Episode 25 - The Divine Symphony: Tracing the Spiritual Interplay of Music and Creation

What if the songs of whales or the symphony of a serene night could stir your soul, connect you to the divine, and reveal profound truths about creation? That’s what we've embarked on exploring in this episode. 

Tracing the divine connection between music and creation, we contemplate about our ears’ intricate design, capable of perceiving the world's beautiful symphony, and how this remarkable ability is a profound gift from our Creator. 

From the soothing lullaby of nature to the complex harmonies crafted by human hands, we discuss music's presence and its role in expressing and receiving truth.

With God, angels, and churches depicted as making music, have you ever wondered why the devil and his demons never do? 

Ponder upon this contrast as we take you through the music inherent in the Creator's complex design of the universe, the unique vibrations of all creations, and the musical nature of reality. 

Finally, let the majestic songs of whales - creatures held in special regard by the Bible - stir your soul, and bring you a step closer to understanding the divine connections in the symphony of life.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Well, welcome to the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization, as we are continuing to think about music. So our ears have been designed by the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Spirit, to hear the well, let's think about Psalm 150 again, the range of instruments that are listed there. Our ears have been designed to hear the vibrations of strings, the beat of drums, percussion and air forced through tubes in such a way that we hear music and such a wide variety of music, from what we were thinking about in the last episode, when we thought about that kind of soul music of the night, through to energy-filled, intense music, with endless possibilities and varieties all over the world and down through history. Why are we like this? Why is this world capable of such music and such a variety of music? The earliest book of the Bible has then told us that music isn't just a random human invention, but this profound gift from the living God, and it's a way for us to express, receive and feel truth that is deep in our hearts and lives.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Ray Charles said I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts, like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart, like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me, like food or water. So that experience of music, well, it sounds ridiculous, it's like a furry tail, a superstitious dream, unless there is this divine musician who gives us his music and allows us, even though we may feel our range and capacity for music is very large, very broad, that we're capable of so much. I suspect that the divine musician is capable of so much more and he probably gets frustrated at how little we do with music. But nevertheless, when Ray Charles believes himself to be born with music already going on inside him, that can only be true if there is this divine musician who has had music going, maybe before that will, before the universe exists. The living God gives us songs in the night and think for a moment how even the natural world around us is filled with his music. So not just the music that we play with our own instruments or our applications on our phones or computers or, if we're wise, better played from vinyl or mini-disc or something, but not just that sort of music, human produced music. But the world around us is filled with divine music in the sense that if we stand outside at night and listen to that kind of music of the night, maybe we hear waves breaking, the insects, the birds, the wind, all of them create the natural songs of the night and they are so varied and Different all over the world, like if we think now about those sorts of sounds, maybe not just at night but in the morning, and things, and we can think of being in a particular part of the world and how that kind of music of the earth and the world around, how Varied it is in all different parts of the world, and you can almost know exactly where you are in the world by listening To that kind of natural music. That is the original world music, different in every continent, in every region, even in every village, and Never forget how wonderful a world this is, were such powerful and complex music can be heard, even in the deepest sorrow, disharmony and darkness. In fact, this world has been created in such a way that we might say Well, at least often the most searching and shining music of all is created in the deepest, deepest depths of Darkness and pain, and so often great musicians carry something of that darkness with them In them.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Jack Blacks, he's the actor and musician. He has a musical Band. It's really him and his friend Kyle who formed tenacious D and in his philosophy the brightest and tightest music is straight from hell. He frequently articulates this idea that the music that is the most powerful, the deepest, the most energetic and life-giving really, or life-full, and is From hell, played by the devil. And it's a good line when he said when he talks like that, it's entertaining, make maybe makes a smile. But I think Jack Black he's. When he speaks like that, he's articulating something that and you, many of us don't, have not experienced this culture, but it is something that's in certain kinds of American religious culture and other other parts of the world also, and a suspicion that Exists in the modern mind Perhaps just since the 1950s. Well, I say that. But and we might listen into Some things that John Calvin said I've got some like a little booklet he wrote and he had the same sort of almost Suspicion, not that music was the best, music was from hell, but Calvin seemed to think it was childish. Music was put, music played with instruments and things was almost Intrinsically childish, and may return to that in a future episode, just to like listen into that perspective. But Jack Black just says no, it's, it's, it's from hell and it could be that he's expression, expressing it in this form, that that that came from the 1950s, when a kind of Nostalgic and in ill-prepared conservative culture felt threatened by new forms of music and expression and In fact and Edward Elgar in the I think it was the 1930s suggested that God was against art in general. But that kind of mentality and I think we must examine it more closely in a future episode but it's a kind of knee-jerk reaction that is too superficial and totally misjudged.

