Latest / Reformed Thinking / What Secondary Beauty Is—and Why It Is Not True Virtue | Jonathan Edwards

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What Secondary Beauty Is—and Why It Is Not True Virtue | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  You know, usually when you go to the eye doctor, there is this
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  expectation of precision, like like engineering.
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  You sit in the chair and they slide that heavy metal machine
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  in front of your face. They flip the lenses and it is a
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  binary choice, better or worse, number one or number.
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  Two. Yeah, it is very
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  straightforward. It is clean.
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  We like things to be visible, you know, to be categorized.
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  We want to know precisely what we are looking at.
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  But then, then you step into the world of human morality, into
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  the realm of what makes a person truly good, and suddenly that
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  lens machine is broken. We are looking at a diagnostic
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  landscape that is well, it is just murky.
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  It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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  I mean, the letters on the wall are no longer just blurry or
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  sharp. They they seem to change
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  depending on who is reading them.
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  Yeah. Welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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  Today we are taking a deep dive into a very specific, highly
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  influential text by Jonathan Edwards is titled The Nature of
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  True Virtue. But we are zeroing in on one
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  particular section that deals with the concept he calls the
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  secondary and inferior kind of beauty.
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  Our mission today, the central mystery we want to solve with
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  you, the listener, is this. Why do we find things beautiful?
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  And maybe a bigger question, does having good taste in art or
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  music or architecture makes someone a morally good person?
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  We blur those lines all the time in our culture, don't we?
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  Oh, absolutely. We look at someone who creates
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  breathtaking art or, you know, someone who can organize a
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  flawless charity event, and we just assume they must possess a
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  beautiful soul. But Edwards puts up a massive
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  stop sign right here. Yeah, he really does.
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  He forces us to separate our aesthetic reflexes from our
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  moral judgments. He sets out to prove that the
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  mechanism inside us that appreciates a perfect sunset or
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  a brilliant piece of music is completely different from the
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  mechanism that constitutes true moral goodness.
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  I want to take our time with this.
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  We need to lay out the architecture of his argument
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  carefully, because once you see the world through his
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  categorization, well, you start noticing these divisions
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  everywhere. You really do.
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  He starts by splitting beauty into two entirely distinct
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  categories, primary beauty and secondary beauty.
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  Let us start with primary beauty.
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  For Edwards, primary beauty is spiritual.
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  It is moral. He defines it as the union of a
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  heart to being. In general, it is the moral
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  amiableness of spiritual beings who possess understanding and
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  will. Let us pause right there,
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  because being in general is a massive concept.
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  When I hear that phrase, it feels like a philosophical wall
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  of text. It does sound intimidating at
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  first. Let me.
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  See if I can reason this out. If being just means existence or
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  reality, then being in general encompasses everything that
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  exists. But obviously not everything
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  possesses the same amount of reality.
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  I mean God possesses infinite existence.
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  That is the core of it, Yeah. God is the ultimate being.
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  He is the source of all other being.
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  So by extension, primary beauty is a love and benevolence toward
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  all creation in proportion to its worth.
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  But it must be anchored in the highest being.
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  Edwards calls this a cordial agreement.
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  Cordial meaning an agreement of the heart.
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  If a person's heart is united and loved to God and
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  subsequently to others based on their relationship to God, that
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  is primary beauty. That is true virtue.
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  It requires A conscious choice and active disposition of
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  benevolence. So it is an active, willing
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  posture. Exactly.
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  A person has to have an understanding and they have to
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  will their heart toward the good of another.
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  That makes sense. But then we have this other
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  category, secondary beauty, which he also calls inferior or
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  natural beauty. This is where things get
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  fascinating because this type of beauty is not peculiar to
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  spiritual beings, it is found in inanimate things.
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  Yes, secondary beauty consists of mutual consent, agreement,
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  regularity, proportion and symmetry, right?
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  It is the physical harmony of things fitting together
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  properly. Edwards is adamant about this.
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  These two types of beauty are entirely distinct.
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  They share nothing of the same nature, even though you know we
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  use the word beauty to describe both of them.
