Can Beauty Exist Without the Transcendent? Sebastian and Fred Duke it Out on the Pianoforte

I recently read a book by James R. Gaines entitled Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. This lively book is a fascinating dual biography of two men who lived contemporaneously, met exactly once, and had radically different world views. If you are interested in Bach, Enlightenment history, or philosophy, it's worth checking out.

Bach was what we now would call "old school." He believed there was a God in heaven who governed the affairs of man and was worthy of our worship. He preached sin and redemption in his music, and saw Jesus as the only hope of mankind. As a master composer and performer, the saw the purpose of music as something to glorify God and build up the soul. Even his "secular" works were dedicated to God.

Frederick, on the other hand, was a man of the Enlightenment. He believed that man was the master of his destiny and that science, government, warfare, and art would bring about the best of all possible worlds. As King of Prussia, the forerunner of today's Germany, he captured much territory, began to unite the disparate nation-states of that area, and was arguably the most powerful man of his time. (And you say, "Who?")

Bach and Frederick the Great met each other exactly once, when Bach came to visit his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who was in the king's employ as a musician. Frederick, himself a musician of modest ability, presented Bach with a theme that he (or Carl?) had written, and he challenged Bach to play a three-part fugue on this convoluted, rather unmusical theme. Apparently this was a taunt and a mean challenge, but Bach rose to the occasion, and according to a newspaper report of the time, astounded his hearers with the fugue he improvised.

Not to be shown up, Frederick challenged Bach further by asking him to improvise a six-part theme. Bach couldn't do it, and Frederick sent him home with his tail between his legs. The tail came out a couple months later, however, when Bach mailed off to Frederick what we now know as "The Musical Offering," which includes not only a six-part fugure on the king's theme, but several other pieces which use the theme as a starting point. Even the title "Musical Offering" is an interesting invention, as it can also be translated "Musical Sacrifice." Every indication is that Frederick's theme was designed to show that Bach wasn't such a wonderful musician, after all...to cut him down to size by presenting a royal theme beyond Bach's compositional or improvisatorial abilities. Bach was "sacrificed" on the altar of Frederick's malevolence (Frederick at this point in his life being a lover of only himself - he came from one messed-up family, that's for sure), but Bach came back to life and wrote something that is still played and listened to today. Few people, on the other hand, bother to read the books Frederick wrote.

All of this is simply excessive set-up to a quote from Gaines's book that draws an interesting distinction between beauty and prettiness. Without religion, can beauty exist?

Bach's Musical Offering leaves us, among other things, a compelling case for the following proposition: that a world without a sense of the transcendent and mysterious, a universe ultimately discoverable through reason alone, can only be a barren place; and that the music sounding forth from such a world might be very pretty, but it can never be beautiful.

Papal Tidbits from Thursday

If you missed the Mass at Nationals Stadium in DC yesterday, consider yourself blessed. The atrocious multicultural melange of crap music and spectacle has got to have the Pope taking names and kicking some ecclesial butt. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself even more blessed. But you can read something about it here.

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But on to the task at hand. Here are some excerpts from a couple of the Pope's talks yesterday. Click on each title if you'd like to read the full text.

Homily in Washington, DC – Nationals Park

I have come to proclaim anew, as Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, that Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, risen from the dead, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father, and established as judge of the living and the dead (cf. Acts 2:14ff.). I have come to repeat the Apostle’s urgent call to conversion and the forgiveness of sins, and to implore from the Lord a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church in this country. As we have heard throughout this Easter season, the Church was born of the Spirit’s gift of repentance and faith in the risen Lord. In every age she is impelled by the same Spirit to bring to men and women of every race, language and people (cf. Rev 5:9) the good news of our reconciliation with God in Christ.


