Relocating To Elfland

At the risk of shameless name-dropping, one of my dear friends in the world is Hwaen Ch’uqi. This past weekend I was in Hwaen’s company, and we fell to discussing his views on Schoenberg and the modern assault on hierarchy in pitch (I believe he has an article coming out on the subject, so I mustn’t give away too much). His avowedly Trinitarian musings led me back to a recent fascination of mine: the place of music in Christian cosmology.

We all remember the story of Aslan’s singing Narnia into existence in The Magician’s Nephew. Even more impressive, if possible, is the theme of Ilúvatar with which Ainulindalë opens:

“Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.”

Thus Middle Earth and the deep foundations of its eschatology were laid.

We are not told in the Bible that Yahweh God sang creation into being, but David Bentley Hart, Robert Jenson, Jeremy Begbie, and others have recently shown how creation resounds with the “music” of the Triune life. This is especially so in the lives of His human creatures. Do we grasp, for example, what an astonishing thing occurs any time two people have a conversation? There is between two persons an absolute and inviolable difference, one might even say, distance. “I” am not “you”; the converse is likewise true; yet the interval between us is not one of utter alienation, precisely because God has given us a logos (we call it “language”) to traverse that interval, so that it may be one of consonance, of peace. Were it not for our doctrine of the Trinity, we would be left without a metaphysical ground for this; we would be left with either total difference (and dissonance) on one hand, or a collapse of personal distinctions on the other. How can it be that the logos traverses the distance between us, preserving the rich variety of our difference without isolation or hostility? The Christian answer is that this happens among men precisely because it happens within the God in whose image we are made. And few things express so well as music how an interval can be breathtakingly harmonious, even as the difference remains without which the interval would cease to exist.

How can it be, furthermore, that a hierarchy exists among men – that we are not, manifestly, all created “equal”; that we do not all hold the same station and possess the same gifts – yet this hierarchy can exist without violence (one thinks of a mother holding her infant child)? Again, the metaphysical ground is the personal properties of the Triune God, the order that exists in the relationship of the Persons. And, again, we find the illustration in music. Take a 1/3/5 chord, change it to 3/5/1, and the chord is not the same, even while the notes remain identical. The order of notes matters, it is genuinely significant, which detracts nothing from either the value of each individual note or their consonance when struck together.

Perhaps Yahweh did not sing on the day He when made the heavens and the earth; but the morning stars certainly did (Job 38:7), and they sang their Maker’s theme. They are singing it still.