Per Caritatem

[See part IV].  This is my concluding post on the “Phenomenological Explorations of Music” series.

Having examined the calculated aspects of jazz improvisation, as well as highlighting the some of the ways in which improvisation and places of indeterminacy emerge and exist in classical music, I now turn to discuss (by way of Benson’s insights), the idea that a sharp dichotomy exists between the work and its performance.  In chapter four (”The Ergon within the Energeia“) of his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, Benson discusses the ways in which a musical ergon or product both emerges from musical energeia or activity, and yet this ergon “still remains within the play of musical energeia” and cannot be separated from it.  In other words, Benson believes that given the fuzzy boundaries between composition and improvisation, coupled with the unavoidable presence of interpretation involved in performances and the on-going nature of musical traditions, perhaps musical works are more properly described in dynamic rather than static terms.  Benson even goes so far as to say that

the telos of music making cannot be defined simply in terms of the creation of musical works, or even primarily so.  Instead the work becomes a means to the end of making music, not an end in itself.  [Likewise], if the work exists within the play of musical energeia, then it cannot be seen as autonomous or detached.  Like a living organism, it is ever in motion and constantly in need of care and infusions of new life to keep it alive.[1]

One of Benson’s goals in this chapter is to attempt to explain “this elusive thing that exists within musical energeia,” and in order to do so he dialogues with Roman Ingarden’s position.  Ingarden’s fundamental assumption is that “there is not merely an accidental but an essential separation between the work and its written and aural expressions.”[2] Ingarden takes this route because he 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, as Benson points out, Ingarden himself, being a good phenomenologist, is aware of tensions within his own position, which makes his contribution highly instructive.[3]  First, Ingarden begins by asking, what is relation between the work and the score?  According to Ingarden, the score preserves the work and helps to maintain its identity.[4] Yet, Ingarden (as was the case with Cone) admits that the score does not exhaust the work and merely relates aspects of the work-the score functions as a kind of “schema.”  If we acknowledge both that the score maintains the identity of the work in some sense, and yet the score does fully circumscribe the work, then we are pressed to ask, what then is the “something more” that the score fails to capture?  To this question, Benson adds, “[i]s there something that guarantees the identity of this surplus that goes beyond the score?  Moreover, what connection is there-if any-between this more and musical energeia?”[5]

In order to try to deal with the differences that surface between various performances of the same piece, Ingarden takes the position that a work possesses a “stock of possibilities” and is “in a sense inherently complete.”[6] Consequently, according to Ingarden, over time the various performers of a work are not creating anything new, rather there are simply discovering the latent possibilities already “embedded” in the work which 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.”[7]  But again, being a good phenomenologist, Ingarden does not totally ignore the fact that the work in practice does in fact go beyond the intentions of the composer due to, what we have referred to previously as “places of indeterminacy” (Unbestimmtheitsstellen), which are as it were “born” with every work, and some of which are made only determinate through a live performance.  Thus, Ingarden at least implies that these untouchable works are in fact in process and dynamic.

Against what Benson labels as a kind of Platonist understanding of a musical work, Benson argues for a mediating way which acknowledges that a work possesses a “stock of possibilities” that constitute it, but that those possibilities are supplemented by additional possibilities that come into being over the course of time via the performances themselves and as a result of evolving musical traditions.  Elaborating his view, Benson explains,

a composer may indeed have a complex conception of the work (and so potentially a relatively complex conception of the work (and so potentially a relatively complex set of “intentions”), but those intentions are supplemented by the actual performances and the development of performance traditions.  Thus, we could say that Bach had intentions for the St. Matthew Passion that were complex and specific.  But the [later] 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.[8]

If instead we opt for Ingarden’s position, we find ourselves in the following rather paradoxical situation.  That is, if we claim that musical works somehow transcend and are not touched by musical activity (energeia), then we must conclude that “no one every really experiences a musical work.”  Ingarden himself denies that we experience “a given musical work as an ideal aesthetic object.”[9]  As Benson puts it, “[o]n Ingarden’s account, then, the work itself turns out to be something that no one ever hears.”[10]  A second rather serious tension in Ingarden’s account again springs from his strict dichotomy between musical work (ergon) and musical activity (energeia).  Understandably, Ingarden is concerned to secure the identity of a musical work, and this is why he argues for a “superhistorical” work.  This allows Ingarden to say that the work is not simply identical to the score but possesses some degree of autonomy from both the score and the various performances.[11] Yet, Ingarden also admits both that musical works have an historical origin, and that “the properties of a work are constituted intersubjectively-and over time.”[12] Ingarden then leaves us somewhere between the historical and the superhistorical.  For Benson, this inbetween-ness highlights the failure of a position which advocates a sharp dichotomy between a work’s existence and identity on the one hand, and its “aural embodiments” on the other.[13]  Consequently, as mentioned above, Benson opts for an “interconnectedness of work and performance,” and suggests that instead of the denomination, “work,” which connotes a finished product, we should return to the idea of “piece.”  Piece implies both that which is “connected to a contextual whole” from which it cannot be completely severed, and it communicates a more fragmentary and on-going character-something “inherently incomplete, for the musical context in which it exists is in flux.”[14]