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  Let me offer an analogy to help clarify the gap between these
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  two. Think about the difference
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  between admiring the sleek, symmetrical design of a modern
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  smartphone versus admiring a person who selflessly gives
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  their life to save a stranger. Oh, I follow the logic there.
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  Let us break that down a bit. More Well, when you look at the
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  smartphone, you're admiring secondary beauty.
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  The glass meets the metal seamlessly.
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  The icons on the screen are evenly spaced.
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  The weight of it in your hand feels balanced.
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  It is very satisfying to hold. Yeah, it is regular.
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  It ossesses proportion, but the phone does not have a will, it
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  does not have a heart. It is just matter arranged in a
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  highly agreeable way. While the person jumping on a
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  grenade to save a stranger. I mean, that action might be
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  physically horrifying to witness, right?
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  It might be loud, chaotic, and destructive.
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  There is no physical symmetry or pleasing proportion to the event
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  itself. Yet we look at that selfless act
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  and we recognize it as a beautiful thing to do.
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  We recognize the primary beauty. We see the moral amiableness,
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  the union of that person's heart to the well-being of others.
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  The problem arises when we look at the smartphone or a painting
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  or a building, and we trick ourselves into thinking that the
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  physical symmetry carries some sort of moral weight.
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  We think the designer of the phone must be a virtuous person
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  simply because they understand symmetry.
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  Which naturally leads us to ask about the mechanics.
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  If secondary beauty applies to physical inanimate objects, what
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  are the actual rules that make those objects beautiful to our
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  eyes? That is a great question.
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  If it is not moral goodness causing the beauty, what is the
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  math behind our appreciation? Well, let's investigate the
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  math. Edwards leans heavily on a
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  concept here from a philosopher named Francis Hutchison.
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  The phrase he brings into the discussion is uniformity in the
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  midst of variety. Uniformity in the midst of
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  variety. Yeah.
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  Edwards argues that the greater the variety of things that
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  mutually agree with one another, while the greater the beauty.
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  OK, we appreciate it when different distinct elements
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  somehow come together to form a cohesive, agreeable whole.
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  Let me reason through why variety is necessary there.
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  If we just wanted uniformity, we would just stare at a blank
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  white wall. Right.
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  Blank wall is perfectly uniform, but it is not beautiful, it is
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  boring. The mind needs variety to have
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  something to process. That is a sharp distinction.
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  Uniformity without variety provides no stimulus.
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  Variety without uniformity is just chaos.
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  Yeah, if I throw a handful of random debris on the floor, it
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  has infinite variety but no uniformity.
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  The mind cannot find any pattern, so it rejects it as
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  ugly. The magic happens when the mind
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  perceives distinct, varied things coming together under a
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  unified rule. He gives tangible examples in
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  the text, things we see every day.
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  He talks about the sides of a square or an equilateral
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  triangle. Think about a square.
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  You have 4 distinct lines and four distinct angles.
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  That constitutes the variety, but they're all perfectly equal
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  to one another. That constitutes the uniformity.
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  The mind perceives those 4 distinct things agreeing
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  perfectly and it registers as beautiful.
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  He also mentions the periphery of a circle.
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  Every single point on the outside of the circle is the
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  exact same distance from the center.
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  It is an infinite variety of points, but an absolute
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  uniformity of distance. That's a great.
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  Visual. He brings up the spots on a
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  chess board to the alternating colors, the consistent
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  dimensions, the equal distances of the squares.
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  It is highly satisfying to look at.
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  And he scales it up beyond basic geometry.
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  He mentions the figures on a piece of chintz or brocade.
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  You know, the repeating interlocking patterns on fabric.
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  He points to the proportions of the human face, the symmetry of
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  our features. He even applies this to sound,
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  mentioning the harmonious, sweet mutual consent of the various
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  notes in a melodious tune. So this is not just visual.
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  No. When multiple different notes
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  are struck at once, but their vibrational frequencies align in
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  a mathematical ratio, we hear harmony, variety in the notes,
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  uniformity in the mathematical ratio.
