Five Values

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15–17)

In this part

Human beings keep reaching because you are made for something ultimate. So you are introduced to the Five Values—Being, Unity, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty—drawn from the Transcendentals. They answer longing: whether life is real, can hold together, can be known, can be good, and can be worth awe. And because this is a Christian horizon, the final question becomes personal: What is Ultimate Reality, or the true “end,” and how does it call your longing by name?

How it begins

If the mind is a lamp, it must first be aimed.

That was the work you began learning through Paul and Philippians 4:8—dwelling, patiently and deliberately, on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. But a lamp does not create the landscape; it only illuminates it. And what it reveals, over time, does not merely enter your mind—it begins to shape your longing.

Yet now comes the question that breaks open every honest life: Not merely what should we think, but what are we ultimately seeking—that which transcends beyond all our thinking?

Because human beings do not only ask for information. We ask for substance. We hunger for meaning that can survive disappointment. We chase coherence when life feels scattered. We want a world that not only exists, but is knowable—not merely present, but livable—and (somehow) beautiful, as if reality itself were worthy of desire.

Perhaps an illustration asking two simple questions will help to explain why humans, apart from all other species, are creatures who seek transcendence:

What makes a rainbow?

What makes a rainbow beautiful?

Science, reason, logic—these can explain what makes a rainbow: sunlight entering water droplets, refraction, internal reflection, dispersion of wavelengths, and the light that reaches your eyes. We can describe the physics and even map much of the brain’s processing that accompanies the sight.

But none of those explanations answers the deeper question: What makes a rainbow beautiful?

The story continues in the book.