Sunset on Lake Murray Dam

How the beauty of the natural world points beyond itself to God

On a recent evening after dinner my wife dropped me off at the Lake Murray Dam. Even though the day was almost over I figured I could make my normal 4-mile walk before sunset—a short hike up to the entrance to the Public Park then back to the dam proper and across to the Irmo side, turning around at the boat ramp before heading back to my starting place. I was itching to get out of the house and figured there was just enough time before dark to complete the route. I took the picture at top about halfway across the dam, near the towers.

I’m not the only one who enjoys the dam, and every time I walk there I meet a variety of people doing the same thing. Retired folks, both men and women. Families in groups. Couples strolling along with their arms holding so tightly to one another that they seem to be afraid that one or the other will tumble over the guard rail. A few college runners, male and female, who fly past everyone else as though jet-fueled. Once I saw a middle-age man running barefoot. On concrete. In the summer. He was either tougher than anyone else on the bridge or crazier. Maybe he was both.

As interesting as are the people I meet on the dam, though, there’s another feature that I find more compelling. Not Lake Murray itself, lovely as it is. Not the boats that cruise back and forth on the water. Not the elaborate homes dotting the banks. What draws my attention more than anything else is the sky. Framed by the rolling hills and towering oaks that march along the coastline, the sky itself is for me the main attraction.

I’ve found through the years that the sky over the dam takes on different appearances depending on the season. In the winter it turns hard and brittle as cold winds pour down from the north. In the spring, the sky softens and wisps of clouds drift by as tentative as bluebirds looking to build a nest. The summer sky can be calm and clear one minute but the next play host to great thunderheads mounting up in the west before breaking over the lake in a fury of thunder and lightning. I’ve been caught on the middle of the dam in a couple of those summer storms and had to run for my life to the far side to find shelter.

But walking the other evening, I realized that there’s no season like the fall for viewing the skyscape over the dam. That’s when sunset colors make their most brilliant appearance and, if the moment is right, you experience the natural world in all its beauty. Abstract patterns of red, orange and gray swirl on the western horizon, a backdrop to the larger drama of falling sun and drifting clouds. An evening wind springs up from the lake like a fountain of air, bringing a welcome breath of coolness. The birds fall silent as night approaches and a stillness flows in from somewhere—the land? the atmosphere? heaven?—that blurs the line separating the natural world from the spiritual world in a single moment of beauty. Fall sunsets hint at an expanse beyond the horizon invisible to physical eyes but visible to the soul.

We use the word “beautful” in so many ways that it’s easy to lose sight of its true meaning. For example, if the quarterback of our favorite college football team (by “favorite” I mean the Georgia Bulldogs and by “quarterback” I mean Carson Beck) throws a perfect spiral fifty yards down the field that intersects exactly with a streaking Arian Smith (a situation that I expect to happen in tomorrow’s game at Auburn more than once) and he strolls untouched into the end zone for a touchdown, what other word but “beautiful” can describe it? Or if your wife spends hours getting herself ready for your anniversary date and she walks out of the house looking like a million dollars and you still can’t believe that she said “yes” to you forty years ago when you asked her to marry you, again, no other word works except “beautiful.” In other words, “beauty” is often used as an all-purpose adjective that describes how we feel when people, circumstances or physical objects have a pleasing impact on our minds or emotions.

The confusion happens when we use the same word to describe experiences that touch something beyond our five senses. Not just sunsets on Lake Murray dam, but other moments too. Like the ocean at night under a full moon, the blue line of the Appalachian Mountains marching across a distant horizon or the baby you hold tight in your arms shortly after witnessing her birth. Those experiences are beautiful in ways that go far beyond just pleasurable experiences at a football game or a date night. They touch the soul. I think most people recognize the difference between the two uses of the word but don’t know just how to describe it. A concept from the world of art might help. Artists, particularly landscape artists, often speak of a technique called the “vanishing point.” What they mean by the phrase is the point in a painting or drawing where parallel lines of perspective appear to converge, creating the sense of three-dimensional depth on a two-dimensional canvas. The vanishing point invites the viewer’s attention beyond the flat canvas into the larger world of the artist’s imagination. Beauty in its deeper sense functions in the same way. It directs our attention beyond the moment and into the presence of the One who makes the moment possible. In fact, if you pay attention, beauty is nothing less than proof of God’s existence.

Apologetics is the field in theology that seeks to prove the existence of God through different sorts of arguments. The Apostle Paul in his missionary visit to the city of Athens in Acts 17 is the classic example. Pointing to the many idols scattered throughout the city, he directed his listeners to the obvious fact that they had a deeply rooted spiritual sensitivity that the idols and the pagan gods they represented could never satisfy. Instead, he said, they should place their faith in the one, true God and his Son Jesus. Paul used the religious practices of the Athenians as the beginning point of his defense of biblical truth.

Apologetics ever since has followed the same pattern. Rational arguments for the existence of God like the cosmological argument (the intricacy of creation requires a Creator behind it, just as a watch requires a watchmaker) or the teleological argument (everything in creation is the result of some prior cause and when you press through all the secondary causes you must eventually arrive at a First Cause who is God) are just two of many other, similar arguments. There are also scientific approaches to apologetics like the Intelligent Design theory that make the case for God’s existence based on deep study of the natural processes. Others make the case for the faith based on historical evidence. I came to faith after reading Josh McDowell’s book, “Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” that lays out the compelling historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

But in the modern world, these approaches to apologetics aren’t as persuasive as they once were for the simple reason that people today don’t believe in objective truth. Logical arguments, scientific evidence and historical events all are subject to interpretation. What’s your truth is your truth—many people say today—and what’s my truth is my truth. C.S. Lewis takes the point even further when he points out in one of his books that modern people, even if they agree with the premise of a rational argument, feel no obligation to actually adjust their lives accordingly.

All of this leads back to the beauty of the sunset on Lake Murray Dam. The truth is that life today is filled with such ugliness that we yearn for beauty like a man in the desert thirsts for water. Cities are dangerous and violent and filled with hate. Politics are brutal. Pornography has destroyed the beauty of sexual relations. There’s a pervasive sense that the world has spun out of control and that much of what we once treasured and loved has been taken from us. But over and above the squalor that we see around us there are fleeting moments of beauty that stand as a rebuke to ugliness and promise of a better world. In a world where objective truth doesn’t have the authority it once did and where ugliness is the order of the day, beauty still moves people. Whether sunsets or mountains, paintings or plays, books or films, beauty points beyond itself to a deeper and more profound truth. It opens a door into the soul.

That’s the principle behind the Bible’s teaching on the beauty of the natural world. The book of Psalms, for instance, says:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1-2)

King David, writer of many of the Psalms, was led by his pursuit of beauty into the very presence of God:

One thing I have asked of the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

Later, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says,

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:20)

The classic hymn, “Fairest Lord Jesus,” uses the same approach, not pursuing beauty for its own sake but going where beauty directs. While no one knows who wrote the lyrics (they date back to the Middle Ages), the truth they express is the timelessnes of beauty and the open door it gives us to know the Lord:

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature
O thou of God and man the Son
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor
Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands
Robed in the blooming garb of spring
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer
Who makes the woeful heart to sing

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight
And all the twinkling starry host
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations
Son of God and Son of Man
Glory and honor, praise, adoration
Now and forevermore be thine