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  I want to push back on this a little bit, or at least ask a
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  functional question about everyday objects.
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  Yeah. What about when things are just
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  useful because you can have something that isn't perfectly
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  symmetical, metrical, but it does its job incredibly well?
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  Does Edwards account for utility?
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  Do we find things beautiful just because they work?
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  He addresses utility actually, and his answer is quite elegant.
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  He states that the visible fitness of a thing to its use is
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  not a different kind of beauty, it is just another form of
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  proportion. Utility is a type of agreement.
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  How does utility function as an agreement?
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  He describes it as the fitness of A cause to a visibly designed
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  effect. When you see a tool that is
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  perfectly shaped for the job it needs to do, your mind
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  recognizes the agreement between the physical object and its
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  intended purpose. OK.
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  I think I see where you're going.
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  The example he offers is fitting A mortise to its Tenon in
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  woodworking for. Anyone who hasn't done
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  woodworking, A mortise is a cavity or a hole cut into a
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  piece of wood, and a Tenon is a projecting piece of wood
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  designed to fit Florida State into that specific hole.
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  Right, and when you slide the Tenon into the mortise and they
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  lock together without any gaps, it is immensely satisfying.
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  The two distinct pieces of wood agree with one another
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  perfectly. Their forms consent to one
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  another. So utility is just uniformity
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  applied to action. The form of the tool agrees with
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  the required action of the task. Edwards extrapolates this
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  further. He talks about what happens when
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  you look at an ingenious, complicated machine.
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  He says there is a double beauty at play and complex mechanisms.
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  A double beauty. Let me think about that.
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  If we are looking at something like a complex mechanical watch,
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  we have hundreds of tiny pieces. You were saying there are two
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  layers of agreement happening at the same time.
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  Yes. First there is the agreement of
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  all the various parts to the designed end.
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  The gears, the springs, the levers, they are all fitted to
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  make the hands on the watch face move at a precise speed.
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  Every piece is subordinated to that final goal.
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  That is the first layer of beauty.
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  Wait, how can parts agree with each other if they do completely
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  different things? A coiled spring does not do the
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  same thing as a tooth gear. They look different and they act
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  differently. How is there agreement between
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  them? They agree by not impeding each
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  other and by harmonizing their distinct functions toward the
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  final end. Because they all agree with that
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  final intended effect, they consequently all agree with one
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  another. Oh I see, they are united in a
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  common purpose. The gear accepts the tension of
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  the spring perfectly. The hand accepts the rotation of
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  the gear perfectly. So you have parts agreeing with
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  the whole and parts agreeing with each other.
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  It is a compounding effect of uniformity in variety.
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  We have established that our brains love patterns, symmetry,
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  perfectly fitted joints and complex machinery working in
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  harmony, but this raises an enormous cosmic question.
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  It really does. If this secondary beauty is just
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  physical, if it is just math, geometry, and structural ratios,
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  why did God create it this way? Why does the universe care?
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  If a square has equal sides, why do we care?
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  That is the pivotal transition in the argument.
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  Edwards addresses the theological rationale behind all
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  this math and symmetry. He argues that God created this
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  mutual agreement in physical things to be an image or a
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  shadow of true spiritual beauty. A shadow.
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  Remember, true primary beauty is the cordial union of spiritual
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  beings, hearts united in love to God and to one another.
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  God designed the physical universe so that when diverse
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  physical things become one through uniformity, like the
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  notes of a chord or the sides of a square, it physically mirrors
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  that spiritual reality. So the physical world is acting
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  out. A play about the spiritual
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  world. The material universe is a
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  constant, silent metaphor for the union of hearts.
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  Edwards notes that it pleases God to establish analogies in
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  his works. He points out that God does this
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  everywhere. He forms brutes, you know,
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  animals, an analogy to mankind. He forms plants, an analogy to
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  animals with respect to how they generate and receive nutrition.
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  He creates these echoing patterns across different
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  domains of creation. God is rhyming with Himself.
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  He establishes a pattern in the spiritual realm, and then he
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  rhymes that pattern in the physical realm.
