Mr. Hale was invited by the Agathon Institute of Western New York to speak at a seminar on beauty hosted by St. John Fisher University in Rochester. The Agathon Institute provides opportunities for college students and high schoolers to rediscover classical principles like beauty, courage, goodness, and truth. Mr. Hale presented a lecture entitled “Beauty in a Fallen World: Saint Thomas Aquinas on Beauty as a Transcendental.”
Drawing on the philosophy of Saint Thomas, the lecture addressed the question of whether all of creation is truly, objectively beautiful, particularly in light of the disorder and suffering introduced by sin. Saint Thomas supplies not only the basis for a realist aesthetic, but an explanation of good and evil centered on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Mr. Hale quotes Aquinas on this point, saying, “Christ ‘kept His scars’ even in His resurrected body, not because of any ‘corruption or defect, but to the greater increase of glory… and a special beauty will appear in the places scarred by the wounds.’”
Mr. Hale’s full lecture was recorded and posted online by the Agathon Institute and is available on YouTube.
