{"id":300068,"date":"2021-02-02T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-02-02T10:00:10","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T18:00:10","slug":"the-3-transcendentals-truth-goodness-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reasons.org\/christianity\/beliefs-values\/the-3-transcendentals-truth-goodness-beauty","title":{"rendered":"The 3 Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, & Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What is real? What is right? What is lovely? Human beings ask these kinds of questions because we long for at least three things: truth, goodness, and beauty.<\/p>\n

Prominent philosophers through the centuries have called these three cosmic values transcendentals. A transcendental<\/em><\/a> refers to something that exists beyond the time-space-matter world. It is a universal reality that extends beyond our everyday sensory experiences and is thus considered nonphysical, immaterial, conceptual, or even spiritual. In philosophy, the transcendental relates to and seeks to describe the nature of reality or being. Therefore, one may think of these values as timeless universals and attributes of being.<\/p>\n

In this introductory article I’ll briefly describe how the three transcendentals of truth, goodness<\/em>, and beauty<\/em> were viewed in the classical world. Then I’ll show how Christian civilization accommodated them as truths of general revelation and grounded them in the nature of the triune God.<\/p>\n

Classical Civilization’s View of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty<\/strong>
\nThe classical world (or classical antiquity<\/a>) consisted largely of the Greco-Roman society that was centered around the Mediterranean Sea and existed at its peak for roughly a millennium\u2014from about 500 BC to 500 AD. The great cultures of Greece and Rome flourished and deeply influenced Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. The grand cities of this period included Athens, Rome, and even Jerusalem. Some of the dominant philosophies of this era<\/a> included Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism.<\/p>\n

For the famous Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, the world had genuine meaning and purpose. The cosmic values of truth (that which defines reality), goodness (that which fulfills its purpose), and beauty (that which is lovely) were objective in nature and knowable by the noble seeker. Since human beings had the internal capacities of logos (reason), ethos (morality), and pathos (emotion), these internal capacities corresponded to the cosmic values and brought forth human fulfillment:\n<\/p>\n