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  He has constituted the external physical world an analogy to the
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  spiritual world. So when we observe an agreement
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  of different things in form or measure, it appears beautiful to
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  us because it is an image of that higher spiritual consent of
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  minds. That's fascinating.
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  The conquered of a melodious tune is beautiful because it
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  represents the sweet union of a Society of intelligent beings,
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  perfectly united and benevolent agreement of heart.
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  I am tracking with this secondary beauty.
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  Is is just a reflection? But I have to ask, if it is just
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  a shadow, does it have any practical spiritual benefit for
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  the observer, or is it just a neat piece of cosmic trivia?
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  Good question. I mean, if I look at a beautiful
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  sunset, does that actually make me a better person?
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  It has a specific benefit, but Edwards adds A crucial caveat.
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  He states that experiencing the secondary beauty, listening to a
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  stunning piece of music, or looking at the beauty of nature
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  can dispose a person toward divine love and enliven their
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  sense of spirit virtual beauty, but only if their hearts are
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  already under the influence of a truly virtuous temper.
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  So the shadow does not create the virtue.
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  It does not. The music assists and enlivens
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  the virtue that is already present.
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  If a person already possesses that primary cordial beauty,
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  that love for God, then seeing the shadow of it in nature can
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  stir up those affections. It acts as a reminder, right?
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  But the shadow cannot plant the seed of true virtue where none
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  exists. A corrupt heart can look at a
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  sunset and feel aesthetic pleasure, but it will not
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  magically generate love for God. That distinction changes how we
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  view art entirely and knowing why it was created to be this
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  shadow, this analogy leads us to ask how we actually process this
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  beauty in our daily lives. Yes, because let us be honest,
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  when I am listening to a great piece of music, I am not
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  consciously thinking, ah yes, this melody is a perfect shadow
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  of the cordial union of spiritual beings.
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  I'm just tapping my foot and enjoying the sound.
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  Edwards recognizes that reality. Actually, this brings us to one
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  of his most fascinating arguments.
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  Our appreciation of secondary beauty is caused by an instinct.
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  It is a law of nature fixed by God.
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  It is not caused by our intellectual understanding of
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  the proportions or the spiritual analogies.
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  It operates entirely on the subconscious level.
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  Completely. Edwards uses the musical example
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  to make this point. A person can be moved to tears
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  by the harmony of a tune, and yet they might know absolutely
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  nothing about the mathematical adjustments of the notes that
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  create that harmony. They do not need to know the
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  physics. They do not need to know that an
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  octave is a one to two vibration ratio.
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  They do not need to know that a perfect fifth is a two to three
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  ratio. Right.
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  They do not even need to know that sound travels via
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  vibrations in the air, or how the auditory nerve translates
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  those vibrations into electrical signals in the brain.
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  They are totally ignorant of the mechanic, yet they experience
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  the full weight of the beauty. Here is where I like to think
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  about food. It is like eating an incredible
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  meal prepared by a master chef. You sit down, you take a bite of
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  this perfectly seared steak and your eyes just roll back in your
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  head. It is delicious, but you do not
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  need to understand the chemical reactions happening to the
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  sugars and proteins when the meat hits the hot pan.
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  You do not need to know the precise measurements of the
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  ingredients the chef used. The pleasure is immediate.
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  Yes, exactly it. Completely bypasses the
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  intellect. You taste it and your body says
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  yes, this is good. God has established a law of
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  nature and instinct that dictates when these proportions
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  are present, the human mind will experience pleasure.
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  You do not have to calculate the math.
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  It is an automatic reflex granted by the Creator.
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  Edwards contrasts as heavily with primary beauty.
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  The contrast is vital for his whole thesis, with primary
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  beauty, spiritual beauty, perceiving the union as the
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  pleasure. It requires the intellect.
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  It requires a person to see the moral amiableness and
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  consciously agree with it. It is an immediate view of the
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  thing itself, but with secondary beauty.
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  You are not appreciating the spiritual reality, you are just
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  enjoying the instinctual pleasure granted by the
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  established law of nature. Let us look at the variables
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  here, because not all secondary beauty hits us with the same
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  force. Sometimes we see a pattern and
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  think that is nice, and other times we see a pattern and we
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  are completely awestruck. Sure.
