Due to its c. 5500 word length, I’ve split this paper into three parts. This is Part Three of three (find One and Two here). Works Cited & and the full paper can be found here.

The benefits of art can be divided into three general categories: pedagogical, revelational, and artistic. These three will vary in proportion between different works of art; some art may be justified by the pedagogical, other by the revelational, other by the artistic. Of these three, none should be discarded entirely, and none should be considered the sole purpose of art. Art will furthermore be of varying value in each category to each individual. Some will get more benefit pedagogically due to lacking the specific understanding taught by the art, where another might already understand sufficiently. Some will have a keen understanding already of the alternate viewpoint a particular work may reveal. Some will have lesser need for the artistic aspect of the art. Nevertheless, in approaching art as art, all three of these must be considered, and their value weighed against the possibilities of the dangers already enumerated.

Art has a pedagogical purpose and aspect (Van Til 110). In this, it has two paths, as well as a secondary type worthy of consideration. The two paths are the overt and the instinctive. Aside from purely factual information, art provides a simulated world which can expand upon truths in a way much more understandable to the human heart than pure didactic text, albeit at the cost of being less organized, less clear, and less overt, teaching in a way pure didactic text simply cannot achieve (Potter, How Much Theology). An example of this can be seen in considering the gradation between Judges, Job, and Romans. In the last, Paul engages in nearly pure didactic (logical) persuasion, using beautiful language and certain metaphorical devices only as subordinate to his purpose in teaching. In Job, the second, story provides much of its meaning overtly, in the arguments of its various characters. In Judges, finally, the teaching happens through the observation of the story’s events, elucidated by the Lord’s intervention and the witness of the rest of Scripture. The stories in Judges provide the reader with a vicarious experience of the good and evil of man, an experience integrally including the acknowledgement and judgement of sin. Art, unlike the purely didactic, shows truth and goodness and beauty in action, not in theory, and thereby can prove a powerful tool for their inculcation, particularly as it motivates the audience not only to see the virtue it presents but to vicariously participate in it.

This ability of art to reach the subtleties of man leads into its second capacity, the experiential, the capacity to teach a habit. While this capacity’s inverse, teaching without rationality, is a danger indeed, if the art has been thoroughly examined, approached as art worthy of careful, reasonable consideration, it can be of immense aid to the person in that it can instill truth, goodness, and beauty into the instinct as well as the mind. A story which presents virtue as virtue and vice as vice, with appropriate reactions thereto on the part of the story and realistic interactions therewith by the characters and the world, that story will teach the heart as well as the mind by engaging the emotional and spiritual aspects of man, not just his reason (reason being important but partial in man (Van Til 171)). This is because, as Benjamin states, “When we submit to the illusion of a piece of art…, [we] allow ourselves to be taken in by its framing and guide our thoughts until the experience ends.” Thus, art teaches by experience, not mere statement, goes beyond facts to start a habit. In this way, it trains the soul the worldview it presents, worked out in a ‘real world’ formed for the purpose (Potter, How Much Theology). This tool, despite the inherent danger of habituating a false worldview, is a powerful tool for good when approached in prayer and discernment.

The third aspect of art is less intuitive, perhaps, than the first two, and somewhat of an unequal partner. Art’s dangers can be to the discerning man a benefit in providing him a static foe with which to grapple. Much as the body may benefit from wrestling with weights appropriate to its stature and circumstance, so the soul may benefit from wrestling with evil ideas appropriate to its wisdom and history. Not all dangers in art, of course, can fulfil this role. Pure temptations, such as those offered by pornography, should not be countenanced; man is to shun temptation, not seek it out (Proverbs 7:25; Van Til 110). Some temptation, of course, will inevitably be found even in the most blameless book, given man’s sinful nature and its ability to twist innocence into opportunity for vice, but works calculated or effectual only in producing temptation are worthless to spar against. The work of Paul in the Bible should instead provide a guide: since Paul related the arguments of his foes towards falsehood in order to be sure they were understood and in order that their refutation might be clear, the Christian may seek understanding of the teaching of the world for a similar purpose, albeit only to a certain extent (Potter, __Proverbsorcery). Works which teach falsehood either explicitly or by stealth can therefore be for a man of discernment sparring partners, albeit ones he leaves bloodier than is generally considered polite, and unlike arguments apart from art, such opponents will present, if the art be good, the argument and worldview in context, in life, giving a more thorough understanding of its nature than pure didactic text, divorced from man’s daily habits as it is, could hope to (and therefore a more thorough teaching in the danger’s practical weaknesses).

