MUSIC AND SPIRITUALITY
by Basil Cole
The early Fathers of the Church became exceedingly critical of their
contemporary musical situation for reasons of morals and religion.
Many spoke against the music of their times because it was
essentially either idolatrous or licentious. Music of the theater was
but an extension of the pagan cults and so to attack music was
indirectly to uphold the fledgling faith of Christ in a people still
filled with the dregs of their old ways, i.e., sexually stimulating
marriage parties, singing to their gods in homes or, on the occasion
of pagan festivals, celebrating with their non-christian neighbors.
On the other side, we find the Church Fathers waxing eloquent about
the many effects of their "new song" (the chant of the liturgy)
inculcating the Christian virtues of patience, kindness, peace, joy
and charity, bringing the assembly together in ardent and humble
worship. That they likewise teach that music is subordinated to the
words of the psalms is due partly to the influence of Plato's
philosophy of music, and partly because some of them had composed or
commissioned musicians to write hymns which contain the hard sayings
of faith and morals made delightful in sound.
Today's contemporary musical scene is quite mixed (some would say
mad). Certainly throughout the world, American rock music holds in
its grip the cultural sensibilities of the majority of radio
listeners, at least. Is rock music bad for one's spiritual life? Much
of it may be because if the lyrics suggest an anti-gospel message
(and many do), then the melody, harmony and rhythm share in that
negative influence. But music can only suggest, encourage with its
delights, not force anyone to act contrary to their best convictions.
Yet, many suggestions can undermine felt and reasoned convictions
over a prolonged period of time.
The analysis of beauty by St. Thomas Aquinas helps us appreciate the
value of the musician because for Aquinas, the beautiful stimulates
not only the pleasure of the ear but the delight of the mind. The
three characteristics or properties of beauty-clarity, order and
proportion, splendor of form-cannot be simply reduced to any laws of
music or the supposed laws of the other arts. These properties
transcend any laws, which is the key to appreciating the openness of
Aquinas's thought to artistic evolution within any of the arts,
notwithstanding the misunderstanding of the critics. Given his hints
about the possibility of a virtue regulating the pleasure of the
arts, there is a virtue of music appreciation which regulates one's
choice and attitudes about the music one listens to. As music lovers
grow in the ability to distinguish beautiful music, they are able to
turn the aesthetic experience of music into a preparation for
contemplation of other things that may answer certain important
questions regarding the meaning of life. Likewise, the virtue of
music appreciation will lead them to know when to get refreshment
from music and when someone feels he is becoming too attached to this
pleasure and so must moderate its use in the overall life of virtue.
Aquinas used the notion of beauty to help understand that the
creation of the world is shot through with beauty.[1] Looking at his
commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius we discover that the reason for God's
creative act is reduced to his beauty.[2] God wanted to make things
like to himself who is Beauty per se. Hence the beauty of creation is
spoken of in the following manner: "The beauty of the creature is
nothing else than the likeness of the divine beauty participated in
things";[3] ". . . whence it is evident that from the divine beauty
is derived the existence of all things."[4] So, it follows that each
thing is beautiful in its own way.[5] Aquinas also says that this
divine beauty gives unity, mutual adaptations, agreements in ideas
and friendship.[6]
From another point of view, beauty of spirit consists in
conversations and actions which are well formed and suffused with
intelligence.[7] Therefore, from the point of view of morals and
spirituality, the beauty of an entire life is founded upon the
virtuous life which consists in the co-ordination of many human acts
and emotions according to reason.[8] Because the instincts and
emotions are brought under the order of reason, this inner activity
of the human person, like a musician's, harmonizes, and sets in
proportion the human life of the person.[9] On the other hand,
immoderate pleasure sought for its own sake" . . . dulls the light of
reason, from which comes all clarity and beauty of virtue."[10]
But the life of virtue is not only suggested by good music, it also
helps one for contemplation. What is contemplation? For Aquinas, it
means many things from the point of view of thinking about and loving
God. But looked at entirely from a natural perspective, it is "a
simple gaze upon the truth."[11] In the same citation, he relies on
Richard of St. Victor's notion that "contemplation is the soul's
penetrating and easy gaze on things perceived." This definition is
easily transferable from philosophy to all the arts of the beautiful
including music. To listen to music is to contemplate something
beautiful which is a structured truth of a made thing itself and may
also (if allied with poetry) contain extra-musical truth either from
faith or reason.
