If God is good and we are his creation. We are therefore and extension of God so we should do good as well. In the Bible we are called to be like Christ in our essence and being. Since having Christ in us as “believers making art to the glory of God, goodness is not merely something to strive for in their morality, it is also something that should permeate their aesthetic efforts” (Bustard, 2006, p.17). Our goodness should be radiating around us so that people can see God’s goodness through us. Although what does good really mean? The meaning of the word good in today’s society has been twisted so that it has less impact than it originally did. For example some synonyms for the word are nice and sweet. Although do these words really encompass the word good. If we as Christians look into what defines goodness “we look to God for insight because goodness is one of His attributes” (Bustard, p.22).
Then if God is goodness and sweet and nice mean good how can God be considered good when we destroyed the entire earth with a flood. Destroying the earth with a flood is neither sweet or nice. Basically, humans have dumbed down the word so that we can comprehend it because since God is infinite and we are not we are not able to fully comprehend. The next question is how can we make good art if we can not fully understand the word good. The answer is having art that is “rooted in the rich soil of believing that humanity is far worse off than we think and God’s grace extends far beyond what we can imagine” (Bustard, p.24). When we look to God for His grace and goodness we are able to comprehend more of what goodness is than what we are able to come up with on our own. In this piece Goodness by Linda Bailey it is not necessarily a picture of a particular landscape, but rather a concept that the artist is trying to grasp. For me personally the goodness in this piece is God’s light shining from above to shine light on the darker essence below.
My favorite line of this chapter happens to be the last line. “Therefore we should seek to bring glory to God through making artwork that reflects, alludes to, and glories in the beautiful good” (Bustard, p. 32). What we create should reflect God’s goodness in it. Even though we are not totally able to comprehend the word. This is why artist lean on the art to tell them how to create it or what the story is behind the artwork itself. Like how we were talking in class about taking some of the pressure off of the artist and more on what God wants you to learn from the artwork itself.
References:
Bustard, N. (2006). It was good: Making art to the glory of God. Baltimore, MD: Square Halo Books.