Although my essay probably raises more questions than it answers and only scratches the surface of what might be accomplished by bringing music into conversation with the insights of phenomenology, hopefully some the themes that we have considered-identity and difference, musical places of indeterminacy, and the various ways that music presents itself to us, from its origin (Ursprung) to the “final manuscript” (Fassung letzter Hand)-has provoked us to stretch our thinking about both disciplines in new ways. 

Notes

[6] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 128.

[7] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 128.

[8] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 129.

[9] Roman Ingarden, Ontology of the Work of Art:  The Musical Work-The Picture-The Architectural Work-The Film, trans. Raymond Meyer with John T. Goldthwait (Athens:  Ohio University Press, 1989), p. 108, as quoted in Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 130.

[10] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 131.

[11] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 131. 

[12] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 131.  Cf. Ingarden, Ontology of the Work of Art, p. 110, 115, and 119-20. 

[13] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 132.

[14] Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, pp. 132-33.

Dr. Joel Garver offers a helpful analysis and commentary on the recently released WTS documents in relation to the suspension of Dr. Peter Enns.   If you are following this situation, Joel’s post is worth reading, as are the WTS documents.

I am currently reading via interlibrary loan, J. Todd Billings’ new book, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).  Although I haven’t finished the book yet, what I have read up to this point (about 100 pages) is excellent!  Billings has done a great service to Calvin scholarship, showing himself quite conversant both with major contemporary critics of Calvin (e.g. John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock) and with Calvin scholar extraordinaire, Richard Muller.  In chapter two, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Participation:  Context and Continuities,” Billings rather convincingly argues against hackneyed claims made by the “Gift theologians” (e.g., the well-worn, Calvin is a nominalist charge, Calvin radically separates divinity and human which results in a Nestorian Christology and a deficient doctrine of the Eucharist etc.), and builds a very solid case based on a close reading of Calvin’s commentaries in conjunction with the Institutes, Calvin’s shorter works, and an extensive interaction with the current secondary literature, that Calvin has a rich theology of participation in Christ and a metaphysic that, as Billings puts it,

affirms a differentiated unity of God and humanity in creation and redemption, such that humanity may participate in God through Christ; union with God is not only the eschatological end, but a paradigmatic feature of the God-human relationship (p. 26).

Given that the end of the semester is drawing near, I do not have time to give a more extensive summary of the book; however, I hope to do so this summer. 

My beautiful, brilliant and extremely delightful daughter, Ashley, has recently been showing signs of a budding philosopher (as well as a budding ballerina, a budding botanist, and a budding comedian).  Below are some of the more philosophical comments and inquiries that she has posed recently:

• (1) Application of the principle of non-contradiction. How so? We use a timer that we call a “dinger” when we put her in “time-out” for disciplinary purposes. Our dinger recently bit the dust, and we have yet to replace it. A few days ago, I needed to put her in time-out, and after doing so realized that we still are without a dinger. So I told Ashley that I would be the dinger, seeing that she was protesting that without a dinger she didn’t or couldn’t possibly stay in time-out. Right before I left the room, Ashley, with a very serious look on her face said, “How can you be the dinger? You are the momma?”
• (2) Am I my body? Before turning out the lights and saying goodnight, we often ask Ashley what her job is, that is, we pose the question, “what are you supposed to do?” To which she answers, “Stay in bed and go to sleep.” Lately, we’ve had a difficult time getting her to stay in bed, as she likes to explore in her toy box and make up all kinds of imaginary worlds, which each get their own song and characters. So we’ve added, “show us with your body that you will stay in bed”-meaning show us with your actions not just your words. To this, Ashley asked, pointing to her toe, “Is this my body?” “Yes,” we said. Then she pointed to her elbow, “is this also my body?” “Yes,” we answered. Ashley looked puzzled, as if she wanted to ask, “shouldn’t we then say bodies, and not body?” or “how many bodies do I have?” Then she touched the bedpost and asked, “Is this my body?” “No,” we replied. Pointing back at herself, she asked, “Am I my body?” Pretty good question for a three-year old.

