Per Caritatem

In chapter two of his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, Bruce Ellis Benson observes that we tend to think that a musical composition is finished when the piece (in its “final” version) is written down. However, there are a number of assumptions that we should question in connection with such a conclusion. For example, why assume that a process of revisions always leads to a better version, much less to the “perfect” version? Beethoven was known for ceaselessly revising and offering a number of variants for musical passages and entire sections. Even if we grant that his revisions generally improved his work, we should not necessarily conclude that they always did so. Beethoven himself often commented that his works contained a number of imperfections that he simply had to let stand given his duties and other commitments. Thus, as Benson points out, there are number of “nonartistic” reasons for compositions reaching a “completion” stage. “[T]he vicissitudes of life have a way of deciding something is finished—whether or not the artist is of the same opinion” (p. 68).

Is there a sense in which a composition becomes “fixed” and definite, or is it the case that even for the composer there is a certain “indefiniteness” and indeterminacy involved in his or her work even when the composition is “finished”? Arguing for the latter, Benson notes that though it is the case that composers have “reasonably” definite intentions, “it would be impossible for their intentions to encompass all of the details of any given piece”(p. 67). In other words, often or perhaps most of the time, the composer himself is unsure exactly how he wants the every aspect and detail of the work to sound until the piece is actually played with a specific group and very particular instrumentation. Mozart, for example, would at times perform different versions of the same work to a group of friends in order to seek their input as to which is preferred. Benson proffers a number of other examples, which I will forego for brevity’s sake.

There is also the additional complication of the performer “rightly” interpreting the composer’s intentions. To illustrate, Benson quotes Edward Cone who comments on the difficulties performers face in playing Chopin’s music, “The performer’s first obligation, then, is to the score—but to what score? The autograph or the first printed edition? The composer’s hasty manuscript or the presumably more careful copy by a trusted amanuensis? The composer’s initial version or his later emendation? [and so on]”[1] (p. 70) To be sure one might give good reasons for choosing and preferring one version over another. But still we must recognize that performers, conductors and arrangers play a role in the process of composing, i.e., composing a work that is already “finished.” Yet, as we stated earlier, composers certainly have some definite intentions, but how extensive those intentions are is another question (as Benson asks, using Husserlian language—are they “vague” or “distinct” intentions?). Composers can and do, for instance, change their minds about certain works over a long period of time. Likewise, composers may not even be aware of a lack of determinacy until the work is performed. Though dealing with verbal content, Benson cites a passage by Hirsch that is applicable to musical content, “Determinacy does not mean definiteness or precision. Undoubtedly, most verbal meanings are imprecise and ambiguous, and to call them such is to acknowledge their determinacy: they are not univocal and precise. This is another way of saying that an ambiguous meaning has a boundary like any other verbal meaning, and that one of the frontiers on this boundary is that between ambiguity and univocality”[2] (p. 74). We tend to associate boundary with precision, so “what does it mean for an ambiguous meaning to have a ‘boundary’”? (p. 74). As Benson points out, boundaries can of course be conceived differently. For example, they can be thought as rigid and inflexible or in a more flexible and bending way. This more flexible conception is the model for which Benson argues in terms of the “boundaries” of a musical work.

Notes
[1] Edward T. Cone, “The Pianist as Critic,” in The Practice of Performance Studies in Musical Interpretation, p. 244.
[2] E.D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, pp. 44-45.

