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Scott Aniol, PhD, is President of G3 Ministries, adjunct professor at Redeemer School of the Arts, and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. He also serves as an elder of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, GA.
Dorothy Sayers’s famous essay “The Lost Tools of Learning” sparked a movement to recover the trivium—the tools of learning. However, even with these tools, modern education often neglects the cultivation of the heart. This session argues that we must also recover the “tools of loving”—aesthetics. By exploring the concept of orthopathy (right loving), we will see how beauty is essential for cultivating wisdom and biblical discernment (aisthanomai). Understanding aesthetics allows Christians to perceive how even moments of ugliness fit into God’s beautiful plan, ultimately training the soul to love what is truly lovely.
The presentation moves beyond the standard discussion of Truth (Orthodoxy) and Goodness (Orthopraxy) to provide the third, often-neglected transcendental of Beauty (Orthopathy) as the link between the two. It will help members grasp that the ultimate goal is not just intellectual rigor but the nurturing of complete Christians in mind, will, and emotions. By recovering a biblical understanding that truth is more than mere factuality, including an essential aesthetic component, it provides a stronger defense of the faith against modern and postmodern thought.