Light beyond Light: Beauty, Transformation, and the Kingdom of God

by Patrick Adams

Many of the planetary crises we now face result from our unwillingness to engage in the efforts that beauty demands. Laziness, indifference, blindness, and selfishness are the enemies of beauty, just as truth and goodness are its constant companions. Beauty is the sign of God’s kingdom among us, and our creativity is God’s primary means to bring his kingdom to fulfillment. Dostoyevsky’s enigmatic and tantalizing idea that “beauty will save the world” challenges our popular understanding of the nature of beauty as something superficial and benign, suggesting instead that beauty is an active and transformative power. The beauty of our world is not simply an ornament to delight our eyes, but a sign of the presence of a hidden kingdom. Like Noah’s rainbow, beauty encircles the world as a sign of hope, a promise that God loves us and has not abandoned us. Beauty is the power that binds the material and immaterial realms, making them one, and making us whole. The healing of the disjuncture between the physical and spiritual worlds is the project of beauty. This project is nothing less than the salvation of humanity and the restoration of the created order—the bringing into being of the kingdom of God. “In both his paintings and his writing, Patrick Adams blazes a path toward the ineffable by means of the light on landscape, diffusion of air and moisture in the endless blue of sky and sea. In Light beyond Light, the author offers a living sacrifice of praise to God by casting a vision of abundance and grace in and through this extended essay on beauty. He expends great effort to remove obstacles that prevent the thoughtful reader from seeing the form—form that is only truly glimpsed in the dance of the three great transcendent realities employed by God in Creation—truth, goodness, and beauty––all encountered in the grand unity of Creation. With great clarity and care, Patrick Adams lays a sure foundation for contemplation of this triune manifestation of the mind of the Maker. For the student and lover of beauty, he has assembled a wise and expertly crafted primer—an invitation to dive deeper into the reservoir of images, texts, and music that evoke the glory of God in all that God has made.” —Bruce Herman, Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts, Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 21, 2019