I came across this delightful little passage in Catherine H. Zuckert’s article, “Hermeneutics in Practice:  Gadamer on Ancient Philosophy.”  Anyone who has done graduate work at UD (and who is not a Straussian) will appreciate this.

Gadamer made the difference between what he means by reading a text in its own terms and Leo Strauss’s insistence that we “understand an author as he understood himself” clear in TM [Truth and Method] 535 when he objected:  “[Strauss] seems to consider it possible to understand what one does not understand oneself but what someone else understands, and to understand only in the way that the other person himself understood.  And he also seems to think that if a person says something, he has necessarily and fully understood ‘himself’ in the process.”  Gadamer argues, on the contrary, that “[w]hen we try to understand a text, we do not try to transpose ourselves into the author’s mind but …into the perspective within which he has formed his views” [TM 292].  That is, we first have to try to understand the author in his own historical context.  However, “[j]ust as the events of history do not in general manifest any agreement with the subjective ideas of the person who stands and acts within history, so the sense of a text in general reaches far beyond what its author originally intended” [TM 372].  According to Gadamer, we need to engage in a dialogue with the text and that means we must ask it or its authors questions.  Those questions change, however, with the changing circumstances of the reader.  So do the answers, therefore, and the meaning of the text” (Zuckert, “Hermeneutics in Practice,” pp. 221-22, n. 4)

I recently came across this website, as I was searching for information on artist, Romare Bearden.  The excerpts below are taken directly from the website, here and here. In case you are not familiar with Bearden’s life and work, please visit the site and enjoy the virtual tour, which includes a biography and a showcase of his wonderful art. 

 ”The complex and colorful art of Romare Bearden (1911-1988) is autobiographical and metaphorical. Rooted in the history of western, African, and Asian art, as well as in literature and music, Bearden found his primary motifs in personal experiences and the life of his community. Born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Bearden moved as a toddler to New York City, participating with his parents in the Great Migration of African Americans to states both north and west. The Bearden home became a meeting place for Harlem Renaissance luminaries including writer Langston Hughes, painter Aaron Douglas, and musician Duke Ellington, all of whom undoubtedly would have stimulated the young artist’s imagination.

Bearden maintained a lifelong interest in science and mathematics, but his formal education was mainly in art, at Boston University and New York University, from which he graduated in 1935 with a degree in education. He also studied at New York’s Art Students League with the German immigrant painter George Grosz, who reinforced Bearden’s interest in art as a conveyor of humanistic and political concerns. In the mid-1930s Bearden published dozens of political cartoons in journals and newspapers, including the Baltimore based Afro-American, but by the end of the decade he had shifted the emphasis of his work to painting.

During a career lasting almost half a century Bearden produced approximately two thousand works. Best known for his collages, he also completed paintings, drawings, monotypes, and edition prints; murals for public spaces, record album jackets, magazine and book illustrations, and costume and set designs for theater and ballet.

[...]

From shortly after he graduated from college through the late 1960s Bearden maintained a full-time job with New York’s Department of Social Services, specializing in cases within the gypsy community. Work in his studio was concentrated at night and on weekends. Nevertheless, starting in 1940 Bearden’s art was represented in solo and group exhibitions, both in Harlem and downtown (below 110th Street), and it consistently received enthusiastic reviews. Religious rituals and literature played an important role in Bearden’s life and art. So did music–from sights and sounds of folk musicians gathered for “the Saturday night function” in the south, to the hot tempo of Harlem clubs and dance halls.

In the early 1950s Bearden devoted considerable attention to song writing, and several of his collaborations were published as sheet music, among the most famous of which is “Seabreeze,” recorded by Billy Eckstine. In addition, throughout his life Bearden wrote essays on social and art-historical subjects, as well as three full-length books coauthored with friends: The Painter’s Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting (1969) with painter Carl Holty; and Six Black Masters of American Art (1972) and A History of African-American Artists: From 1792 to the Present (posthumously, 1993), both with journalist Harry Henderson.”

[The painting displayed above is, Captivity and Resistance, 1976, a collage of various fabrics on canvas African American Museum in Philadelphia © Romare Bearden Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.  The central theme is the 1839 Mende rebellion aboard the sailing ship Amistad. Prince Cinque, the hero of the battle, is portrayed at center holding a staff. At right is the ominous apparatus for a lynching, presumably that of John Brown whose spirit shadow hangs over figures representing abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman].

