Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is the beauty of art based merely on our personal preferences? Or do objective principles and standards determine what is truly beautiful? Today, R.C. Sproul explains how our answer to these questions influences our entire worldview.
Donate today to receive lifetime digital access to R.C. Sproul's video teaching series Recovering the Beauty of the Arts. We'll also send you the series on DVD, together with Dr. Sproul's booklet How Should I Approach Art?: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/4295/offer
Live outside the U.S. and Canada? Request R.C. Sproul's digital teaching series and ebook with your donation of any amount: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global
Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We have a society that says we have truths but no truth. |
| 0:05.6 | We have beauties but no beauty, purposes, but no purpose, which creates quite a bit of confusion |
| 0:15.8 | when we come to this question of the nature of beauty. |
| 0:30.6 | What is beauty? Can we know if something is beautiful? Can someone objectively know if something is a beautiful piece of music or a beautiful painting. To put it another way, |
| 0:38.8 | today on renewing your mind, R. C. Sprole will answer the question, is beauty in the eye of |
| 0:45.3 | the beholder? We live in a subjective age. Truth and goodness have been redefined or left |
| 0:51.7 | up to the individual, and the same is true for beauty. |
| 0:56.1 | Today's message is from Dr. Sproul's series, Recovering the Beauty of the Arts. |
| 1:01.6 | And today is the final day that you can request this nine-part series on DVD, |
| 1:06.6 | along with his short booklet on the same topic, when you give a gift at Renewing Your Mind.org, |
| 1:12.2 | in support of this daily outreach that serves countless Christians around the world. |
| 1:17.3 | Thank you for your generosity. |
| 1:19.4 | So are there principles, normative standards that can help us recognize a beautiful painting or sculpture, |
| 1:26.7 | a beautiful piece of literature or dance. |
| 1:29.4 | Well, here's Dr. Sprold to answer. |
| 1:33.8 | We continue now with our study of the Christian and the arts. |
| 1:38.3 | We're going to turn our attention today to the age-old debate over the nature of aesthetics, which is this, |
| 1:49.3 | is beauty something that is discerned purely subjectively, or are there, in fact, external objective standards or criteria by which something |
| 2:09.8 | may be judged to be beautiful? Now, we are living in a period in Western history where the dominant motif tends to be in favor |
| 2:22.2 | of subjectivism. You've heard the cliche so often that makes it a cliche, that beauty is in the |
| 2:30.6 | eye of the beholder. |
| 2:37.3 | And more and more, we have people arguing that there are no ultimate standards for beauty. |
... |
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