Per Caritatem

In chapter 5 of his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, Benson engages in a discussion of the “other” in a section called, “The Voice of the Other.” He begins by briefly introducing Emmanuel Levinas who sees philosophy as “suppressing or transmuting the alterity of all that is Other.” In addition, Levinas claims that a desire for autonomy fuels the desire to suppress otherness. If we consider Kant’s view of the free and highly individualistic artistic genius along with his views of morality which center on autonomy, Levinas’ claim is strengthened. In other words, for the artistic genius to manifest her genius, she must be completely free—“unfettered.” As Benson explains, Kant sees this kind of free, autonomous space as something positive, as it establishes the conditions necessary for artistic creativity. Levinas, however, views this autonomy as dangerous because one person’s freedom comes at the expense of the other’s freedom. From another perspective, we might say that for Kant freedom is construed negatively, i.e., freedom is not being constrained by another, whereas, for Levinas, a certain constraint by the other is a positive thing (p. 165).

Relating this back to our musical dialogue, we recall that on the Werktreue paradigm, the composer is privileged and the emphasis is on re-creating “authorial intention.” With the Werktreue model, it is clear that the performer (as well as listener) is the suppressed other. So what might serve as an answer to the “autonomous monologue” of the Werktreue ideal? As Benson notes, some might suggest an existentialist antidote of “authenticity” (Eigentlichkeit). Here Benson makes a helpful connection between a practice of the romantic (musical) performance tradition with Heidegger’s notion of Eigentlichkeit. In the romantic tradition, performers are told to “make the piece your own.” For Heidegger, to be eigentlich means to “be yourself” which is of course tied in with authenticity. In one sense, this is of course good advice for a musician to follow, however, “the problem is that the structure of Eigentlichkeit is all too close to that of Kant’s autonomy. When Heidegger says that ‘understanding is either authentic, arising out of one’s own Self as such, or inauthentic,’ it is hard to distinguish this sense of authenticity from Kant’s account of autonomy. For, in both cases, the self is not merely supposed to be the principle but the sole determining factor” (p. 166). Thus, going with the strict Eigentlichkeit model, the performer is privileged and the alterity of the composer and listener is denied (think of Paganini and the virtuoso tradition). Instead of privileging any one of these three, Benson suggests we listen to Levinas, who says “to approach the Other is to put into question my freedom, my spontaneity,” as well as Gadamer, whose (in our context) ideal composer, performer and listener is open to the other who “breaks into my ego-centeredness and gives me something to understand” (pp. 166-67). Benson then adds, “to treat the other as other requires that I recognize the other as having a kind of claim on me. Naturally, the kind of claim and the force of that claim depend upon the specific dialogue, for dialogues can be of different sorts and even musical dialogues differ. Yet, to take the other seriously means that I am not simply ‘free’ to do ‘whatever I please’” (p. 167).

More to come…

In John 8:19 Jesus pointedly answers the Jews’ unbelieving question “Where is your Father?” with, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” As Ridderbos explains, the Jews’ question was not a case of simply needing more information, rather “[i]n raising the question they are assuming a formal legal position: if a person appeals to the testimony of a witness, that person should be able to produce the witness! Again, […] they are presenting a demand for legitimation and an indirect challenge: if the Father is going to be your witness, bring him forward!” (The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary, p. 297). This demand for legitimation is actually an indication of their failure to acknowledge Jesus’ own self-testimony as Lord (as St. Paul would say, a “suppressing of the truth in unrighteousness”), which is in turn a rejection of the Father’s self-testimony. “That is, they are inwardly strangers to and outside the fellowship of both Jesus and his Father. And the two are inseparable. If they really knew Jesus and if his words did not sound strange and presumptuous in their ears, they would not ask, ‘Where is your Father?’ They would know that what he says is of God and that the Father is his witness” (Ibid., p. 297).