Bruce Ellis Benson in his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, argues that instead of choosing between Werktreu[1] or a kind of musical anarchy, we should look to the past where we find a way of conceiving music composition as an event in which the composer and performer become “co-creators.” Using Gadamar as a way to help us to begin thinking about models of music composition, Ellis writes, “Gadamer claims that an ideal dialogue has what he calls the ‘logical structure of openness.’ I think there are at least two aspects to this ‘openness.’ First, the conversation often brings something into the open: it sheds new light on what is being discussed and allows us to think about it (or, in this case, hear it) in a new way. Second, the dialogue is itself open, since it (to quote Gadamer) is in a ‘state of indeterminacy.’ In order for a genuine dialogue to take place, the outcome cannot be settled in advance. Without at least some ‘loose-play’ or uncertainty, true conversation is impossible” (p. 15). As Benson notes, Gadamar of course realizes that this is the “ideal” for conversations and that they do not always flesh out in this manner. Likewise, in stressing “openness,” Gadamer is not suggesting that dialogues are without rules. Rather, “the rules are what allow the conversation to take place at all. In effect, they open up a kind of space in which dialogue can be conducted” (p. 15). Though rules are essential for a dialogue to occur, they can be overly restrictive or more on the “open” and “flexible” side and “are themselves open to continuing modification” (p. 15). Though today we tend to think of classical music as not particularly open, Benson shows that historically this view is relatively new and in fact is only one way, not the way to view composition. For example, in the 1800s there were two characteristic ways of conceiving composition and these were exemplified by Beethoven and Rossini. Though no doubt these composers represent two different styles of music, the deeper significance lies in the differing ways that they understand the nature of musical compositions, the role of the performance in expressing them, and the relation between the artist and the community (p. 16). As Benson explains, “Beethoven saw his symphonies as ‘inviolable musical “texts” whose meaning is to be deciphered with ‘exegetical’ interpretations; a Rossini score, on the other hand, is a mere recipe for a performance’ (Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, p. 9 [Benson, p. 16]. In other words, Beethoven’s view is the more recent, innovative view that has come to characterize how we think of classical music as Werktreu, whereas Rossini’s conception was significantly more flexible, allowing the performer to participate in the creative process. Moreover, for Rossini, “it was not the work that was given precedence; rather, the work (and thus the composer) was in effect a partner in dialogue with performers and listeners” (Ibid., pp. 16-17).

A number of interesting parallels might be drawn in relation to Biblical hermeneutics.

Notes
[1] A rather strict faithfulness first to the work and second to the composer.

I recently finished a book by Philipp W. Rosemann, entitled, Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault, and would highly recommend it to anyone with both medieval and postmodern sensibilities. Among the many topics and theses that Rosemann engages, the following were particularly interesting: (1) the presentation of a paradigm in which we understand the Western philosophical tradition in terms of the broad structure of a mythos/logos dialectic and scholastic thought with its sophia/moria dialectic reflects a moment within that larger context, (2) a discussion of the text-centeredness of the Scholastic culture and the conviction that though both the text of the world and the text of Scripture are to be read in light of their God given intelligibility, they are not exhaustible; hence, the “openness” of Scholastic thought which leads to more and more commentaries which together help us to gain more insight on the whole, yet never with the view to comprehension (3) an explanation of how St. Thomas convincingly brings together Greek circularity and Christian linearity, (4) a Foucaultian take on the need to understand an episteme’s “outside” in order to understand the episteme, (5) the “witch-hunt” as an example of the way in which the Scholastic episteme “closed the circle” and became irrationality, (6) a discussion of the “openness” of the quaestio vs. the new literary forms of e.g., Suarez, (7) an alternative take on Descartes [following Marion] and Luther both in respect to negative theology and the desire to safeguard God’s transcendence.

The book is exceedingly well-written, the ideas are presented with clarity and appeal, and Rosemann provides a helpful appendix entitled, “The Library of the Medievalist Philosopher.”

In contrast with Auriole, for Ockham there is “no necessary relationship between salvation and grace-induced habits of love” (The Age of Reason, p. 37). This view is reflected in Ockham’s statement, “Quidquid Deus producit mediantibus causis secundis potest immediate sine illis producere et conservare,” i.e., “whatever God can produce by means of secondary causes, he can directly produce and preserve without them.” Just as God in his potentia absoluta was able to cause intuitive knowledge in the human mind of something that does not exist, he can also save people without infused habits of grace (Ibid., p. 37).

Ockham is said to have gone overboard in his desire to stress the radical contingency of creation, as well as all things ecclesiastical—churches, sacraments etc. As Ozment points out, Ockham founded his teaching on two traditional sources. First, he appealed to Augustine’s view of the church on earth as permixta, that is made up of both believers and unbelievers. Here what counts is not present grace, but ultimately the gift of perseverance which is given to the elect only (see, City of God, bk. 1, ch. 35). Secondly, Ockham based his teaching on the distinction between the potentia absoluta Dei and the potentia ordinata Dei, the absolute and ordained power of God. Below is a concise summary of Ockham’s understanding of this distinction:

“Sometimes we mean by God’s power those things which he does according to laws he himself has ordained and instituted. These things he is said to do by ordained power [de potentia ordinata]. But sometimes God’s power is taken to mean his ability to do anything that does not involve a contradiction, regardless of whether or not he has ordained that he would do it. For God can do many things that he does not choose to do […] These things he is said to be able to do by his absolute power [de potentia absoluta]” (Quodlibeta VI, q. I, cited by Dettloff, Die Entwicklung der Akzepations— und Verdienslehre, p. 282) [as found in Ozment, p. 38].