Contrary to the common negative characterization (see part III), improvisation as expressed in jazz involves a high degree of prepared and calculated musical ideas.  All too frequently we hear the rather pejorative comment that in jazz it matters not what note one plays given the dissonance prevalent in jazz and its penchant for non-resolution.  Though perhaps in some expressions of jazz such a remark might ring true,[1] on the whole it tends to paint a rather misleading picture.  A more accurate account is that jazz improvisers are intensely aware of what notes they play, when to play them, and for what reason this note or that scale should be played as opposed to others.  For example, consider the common harmonic structures in which one finds purposely altered harmonies, i.e., dissonances that are deliberately applied to certain chord structures.  One of the first skills that a beginning improviser learns is that most traditional jazz pieces consist of what is called the ii-V-I harmonic progression.  For example, in the key of C major, the ii-V-I progression is:  D minor 7 – G⁷ – C major 7.  Because the V⁷  (or dominant 7) chord has multiple functions-e.g., it can serve as a transition chord into another key or as a common way to resolve back to the tonic key-it is a top candidate for harmonic alterations.   Why?  It is the chord that either leads us directly to a resolution back to the tonic key, or it functions as a transition chord to take us to a new key that will then serve as a temporary resolution of sorts.[2]  Given these functions, as opposed to being a “place of rest” (such as the tonic chord) or even a “temporary rest stop,” altering or extending its “normal” harmonies heightens the tension by adding new tonal colors into the mix.  Jazz musicians are deeply aware of these possibilities, and maximize the tension-release motif in their solos. In fact, it is a common practice among jazz musicians to have numerous altered patterns prepared in advance-patterns which they have practiced for hour upon end in all twelve keys (and modes) so that when performance time comes, the music has become such a part of them that it flows effortlessly from them.  Thus, it is in no way the case that jazz musicians simply fumble around, pulling notes out of thin air, rebelliously disregarding the harmonic structure of the piece because they have some kind of perverse attraction to dissonance for its own sake.  While this might de-mystify jazz improvisation to a certain extent, it does not eradicate that side of jazz that involves a strong degree of spontaneity and communal interplay.  In other words, mystery is still alive and well in the art of jazz improvisation because no matter how many patterns one has prepared in advance, the dynamism and community of jazz makes it such that in Heraclitean fashion, “no pattern is ever played exactly same way twice”; yet, the patterns are quite identifiable, as is the piece itself. 

If jazz in fact is not a free-for-all and involves, as I claim, a number of previously prepared musical ideas, one might be led to believe that notation is the crucial difference between composition and improvisation.  However, as Jeremy Begbie points out, “it seems odd to claim that composition only happens when musicians write music down.”[3] Here we might also mention that it is not uncommon for jazz musicians use written arrangements for both large and small ensembles.  In light of this apparent “dead end,” Begbie offers the following as a possible way to differentiate composition and improvisation,

A more promising way forward is to take composition to refer to all the activity which precedes the sounding of the entire piece of music, everything which is involved in conceiving and organizing the parts or elements which make up the pattern or design or the musical whole:  and improvisation to mean the concurrent conception and performance of a piece of music, which is complete when the sound finishes (italics added).[4]

With the above conception, composition entails all the musical activity that takes places prior to the performance of the piece as a whole, whereas improvisation consists in the simultaneity of conceiving and performing a musical idea. In other words, the act of improvisation emphasizes experiencing the “present,” i.e., rather than highlighting product or result, the accent is on process and activity, as “conception and performance are interwoven to a very high degree.”[5] With what Begbie has just said in mind, perhaps we could say that the improvisation that emerges in the musical genre of jazz is a kind of present, spontaneous, music-making activity that purposely and re-creatively utilizes prepared and hence thoroughly familiar musical ideas.  Yet, we should also highlight the following with regard to classical composition, which hopefully only complicates rather than contradicts Begbie’s way of distinguishing improvisation and composition.  Despite the fact that a kind of mythology portraying composition as a flash of instantaneous inspiration coupled with the Kantian idea of a creative genius tends to dominate our conception of the way in which a musical composition comes into existence, I agree with Benson that composers themselves actually engage in a great deal of improvisation.  As Benson observes, “composers are more accurately described as improvisers, for composition essentially involves a kind of improvisation on the already existing rules and limits in such a way that what emerges is the result of both respecting those rules and altering them.”[6]  In the end, given the mutual interplay between composition and improvisation, perhaps it is better to think of improvisation in terms of a continuum that ranges over both jazz and classical music, and that the structures of each allow for a greater or lesser degree of improvisation to manifest in the actual performance of the music.

