Per Caritatem

In preparation for my lecture on Parmenides, I read a number of different interpretations of his poem, On Nature, and his philosophy as a whole. I found the following passage from D.W. Hamlyn both interesting and telling, especially in light of my convinction that human beings are and have always been dependent upon and in need of God’s revelation.

“What makes Parmenides so remarkable is his willingness to relay on strictly deductive argument and to hold fast to its conclusion however implausible that is. Some might see in this a kind of paranoia, but it also marks the birth of true philosophy or of one aspect of it—the appeal to argument that is as rigid as it can be. Deductive metaphysics of this kind will appear again in this history. It is always a failure, not simply because of the implausibility of its conclusions, but because reason alone cannot provide us with sound premises from which to deduce the nature of reality. All the same, it is remarkable that the enterprise begins so early with so little in the background to explain its incidence” (D.W. Hamlyn, A History of Western Philosophy, p. 25).

In a section called “Embodiment” found in chapter 8 of his book, Theology, Music and Time, Jeremy Begbie discovers and number of theological gems through engaging David Sudnow’s work, Ways of the Hand, which is an account of a classical pianist’s struggle on the road to becoming a jazz improviser. Sudnow describes in detail how at first he felt estranged from his body, viz., his hands. That is, the connection between his hands, the rhythm and metre, and the lines he wanted to play was at best strained and often more of a dis-connect. However, over time his hands began to anticipate the “shape” of various chord clusters and melodic lines—in short his hands “became one” with the piano, which was now in a sense an extension of his own body and not simply a tool to be used. As Begbie explains, “the hand would treat the keyboard as a terrain to be engaged, relating to its contours, for example, to the contours of different keys […] Knowing what the next note or next notes would sound like was more to do with hand sensations than visual inspection of the keyboard. […] From the point of view of piano improvisation, listening is as much to do with the hand as with the ear” (pp. 225). Havin reached this point in his studies, Sudnow describes his former alienated relationship between himself and his hands as being healed. “The hand ‘had ways’ with the keyboard which opened up potentialities of sound not readily discoverable in any other way” (p. 226).

As Begbie points out that “the constraint of the body, far from being treated as a prison to be escaped or obstacle to be fought, become integral to the realization of freedom.” In other words, though it is the case that the body does have limits—in this case, one’s hands may simply not have long enough fingers to be able to play certain chord voicings. However, the main point still stands, viz., “the body is not seen primarily as negative confinement but is drawn into a process such that its own peculiarities, specific capabilities and so forth are employed as a resource of channels of sensitivity and response, intelligence and insight, expression and articulation. In short, in and through our bodies we become free, free for interacting more fruitfully with realities beyond ourselves” (p. 230). Here Begbie begins to make a number of excellent theological connections for those who want to uphold the Biblical emphasis on our embodiedness, as well as a balanced account of freedom within constraint. “For here is a construal of free personal being in which the particularities of the body are regarded as intrinsic to human identity and its formation, in which the body is viewed as a field of dynamic processes of exchange in our commerce with the world, in which the senses are not treated as inherently passive and in need of compensation by the active mind, and in which bodily action is not viewed merely as the outward (or even optional) consequence of some ‘inner state’ or intention. Likewise, there is much here for those at work in theological epistemology who urge that we become less dependent on controlling paradigms which ignore our embodiedness and our active participation as God’s physical creatures in a God-given physical world. It is also possible that there is material here for a Christology which would want to take the embodiedness of Jesus with due seriousness” (pp. 230).

Furthermore, in the case of the instrumental jazz improviser, the new “somatically realized freedom necessarily involves an exploration of the keyboard, a respectful interaction with its physical peculiarities which coheres in significant ways with a theological ecology respectful of the non-human physical world” (p. 231). Lastly, as was mentioned in passing above, the instrument is no longer seen as a mere tool or intruder, but rather “as materially instrinsic to the creation of the music. […] Rather than being a hindrance to expression, an obstacle to an idea, it becomes, through bodily engagement, part of the expressivity” (pp. 231-232). Interestingly, in distinction from the way most music is composed in the classical tradition, viz., creating the musical line and then making it conform to a particular instrument, jazz improvisers create their melodic lines in terms of their own instruments. Consequently, one’s instrument is not a tool to be fitted to musical ideas created apart from that instrument, but rather “its own properties, characteristics and features are explored, honoured and incorporated into the music. […] The instrument is allowed to ‘have its say’. This attitude is redolent with theological resonances of honouring the contours and characteristics of the physical world in which we have been given to participate, in marked contrast to subsuming the natural world under pragmatic, utilitarian categories” (p. 232).

A provocative (and timely) essay by Anthony Smith has just been posted on the church and postmodern culture blog.

“The purpose of this particular engagement is to bring together conversation partners and philosophers James K. A. Smith, Michel Foucault, and George Yancy to examine the relationship and resonances between the Christian tradition, postmodernity, and race. Specifically this essay focuses on whiteness as an extension of the conversation on race.” Click

[This post was inspired by a great conversation underway at the church and postmodern culture.]

