Music harmonizes what is logically contradictory, as an aesthetic “coincidence of opposites.” That phrase, associated with Nicholas of Cusa, accurately captures the theological underpinnings of Labat’s viewpoint. Music addresses us ultimately by signifying something divine. It doesn’t just make us resonate together with the composer and one another, but harmonizes “some unknown world [with] our inner world.” Music offers a glimpse of the Triune God in whom motion and rest are one. It springs ultimately from the “infinity of triune love” that is infinite fecundity. Through music, the “indestructible, silent, hidden” love of God reaches to summon our desires. Giving voice to a love beyond words, music is a call from love to love.
Music places us within the biblical account of reality. It reaches back to Edenic bliss and forward to the music of the end of time, touching the ear with an echo of the harmonious world before sin and with a fore-hearing of the new creation that follows sin’s final conquest. As it casts its magic over all it touches, music anticipates the drawing-together of all things into harmony with the one God and the one Lord Jesus, in whom all things cohere. This is why music both satiates and entices, leaving a residue of regret at music lost and intense hope for music yet to come. Music is the pre-eminent art of what C. S. Lewis called Sehnsucht.
Read Full Article »