Address to Catholic Educators

The Church’s primary mission of evangelization, in which educational institutions play a crucial role, is consonant with a nation’s fundamental aspiration to develop a society truly worthy of the human person’s dignity. At times, however, the value of the Church’s contribution to the public forum is questioned. It is important therefore to recall that the truths of faith and of reason never contradict one another (cf. First Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius, IV: DS 3017; St. Augustine, Contra Academicos, III, 20, 43). The Church’s mission, in fact, involves her in humanity’s struggle to arrive at truth. In articulating revealed truth she serves all members of society by purifying reason, ensuring that it remains open to the consideration of ultimate truths. Drawing upon divine wisdom, she sheds light on the foundation of human morality and ethics, and reminds all groups in society that it is not praxis that creates truth but truth that should serve as the basis of praxis. Far from undermining the tolerance of legitimate diversity, such a contribution illuminates the very truth which makes consensus attainable, and helps to keep public debate rational, honest and accountable. Similarly the Church never tires of upholding the essential moral categories of right and wrong, without which hope could only wither, giving way to cold pragmatic calculations of utility which render the person little more than a pawn on some ideological chess-board.
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With regard to the educational forum, the diakonia of truth takes on a heightened significance in societies where secularist ideology drives a wedge between truth and faith. This division has led to a tendency to equate truth with knowledge and to adopt a positivistic mentality which, in rejecting metaphysics, denies the foundations of faith and rejects the need for a moral vision. Truth means more than knowledge: knowing the truth leads us to discover the good. Truth speaks to the individual in his or her entirety, inviting us to respond with our whole being. This optimistic vision is found in our Christian faith because such faith has been granted the vision of the Logos, God’s creative Reason, which in the Incarnation, is revealed as Goodness itself. Far from being just a communication of factual data - “informative” - the loving truth of the Gospel is creative and life-changing - “performative” (cf. Spe Salvi, 2).
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When nothing beyond the individual is recognized as definitive, the ultimate criterion of judgment becomes the self and the satisfaction of the individual’s immediate wishes. The objectivity and perspective, which can only come through a recognition of the essential transcendent dimension of the human person, can be lost. Within such a relativistic horizon the goals of education are inevitably curtailed. Slowly, a lowering of standards occurs. We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom. We witness an assumption that every experience is of equal worth and a reluctance to admit imperfection and mistakes. And particularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of ‘risk’, bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love.

Juxtaposition

Event #1:

School teacher in Sudan lets class name teddy bear mascot. Class chooses "Mohammed" (which is also the name of one of the students). Teacher is arrested, then convicted of insulting religion - that religion would be Islam, of course - and protesters outside her jail call for her execution.

Event #2:

Sean Taylor, safety for the Washington Redskins, is killed in a burglary. His father makes the following comments in this excerpt from a Miami Herald article: ``Whatever took place between He and God at the time, He [God] had it all in control. I'm at peace with God, and God, he makes no mistakes.'' He said he was not angry at the person who killed his son. ``You know who you are if you did it, turn yourself in. Vengeance is not mine, it's God's. He holds that in his hands.''

Question:

Which religion has a God big enough to defend Himself?

Observation:

Pope Benedict XVI was on target when he said a year ago that the problem with Islam is that it's not a faith that you can reason with.

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And by the way, you really ought to read that address Benedict gave in Regensburg - the speech that led to Muslims rioting in the streets because they thought the Pope was unjustly accusing them of being violent people. It's a perceptive discussion of the relationship between faith and reason and helps to answer Tertullian's question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"

Brownback Has a Brain

Sam Brownback's running for the Republican nomination for President. I don't know too much about his political positions, but what I know, I like. When's the last time you heard a presidential candidate speak (or write) so intelligently about something like the interplay of faith and science? I think he must have read the Pope's Regensburg address (the one that set off the Muslim rioting but was really about answering the question, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" - in other words, "What has reason to do with faith?").

The original NY Times op-ed is here, or you can read it below in its entirety.

What I Think About Evolution
By SAM BROWNBACK
Published: May 31, 2007 Washington

IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and with the seriousness it demands.

The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason.

The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.

People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today. Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology.

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality.

Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table. For this reason, I oppose the exclusion of either faith or reason from the discussion. An attempt by either to seek a monopoly on these questions would be wrong-headed. As science continues to explore the details of man’s origin, faith can do its part as well. The fundamental question for me is how these theories affect our understanding of the human person.

The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.

Sam Brownback is a Republican senator from Kansas.