Beauty

"We have asserted in a truly naturalistic world, beauty cannot logically exist. Here is why. Beauty implies an ideal. The concept of beauty suggests standards that an object must meet or approach to achieve perfection. The more nearly an object comes to matching the ideal for its kind, the more beautiful it is.

But in a naturalistic, accidental world with no absolutes no such ideals or standards are possible. What is merely is; there is no such thing as what ought to be. We must have a standard that defines what ought to be before we can evaluate whether a form meets that standard.

But in a world without God, all forms and functions are accidental and, according to evolution, in a state of perpetual change, drifting on the currents of natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, mutation, and endless adaptation. We cannot freeze the evolutionary frame and claim that at any given moment a given form is ideal. In a world of such fluctuation, we can have no fixed, absolute standards to which we can expect anything to conform. We can have no beauty without such standards, no standards without absolutes, and no absolutes in an accidental, mechanical world without God. If the naturalists are right, true beauty cannot exist, for you cannot find a fixed, unchanging standard to which beauty should measure up." -- from the book "In Search of Certainity" by Josh McDowell and Thomas Williams. Tyndale House Publishing 2003. pages 83-84