The cherry blossoms are out.
Every spring, crowds gather around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., to take in the fleeting wonder of pale pink petals drifting against a deep blue sky. The trees bloom, the photographers snap, and for just a few weeks, the city stops and stares.
Jane and I didn’t endure the traffic and the crowds this year, but we’ve seen them before. Plus, there are plenty of cherry blossoms around us where we live. There’s also a beautiful cherry blossom tree right out in front of our church. That’s good enough for us. But…
Why do we care so much?
Why do people fly in from around the world to see trees bloom?
Why do we stand in silence before waterfalls or cry at a piece of music?
Why does beauty move us?
This article is part of a series exploring the question of God’s existence. And beauty—whether in nature, art, or music—is often overlooked in that discussion. We talk about cosmology, morality, and logic (and we should). But beauty may be one of the most accessible clues to the divine.
Beauty That Serves No Purpose
From an evolutionary standpoint, much of what we call beauty is unnecessary.
You don’t need cherry blossoms to survive. Or sunsets. Or songs that make you cry. Many of the most beautiful things in life offer no survival advantage. Some, in fact, are costly and inefficient. Yet we long for them. We seek them. We create them. And we mourn their loss.
Beauty is gratuitous. Extravagant.
And strangely universal.
All cultures appreciate beauty in some form—in stories, paintings, sculptures, poems, gardens, or music. All people, in every era, have encountered something beautiful and instinctively known: This matters.
But why?
The Argument from Beauty
Christian thinkers such as Peter Kreeft and C.S. Lewis have long argued that beauty is a signpost. It doesn’t prove God’s existence in a rigid, mathematical sense. But it points.
The idea is simple: beauty makes the most sense if there is a source behind it—a transcendent Creator who is Himself beautiful and who created a world capable of reflecting that beauty.
Why would a cold, indifferent universe care about symmetry or color or harmony? Why would atoms produce awe?
If the universe is purely material, there is no objective beauty—only chemical responses and personal preference. But we don’t live that way. We act as if beauty is real, meaningful, and even sacred.
“God hath made every thing beautiful in his time.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11 (KJV)
Beauty, in this view, is a whisper of the divine. A fingerprint left behind. A quiet message that says, This isn’t all an accident.
The Cherry Blossoms Preach
As I write this, the cherry blossoms are peaking. The sun glows through the petals. Children laugh on the paths. Couples take photos under the trees. Strangers pause, unhurried.
It is, in every way, unnecessary.
And yet it speaks.
Beauty invites us to worship. Not in a forced or superstitious way, but in a natural way. When we see something beautiful, we instinctively want to share it. Point it out. Reflect on it. Preserve it.
Beauty turns our eyes upward.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” – Psalm 19:1 (KJV)
The Challenge for the Skeptic
You don’t have to believe in God to enjoy beauty. But I would gently ask: Why do you believe beauty exists?
Is it just neural stimulation? Evolutionary byproduct? Cultural conditioning?
Or is it something more?
Could it be that beauty exists because we were made to see it? Could it be that you long for beauty because beauty was meant to point you home?
Cherry blossoms fade. Music ends. Sunsets pass. But the longing they stir—the ache for something transcendent—that stays with us.
And perhaps it’s there for a reason.
Perhaps beauty is not just decoration.
Perhaps it’s a clue.
Thank you for Reading!
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