For St. Thomas, happiness itself consists in part (he does not
exclude the delight of the moral virtues) through the contemplative
act, most of all when it is infused by the Holy Spirit.[12] But
happiness ensues when contemplation is done by one's own efforts as
well,[13] so long as this activity does not interfere with one's
responsibilities for then it will be pure escape.[14] To the extent
that music brings one to the taste and joys of contemplative activity
and life, it leads one to the purpose of the virtuous life. For the
moral virtues themselves anticipate and dispose everyone and look
toward the meaning of contemplative life, both naturally and
supernaturally.
Thus, listening to beautiful music may dispose one to the
contemplation of faith, since it mirrors the infinite beauty of God
himself.[15] Could it not be the case that the strife and struggle to
fasten onto ideas "by reason of the weakness of the intellect"[16] is
eased somewhat by a love and appreciation of all the fine arts, which
in turn strengthen the natural power of concentration on spiritual
things? Might listening to the inner relationships of a work by a
Bach or a Mozart, to use some classic examples, exercise and
strengthen the intellect to more easily contemplate divine things?
Likewise, might not the beautiful as contemplated dispose one to
realize that there is more to life than simply or exclusively the
material goods of the senses? Could not a sonata or concerto, or
Benny Goodman's big band music of the 1940s suggest, through the
intricacies of a well skilled melody joined in a deep relationship to
harmony and rhythm, that one desire a life of more virtuous
perfection?[17] These questions flow from the whole idea of
contemplation as seen by Aquinas.[18]
From the Trinitarian and purely supernatural perspective, Jesus
Christ merits the title of beauty since he is the perfect image or
art-work of the Father, a metaphor and real analogy borrowed from
epistemology and originally used in the fine art of painting.[19]
Also, in passing, St. Thomas says grace is something beautiful.[20]
Like the moral good, the beautiful in this life does not fully
satisfy. There are intrinsic defects to some degree in all music or
all of art, as well as human beings themselves. These deficiencies
are changeableness and limitedness or finiteness.[21]
From another perspective, however, Thomas rejoins himself with
Augustine's famous problem of whether or not it is good to enjoy the
pleasure of sacred music. Aquinas understands the perplexity better:
The soul is distracted from the meaning of a song when it is sung
merely to arouse pleasure. But when one sings out of devotion, he
pays more attention to the content and the meaning, both because he
lingers more on the words, and because, as Augustine says, each
affection of our spirit, according to its variety, has its own
appropriate measure in the voice and singing, by some hidden
correspondence wherewith it is stirred. The same is true of the
hearers, for even if they do not understand what is sung, they
understand why it is sung, namely for God's honor, and this is enough
to arouse their devotion (S. T., II-II, 91, 2 ad 3).
Clearly, Thomas has no problem with meaning and emotion, but merely
taking pleasure in sacred music is not enough to justify listening to
it in the context of the liturgy. This more clearly solves
Augustine's dilemma. Also, these two very short paragraphs contain an
entire spirituality for the sacred musician.
Since pure instrumental music, of all the arts, abstracts the most
from concrete situations in reality, the emotions and joys that flow
from it can more readily lead one to pose the deep questions about
life. A famous Beethoven scholar, speaking of listening to and
appreciating that composer's works, once said:
They [compositions which express spiritual experiences] stir elements
in us; they reverberate thought in a larger part of our being.
