This Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for? Family, friends, a good job? Perhaps having a stable home, a good car, or a rich church community? Those are all wonderful things to reflect on and be thankful for during this season, and throughout the year, but what about the beauty of the natural world? Do we take enough time to pause and marvel at the wonder and intricacy of nature? In addition, who might we have to thank for such beauty?

Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College, wrote a book this year called Beauty is Your Destiny in which he calls readers to attend to creation with eyes of wonder. He also notes that many scientists, far from reducing the natural world to the product of chance, have been astounded the beauty of nature. Ryken writes,

Some of the strongest testimonies to the beauty of creation come from what scientists say about the role of beauty in confirming their discoveries. Although we often associate beauty with the arts, it is equally important in science and mathematics. One survey of the history of science argued that beauty is a primary criterion for scientific truth and concluded that the elegance of most equations is as strong a proof for their validity as an empirical experiment.

–Beauty is Your Destiny, p. 48

By observing the patterns and laws of nature, we can elucidate a sense of design and intention, and thus, beauty. In the ongoing debate about AI and its role, the problem of beauty remains ever present: could a computer program generate genuine beauty? And could an AI-generated novel ever present a beautiful story? My gut tells me no, because beauty belongs to the realm of the personal. We feel it. It’s an experience. It belongs to sentient beings who have appetites for the transcendent, not merely the material.

Gratitude expert Robert Emmons writes that it’s impossible to be grateful to oneself. When we encounter beauty, and experience the urge to praise, who do we thank? Gratitude is an outward expression, dependent on someone outside the self. He writes,

There is no surge of thankfulness when we unwrap a gift that we’ve given ourselves; there is no desire to give back generously out of gratitude to ourselves. This is why we cannot be grateful to ourselves. The logic of gratitude requires a giver, a gift, and a receiver; a benefactor, a beneficiary, and a benefit. That is why gratitude is always directed outward. It is a relational feeling that requires the presence of another. It is a response that is channeled to go outside the self.

–Gratitude Works! (p. 123)

In the age where we tend to ogle more at screens than stars, when we drive more than we walk, and in which it’s so easy to get caught up in the frenetic pace of modern life, taking some time to reflect on the beautiful things in the world can lead to genuine thanksgiving. It may even prompt us to ponder the deeper questions of truth, meaning, and transcendence, which, no matter how sophisticated the algorithm, artificial intelligence can never answer.