Holy Words

Holy Words

Class Reading: Gerardus van Der Leeuw/Sacred and Profane Beauty

November 22, 2015

Words have power. This is evident to everyone. We have all had our minds changed on a matter because of words. Word influences belief. The power contained in words is derived from both the sound a word makes and the meaning behind a word. For primitive man, however, the power of words was found not in the meaning but in the rhythm. As Van Der Leeuw says, “under rhythmic constraint, words exert a force.”(115) Without this rhythm, words of content were considered profane. The formula behind poetry and song is what brought things alive and made things sacred. What is sung is not as important as how it is being sung. The primitive understanding of words emphasized formula. Thus, for primitive man, word is inextricably connected to dance. Music for the sake of music is a modern invention. The primitive man used music to achieve rhythm, symmetry, and harmony. We moderns should appreciate the primitive wonder of formula and rhythm, while also focusing on content. Often times, rhythm is the stage on which content is made great and beautiful. 

Art as Truth

Art as Truth

Class Readings: Thomas Wartenberg/Nature of Art

November 22, 2015

Martin Heidegger said that “beauty is one way in which truth occurs as unconcealedness.”(157) The truth is made present and manifest through that which is beautiful. A key theme in ancient thought was that the good, true, and beautiful all coalesced. The good, true, and beautiful were all essential Forms in Plato’s thought. The Danish Philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, recognized that is not enough for something to be true if it is cold and indifferent. For the existentialist gadfly, it was not enough to know the true way to live. An equally important question the philosophers struggle with is how to live beautifully. What good would it do to act in truth if it meant forsaking that which is beautiful. Heidegger held that the origin of art is not the artist nor the equipment but the art itself. The creation of art is different from the creation of other useful objects, of equipment, since art is created in and of itself, for itself. Equipment is made with a preconceived purpose in mind. For example, an ax is made to chop down a tree. In a work of art, createdness is exposed and experienced. The nature of art is the “setting-into-work of truth.”(159) In art, truth is in the process of becoming and happening. Art opens itself up to the world, showing us the Being of particular beings; the essence behind objects.

Spiritual Aesthetic Capacity

Spiritual Aesthetic Capacity

Outside Reading: Belden Lane/Ravished By Beauty

November 21, 2015

Jonathan Edward’s greatest contribution to the canon of historical theology is his idea of a new “spiritual sense,” graciously received in salvation. Edward’s theology of aesthetics was birthed by the beauty he beheld in the Connecticut River Valley. In his Religious Affections, the theologian of beauty states that “God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above them, chiefly by his divine beauty.” According to Edwards, the essence of salvation is being awakened to a new aesthetic capacity. Just as man has physical senses - taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing - so there exists a sixth sense; a spiritual sense that has been dulled by sin. If Christ Himself is the sun, creation is the ray of light that emanates from it. God chooses to communicate and express himself through longing. Moreover, it is the nature of beauty to share, bind, and celebrate itself. God reaches out to share himself, through creation, not because he is deficient in himself. Rather the fact of God’s completion is the grounds for his reaching out. God chooses to communicated through creation. The reason God chooses to extend himself through creation, Lane says, is because “a perfection that elicits rejoicing is always superior to a perfection left to itself alone.”(175) Praise, adoration, rejoicing, pleasure, and delight seem to add to the Being of it’s object. God is intensely dedicated to the celebration of his own glory. However, this strong love of self does not make God a selfish deity. Instead, he shares his glory with creation.