Certain emotions and expectations are aroused besides those that
accompany our reactions to pure music.[22]
Taking many hints from St. Thomas, listening to music is more than
simply sense pleasure and it needs to be integrated as part of
life.[23] Its potential connection for good or bad with so many parts
of life becomes clearer when seen in light of the contemporary
experience of too much music linked with a major philosophy of life
that is antithetical to the life of virtue. The problem with the
contemporary scene may be characterized not so much by bad taste, as
by too many consumers enjoying lovely melodies and rhythms while
accepting the anti-gospel way of life concomitantly promoted
attractively by the sounds of beauty flowing from the now wealthy
high priests of the contemporary musical world, rock stars.
The musically beautiful cannot be fixed in a mold for it is not
static but changing. That is its nature.[24] Because of music's
recognized ability through the ages to get down into the depths of
one's consciousness very easily and quickly, it is necessary that
theology take this art more seriously, instead of viewing it simply
as a means crafted within a long liturgical tradition. Unlike our
predecessors in China, Greece and ancient India, contemporary
theology has completely ignored the profound effects of music for
harm or good on the human spirit. As St. Thomas once said himself
(perhaps in a pastoral mood): "While the appetite terminates in the
good, true and beautiful, this does not mean that it terminates in
different goals.[25] In other words one's spiritual life and music
can deeply influence one another, if we take the time and effort to
do so.
ENDNOTES
1 <De Potentia>, IV, 2c; S.T., I, 65, 4; 66, 4, ad 2; 70, 1; 73, 1;
93, 1.
2 <In Div. Nom.>, c. 4, lect. 5, nn. 352 & 353.
3 <In Div. Nom.>, c. 4, lect. 5, n. 337.
4 <Ibid.> n. 349.
5 <In Ps.>, 44, 2; <In Div. Nom.> IV, 5.
6 <In Div. Nom.>, c. 4,lect. 5, n. 337.
7 S. T., 11- 11, 145, 2c.
8 II-II, 145, 2 & 4.
9 Cf. S.T., II-II, 180, 2 ad 3 where Thomas says that the moral life
is beautiful insofar as it participates in reason see also <Contra
Gentes>, III, 37.
10 S.T., II-II, 145, 2c.
11 S.T., II-II, 180, 3 ad 1.
12 S.T., I-II, 147, 3 & 4.
13 Com. in Eth. X, Lect. XI, n. 2110.
14 <Ibid.> n. 2092.
15 Leonard Callahan, <Theory of Aesthetics: According To The
Principles of St. Thomas>, Catholic university Press, Washington
D.C., 1928, p. 55, speaking of the subjective elements of beauty also
suggests that behind emotion, there is something deeper:
Finally, we grasp the true secret of beauty only by a comparison of
the work with the ideal which has inspired it, and since this is
largely a personal matter which each one interprets for himself, it
follows that appreciation will vary according as one approaches or
falls short of the ideal behind the work. The adage "de gustibus non
est disputandum" is valid in the sense that countless factors such as
character, temperament, education, age and sex enter into the form
and mold our taste; but it is not absolute, for since all men are
influenced in some ways by what is beautiful, there must be some
universally accepted appreciation of beauty.
16 S.T., II-II, 180, 7.
17 As Kevin Wall, O.P. articulated so well:
Thus morality, thought and art all converge upon the same terminal
goal which must thus be the good, the true and the beautiful at once.
Virtue, it (traditional Thomism) held, makes contemplation possible
and vice makes it impossible in the full sense. Moreover, both
virtue and contemplation are furthered and fostered by properly
understood aesthetic activity.
What contemplation on the way to self-possession shares of its
quality is insight but that insight contains the knowledge that the
distance yet to be covered is infinite. This leaves it restless.
Morality is similarly restless since it is not brought to rest in the
possession of the ultimate good. Aesthetic experience alone has the
sense of rest of that possession, the sense of satisfaction and being
at an end (<A Classical Philosophy of Art: The Nature of Art in the
Light of Classical Principles>, University Press of America,
Washington D.C. 1982, pp. 4-5).
