Beauty: The Transfigured Bride

The first literary piece that I remember writing was in my fourth-grade class. We were tasked with writing a personal narrative about any event in our lives, and I wrote about my family’s trip to Yellowstone National Park that summer. Its majestic mountains, gentle, babbling streams, and sprawling plains dotted with bison remained deeply ingrained in my mind, and I felt compelled to capture those images through writing. As a child, I was captivated by the beauty of Yellowstone, and even now, beauty still captivates me. It is everywhere, whether it be streaks of orange thrown into the sky by the setting sun, the tranquil journey of raindrops sliding down a car window, or even the wide-eyed wonder of a child seeing a puppy for the first time.

The pleasure we get from seeing beauty in the world has significant scientific backing. A 2004 experiment had subjects view a series of paintings and rate them as “beautiful,” “neutral,” or “ugly.” The researchers found that the orbito-frontal cortex, which is involved in the perception of rewarding stimuli, showed increased activity when the subject found a painting beautiful [1]. This suggests that, for the brain, perceiving beauty may be functionally equivalent to obtaining a reward. Beauty becomes more than just a passing pleasure we enjoy; rather, it becomes something we are wired to strive after. Just as the brain conditions us to feel pleasure when we accomplish a large task or receive a gift, it also conditions us to feel pleasure when we see something beautiful. 

However, the perception of human beauty activates a more complex neural network in addition to this foundational reward response. In their influential 1972 study, “What is Beautiful is Good,” Dion et al. demonstrate that our perception of human beauty shapes social judgments of individuals, a process heavily influenced by learned and cultural factors. Participants were shown pictures of individuals rated as high, medium, or low attractiveness (determined by surveying a group of 100 undergraduates at a nearby university) and asked to predict their personality traits and life outcomes. The study found that physically attractive individuals were perceived as more sociable, more likely to obtain prestigious occupations, and even to have happier marriages [2].

This conclusion is hardly surprising; after all, we have been conditioned our entire lives to subscribe to a “what is beautiful is good” stereotype. This conditioning begins in early childhood: in children’s fairy tales, the good and virtuous princess (like Sleeping Beauty) who is worthy of reward is the very epitome of beauty, contrasting sharply with the hideous appearance of the evil witch (like Maleficent) who is deserving of punishment. This equating of physical beauty with value is continually reinforced throughout our lives—attractive social media influencers constantly flaunt luxury items, high-end brand advertisements consistently feature attractive actors, and in many schools, the “popular” students are typically considered attractive. This lifelong conditioning reshapes the brain’s fundamental reward system when processing human faces. It links the simple pleasure response, one that can be experienced by looking at a pretty flower, to a web of judgments about a person’s personality and life. We are trained to equate appearance with value, turning our innate pleasure response into a system of social evaluation. 

This superficial system of social evaluation places immense strain on individuals and can have severe consequences. An especially dangerous and prevalent example of this today is body dissatisfaction, which affects an alarming 50% of female adolescents and female undergraduate students [3]. Grabe et al. (2008) suggest that this statistic could be due to young women’s tendency to view unrealistic mass media body standards and “accept media portrayals as representations of reality” [4]. External standards often rewire the brain’s ideal of beauty and give unrealistic expectations of what beauty is. Because of this, many struggle with body dissatisfaction and do not see beauty in their appearance, withholding the anticipated reward system activity. The resulting absence of a reward leads to frustration and unhappiness as they strive towards an unrealistic ideal, and has also been shown to lead to depressive and bulimic symptoms [5]. In extreme cases, individuals don’t just internalize the aesthetic standard; they also internalize the moral standard. They absorb the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype to the point that they conclude their failure to be beautiful also means that they fail to be good. Their self-concept thus becomes more than just body dissatisfaction; they become dissatisfied with their very worth as a human being.

---

We are trained to equate appearance with value, turning our innate pleasure response into a system of social evaluation. 

---

More generally, in a society that emphasizes rewarding the “ideal,” it is important to consider what happens when we face flaws, imperfections, or brokenness. One of the most profound consequences of this experience is a sense of hopelessness, known as “learned helplessness.” In their 1976 study titled “Learned Helplessness: Theory and Evidence,” Maier and Seligman found that when dogs, rats, or even humans were repeatedly exposed to negative and inescapable stimuli, they “learned” that their actions were pointless and eventually gave up [6]. Their perception that their situation was uncontrollable destroyed their motivation and hope of escape. Similarly, when individuals are consistently faced with unattainable cultural ideals and ultimately fail to escape or meet them, they can eventually feel a crippling sense of learned helplessness and a loss of self-efficacy. 

