Broken Bridges of a Beautiful World

Sept 14, 2020 | By Daniel Chabeda ES ‘22

No myth, no fantasy is more remarkable than the close or long view of our universe. You can’t look anywhere to know anything deeply without being astonished.

– Marilynne Robinson 

The natural world is beautiful. On a grand scale, the mountains arch toward the sky in their millennia-long and mile-high morning stretch. On the smallest scale, quantum theory invites us into a nanoscopic world where particles can teleport (quantum teleportation), exist in multiple places at once (quantum superposition), and physically pass through other objects (quantum tunneling). The most powerful microscopes in existence today, Scanning Tunneling Microscopes, are able to clearly resolve individual atoms to show us that even the quantum world is visually stunning.[1]

We readily enjoy this beautiful, almost magical aspect of the natural world in a way that engages the aesthetic sense. But the beauty of the natural world is not limited to visually stunning scenes. In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration captured the first image of a black hole, a hazy orange ring around a dark center.[2] Pulitzer Prize-winning Art critic Sebastian Smee wrote of that blurry, muted image: “it’s beautiful.”[3] But what makes quantum weirdness or a fuzzy image beautiful? It is the astonishment, the awe, and the unknown element that compels us to continue looking deeply and be amazed. They are beautiful for the wonder they evoke. As we gaze upon the natural world, encountering visually stunning objects and unsolved mysteries, the distinction between the beautiful and the wondrous becomes indistinct. The image of a gentle ring of orange motivates intellectual curiosity about the black hole’s depths, and the fantastical consequences of quantum theory stir our senses as artistically stunning. 

Because the natural world so effectively entangles visual beauty with the experience of wonder, the aesthetic experience of gazing at a black hole has the potential for inspiring ethical conclusions. Socrates thought that wonder was inherently tied to morality.[4] Wonder is driven by the recognition that a phenomenon completely eclipses your own reason, knowledge, and creativity. Aristotle viewed this aesthetic experience as evoking “imaginative perception and feeling” which heightens moral judgments. For example, if we view others as wonders, then they are people to be “appreciated, discovered, puzzled over, even doubted,” but never fully known or contained.[5] Wonder leaves room in our minds to recognize others’ struggles, their potential for growth, and ever-progressing goodness; wonder enables us to value other beings and to see others with compassion, humility, and empathy.[6] In the context of nature, even if we don’t think the M87 galaxy black hole image is visually appealing, the scientific achievement of capturing such a phenomenon awakens our imagination to future exploration and humbles us in the face of the unknown.

If wonder is supposed to inspire conscious, moral decision making, our reaction to the beauty of the natural world presents an ethical discrepancy. While we value the earth’s natural beauty in theory, we devalue the earth in practice. Manufacturing processes for the electronics in our hands and homes release thick clouds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming, causing severe droughts that have parched the soil in Cape Town, South Africa and ravaged the rainforests in Brazil.[7] The industrialized corn farms of the American midwest dump so much nitrogen-rich fertilizer waste into the Mississippi River each summer that a “dead zone” where no creature can survive forms downstream in the Gulf of Mexico; it is the size of Connecticut.[8] We are destroying the very same beautiful earth that inspires our wonder, aids our morality, and brings excitement to our academic exploration. Somewhere along the bridge from wonder-inspired value to ethically-driven action, something is broken.

Some have diagnosed the problem as a disagreement on what constitutes “ethical action.” Aristotle proposed that right actions must be the expression of a virtue like generosity or courage (virtue ethics). Kant believes that ethical behavior must conform to a set of moral duties or rules (deontological ethics).[9] Still others, like Yale’s own Shelly Kagan, thinks that ethics depends on the consequence of an action so that a good action is one with the best potential outcome (consequentialism).[10] Some think that wonder is just not that powerful. Plato viewed wonder as a “primitive intellectual impulse” and saw imagination as the lowest order of thought, far removed from the truth.[11] Francis Bacon agreed with Plato, believing that knowledge supplants wonder and “when wonder ceases, knowledge begins.”[12] In this perspective, wonder is construed as an emotional remnant of childish naivety to be quenched by knowledge. 

I do not think the problem lies with our different definitions of right ethical action or with the potency of wonder. Though the logical response to our own attribution of value to earth’s beauty would be to protect it, we have instead devalued our beautiful earth. This is not a quandary of ethical frameworks, but a cognitive dissonance. And counter to Plato’s diminishing of wonder’s power, there are still many people whose wonder at the natural world has inspired them to combat climate change, protect species, and advocate for environmental sustainability in their communities. There are millions who gaze upon the mountain peaks, vast seas, and wild forests and, full of the wonder-inspired desire to protect nature’s beauty, consume less plastic, eat less meat, contact their local legislators, or march in the streets. This is a commendable and necessary lifestyle change. But there are still millions who don’t make it across the bridge from wonder to life change. If neither the nature of our wonder nor the framework of our ethics are the issue, then what is? Where is the break in our bridge from value to action? There is likely no single, clean break to blame. I cannot give a perfectly satisfying conclusion to such a huge problem. I can only suggest that, perhaps, the problem is just too huge. 

