God is Beautiful, and He loves Beauty.
(Saying of Prophet Muhammad)
…the earth is beautiful only through its link with Heaven.
(Frithjof Schuon)
It will seem obvious to anyone considering the issue of ecological responsibility that the subject involves a moral dimension, but it may be less apparent why at its root it engages an aesthetic sensibility, one that requires us to enquire into the nature of ‘beauty’ itself. The apparently tenuous connection between our moral responsibility and our aesthetic sensibility may appear less remote when we consider a statement made by Henry David Thoreau (d. 1862) in his Journal (June 21, 1852): “The perception of beauty is a moral test.” The basis for this statement is, as traditional philosophers have always known, that our discernment of reality (Truth), our moral core (Goodness), and our aesthetic sensibility (Beauty) are all inter-connected. To enquire into the nature of the world around us therefore requires us to delve into our own inner nature – in fact, to understand the very nature of Nature itself.
Medieval philosophers distinguished between ‘natura naturans’ or the divine Nature in its creative essence, and ‘natura naturata’ or the divine Nature
in its effects.
Click here to read more at the source: http://www.qscience.com
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