Here we should note that Ockham’s view of God’s absolute power does not involve God acting contrary to the law of non-contradiction. Secondly, the contrast between ordained and absolute power seems to be employed by Ockham to stress the radical contingency of everything that is not God, and to show that what God actually did chose to do in time could have been otherwise, as there were infinite possibilities that could have been ordained. As is well known, many have criticized Ockham’s view as overly speculative and ultimately detrimental to the church and faith. Since this view is common, I will discuss another interpretation that views Ockham’s theology within an Augustinian trajectory in its emphasis on the radical finitude of creation.[1] Pointing to recent scholarship on Ockham, Ozment writes, “Rather, than believing that God actually suspended the laws of nature and ignored the priestly sacramental system of salvation, despite his theoretical ability to do so, Ockham too taught that God normally saved people by grace-induced habits of love. Where he drew the line more indelibly than most, however, was at the suggestion that people were necessarily saved by such habits. That, he believed, was an insult to both human and divine freedom.” [For Ockham] … salvation could never finally be dependent upon qualities within individuals or upon assumed real connections between, God, grace, and the soul, even though God had elected to save people by infused habits of grace” (Ibid., p. 39). In the end, salvation depends squarely on the trustworthiness of God’s will and word. Here we have the wedding of Ockham’s philosophy and theology. That is, just as in matters of genuine knowledge, words as verbal conventions connected the human mind with reality, so too in matters soteriological, words expressed as covenants and promises connect the human being to God” (Ibid., pp. 39-40).

Though some claim that Ockham’s position results in a fideism that ultimately destroys the church, Ozment points out that Ockham’s view “was at least as conducive to the conservation of a vibrant ecclesiastical institution and spiritual life as a more generous view of the theological reach of reason and the metaphysical concept of the working of grace. If, as Ockham argued, revelation was the exclusive access to God, then much hinged on the example and credibility of its custodian; in the very contingency of the Christian church lay an urgent mandate to reform it, not to oppose it, and certainly not to seek alternatives to it” (Ibid., p. 40). Ozment ends the section on Ockham observing that in spite of his stated intentions, his position is Peligian. (Because I have discussed the Peligianism of Ockham’s position in a previous post, I won’t rehash it again).

Notes
[1] This is not to say that I accept or follow everything that Ozment says here, yet some points are worth considering.

Peter Auriole, O.F.M. (ca. 1280-1322) was strongly opposed to Scotus’ view of salvation and his emphasis on the covenant. Auriole, though working from the basic Thomistic position of the importance of the created habit of grace, took St. Thomas’ position to its extreme, and argued that the reason for God’s acceptance of an individual lay “‘in re,’ in the very nature of the one accepted and saved” (The Age of Reason, p. 36). In contrast to Scotus’ axiom that created beings have nothing intrinsic in them to make God accept them, Auriole’s claim was, “Caritas est ratio acceptationis ex natura rei et de necessitate,” i.e., “Love is the cause of divine acceptance by its very nature and of necessity” (Ibid., p. 36). According to Auriole, salvation is not a mere matter of covenants, but involves like attracting like (Ibid., pp. 36-37). Again, contra Scotus, for Auriole, whether from the point of view God’s ordained power (the execution of God’s will in time) or God’s absolute power (God’s will eternally considered), “acts of love intrinsically won divine acceptance” (Ibid., p. 37). As mentioned previously, Auriole’s view is considered an exaggerated and distorted take on Thomas’ position. Similarly, Ockham’s position was an extreme restatement of Scotus—a topic we shall engage in the next post.

Duns Scotus (ca. 1265-1308) was highly critical of St. Thomas’ position regarding the infused habit of grace. Scotus saw himself continuing the Augustinian tradition and in light of Augustine’s teaching on predestination, Scotus wanted to avoid any doctrine that seemed to suggest that God saved human beings because of something intrinsic within them. For Scotus, God’s freedom and omnipotence must not be compromised; consequently, Thomas’ idea of an accidental form of grace within the human soulsthat might obligate God to save those who, e.g., attempted to love him habitually, was unacceptable (The Age of Reason, p. 33). God’s will and God’s will alone was “primary in the definition of the Christian. What God decreed in man’s regard was far more important to his salvation than any quality of soul he might come to possess; people were saved only because God first willed it, never because they were intrinsically worthy of it” (Ibid., p. 33).