Jesus has repeated made the claim throughout this pericope that He and the Father are one, but now He says it in such a way to press what some Reformed theologians call the “antithesis,” i.e., the divide between believer and unbeliever in which the ultimate question becomes: will you acknowledge and embrace Jesus’ claims and place yourself on the side of covenant-keepers or will you reject his claims, demand further “legitimation” (to what higher authority could one appeal?), and align yourself with covenant-breakers who suppress the truth? Though, of course, at this point, the wisdom of the world cries, “circularity, circularity, circularity.” That is, the “person will say that Jesus’ ‘evidence’ consists precisely in what needs to be proved: that the Father is with him as the great ‘witness’ of what he says and does. This short circuit is inherent in the issue itself. God’s revelation does not subject itself to human control and cannot be required to legitimate itself by human standards. It can only be ‘known’ and assented to by those who ‘know’ him, that is, by those who, as children of God, are born not of flesh and blood but of God (1:13; 3:3ff.). But this a priori is not a demand for blind faith in the one sent by God. It is a ‘knowing’ in the light of Jesus’ words and works. If, therefore, Jesus bears witness to himself as the light of the world, this does not call for ‘unknowing’ acceptance (cf. 6:69). Rather, it is a coming to know, by the content of Jesus’ words and the power of his deeds, the claim and irrefutability of the love of God extended to the world in him. It is to that decision of faith that all these dialogues lead and in the confrontation with which they all find their conclusion and climax” (Ibid., p. 298). In sum, Ridderbos seems to be saying that not all circles are vicious (though some are) and indeed some circles are necessary. I tend to agree.

Michael at Evangelical Catholicism has two excellent posts on “Luther, Aquinas, and the Question of Grace,” which can be found here and here.

I found the following quotes from Michael’s article to be particularly illuminating and worth contemplating. Quoting Aquinas, we read, “everlasting life is an end exceeding the proportion of human nature…. Hence man, by his natural endowments, cannot produce meritorious works proportionate to everlasting life; and for this a higher force is needed, viz., the force of grace” (Summa theologica, I-II, 109, 5, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1948).

Michael then goes on to explain, “Aquinas notes that grace may be taken in two senses, either as operating or co-operating. Operating grace indicates the sole action of God whereby He moves the soul, such as His action in moving the Christian to faith. Taking his cue from Augustine, Aquinas describes co-operating grace in respect to God’s initial movement in the soul and the soul’s subsequent response and cooperation with the movement of God. With regard to justification, Aquinas writes: “God does not justify us without ourselves, because whilst we are being justified we consent to God’s justification by a movement of our free-will. Nevertheless this movement is not the cause of grace, but the effect; hence the whole operation pertains to grace” (Ibid. I-II, 111, 2, ad. 2).

In his second post, Michael writes, “It has already been stated that Aquinas denies that humanity may meritoriously earn eternal life through its own natural design and action. However, Aquinas, again following Augustine, holds that through co-operating grace, human actions may merit justification in Christ: ‘And hence it is that no created nature is a sufficient principle of an act meritorious of eternal life, unless there is added a supernatural gift, which we call grace.’[Summa theologiae, I-II, 114, 2]. Ultimately, due to its sinful state, humanity must be first acted upon by the grace in order to subsequently respond to God and please Him in act (i.e. faith and good works). The very power of the will to desire God and believe in Him, as well as the power to commit oneself to acts of charity, is given by God. The very value of this merit ‘depends upon the power of the Holy Ghost moving us to life everlasting….’ Thus, there is no sense of an “earning” of eternal life in the thought of Aquinas, but instead a salvation based completely upon grace alone.”

Lastly, addressing the issue of assurance of salvation, Michael writes:
“It is true that Aquinas believes no one is able to possess a natural knowledge of having grace (as did Paul!). Since grace is the very agent of salvation, humanity in itself cannot be cognizant of its salvation, ipso facto. However, Aquinas asserts that a man may know he has grace through the revelation of God, either privately or publicly. The public revelation of salvation is of greatest concern, for it bespeaks of the salvation of all Christians. A Christian knows that he is a partaker of grace through the Sacrament of Baptism: ‘Since, however, the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must be applied singly to each of its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the Church are said to be.’(Summa contra Gentiles 4:56, 1, trans. Charles J. O’Neil (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1957). A Christian is guaranteed access to grace through the sacraments of the Church, and his salvation is sealed in Baptism. Because grace is not efficacious quantitatively, Aquinas assures the Christian that salvation is not a matter of performing an arbitrary number of works, but rather a response in faith to the grace which is received by the power of the Holy Spirit and the reception of the sacraments.”

