Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Christian philosophers, theologians, and artists regularly claim that experiences of beauty in art can function (i) as a road to God and (ii) as an encounter with God. These claims are well motivated by various Biblical texts and sophisticated theistic accounts of aesthetic perception. What is often lacking, however, is empirical support for key premises in arguments supporting these common claims. As a result, the connection between beauty, art, and God remains tentative and subject to defeat by empirically grounded naturalistic accounts of aesthetic perception. In this essay, we will identify the key empirical premises supporting these common claims and suggest the application of the emerging field, experimental theological aesthetics, for empirically testing such premises. If successful, the resultant experimentally based approach to philosophical and theological aesthetics suggests new ways of advancing long-standing debates typically carried out along theoretical or a priori lines with little or no appeal to empirical concerns.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel17040502
Authors: Paul M. Gould, Matthew Niermann
Institutions: Palm Beach Atlantic University, California Baptist University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
Funder: Templeton Religion Trust
Award: G7096439892
OpenAlex ID: W7155089490