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The church fathers have said some wonderful things about divine beauty.
1. Trinitarian Beauty
Its loftiest celebration comes from Dionysius the Aeropagite when he speaks of the divine names:
God, who is beautiful beyond being, is said to be Beauty—for it gives Beauty from itself in a manner appropriate to each… . [He is] the productive cause which makes and conserves the whole by its love of the beauty which is proper for each being; the final cause—for all beings merge for the sake of the beautiful; the paradigmatic cause [for] all are determined according to it.[1]
This eulogy to beauty has a serious limitation, however. It deals with the beauty of God’s essence and not with God’s personal beauty. Dionysius says it explicitly: the attribute of beauty, like those of goodness and wisdom, expresses the relationship between God and the creation (with God as the…
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