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  What are the levers that amplify our experience of secondary
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  beauty? Edwards identifies two major
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  conditions that amplify this effect, scale and strictness of
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  connection. Let us examine scale first.
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  He notes that all other things being equal, uniformity and
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  proportion affect the mind far more when they're found in
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  objects of considerable magnitude.
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  So a larger scale creates a stronger aesthetic impact.
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  Yes, or at least a more significant subject matter is
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  more striking. The example he provides is the
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  human body. The perfect symmetry of a human
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  face or body hits the mind with much more force than the
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  symmetry of a small flower. We are naturally wired to notice
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  each other. The stakes are higher when
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  looking at another human being than when looking at a
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  dandelion. He takes the concept of scale
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  even further. He argues that the order and
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  uniformity of the entire solar system is vastly more impressive
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  than the same amount of order found in a single tree.
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  That makes sense. A grand towering palace is more
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  pleasing to look at than a tiny, well proportioned toy house
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  built for a child. The magnitude of the object
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  amplifies the weight of the beauty we perceive.
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  That covers scale. What about connection?
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  How does that work as a variable?
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  Connection is about how closely related the agreeing parts are
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  to one another. Argues that uniformity only
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  really works if there is a relationship connecting the
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  things together. Give me an example of.
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  That well, if you have a bunch. Of uniform identical pillars
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  scattered randomly across distant fields, miles apart from
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  each other. They offer no real beauty
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  because your eye. Cannot take them in together.
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  They are not collaborating on anything, they are just isolated
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  objects. But if you take.
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  Those exact same pillars and arrange them in a single row
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  along the facade of a building. Suddenly they possess immense
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  beauty away. The strictness of their
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  connection, the relation to the same structure makes their
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  uniformity visible and pleasing. They are united by their
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  proximity and their shared function.
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  This makes me wonder. About the flip side, if
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  connection amplifies beauty, does it also amplify ugliness?
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  Edwards has an interesting note about deformity in the text.
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  He points out the. Disproportion or disagreement is
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  vastly more offensive to the mind when things are closely
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  related. If you have two things that
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  look. Wildly different and
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  disproportionate, but they are located in completely different
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  cities. You do not care.
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  It does not bother you at all. But if you put those two
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  clashing disproportionate things right next to each other,
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  attached to the same object, like 2 mismatched crooked
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  pillars on the front of the house, it is jarring.
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  The closer the connection, the worse the clash feels to the
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  observer, the human mind. Desires harmony where there is
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  connection. When that expectation of harmony
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  is broken, the instinctual reflex is revulsion we have laid
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  out. These physical rules scale,
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  connection, uniformity, proportion.
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  Here is where Edwards takes a massive conceptual leap.
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  He really does. He pivots from.
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  Physical objects like pillars and solar systems.
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  And he asks how do these exact same rules apply to invisible,
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  immaterial concepts? This is where his.
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  Synthesis of ideas is remarkable.
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  He explains that secondary beauty is not restricted to
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  material things, it applies to immaterial things through the
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  exact same mechanism. OK, if uniformity and proportion
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  please the mind when observed in physical shapes, why wouldn't
• 19:57
  they please the mind when observed in spiritual or
• 20:00
  abstract concepts? What kind of immaterial?
• 20:02
  Things are we talking about here Because a thought does not have
• 20:04
  physical dimensions. You cannot measure a thought
• 20:07
  with a ruler. He provides several.
• 20:08
  Examples to ground this idea, The 1st is society, he states
• 20:12
  there is a beauty of order in society quite apart from actual
• 20:15
  moral benevolence. Think about a society where
• 20:18
  different members all hold their appointed offices, utilize their
• 20:21
  specific talents properly and everyone keeps their place and
• 20:25
  continues in their proper business like a well oiled.
• 20:27
  Machine. He compares it.