At the societal level, the inescapable stimuli are not personal ideals but rather the visible brokenness of the world. In every city, persistent problems like homelessness, crime, and food insecurity are evident. When society sees these issues consistently worsening, the result can be a collective sense of learned helplessness. This fosters widespread despair and a sense of hopelessness that an individual’s actions are insignificant to change such profound brokenness. In some cases, this hopelessness turns into disillusionment and eventually even aversion to the brokenness in the world. Brokenness isn’t pleasant to look at or think about, and it is often easier to turn the other way or avoid it altogether. Thus, situations that need the most attention are ignored, causing problems to fester and brokenness to abound.

In the midst of all the brokenness and hopelessness, Christians find solace in their God, a perfect, sinless being, who is the very definition of beauty. While society is repulsed by brokenness and ugliness in the world, God is not. Astonishingly, the opposite is true—God is invariably drawn to the broken. For example, He was “moved with compassion” for the multitudes of Israel, because they were “weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” [7]. Indeed, David describes God as “near to those who have a broken heart” [8]. This characterization runs counter to every semblance of what societal rulers are thought to be like. Such rulers are usually characterized as lofty and inaccessible, preferring not to think about or address suffering or imperfection. However, God is described as being drawn to this very brokenness and meeting the brokenhearted in their despair.

---

While society is repulsed by brokenness and ugliness in the world, God is not.

---

The Christian theology presents a God who is not repulsed by the brokenness and ugliness of the world but rather is drawn to them out of compassion. He cries out to the world, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” [9]. He does not give any prerequisites or ideals that must be met in order to come to Him. Rather, it is the very need for healing that is the only qualification to enter His presence. In a world marred by brokenness and unrealistic standards, God offers a way out, welcoming humanity with open arms and freely giving of His rest.

---

He does not give any prerequisites or ideals that must be met in order to come to Him. Rather, it is the very need for healing that is the only qualification to enter His presence.

---

On a larger scale, God’s eternal purpose does not stop at comforting the brokenhearted; it also includes a promise to restore a deeply broken world. He isn’t satisfied with simply a collection of comforted individuals living in a still-broken world; instead, He aims to restore the harmonic beauty of Eden. Christians have a profound hope that all will be restored—God will create a “new heaven and a new earth,” and His church will be “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” [10]. All of the world’s current brokenness will be wiped away, transformed into a beautiful bride worthy of being joined to Jesus Himself. This guarantee is what provides Christians with the hope that all present suffering will be made worthwhile. The Gospel of John summarizes it brilliantly, comparing the day when all is made new to a new mother forgetting the anguish of childbirth because of the “joy that a human being has been born into the world” [11]. Brokenness in this world is so evident today, but Christians look steadfastly onward with faith that something better is coming. God beckons us to come to Him in the midst of the world’s brokenness and enter into not only His rest but also His promise of restoration. He promises us beauty unimaginable: a beauty so complete that it will, on that day, eclipse all memory of our current sufferings and broken world.

References:

1. Kawabata H, Zeki S. Neural Correlates of Beauty. Journal of neurophysiology. 2004;91(4):1699-1705. doi:10.1152/jn.00696.2003
2. Dion, K., Berscheid, E., & Walster, E. (1972). What is beautiful is good. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(3), 285-290. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0033731
3.  Grabe, S., Ward, L. M., & Hyde, J. S. (2008). The role of the media in body image concerns among women: A meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies. Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 460-476. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.3.460
4. Ibid.
5. Sarah Kate Bearman, Eric Stice, Allison Chase (2003). Evaluation of an intervention targeting both depressive and bulimic pathology: A randomized prevention trial. Behavior Therapy, 34(3), 277-293. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(03)80001-1.
6. Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. (1976). Learned helplessness: Theory and evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 105(1), 3-46. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.105.1.3
7. Matthew 9:36, NKJV.
8. Psalm 34:18, NKJV.
9. Matthew 11:28, NKJV.
10. Revelation 21:1-2, NKJV.
11. John 16:21, NKJV.