Climate change and the degradation of earth are issues too large to consider daily, and occur on a time-scale too long to conjure urgency. It is a problem of scale.[13] We respond most actively and appropriately to issues on a human scale, obligations that appear right in front of us and can be resolved without long-term engagement: minor disagreements with family, overdue school assignments, even acute physical pain. Considering the future of our earth and the health of coming generations does not fit comfortably into daily schedules filled with more me-and-you-sized challenges; the scale can be overwhelming and demotivating. But this is exactly where wonder proves most powerful. In light of phenomena that completely eclipse our own knowledge, ability and creativity, wonder expands our imaginations to consider astonishing possibilities for ourselves and others. Perhaps we should intentionally make room for wonder at the natural world, slipping it into our daily lives by the fallen leaf, the sound of birds, or the beating of rain. Gradually, the me-and-you-sized scale could expand to include issues that affect Brazilian rainforests, ocean dwellers, and future generations. 

I recognize that for some, human-scale problems are already so pressing that natural wonder is crowded out by concerns about housing, food, and clothing. I recognize that for some environmentalists among us, this entire piece might have seemed redundant. But allow me to present another scale problem and reveal one more value-action gap, this one relevant to all people on earth. 

God is a being on a scale more gigantic than the universe we wonder at, and the daily act of contemplating Him can be more overwhelming and demotivating than confronting climate change. It can be challenging to consider Him as a presence in daily life or to even bring yourself to consistently contest His existence. Related to this scale issue is another value-action gap aptly summarized by the apostle Paul in his 1st Century letter to the Roman church: “for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”[14] We want to change our personal habits, yet we continue to procrastinate, nit-pick, or pick up the cigarette. We want to stop tearing our family members down, gossiping, and lying, yet the words just slip out of our mouths. Insert your broken bridge here––we all have one. In the Christian worldview, this gap is called sin. Both of these problems––scale and sin––were solved by the greatest wonder of history: Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was––and is!––God, but he stepped out of his infinite existence to be born as a human, humbling himself to enter into our scale. Jesus walked at our pace, took his breaths one lungful at a time, and stood at our eye level. He lived perfectly though he experienced the full gauntlet of human trial, caring for sick loved ones, suffering betrayal by the hand of a close friend, and dying a death that he did not deserve. But the story does not end there. Jesus Christ was brought back to life, radiating an unprecedented, wondrous beauty, and he will never die again. He lives in heaven now and offers that same unending life to everyone who turns to him, believing that he was brought back to life.

The story of Jesus is the ultimate example of awe-inspiring beauty that creates moral transformation. More than any quantum microscopy or black hole, wonder at Jesus transforms our minds to consider new realities for ourselves and others. His entrance into the human scale enables us to relate intimately with the infinite wonder of God in every small and large moment of daily life––writing papers, talking with friends, or gazing upon the natural world. No matter how broken we are, this gift of relationship at our scale sustains the pursuit of right desires and actions and mends the bridges of our hearts and minds.

1. Nanoscience, “Scanning Tunneling Microscopy.” https://www.nanoscience.com/techniques/scanning-tunneling-microscopy/

2. Emily Conover and Lisa Grossman, “Here’s the First Picture of a Black Hole.” https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/black-hole-first-photo-event-horizon-telescope

3. Sebastian Smee, “The Black Hole Image is Beautiful and Profound. It’s Also Very Blurry.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-black-hole-image-is-beautiful-and-profound-its-also-very-blurry/2019/04/10/221622e0-5bab-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html

4. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Pedigree Books, 1934), 22. 

5. Robert Coles, The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

6. R. W. Hepburn, “Wonder,” Wonder and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984), 131–54.

7. Janice Friedman, “Environmental Degradation.” https://www.conservationinstitute.org/environmental-degradation/

8. Elizabeth Kucinich, “The Killing Fields: Industrial Agriculture, Dead Zones and Genetically Engineered Corn.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-killing-fields-indust_b_3678515

9. Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).

10. Shelly Kagan, “Does Consequentialism Demand too Much? Recent Work on the Limits of Obligation,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 13(3) (1984): 239-254.

11. Laura-Lee Kearns, “Subjects of Wonder: Toward an Aesthetics, Ethics, and Pedagogy of Wonder,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 49(1) (2015): 98-119. 

12. R. M. Theobald, Shakespeare Studies in Baconian Light (London: S. low, Marston & Co, 1901), 80. 

13. NPR, “Two Heartbeats a Minute,” https://www.npr.org/2020/02/25/809336135/two-heartbeats-a-minute#

14. Romans 7:15, 18 (ESV).

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