• 20:29
  Directly to architecture, a well ordered society is like a
• 20:32
  building where the strong pillars are placed, where strong
• 20:34
  pillars need to be, the square pieces of marble are in the
• 20:37
  pavement and the cornices are up top.
• 20:40
  It is structural regularity applied to human organization.
• 20:43
  Are you saying a? Society can be aesthetically
• 20:46
  beautiful and its structure, even if it is completely lacking
• 20:50
  in primary cordial beauty, even if the citizens do not actually
• 20:53
  love each other, they just go to work and follow the rules.
• 20:55
  Yes. Structural efficiency is a
• 20:58
  secondary beauty. The trains running on time is an
• 21:01
  aesthetic pleasure, not necessarily a moral one.
• 21:04
  Wow, OK. He also applies this to wisdom.
• 21:07
  He defines wisdom here as the United tendency of various
• 21:10
  thoughts and ideas to one general purpose.
• 21:12
  If a mine organized is 100 distinct thoughts to solve one
• 21:15
  problem, that is uniformity and variety.
• 21:18
  It is beautiful to witness a sharp mind at work, regardless
• 21:21
  of whether the general purpose they're working toward is
• 21:23
  actually a good one. The biggest immaterial.
• 21:25
  Concept he tackles in this section is justice.
• 21:28
  This feels like the heaviest part of the text.
• 21:30
  It is the most. Complex application of the
• 21:32
  theory. Edwards argues that justice is
• 21:35
  fundamentally a natural agreement of things in nature
• 21:38
  and measure. Let me see.
• 21:40
  If I can reason this out, if justice is an aesthetic
• 21:42
  proportion, how does that work in practice?
• 21:45
  If someone steals from me and the judge forces them to pay me
• 21:48
  back, I feel satisfied. Is Edwards arguing that my
• 21:51
  satisfaction is just the same feeling I get when a chord
• 21:54
  resolves in a song? Is it just a balancing of
• 21:57
  scales? He focuses on the.
• 21:59
  Concept of punishment and reward.
• 22:01
  If someone, out of malice does evil to others, justice dictates
• 22:05
  that they should receive evil in return in proportion to the evil
• 22:08
  they committed. It is an agreement of measure.
• 22:10
  If you steal a dollar, you should not be imprisoned for
• 22:13
  life. That is disproportionate.
• 22:15
  It does not fit the. Mortise and tenant on the
• 22:17
  positive. Side rewarding love with love is
• 22:19
  proportional. It is a harmonious corresponding
• 22:22
  of one thing with another, acts answering to their occasions,
• 22:25
  the duties of children to parents, citizens to rulers.
• 22:29
  There is a natural structural fitness to these relationships.
• 22:32
  Wait. I need to push back here for the
• 22:34
  listener by categorizing justice as an inferior secondary beauty.
• 22:39
  Is Edwards downplaying justice? Is he saying justice isn't a
• 22:42
  true virtue? Because that sounds highly
• 22:45
  controversial. It is a vital.
• 22:46
  Distinction to make, and Edwards anticipates this pushback.
• 22:50
  He addresses a specific error made by a philosopher named Mr.
• 22:53
  Wollaston. Wollaston tried to resolve all
• 22:56
  virtue, all moral goodness, simply into this natural
• 22:59
  agreement with truth and proportion.
• 23:02
  He argued that if an action is proportional and fits the
• 23:04
  occasion, it is is virtuous. So Woolston is saying.
• 23:07
  That just doing the structural math makes you a good person if
• 23:10
  the punishment fits the crime, our brain treats it like a
• 23:13
  matched set of bookends, and therefore we've achieved true
• 23:15
  morality, Edwards replies. No, that is a structural beauty,
• 23:19
  but it falls completely short of true virtue.
• 23:22
  True virtue is higher. It is benevolence to being in
• 23:24
  general, Let us clearly. Define what constitutes that
• 23:27
  higher beauty, then this brings us to a showdown.
• 23:31
  True virtue versus the proportion of justice.
• 23:33
  Edwards states it. Clearly there is a higher beauty
• 23:36
  than uniformity or similarity. True virtue is the union of
• 23:41
  heart to being in general, which appears in various virtues as
• 23:44
  expressions or effects of that love, benevolence to.
