Abstract

© British Society of Aesthetics 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] who follows the debates between religion and science will be instantly baited by the subject of this book and by the seductive terms of its title. This is a book about a well-worn topic which proposes to enter it through a little-worn door, the notion of mystery, for which the title’s ‘excellent beauty’ turns out to be a more resplendent synonym. Setting out its stall at the heart of longstanding questions about the legitimacy of religious belief, its brief is to reclaim the notion of mystery in ways calculated to antagonize many of the interested parties. Pace a common religious conceit, mystery is not the exclusive preserve of religion. Pace a widespread scientific stance, mystery is not merely a shadowy station on...