feel really happy about all the minor differences between my critics and me when I find in them some recognition of this danger—some admission that they and I, and all of the like education, are daily tempted to a kind of idolatry.
I am not pretending to know how this baffling phenomenon—the two kinds or levels of good and evil—is to be fitted into a consistent philosophy of values. But it is one thing to be unable to explain a phenomenon, another to ignore it. And I admit that all of these lower goods ought to be encouraged, that, as pedagogues, it is our duty to try to make our pupils happy and beautiful, to give them cleanly habits and good taste; and the discharge of that duty is, of course, a good of the first class. I will admit, too, that evils of this second class are often the result and symptom of real spiritual evil; dirty finger-nails, a sluggish liver, boredom, and a bad English style, may often in a given case result from disobedience, laziness, arrogance, or intemperance. But they may also result from poverty or other misfortune. They may even result from virtue. The man's ears may be unwashed behind or his English style borrowed from the jargon of the daily press, because he has given to good works the time and every which others use to acquire elegant habits or good language. Gregory the Great, I believe vaunted the barbarity of his style. Our Lord ate with unwashed hands.
I am stating, not solving, a problem. If my critics want to continue the discussion I think they can do so most usefully by taking it right away from literature and the arts to some other of these mysterious 'lower goods'—where, probably, all our minds will work more coolly. I should welcome an essay from Brother Every or Mr Bethell on conjugal eros or personal cleanliness. My dilemma about literature is that I admit bad taste to be, in some sense, 'a bad thing', but do not think it per se 'evil'. My critics will probably say the same of physical dirt. If we could thrash the problem out on the neutral ground of clean and dirty fingers, we might return to the battlefield of literature with new lights.
I hope it is now unnecessary to point out that in denying 'taste' to be a spiritual value, I am not for a moment suggesting, as Mr Bethell thought, that it comes 'under God's arbitrary condemnation'. I enjoyed my breakfast this morning, and I think that was a good thing and do not think it condemned by God. But I do not think myself a good man for enjoying it. The distinction does not seem to me a very fine one.

There can be no rational doubt that some things are better than others - but in daily reality refined aesthetics often have no connection with proper morality or genuine spirituality, and vice versa. The person who prefers country music to grand motets cannot be accused of cultivated musical preferences; he is not therefore a bad man. And Christianity will largely be peopled with those of unrefined taste and inelegant habits - not many wise or noble, after all, are called.

But to speak more to your pastor's point, of course the fact that someone has received a blessing does not put the channel of blessing out of reach of criticism. The end does not justify the means.

 

[Hamalas]

As Ruben rightly points out this is a sticky question. Perhaps one key is to acknowledge at the outset (along with the ancient Greeks and Hebrews) that there are objective standards for truth, goodness, and beauty. Once we reject aesthetic relativism (along with its ugly twin moral relativism) we have a foundation on which to contend that this or that cultural work (be it music, literature, sculpture, painting, theatre, etc...) is good, bad, or ugly. We won't always agree but we can agree that we are talking about something real and something significant. I would compare it to the way in which we on this board discuss theology; we believe that these are matters of objective value which are worth consideration while still recognizing that the answers to our questions are rarely clear-cut and some level of diversity and disagreement are inevitable (at least in this life). Just my two cents.

 

[Mr. Bultitude]

Thank you both. I think what I'm having difficulty with is that heresy and immorality are incapable of effectively "ministering to" someone, whereas bad art is not. Or is that untrue?

 

[py3ak]

Is it the badness of a musically awful hymn, say, that makes it profitable to someone? What spiritual profit there is, is found in the words. Now the badness may be something that lowers a barrier to someone listening, if bad music is their preference; but the badness itself isn't intrinsically profitable. Aesthetic values can be irrelevant or distracting or supportive, and that varies to some extent from individual to individual; but they are not a means of grace themselves.

Heresy and immorality do not directly encourage or edify someone: and yet of course sometimes the truth is understood more clearly when set in contrast to its denial, or uprightness is seen as more beautiful when contrasted with the degradation of immorality. But this is due, if I may use the term, to God's ingenuity, not to the natural and immediate tendency of error and corruption. Thus the fact that God works all things together for good to those whom he has loved and called most emphatically does not give any warrant for calling evil good, even if God can make what is in itself an evil a good to me by virtue of his overruling providence.

 

[Peairtach]

Thank you both. I think what I'm having difficulty with is that heresy and immorality are incapable of effectively "ministering to" someone, whereas bad art is not. Or is that untrue?

If the hymns and musical instruments are left outside the church door and a cappella psalmody is followed, bad hymns and bad instrumentation will not be imposed upon unwilling church goers, thus not imposing on either their liberty of conscience or their aesthetic sensibilities.

Having said that, there are some congregations that do a better job of singing the Psalms a cappella than others.

But we don't read in Scripture that that professional quality singing is necessarily what the Lord is looking for, but reasonably adequate congregational
/"community" singing.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2

 

[CuriousNdenver]

I think what I'm having difficulty with is that heresy and immorality are incapable of effectively "ministering to" someone, whereas bad art is not. Or is that untrue?

God used heresy in my life to shock me into seeing that the church I was in was teaching errors. That drove me to my Bible and I began to seek God in earnest. I was converted very soon after this. Did it minister to me? I would say 'no.' Did the Lord use even heresy for His glory and as a means of drawing me unto Himself? Yes.

Not sure about bad art. What qualifies it as bad?