Theater of Glory

Theater of Glory

Outside Reading: Belden Lane/Ravished By Beauty 

November 21

The Genevan Reformer, John Calvin, used the metaphor of theater to describe the ravishing beauty of God in the natural world. In the beginning of his Institutes, Calvin distinguished between two books of revelation: the book of nature and the book of Scripture. He believed that both books, when read side-by-side, offered a fuller, more complete, understanding of God’s glory. Nature, as the theater of God’s glory, is the stage on which the human mind contemplates divine beauty. Calvin supported theater in Geneva as a medium for conveying the gospel message and alluring the human soul into God’s grand story. In this theater, God plays the lead role and the rest of creation is summoned to a common praise. This act of praise is what sustains order in the cosmos and mirrors the Creator’s love for His creatures. The stability and well-being of the world depends on the creature’s praise of God’s beauty. If the world is God’s theater, the church is his orchestra. The purpose of the created world is twofold: to delight and instruct. Nature is both a school of affliction and a school of desire. “It disrupts the ego, redirects misplaced longings, and teaches radical trust.”(64) Theology always leads to doxology. Calvin viewed creation as the trinity’s invitation to join in the divine dance. All creatures are called to participate in the joy of their Creator and become united with Beauty Himself.

Art as an Object of Taste

Art as an Object of Taste

Class Reading: Thomas Wartenberg/Nature of Art

November 16, 2015

David Hume, the 18th century skeptic and empiricist inquires whether there are objective standards in art. He is amazed how people from different ages, governments, countries, and cultures can all agree that a specific piece of art is beautiful. While acknowledging that there is “a great variety of taste” he searches for a standard of taste that constitutes human perception of beauty. He wants to know what the basis for critical judgements of art and beauty are. Hume holds that beauty is not a quality found in an object or experience but rather a perception of the mind projected onto an object or experience. He attempts to solve his dilemma by saying that there are certain attributes in art that appeal to all humans. Thus, there may be universal agreement that one piece of art is more beautiful than another. Hume seems to take every measure of precaution in acknowledging the universal susceptibility to find value in specific characteristics of art while refusing to admit to objective beauty. Afraid of accepting objectivity in taste, Hume says that only people who are “improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice” are able to recognize the attributes that make art good, beautiful, and true. 

The Incredible is Most Credible

The Incredible is Most Credible

Topic of Choice

November 16, 2015

As I rode my bike across the main stretch of campus this afternoon the sun was setting off in the distance, behind the clock tower at the far end of the great lawn. The stoic academic buildings seemed to have an aged, golden complexion to them. There were people walking around, all on a mission to reach a predetermined destination. I, however, had nothing on my mind and no place to go. I was simply riding my bike as a way of legitimizing doing nothing. In that idle moment of contentment and contemplation I found myself thinking, “this is unreal.” Moments later, it struck me odd that I choose to use the word “unreal” to describe the beautiful scene I was beholding. Upon further reflection, I realized that people are always making such exclamations about beauty. “That sunset is unreal!” “This campus is incredible?” “This moment is too good to be true!” Why is it our common response to beauty that we attribute such an experience or encountered object to falsehood? Martin Heidegger says that art is “the becoming and happening of truth.” Ironically, because beauty is the closest glimpse we have of reality we often mistake it for something unreal. Beauty catches us off guard. Our eyes have been dulled and our minds duped by the pseudo-realities of the marketplace. But every once in a while we encounter something that jolts us out of our passivity and awakens something in our soul. We would do well to recognize such happenings as a gracious window through which we may peer into reality. How much more aware and mindful we would be of beauty if, in such moments, our response became, “this is so real!”

Musical DNA

Assigned Reading
Musical DNA Podcast

Growing up NPR was constantly playing in my house; quiet could hardly ever be obtained because NPR was always playing somewhere throughout the house.  Which is probably why I enjoyed the homework assignment of listening to the Radio Lab podcasts.  Out of the two my favorite was the podcast on EMI the computer program that could compose music in the style of a famous composer.  At first I didn't understand the purpose of EMI because I thought that a normal (human) composer could accomplish the same task by listening to a piece and doing his/her best to replicate aspects of it.  What really changed my understanding of EMI was when pieces written by EMI were played in front of an audience and some people were unaware that it was composed by a computer program and were so openly moved by it.  Now, I'm torn between thinking EMI is a great invention and feeling annoyance for how EMI can trivialize the genius of someone's favorite composer.  I can see why David Cope received as much backlash as he did.  However, EMI should be looked at as a true gift.  EMI allows for the composer's musical DNA to live on and although EMI streamlines the creative process the end result is still beautiful.