We have all been stopped in our tracks by beauty, caught off guard by something that leaves us changed.
How do we make sense of these experiences? How does beauty ennoble our everyday lives and sanctify our affections? And what distinguishes wanting something for
ourselves from loving something for
itself?
The Lost Tradition of Beauty seeks to answer these questions through exploring the classical tradition of beauty. For two thousand years, Western thinkers understood that beauty is what moves us toward the good and the true. Matthew J. Smith argues that the loss of this idea is the source of our cultural fragmentation today, as he recovers a vision of beauty as a moral, civic, and spiritual force.
Smith argues that when beauty disappears as a central motivating good, we become obsessed with truth as a substitute, producing the mindset of "culture wars" rather than cultural renewal. We must leave behind our habits of simply consuming and using what we desire to see beauty from a higher vantage point. When we do, beauty moves us to act, to grow, and to love.
In this book, Matthew J. Smith:
- Engages Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Aquinas, the Greek tragedies, and more to recover a classical understanding of beauty;
- Examines how beauty is rational and real, how it orders the soul, how it reveals the part's place within the whole, how it illuminates and clarifies the true, and how it restores culture; and
- Shows readers how recovering this sense of beauty can shape our lives and actions and orient us toward the ultimate beauty of God.
For those who believe in a personal God, beauty is never abstract; it is relational, an encounter with the God who is himself good, true, and beautiful. Smith shows that a truly beautiful life involves humility, selflessness, and even suffering, tracing the restorative journey of the cross.
The Lost Tradition of Beauty is ideal for students and professors of Great Books, theology, literature, and culture; classical Christian schools and educators; and readers seeking a richer understanding of beauty in their own lives.
