Being, Beauty, and the Cross: How Christian Aesthetics Transfigures Medicine
Richard Choate, Ph.D. student, Graduate Theological Union/UCB
What would it look like to re-enchant medicine today? And what role, if any, does religion play in that re-enchantment? In this paper, I argue that a sense of enchantment or wonder is grounded in a particular kind of worldview and that a religious worldview, especially that of Christianity, is the clearest expression of that kind of worldview. Central to this claim is the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothingness. For it is the sheer fortuity or contingency of the world which arouses our deepest awe and amazement – why is there something rather than nothing? Within the classical tradition, it this event or occasion of coming to be which also gives rise to one of being’s other names: beauty. But beauty is both an invitation and a challenge. On the one hand, beauty attracts us, invites us to the bliss and ecstasy of aesthetic arrest. On the other hand, the transcendentality of beauty demands that we also find it in the most unlikely of places: desolation, sickness, suffering. But it is in the Christian understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth that beauty takes its most scandalous form. For as the incarnation of God, who is being itself and therefore beauty itself, Christ’s crucifixion is also the crucifixion of beauty. Yet Christians have throughout the ages held up the cross (and even the crucifix) as a symbol of their faith. As St. Paul says, I preach one thing: Christ and him crucified. For Christians, it is precisely the scandal of the crucifixion which is also paradoxically the source of its power and glory. For it is in this one event that Christ’s perfect act of love defeats the powers of the world, of sin, ugliness, and death. In Christ, we discover a new aesthetic paradigm – the way of abasement, of Christ’s kenosis, is simultaneously, identically the way of exaltation, a fact heralded ultimately by his triumphant resurrection. For doctors and patients alike, the call to participation in the mystical body of Christ provides us with the invitation to see in ourselves and in others the same occasion of mysterious and transcendent beauty, a beauty at once terrifying, reassuring, and enchanting.
What would it look like to re-enchant medicine today? And what role, if any, does religion play in that re-enchantment? In this paper, I argue that a sense of enchantment or wonder is grounded in a particular kind of worldview and that a religious worldview, especially that of Christianity, is the clearest expression of that kind of worldview. Central to this claim is the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothingness. For it is the sheer fortuity or contingency of the world which arouses our deepest awe and amazement – why is there something rather than nothing? Within the classical tradition, it this event or occasion of coming to be which also gives rise to one of being’s other names: beauty. But beauty is both an invitation and a challenge. On the one hand, beauty attracts us, invites us to the bliss and ecstasy of aesthetic arrest. On the other hand, the transcendentality of beauty demands that we also find it in the most unlikely of places: desolation, sickness, suffering. But it is in the Christian understanding of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth that beauty takes its most scandalous form. For as the incarnation of God, who is being itself and therefore beauty itself, Christ’s crucifixion is also the crucifixion of beauty. Yet Christians have throughout the ages held up the cross (and even the crucifix) as a symbol of their faith. As St. Paul says, I preach one thing: Christ and him crucified. For Christians, it is precisely the scandal of the crucifixion which is also paradoxically the source of its power and glory. For it is in this one event that Christ’s perfect act of love defeats the powers of the world, of sin, ugliness, and death. In Christ, we discover a new aesthetic paradigm – the way of abasement, of Christ’s kenosis, is simultaneously, identically the way of exaltation, a fact heralded ultimately by his triumphant resurrection. For doctors and patients alike, the call to participation in the mystical body of Christ provides us with the invitation to see in ourselves and in others the same occasion of mysterious and transcendent beauty, a beauty at once terrifying, reassuring, and enchanting.