• 23:47
  Being in general, loving God and loving creation.
• 23:51
  It is not a. Blind equal distribution of
• 23:53
  love. A truly virtuous person loves
• 23:56
  beings based on their dignity. How does he define?
• 23:59
  Dignity because we use that word today to mean self respect or
• 24:03
  worth in this context. He defines dignity as a
• 24:05
  combination of two things, their degree of being and their degree
• 24:09
  of virtue. The more being someone has and
• 24:11
  God possesses infinite being, and the more virtue they have,
• 24:14
  the more dignity they possess, and therefore the more a
• 24:17
  virtuous heart will naturally love them.
• 24:19
  Where does justice? Fit into that, if true virtue is
• 24:22
  this benevolent love based on dignity, Why do we care about
• 24:25
  proportional justice at all? Because of the order.
• 24:27
  Of operations, this is the crucial causal relationship.
• 24:31
  Edwards carefully explains that benevolence to being in general
• 24:34
  naturally inclines a person toward justice and proportion.
• 24:37
  Benevolence causes. The justice?
• 24:39
  Yes. The proportion we see in objects
• 24:42
  or situations, it does not 'cause the benevolence.
• 24:45
  You do not look at a balanced equation and suddenly generate A
• 24:48
  virtuous heart. It is the other way around.
• 24:51
  A truly benevolent heart, looking out at the world, wants
• 24:54
  things to be properly ordered and proportional because that
• 24:58
  serves the general good. Benevolence produces justice.
• 25:02
  I have a physics. Analogy based on the text that
• 25:04
  might help lock this in. Think about gravity.
• 25:07
  The tendency of physical bodies to attract each other in
• 25:11
  proportion to their mass is the consequence of the existence of
• 25:15
  mutual attraction. Is not the other way around?
• 25:18
  That is the right way to frame. It the mass the.
• 25:20
  Existence of the bodies and the underlying force of attraction
• 25:22
  is the root. The mathematical proportion of
• 25:24
  how they pull on each other is just the fruit.
• 25:27
  You do not get gravity because of the mass, you get the math
• 25:29
  because gravity exists. Proportion is the fruit, not the
• 25:32
  root. That means just.
• 25:34
  Affections and acts have a beauty in them that is distinct
• 25:37
  from and superior to their mere structural uniformity.
• 25:41
  A truly virtuous temper delights injustice not just because it is
• 25:44
  a neat, tidy equation, but because it is an expression of
• 25:48
  benevolence to being in general. It glorifies God and serves the
• 25:52
  general good if someone is. Just executing justice because
• 25:55
  they like the tidy equation. They're not practicing true
• 25:58
  virtue, they're just practicing aesthetic appreciation, which
• 26:02
  brings. Us to the grand illusion, the
• 26:04
  final striking conclusion Edwards leads us to.
• 26:08
  Having a disposition to approve of secondary beauty, having good
• 26:11
  taste, appreciating proportion, even appreciating structural
• 26:15
  justice has absolutely nothing to do with a truly virtuous
• 26:18
  taste. This is the hammer.
• 26:20
  Drop loving the harmony of good music, or the symmetry of an
• 26:23
  equilateral triangle, or the sleek design of a building is
• 26:26
  not holiness if appreciating. Proportion was a sign of virtue.
• 26:30
  Then a person's delight in architecture, embroidery, or
• 26:33
  geometry would increase right alongside their moral goodness.
• 26:37
  The holiest people would inherently be the greatest
• 26:39
  architects and mathematicians we know from human.
• 26:41
  History that is false. Edwards makes a very sharp
• 26:44
  observation of reality here. He points out that highly
• 26:48
  vicious, corrupt individuals often possess incredibly refined
• 26:52
  tastes in art, math, and physical beauty.
• 26:55
  History is replete. With tyrants who wept at the
• 26:57
  opera, or cruel leaders who commissioned breathtakingly
• 27:01
  beautiful palaces, right. Their appreciation for the
• 27:04
  uniformity in the midst of variety was functioning
• 27:07
  perfectly. Their secondary aesthetic reflex
• 27:09
  was sharp, but their primary moral reflex, their benevolence
• 27:13
  to being in general, was completely dead, Edwards argues.
