The Unity of the Transcendentals

What a mindful! The unity of the transcendentals! It sounds like a notion developed by someone with too much time on their hands.  I hadn’t ever recalled hearing of such a concept.  The unity of the transcendentals. This is what  Dr. Albert Mohler entitled his lecture in the series Truth and Consequences, produced by Ligonier Ministries and shown in the Elk Point Baptist Adult Sunday School class on Sunday, May 1st.

So what is it, or are they?  The transcendentals are those universal virtues of the good, the beautiful, the true and the real.  They have been understood in the history of Western thought to be indispensable categories for understanding the world.  Mohler points out that the unity of the transcendentals is a foundational theological belief for the Christian because it points to the One who is good, beautiful, true, and real. The concept of unity suggests that they are indivisible.  You can’t have something good, if it’s not true or real.  Scripturally they are seen clearly in Paul’s letter to Philippi:

Philippians 4:8 (ESV): “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Our culture craves beauty but has no clue what beauty is because it denies basic truth about God and the world as He created it.  Instead we fabricate fake beauty; we manufacture our own truth; we consider it our right to create our own reality; and so on.  All this due to a denial of God and His Word.  Dr Mohler gave an example.  He said that from the Christian worldview, a Down-syndrome child is more beautiful than a exorbitantly made-up fashion model. The former carries the Imago Deo, the latter is a fake.  Yet the former is aborted (killed) in thousands by our culture.  

Another important thing that Dr. Mohler said was that truth is never bad news.  In relation to the gospel, telling someone about the truth of their sin is necessary to point someone to Christ. The fact that Christ is presented as the solution to the problem of sin makes the bad news of sin, while a harsh reality, good news in actuality. He illustrated that point by showing that a physician’s news that one has a malignant tumour is “hard” news but if there is a remedy it is not bad news.  It is never unloving to give hard news (the Truth) if you have a solution.  So-called “bad” news becomes good because it is true.  And if it is true then it is beautiful and real.

The transcendental realities of the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real are not just philosophical mambo jumbo, they are deeply theological, because they speak of the character of God.  This Christian worldview is the only worldview that can hold together in a logical, cohesive, comprehensive package because it is based on the reality of a God who is the good, the beautiful, the true, and the real. Other worldviews cannot claim the same ability, therefore they are fractured, inconsistent, confusing and lack all logical integrity.