Though Ockham is famously associated with the principle of parsimony (the “razor”), Scotus had a razor of his own that he employed against Thomas’ doctrine of salvation, viz., nihil creatum formaliter est a deo acceptandum (“nothing created must, for reasons intrinsic to it, be accepted by God”). In other words, that which is created and finite can in no way determine that which is uncreated and infinite. “Every relationship God had outside himself was, by definition, absolutely free, contingent, unconditioned, in no way obligatory. From Scotus’ perspective, Aquinas bound God too closely to the church’s system of grace and tended to lose sight of the great distance that obtained between God’s eternal will and its execution in time through created orders and finite agents. Thomist theology seemed to run the danger of entangling the divine will in the secondary causation of the church, priests, sacraments, and accidental forms of grace” (Ibid., p. 33). St. Thomas, of course, did not teach that God was a debtor to human beings or to any other creature; however, he did claim that God was a debtor to himself and to what he had established and set in motion (which of course includes his ordained system of salvation) [pp. 33-34].

According to Scotus, God’ ordinations play only a secondary, not primary role in regard to things soteriological and were thus contingent through and through. For Scotus, we must distinguish between God’s will established from eternity and the means by which he executed his will in time—God will and eternal decree being primary. “Necessary divine relations existed only within the Godhead, there, in eternity, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, taking counsel with themselves, decided to create and save a portion of mankind. In eternity God had determined within himself everything that would be, including who would and who would not be saved; having so determined, he then, freely and wisely, but also secondarily, elected agents to execute his will in time. Means other than churches, priests, sacraments, and infused grace could have been chosen, for in eternity an infinite number of possibilities lay before him. Indeed, he was free to save people directly without any intervening agents. The choice of particular means to execute the divine will had nothing to do with any intrinsic value they possessed, and their importance continued to lie in their having been chosen by God. […] What counted first, for Scotus, was God’s pleasure: if God willed in eternity to save a person, it would be done; how it was accomplished remained secondary. To put the issue another way, for Scotus, in distinction from Aquinas and other contemporaries, people were beautiful to God because God first loved them; God did not first love them because they were intrinsically beautiful” (Ibid., pp. 34-35).

This difference between the way Scotus and Thomas understand the nature and role of secondary causes in matters soteriological also manifest (and understandable so) in their respective views of the sacraments. According to St. Thomas, the sacraments were “instrumental causes of grace and salvation” that both “contained and communicated grace”; hence, they were necessary to salvation. One can see the interconnectedness of Thomas’ system here, viz., just as in his epistemology, universals were really in re and in intellectu (as intelligible species), so also grace was really in the sacraments and in the human soul as an accidental form (Ibid., p. 35). Scotus, on the other hand, “identified with a tradition that explained the efficacy of the sacraments in terms of a covenant made by God. Sacraments work not because they intrinsically contain and convey grace, as a cause intrinsically contains and conveys its effects (Aquinas), but because God has agreed to be present with his grace when the sacraments are performed; they are conditiones sine quibus non for the reception of grace. Where Aquinas placed the secondary cause, the sacrament itself, in the foreground, Scotus placed the will of God. Sacraments were efficacious media of grace for both, but for Scotus they were emphatically subordinate to the divine will”[1] (Ibid., p. 35).

Ending this section, Ozment notes that though Scotus stressed the contingency of creation and the transcendence of God (both motivated by theological reasons that he felt needed to be addressed given his historical context), his intention had not been to debase or devalue the created order, but to define the nature of created things more accurately in light of eternity (Ibid., p. 36).

A question for Calvin scholars, are there not serious similarities between Scotus’ and Calvin’s view of the sacraments? Are there any scholarly works (in English or German) of which you are aware that trace Reformed covenant theology back to Scotus and the Franscican tradition? Perhaps Oberman does this to some extent; however, I have not read enough of his works to know whether that is the case or not.

Notes
[1] Interestingly, Ozment cites a passage from Thomas that again brings Peter Lombard into the picture—here in connection with a certain view of the sacraments that Scotus seems to adopt. Quoting the passage from St. Thomas as cited in Ozment in which Thomas states that not all theologians are agreed as to the nature and working of the sacraments and then describes a position differing from his own [Lombard’s view], we read, “God has covenanted that whoever takes a genuine sacrament will receive grace, not from the outward sign [i.e., not from the sacramental ritual and elements themselves], but from God. This opinion, which appears to have been held by the Master of the Sentences …”, p. 35.