Having spent four years of practicing six to eight hours a day as performing jazz guitar major, I wholeheartedly agree with Benson’s take on jazz as “premeditated spontaneity.” That is, contrary to the common and even “romantic” view of jazz improvisation as a kind of musical ex nihilo creative act, Benson argues that jazz improvisers actual heavily rely on musical ideas worked out in advance which, as it turns out, enables them to be spontaneous. “As odd as it may sound, the musician who is most prepared—not only in terms of having thought about what is to be played but even having played various possibilities—is most able to be spontaneous. It is when one already is prepared that one feels free to go beyond the confines of the prepared (with the assurance that one can always fall back on them if necessary). In the same way that Gadamer argues that the experienced person is most open to new experience, it is the experienced improviser—the one who has already thought a great deal about what is to be played—who is most able to play something surprising. Experience can turn into a rut, but is can also beget spontaneity” (The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, pp. 142-143).

Continuing his discussion of the “ergon within the energia,” Benson introduces Ingarden’s position. Ingarden’s fundamental assumption is that there is an essential (not simply an accidental) separation between a work and its written and aural expressions (The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 126). Ingarden is concerned to preserve a kind of superhistorical ergon that remains untouched by the energia of actual music performance through the course of time. However, Ingarden himself is aware of this tension, which makes his contribution highly instructive. First, Ingarden begins by asking as to the relation between the work and the score. According to Ingarden, the score preserves the work and helps to maintain its identity (Ibid., p 127). Yet, Ingarden admits that the score does not exhaust the work and merely relates aspects of the work—the score functions as a kind of “schema.” By acknowledging both that the score maintains the identity of the work in some sense and yet the score does fully circumscribe the work, we are pressed to ask, what then is (ontologically speaking) the “something more” that the score fails to capture?

Ingarden’s position is more or less a kind of Platonism when it comes to the role of performances. That is, for Ingarden, a work possesses a “stock of possibilities” and is “in a sense inherently complete” (Ibid., p. 128). In essence, over time the various performers of a work are not adding anything new, rather they are discovering the latent possibilities already “embedded” in the work and that simply need to be actualized. Thus, the work does not really change over time but merely “appears” to change. However, as Benson observes, “the problem with this view is that—practically—these possibilities seem not to come merely from within but also from without: for they arise—at least partly—by way of performance traditions, which are themselves developing” (Ibid., p. 128). But, being a good phenomenologist, Ingarden does not totally ignore the fact that the work seems to go beyond the intentions of the composer due to Unbestimmtheitsstellen—“places of indeterminacy” that are born with every work—some of which are only made determinate through a live performance.

Contra a Platonist-type understanding of a work, Benson argues for a kind of mediating way that acknowledges that a work possesses a “stock of possibilities” that constitutes it, yet those possibilities are supplemented by additional possibilities that arise over the course of time and as a result of evolving musical traditions. “Thus, we could say that Bach had intentions for the St. Matthew Passion that were complex and specific. But the performance by Mendelssohn did not merely bring out those possibilities (even though it did that too). Rather, it also created certain possibilities—possibilities that truly did not exist before” (p. 129).

In light of the “interconnectedness of work and performance,” Benson ends the section by suggesting that instead of “work” which seems to suggest a “finished” product, we should return to the denomination “piece.” Piece implies a more fragmentary and on-going character—something “inherently incomplete, for the musical context in which it exists is in flux” (pp. 132-33).

A new blog–the church and postmodern culture–has recently entered the “blogosphere” and is well-worth checking out. Next Wednesday the blog will begin a series of conversations centered around James K.A. Smith’s book, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. The blog coordinator, Geoff Holsclaw, has kindly invited me to participate in the first round of discussions–an invitation that I warmly accepted. I have put together a short one-paged conversation starter that Geoff plans to use in the beginning dialogue on Wednesday or shortly thereafter. Do join us, as the “spirit” of this blog seems to be very much one of discovery and charitable interaction.