Hiking the Transcendent Trail

    While hiking after a northern Michigan snowstorm, I was reminded why Christian theologians (as well as philosophers such as Plato) have developed an argument for the existence of God that builds from the presence of beauty in the world.  The formal argument reads something like this:

"There are compelling reasons for considering beauty to exist in a way that transcends its material manifestations. According to materialism, nothing exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations. Although one can make plausible evolutionary explanations for finding beauty in potential sexual partners and in healthy animals that might be food or predators, the experience of beauty is much wider than these categories and includes visions of things for which there can be no direct evolutionary advantage (like clouds seen from aeroplanes, or images from telescopes). According to classical theism, beauty is a quality of God and therefore exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations. Therefore, to the extent that premise (1) is accepted, theism is more plausible than materialism."

   Saturday, I found the visuals to go with this argument while hiking with my boys along the Boardman River in Traverse City, MI.  For a couple hours, I was immersed in the stunningly unnecessary beauty of creation.    
     The idea that all of reality can be reduced to nothing but atoms in motion may pass some kind of muster in a philosophy classroom, but not in midst of the raw beauty of nature.  Yes, there is ugliness too.  I get that. In fact, in a materialist universe of blind forces and chance, I understand gratuitous evil and decay.  
     But what do we do with gratuitous beauty?  What do we do when sticks, frozen water, dead chlorophyll sacks, dirt and a distant star take our breath away?  We enjoy it, and remember that our existence is greater than the sum of the details. Thank God.