Speaker 1: 9:35

In the Bible God sings and angels are constantly making music. The churches, all the way through the Bible, from the time of Moses in the Exodus right the way through to Revelation, churches make an incredible variety of music, with intense dancing and complex singing, so much so that there are times, like with David, where his music and dance seem to have been too extreme for people to cope with. But if you also pay attention, in the Bible, the devil and his demons never once make any music. Let me state that again really clearly the devil and his demons never once make any music. So hell, far from being a source of intense rock, music is in the Bible, which is the only access we have to real knowledge of hell and the underworld of death and so on. It's a place of just silence, gloom silence. The devil and his demons don't make music, but they do make people howl or scream, but never sing. Nobody ever sings under the influence of the devil and demons. The most they can do is scream noise.

Speaker 1: 11:27

In fact, in the Bible's story of King David, the unclean spirits cannot listen to music that reminds them of the heavenly music. So David, perhaps, is playing harp music on his harp, stringed instrument, and the angels play with those in the highest heaven, stringed instruments. And it's as if unclean spirits just cannot listen, maybe to any music at all, really, but certainly not to music that reminds them of the heavenly realms. Just think, then, about life. In God's complex creation, we're surrounded by staggering levels of artistic creativity and design, in visual terms, scientific elegance, but also in sound and harmony. And so one great musician pondered what a wonderful creator there must be to make this world where beautiful sounds are made from such ugly things. And by that the musician was saying this how can a length of stretched sheep, gut struck or plucked with violence, produce a sound that is far from ugly or violent but is pure and sweet. See, I love that. Isn't that true? The stringed instruments that angels play at the highest levels of reality right around the throne like the string on earth anyway is produced by taking sheep's gut and stretched out under great tension. And something that is under such great tension but then is plucked or struck even and produces sound, and produces beautiful, pure, sweet sound. What kind of a world is this? Whoever designed this world designed it to be filled with music and he created so many creatures that sing and play music and beat out rhythms in millions of extraordinary ways.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Now, I don't know if you've ever heard whale songs Some. It's one of those things that people who get into it really get into it, or people don't get into it at all. There's very rarely anyone who's middle of the road on whale song. It's all or nothing. And let's think why. That is, why it's something that so impresses people.

Speaker 1: 14:26

First of all, whales as a whole are special in the Bible. In the first chapter of the Bible, whales get this special mention Beyond all the other creatures of the land, sea or earth. They are not grouped in with the other creatures in creation when they are created. They are a special category of creature, created alone, a bit like the stars in the second heaven. They seem to have a special place for the creator. Now I'd heard people speak of whale song, but it was really only, I think, about 10 years ago that I really listened to whale song, and then I discovered so many things about how these extraordinary, glorious creatures learn songs from one another. So one of them will have a song, sing it, and other whales very far away will hear it, learn that song, and then they will sing it but vary it with their own creativity. Add to that do development of that song that they heard, and then, as the songs are passed around among the whales, musical themes develop over a season so that some aspects of the song are developed, passed on and they stick with a key central musical theme throughout the season. And then it gets passed even around the entire world. The song that has been sung can have started with one whale and then, right on the other side of the world, it will end up being heard there, but now in a new form, developed, expressed in new ways.

Speaker 1: 16:37

One of the world experts on whale song says this 6 to 8 units of sound form, phrases. These phrases are repeated for minutes forming a theme and themes are repeated a few times and all of this forms a whale song Songs. A whale song typically lasts anywhere from 7 to 30 minutes. These songs are varied but are overall similar across multiple renditions of the same song. Songs are generally repeated over and over to form a session. An session can last for more than 20 hours. Think of that Musical sessions that last more than 20 hours, with incredible depth and complexity, songs that are developed and repeated. Other whales learn them, join in, participate in the development of the song, and those that really study the life of whales and their songs say that these songs seem to be linked to romance and sorrow, to happiness and the seasons of the weather and the world.

