What philosophers call “the sublime” is the category of thing that stands beyond our reckoning: the vastness of the heavens, the speed of a jet breaking the sound-barrier, the height of a mountain, the unspeakableness of the sunset over Honolulu two evenings ago —are examples of the sublime.
One can think of the many biblical instances of the sublime. Of which here are a few examples:
God promises to make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky —a thing beyond reckoning (Gen 26.4).
The spectacle of the parting of the waters for Israel’s escape from Pharoah is sublime. Also sublime is the horror of the waters’ collapse when YHWH throws “horse and rider into the sea” (Ex. 15.21).
God’s appearance to Moses on Sinai is so beyond the senses that Moses, having only caught a glimpse of the train of his robe, is left radiating a glory so bright that he has to wear a veil over his face when he returns home (Ex. 33.18-23, 34.29-35)
The “contest” on Mt. Carmel when YHWH consumes not only the sacrifice but also the wood, the stones, the dust and the water in the trenches (1 King 18-19).
In modernity though, it seems, that we have done a bad thing: we have tried to divorce “the sublime” from “the beautiful”. In thinkers as variegated as Kant, Hegel, and Zizek, one finds the same problem: one is no longer concerned with the particulars of a sublime object (e.g. these contours in this sculpture, or these spangling-streaks of this sunset, or these notes in this symphony, or that cluster of freckles on this cheek), but rather with the modern disposal of “beautiful” in favor of the purely sublime the particulars have no meaning apart from the role they play in contradiction, terror, breathlessness, and awe. The goal of modern art, in all its forms, is reduced to merely evoking a sense of sheer shock.
One sees the effects of this in things like the art of Damien Hirst, the stage performances of the “Shock Rock” musicians, and, on a totally different level, in the “world of tomorrow” art and architecture that blossomed after WWI: soaring skyscrapers, whole cities enclosed by geodesic frames, streamline moderne curvatures, and art deco. The goal is to shock and awe, not necessarily love and long for. The particulars of time, place, history, and person can all be obliterated in wake of the sheer “beyond-ness” of the sublime unmoored from the beautiful.
Philip Shaw, responding to the claims of Hegel and Zizek, summarizes our plight thus: “the particular [thing] is again of no importance, and, moreover, that which it is said to reveal […] proves once again to be inaccessible and unknowable. The Kantian and Hegelian legacy is the same: wanting what it cannot have the subject of the sublime is locked in melancholia divorced forever from the object of its desire” (2006: 151). After all of the shock-and-awe of the modern sublime we are sorrowful, and are left to cruise the avenues of our lives for the next most shocking thing.
The Christian story offers us another alternative. God is sublime and beautiful. And God is both sublime and beautiful in particular ways at particular times. As we heard sung at Christmas, St. Romanos’ kontakion for the Holy Nativity proclaims: “On this day the virgin bears, Him who surpasses all excellence / and the earth brings forth a cave to One beyond our approaching..”
You see? Mystery of all mysteries: the Sublime has become a baby, and not just a baby, but this baby with all of the particulars that make him beautiful: cheeks, eyes, coloration, toes, knots of hair, DNA, unique kinds of stink, etc.
This mystery grows during this season of Epiphany in which we celebrate the visit of the Magi in which the One-beyond-our-approaching, we might say One who is “Beyond-ness Himself”, has come into the house to dwell with us.
During Epiphanytide we mark the houses with chalk and sprinkle holy water, all beautiful and lovely things; all particular things in particular homes. We do this not to try to control or hedge-in the power and terror of God, but to respond to the gift of God who blesses our homes with his presence. For God, the Lord of all, bows his beauty and sublimity as he stoops into our dwellings.
Perhaps that’s what Hegel and Zizek have missed in their approach of the sublime: the truly terrifying and monstrously powerful nature of the Sublime lies precisely in his utter humility and meekness. For I can reckon, I think, with a merely terrible God. But I cannot stand before a humble one. That Power and Terror unspeakable exist beyond the sensible forms in which they appear, I can manage, but for Power and Terror unspeakable to enter into the sensible form of a toddler and sleep in the pram by Mary’s bedside… oh, this… THIS! causes me to tremble in ways beyond articulation.