This opportunity carries over between both types of danger outlined above. In the first case, the explicit teaching, the believer can gain experience in understanding and refuting the ways of the world, a pursuit God has blessed (Is. 54:17). So in a work which pleads for socialism, such as Jack London’s Iron Heel, the literary benefits may be enjoyed and the pedagogical aspect countered by means of the Word. In the second case, teaching delivered either intentionally or unintentionally to the heart rather than the mind, the virtue is found in arresting and analyzing the subconscious infiltration. By learning the habits and mindset of the reprobate, in a manner Lewis describes as “learning about what it is to be a [pagan],” the Christian can come to understand the pagan world around him, understand both for the sake of his own self-guarding and for the sake of conquest (Myers 96). For example, he can learn by recognizing the ungodly nature of Orwell’s views on sex as seen in 1984 to recognize similar ideas in other, less useful media and in his daily life. The foe must be known in order to be excised truly and fully; art presents a noble opportunity to see at once a false worldview’s enabling virtues, which allow the falsehood to persist (compassion, perhaps, or dislike of tyrants), and its defining vices, which will eventually bring its downfall, in their stated and expressed forms.

The second aspect of art is its revelational capacity. Art, by presenting a snapshot of a portion of the world as the artist sees it, can present to man viewpoints other than his own in a way which allows him to enter into those viewpoints, understand them thoroughly from the inside, and then, by retreating to the Word, assess them. Thus, man can “transcend [his] limiting perspective” in order to see from other shoes, a process necessary because of the individual provinciality of man (Myers 97). As Lewis notes, the reason to read old books is that they tend to make different mistakes than their modern readers, simply by virtue of being from another era and having its vices instead of modernity’s (10-11). By this means man can see a less self-circumscribed view of the cosmos, even if many of the sources he used had worldviews which required near total condemnation, as with Homer, or partial but widespread condemnation, as with Lewis himself, although always checking what he sees against what Scripture teaches (Acts 17:11).

Among the benefits of art, the least concrete and the most singular is its capacity to present beauty as a natural result of truth and goodness in a way which reaches the heart to stir up peace, joy, and worshipfulness, which has been termed its artistic benefit. That art presents beauty in a way other categories of culture do not is definitional to its nature. The peculiar benefit of this method, though, can only be understood by a quick outline of the method’s actual mechanics. Whereas beauty in the non-artistic is peripheral if beneficial, in art beauty is central. In other works of man, truth and goodness are presented front and foremost; in art, beauty takes the helm. This priority can, it is true, foster aestheticism, justly condemned by Van Til (Van Til 228). In art’s ideal form, however, this beauty arises naturally, necessarily, and by intention from goodness and truth. In practicality, such as in the work of both reprobates and flawed Christians (the only kind yet on this earth), the ability of man to create beauty can lead to a creation in which the beauty clashes with, outlines, and condemns the lack of goodness and truth underlying it, showing by its presence the imperfection of what purports to be its foundation.

Furthermore, beauty, in art, has a counterpart: ugliness. This quality exists in art in two ways. First, ugliness may exist in art as a true reflection of the world. In this capacity, the ugliness, like the ugliness of our world, serves to increase the beauty by contrast and other means, to His glory. Thereby this ugliness, showing the world in truth, gives a clearer view of it and of its beauty, to the benefit of the receiver. Second, ugliness may be in art as a perversion, unnecessary and undoubtedly deleterious to the art as art. This ugliness is not justifiable, but the recognition of it- and of whatever vice may have occasioned it- will prove good practice for the Christian.