Speaker 1: 18:18

So what kind of a creator made a world filled with such things, and how could we ever be in a position where we either thought that God didn't like music or that music shouldn't be incorporated into the very heart of our life, our worship, our church, our work or everything we do? Let's maybe stay with the Book of Job to hear more of an answer about what kind of a creator made a world with such musical possibilities. Towards the end of the Book of Job, the living God shows up to speak to Job about his questions and complaints, and one of the first questions he asks Job to consider is this Job 48, verses 4 to 7. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted or sang for joy? So God himself says that when he was creating the very foundations of the universe, he had the stars and the angels singing together, filling the universe with music, while he worked on creating our world. Think of that.

Speaker 1: 20:04

We probably like to listen to music while we work, but why do we? Why do we? It's because we were made to be like the God who created us. We were designed to have something of him about us and even now, as messed up as we are, we find bits of him left in us. He did that so that while we work, we like music, and it's as if we remember that at the first of all things, he liked music. While he worked, he wrote music into the world, like it's as if he perhaps wanted music playing as he was weaving together the fabric, the rules, the foundations of the world, so that music itself would be woven in, woven in to the fabric of the cosmos, so that this Christ-centered cosmic civilization is structurally musical. So he wrote music into the world and so when we find that music can express so much of the deep joys, excitement, sorrow, pain of this world, that makes sense. The world was composed to the sound of music and we need music to express all the truth and life of this world.

Speaker 1: 21:44

If we try to tell the truth about the world, whether in science or philosophy or anything else, but we try to do that without music, we try to reduce the truth of the world to a form that is not musical. We were not being true to the nature of the universe. Like so many of our attempts to articulate the truth of the universe, we do it in forms of words and numbers, but without music. Maths and science without music, and therefore we come up short. That it's not quite right, it doesn't quite fit.

Speaker 1: 22:31

The Bible tells us that this living God himself plays music and sings when he saves us, when he brings us back to himself. There's it's Zephaniah 3.17 that this living God, when he lifts you up and gives you life and saves you, he sings in the highest heaven, he sings over you when he saves you and rescues you and helps you Like. What isn't that an incredible thought to think that if we call out to him in our broken art, in us, and in that night time when we hear the songs of the night and we're reminded of him, this Lord Jesus, the chief musician, and we call out to him and then he rescues us, that makes him sing. The living God and the enders. As Jesus says, there is great rejoicing before the angels in heaven when a sinner is saved, repents and comes home. Well, who is before the angels? It's God. Who is before the angels, it's God who is doing that great rejoicing. The living God, father, son and Spirit, and the angels presumably watch as the Trinity performs this musical joy celebration over us when we're rescued.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Martin Luther, obviously a very famous Christian theologian. He wrote a lot, he thought a lot about music. Let me give you a quotation from him. That's great, he says. I, dr Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. I truly desire that all Christians would love the wonderful gift of music, which is a precious, worthy and costly treasure given to humanity by God. The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them. Next to the word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts and spirits. Anyone who doesn't regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clod hopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being. He should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of donkeys and the grunting of hogs. Wow, what a great quotation. It's not a surprise that he got into arguments with other reformers who weren't so positive about creation and music.

Speaker 1: 25:52

So, but music there, the vibration of the ear, that's what music is. It's the vibration of ear, but he also links it to the excitation of the spirit. Like it causes vibrations in the ear. But he says it also causes like vibrations within us. Sound is made when vibrations in a throat, a string, an object, a tube are shared through the ear, with an ear. But everything in all creation is full of vibrations, as if all things were constantly humming with potential music and sound. In a quantum perspective of the universe, we may view everything in terms of waves as well as particles. But if we do that and think of everything in terms of waves. From this perspective, everything can everything, everything in creation can be seen in terms of vibrations or even as sounds and pitches and tones, and we can render every object and thing in terms of these vibrations and hear the sound of that very thing. As soon as we conceive of the universe in terms of vibrations or waves of energy, then we are beginning to appreciate the intrinsically musical nature of reality at the very deepest levels.