Though it is the case that Calvin’s hermeneutic is a more or less grammatico-historical (GH) orientation given his humanist training, such a label needs to be carefully nuanced. E.g., Spinoza, who is perhaps the father of the GH “method,” does not read Scripture the same way that Calvin reads it, though both are lumped into the GH category. Though Calvin for the most part does reject what we tend to call “allegory,” he realizes and acknowledges that this causes problems when we look at the ways in which the New Testament authors use the Old Testament (which is decidedly un-grammatico-historical). Calvin of course wanted to read the OT in a Christian way, i.e., he wanted to see Christ in the OT—enter accommodation and typology. Accommodation might be described as a “pedagogical tool” that God employs to communicate to human beings given his “wholly otherness” (He speaks to us in human languages etc.)—the Incarnation of course being God’s ultimate act of accommodation. The point being that in the OT (and Scripture in general) God spoke to his people in ways that they could understand. Even a cursory study of the institutions and worship practices of Israel’s life demonstrates that these were not something foreign to the surrounding cultures—pagans also had temples, sacrifices, priests, etc. With Calvin’s notion of accommodation in mind, we see that when God revealed himself to his people, he did so in ways that are part of the Ancient Near Eastern milieu (ANE). This of course raises questions—e.g., if God accommodates himself in ways that people understand, are we to understand God’s accommodation to Israel as the way the world is or not? Perhaps a sic et non (yes and no) answer is the “best” answer. It is not that God’s accommodating himself in the OT means that he was taken by or obligated to the ANE environment, rather the focus of all of these institutions was Christ himself—enter typology and the OT sacrificial system. God accommodated himself in Israel’s sacramental system because the idea of sacrifice is woven into creation itself for the purpose of pre-figuring the sacrifice of Christ. If this is the case, then even the other sacrificial systems of the surrounding cultures then become parodies of the ultimate type—Christ. Creation, culture, and the universe itself can then be understood as sacramental or theomorphic, as it is “set up” to reflect who God is. So for Calvin, the tensions that he felt and acknowledged by going the GH route were “eased” via accommodation and typology. Thus, Christ is truly yet proleptically in the OT. So even with his GH constraints, he still has a Christotelic reading of the OT and given that, it seems unfair to label Calvin as a strict “modernist.”

Wanting to avoid a “logic of reciprocity” [echoing Levinas] in which a dialogue turns into a monologue, as when one party sets the terms of reciprocity, Benson turns to Gadamer in order to begin mapping out what a healthy dialogue might look like. According to Gadamer, “good will” toward the other, as opposed to “proving that you are right,” is crucial. Likewise, reciprocity begins “at home,” and involves vulnerability. “True reciprocity is only possible if I make the first move—without knowing that the other will reciprocate” (The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 168). Once this “move” is made, then what? Here Gadamer introduces the metaphor of a “fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung) to help explicate this relationship with the other. In terms of successful musical dialogue, we might say that “communication takes place when the ‘horizon’ (or perspective) of the listener ‘fuses’ (or, perhaps better, ‘connects’) with that of the performer, composer, and tradition. The score and/or composer has one sort of horizon (temporally, culturally, musically, and perhaps otherwise) and performers and listeners have yet other horizons. The goal, then, is a ‘fusion’ of these horizons to enable a genuine dialogue” (p. 168). However, the downside of this metaphor is that perhaps in the fusing of these horizons, “the ‘otherness’ of the other is lost,” and we are back to one voice (p. 169). Though it is the case, e.g., that in an orchestra the many voices must blend into one voice, we still desire a situation in which the individual voices or instruments retain their individuality. As Benson noted in a previous chapter, “it is all too easy to impose our own horizon and then proclaim it as the ‘authentic’ horizon of the past. To be honest, performers always face this reality. The goal of the composer, performer, and listener seeking a genuine dialogue, then, is both to be aware of this danger and to be creative in allowing each party to have a real voice” (p. 169). Yet, we might also point out that perhaps our situation is not as bad as it seems. After all “since my horizon is never truly ‘mine’ (given that I am part of a culture—both musically and in general—that I do not possess and cannot control), then ‘my’ horizon is always a shared horizon and is always affected by otherness” (p. 169).

If a true fusing of horizons takes place between the composer, the work, and the performer (as well as the audience), then in what sense is composer’s voice still heard? As Benson astutely observes, “music has no existence apart from the voices of the conversation” (p. 170). Though it has been common in the classical music tradition following the Werktrue model to attempt to let the music “speak for itself,” this is in reality impossible. The composer must allow the performer to be his/her representative, thus interpretation of the work by the performer (who is also part of a musical tradition) is inevitable. “A text can only mean by way of the act of interpretation and a score can only sound through a performance. […] But that in no way means that the interpreter simply (as Gadamer puts it in a later text) ‘disappears—and the text speaks.’ For, in speaking on behalf of the composer (and the musical tradition), the performer does not simply disappear” (p. 170). Here Benson introduces an interesting analogy to help us think through how we should understand the relationship between composer, work, and performer. Just as stringed instruments are tuned on the basis of tension, “so the relationship of musical partners depends on tension to be maintained. On the one hand, as composer or performer or listener I open myself to the other when I feel the pull of the other that demands my respect. On the other hand, my openness to the other cannot be simply a complete giving in to the other, for then I am no longer myself and am instead simply absorbed by the other. Thus, a dialogue can only be maintained if there is a pull exerted by both sides. The danger for genuine dialogue, then, is not the presence of tension but its loss or imbalance. A dialogue is only possible when each partner both holds the others in tension—that is, holds the other accountable—and feels the tension of accountability exerted by the other. As strange as that may sound, these ‘tensions’ actually make the ‘freedom’ of dialogue possible. Why that sounds strange is because we usually think of freedom as ‘negative freedom’—freedom from constraints. But what I have in mind here is ‘positive freedom’—freedom for genuine dialogue. Of course, in order to ‘feel that pull,’ one needs to be able to listen to the other” (pp. 170-171).