18 Jacques Maritain has written from another perspective:
Art teaches men the pleasures of the spirit, and because it is itself
sensitive and adapted to their nature, it is the better able to lead
them to what is nobler than itself. So in natural life it plays the
same part, so to speak, as the "sensible graces" in the spiritual
life: and from afar off, without thinking, it prepares the human race
for contemplation (the contemplation of the saints) the spiritual joy
of which surpasses every other joy (S.T., I-II, 147, 3, 4) and seems
to be the end of all human activities. For what useful purpose do
servile work and trade serve, except to provide the body with the
necessaries of life so that it may be in a state fit for
contemplation? What is the use of the moral virtues and prudence if
not to procure that tranquillity of the passions and interior peace
which contemplation needs? (<Art and Scholasticism>, p. 62-63).
19 S.T., I, 39, 8; In I Sent., d. 31, q. 2, a. 1.
20 S.T., I-II, 109, 7c; III 87, 2 ad 3; <In IV Sent.>, 1, 1, 2, obj.
1).
21 <In Div. Nom.> c. 4, lect. 5, n. 345. Here Thomas complements
Plato's reflection in the <Symposium> 211c where Plato develops the
idea that absolute goodness and beauty must exist and must impart
something of what it is to other things. This notion will find its
way into the fourth "proof" or way of Question 2 in the <Summa>
concerning the existence of God.
22 J. W. N. Sullivan, <Beethoven His Spiritual Development>, Jonathan
Cape, London 1927, p. 49.
23 E. T. Gaston brings out the holistic question involved in the
listening of music in his article, "Factors contributing to responses
to music":
To each musical experience is brought the sum of an individual's
attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, conditionings in terms of time and
place in which he has lived. To each musical response, also, he
brings his own physiological needs, unique neurological and
endocrinological systems with their distinctive attributes. He
brings, in all of this, his total entity as a unique individual . . .
(<Music Therapy>, ed. by E. T. Gaston, The Allen Press, Kansas 1958
p. 25).
Also, A. P. Merriam's ten functions of music help us realize what
goes on in the art of appreciating music:
emotional expression, aesthetic enjoyment, entertainment,
communication, symbolic representation, physical response, enforcing
conformity to social norms, validation of social institutions and
religious rituals, contribution to the continuity and stability of
culture and contribution to the integration of society . . . (<The
Anthropology of Music>, Northwestern University Press, Illinois 1964,
p. 156).
24 ". . . novelty is fundamentally necessary to art, which, like
nature goes in seasons" (J. Maritain, <Art and Scholasticism>, p.
37).
25 <De Ver.>, 22, 1 ad 12; Truth, trans. by James V. McGlynn, S.J.,
Henry Regnery Co. 1953. Leonard Callahan calls to mind the why of
beauty which of course is involved in all the arts:
It is in the resemblances which exist between the mind and beauty
that we find the true cause of feeling of beauty; the apprehension of
the beauties of nature and of artistic works brings with it a keen
delight, because in their perfections the mind discovers an image of
its own perfection, and the complement of its aspirations. There is
in the human mind an innate and unquenchable desire for knowledge, of
effecting through an ideal assimilation the union of other beings
with ourselves. This tendency is naturally directed with greater
force towards those objects which are most easily known, in which the
object of the intellect stands out in greatest prominence. Precisely
such is the case with works of beauty: their form, that essential,
constitutive element which makes them what they are, shines forth
with a peculiar brilliancy, manifesting the perfection, order and
unity which are closely analogous to our own, in that it possesses in
fact or in symbol, a soul dominating and bursting through matter . .
(<ibid.>, p. 53).
This article appeared in the May 1995 issue of "The Homiletic &
Pastoral Review," 86 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y. 10024,
212-799-2600, $24.00 per year.
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