• 27:17
  That appreciating a well proportioned building is no more
• 27:20
  a sign of moral goodness than enjoying the sweet taste of
• 27:22
  honey or the pleasant smell of a rose.
• 27:25
  It is a biological and structural instinct.
• 27:27
  It feels good to taste honey. It feels good to look at a
• 27:30
  symmetrical face. It requires absolutely no moral
• 27:33
  fortitude to enjoy either of those things.
• 27:35
  Therefore, Edwards concludes. This analysis by pointing out a
• 27:37
  catastrophic error made by many moral philosophers of his day.
• 27:42
  They mistake this natural instinctual taste for proportion
• 27:45
  and symmetry as an implanted seed of true virtue.
• 27:48
  They think that because humans naturally recoil from
• 27:50
  disproportion and ugliness, that humans naturally possess a seed
• 27:55
  of true moral goodness. They confuse the.
• 27:57
  Shadow for the substance they confuse the.
• 27:59
  Instinctual law of nature for a cordial union of the heart.
• 28:02
  By doing so, they misunderstand the nature of true virtue
• 28:06
  entirely. We have covered an.
• 28:07
  Immense amount of ground here. Let me synthesize this entire
• 28:10
  conversation for you. The listener.
• 28:12
  So we could see the whole map. We started by separating
• 28:15
  everything into two buckets. In bucket A we have primary
• 28:18
  beauty, true virtue, the cordial union of the heart toward God
• 28:22
  and being in general. In bucket B we have secondary
• 28:25
  beauty, natural inferior beauty based on uniformity, proportion
• 28:31
  and physical agreement. That is a helpful way.
• 28:33
  To summarize it, we saw that bucket.
• 28:34
  B covers everything from geometry to music to the
• 28:37
  structural order of society and even the basic mechanisms of
• 28:40
  proportional justice. We learned that God designed
• 28:43
  bucket B to be a physical shadow of the spiritual realities in
• 28:47
  bucket A. Crucially, we learned that
• 28:49
  operating effectively in bucket B, having great taste in art,
• 28:53
  understanding complex math, organizing A tidy society does
• 28:57
  not mean a person possesses anything from bucket A.
• 28:59
  The instinctual appreciation of proportion is just an instinct,
• 29:03
  like tasting. Honey exactly like.
• 29:05
  Tasting honey, true holiness, true virtue is an entirely
• 29:09
  distinct operation of the heart. It is a rigorous.
• 29:12
  Demanding framework, but it brings immense clarity to how we
• 29:16
  view human achievements and human nature.
• 29:19
  I want to leave. You, the listener with a final
• 29:23
  thought to Mull over. Building on all this source
• 29:25
  material, consider the Halo effect in modern society.
• 29:29
  Think about how frequently we assume that someone who is
• 29:31
  physically beautiful, or someone who creates transcendent
• 29:34
  beautiful art and music must also possess a good, wise and
• 29:37
  virtuous soul. It is so common.
• 29:39
  We grant them moral. Authority simply because they
• 29:41
  have mastered secondary beauty. How might understanding Edwards
• 29:44
  strict division between natural taste and true virtue change the
• 29:47
  way you evaluate the celebrities, the artists, and
• 29:50
  the leaders you admire today? That is a great question.
• 29:52
  To ask, are we looking for? True benevolence to being in
• 29:55
  general or we're just being hypnotized by a perfectly.
• 29:58
  Fitted mortise and tendon. Think about that vision test at
• 30:01
  the eye doctor. Is the lens.
• 30:03
  Actually clear. Or are we just?
• 30:05
  Admiring the heavy metal machine.
• 30:07
  Thank you SO. Much for joining us for this.
• 30:09
  Discussion on reform thinking. We appreciate your time and we
• 30:12
  hope you walk away seeing the world just a.
• 30:14
  Little bit clearer. Have a great day.