This beauty not only outlines goodness and truth, both in lack and in presence, but stirs up in man a capacity to know and understand the beauty of the world around him and of God. God’s beauty is indubitable; the psalmist aspires, in Psalm 27:4, “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord”. His creation, in imitation, attains towards the beauty which His perfect sanctuary may attain (Psalm 50:2; Rom. 8:22). Art, by growing in the receiver a greater understanding of beauty, grows in him a greater capacity to see God aright. Furthermore, in art’s role as presenting through beauty goodness and truth, it gives man experience first in seeing the relation between virtue and beauty, vice and ugliness, and second in seeing by the beauty of God and His creation His goodness, His truth (Van Til 108-109).

This beauty, besides fulfilling such an enriching role, also guides man towards joy and towards worship. Art has a proper role in exciting joy (Van Til 110). It has the capacity to produce not merely pleasure but the joy of a deeper apprehension of God’s goodness by displaying His beauty. Even the works of the pagans, by showing the nobility, flawed as it is in man, of God’s image and by arranging their material into fitting order, show this beauty, though only through a very dark glass. This capacity to show beauty, moreover, drives man towards worship, gives him not only a duty but an eagerness to worship, having seen the harmony of truth and goodness in beauty and found in it a praise of God which reaches into his soul, motivating him to search both for his own beautifying and for the beauty of God (Ps. 8:1; Zech. 9:17; James 1:11). Thus, art can, through its characteristic beauty, turn man towards God.

The balance between the dangers and benefits of each piece of art will vary for each person, for a plain and obvious reason: differing discernment and circumstance. Each Christian possesses a differing level and character of discernment; each Christian has a different history and character. The first, his discernment, is his ability to tell evil from good, to detect the evil teachings and ugliness in art and repel it from his soul, to “refute every tongue which rises against [him] in judgement” (Is. 54:17). This is, as the following verse states, the common “heritage of the servants of the Lord”, but each individual servant is given it in differing measure and with differing ability across the millions of topics in which the skill might require application (Is. 54:18). Children in particular lack discernment, by virtue of age, and therefore must be guarded from much greater swathes of art.

The second, his circumstance, is the individual character and history of the person. His character is relevant because it may magnify or diminish the dangers and benefits alike of a work of art. A man given to lust will be well advised to avoid art which to a man skilled in chastity would be without real harm. His history should therefore be taken into account. A man mired in grief after his family’s death may find it prudent to avoid works which could prey upon that grief to smirch his soul. A woman prone to anger will find certain works of art much more beneficial to her, by reason of their addressing that fault, than they would be to a woman more in control of her temper. To all of these factors, discernment, self-assessment, humility, and in some cases external counsel must be applied to determine how they influence the potential dangers and benefits of any work of art.

Ultimately, the Christian’s purpose in coming to art must be to honor God. In this goal, he should seek to better his own soul, for the better glorifying of God. He must, for that purpose, weigh the likely dangers and benefits of the work of art he is considering, including the here-unmentioned societal aspects, such as his witness to the world around him. Art, to the Christian, is a glorious opportunity to see the world through clearer eyes, to find one’s own eye-lumber and set it aside, to understand the eye-lumber of others and avoid its introduction (Matt. 7:3-5). More than this purifying possibility, though, art is an opportunity to grow in understanding of the beauty of God, the beauty which Psalm 27:4 extols, and to see it even hidden by the ugliness of a sinful reality, shining through when wisdom looks, the beauty of Christ in His incarnation, hidden, foolishness to the world, a herald of unending joy to His people, of unending glory to God (Is. 53:2; 1 Cor. 1:18-25).

God bless.

Find the Works Cited