Notes

[4] Ibid.,  p. 183. 

[5] Begbie, Theology, Music and Time, p. 184. 

[6] Benson, Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 133.

Historic Christianity, in line with the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, rejects both Nestorianism, which includes the idea that with the God-Man we have two persons, one of divine nature and one of human nature, and Eutychianism, viz., the idea that the divine nature absorbs the human nature in the Incarnation.  Thomas Aquinas, e.g., following Chalcedon, emphasizes a theandric acting of Christ, a God-Man acting.  Chalcedon is clear that the Incarnation involves not one nature, nor two persons in two natures, but one hypostasis, one Person, the Person of the Word, subsisting in two natures, divine and human.  I see no reason why the use of the Incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture has to be incompatible with Chalcedonian teaching.  In fact, it seems to me that such an analogy is an extremely helpful way to assist us in developing a doctrine of Scripture that steers clear of these ancient heresies.  For example, a strict dictation theory would be a kind of Eutychianism applied to Scripture (see Dr. Joel Garver’s comments regarding the ways that the incarnational analogy speaks to possible dictational elements of Scripture), whereas what we see in certain expressions of liberal theology is an exaltation of the human side of Scripture that more or less cancels out the divinity of Scripture. 

Why some Reformed thinkers are in such an uproar about the incarnational analogy applied to Scripture still baffles me.  Theologians within the Reformed tradition itself refer to ideas along these lines.  I recall reading an article by B.B. Warfield (”The Divine and the Human in the Bible”) in my student days at Westminster.  In the article Warfield says,  ”[o]f every word in the Bible it is asserted that it has been conceived in a human mind and written by a human hand” and “of every word in the Bible it is asserted that it is inspired by God and has been written under the direct and immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 57).  Again, I see no reason why the authoritative claim of the word of God in light of its divinity has to be diminished by our acknowledgement that it is simultaneously the word of human beings given in human language, by human beings, and as Dei Verbum says, “in human fashion” (III.12).   The broader Catholic tradition has no problem with this kind of approach as an aid or model for our understanding the nature of Scripture.  Again, in Dei Verbum, we read,

The fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression. Hence the exegete must look for that meaning which the sacred writers, in given situations and granted the circumstances of their time and culture, intended to express and did in fact express through the medium of a contemporary literary form [Cf. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, III, 18, 26].  Rightly to understand what the sacred authors wanted to affirm in their work, due attention must be paid both to the customary and characteristic patterns of perception, speech and narrative which prevailed in their time, and to the conventions which people then observed in their dealings with one another (DV, III.12, italics added).[1] 

The document then states that Scripture must also   be read and interpreted with its divine authorship in mind” and that equal attention must be given to the unity of Scripture as a whole, which involves of course a Christocentric understanding of all of Scripture, and “taking into account the tradition of the entire church and the analogy of faith” (DV, III.12). 

This, I take it, is not some version of Scriptural Nestorianism where we have two persons and two natures with no metaphysical or logical priority given to the divine, but rather is very similar to the trajectory of Enns’ work (perhaps minus a specifically Roman Catholic understanding of the two things mentioned in the final quote).  Yet, given Enns area of expertise, he wants to apply the analogy to the various issues and objections leveled at Scripture that he has encountered in his particular context of Old Testament studies.  At least one of the goals that Enns’ has in mind with the incarnational analogy is to, on the one hand, (1) avoid an inappropriate elevation of the human features of Scripture (as is often the case in extreme liberal theology), as well as to (2) resist so emphasizing the divinity of Scripture that we lose sight of the fact that the Bible was (a) written in an historical context and (b) communicated in various (human) languages, with the divine Author being quite cognizant of speaking into the cultural and socio-political practices of the day (and yet not limited to these cultural boundaries).  With regard to (2), Enns utilizes the incarnational analogy as a way to faith-fully understand the similarities between, e.g., Israel’s religious practices and those of the Ancient Near East.  That is, rather than simply denying these similarities or being threatened or embarrassed by them, we can appeal to the incarnational analogy of Scripture as affirming the degree to which God condescends to reveal himself via the cultural thought patterns and with a view to the religious and political practices of the day.  Yet, Enns is also quick to point out the differences between Ancient Near Eastern practices and views and those found in Scripture.  For example, God’s people in the Old Testament were announcing YHWH as the God and proclaiming all other putative “gods” to be false, mute, dead idols.  As a Christian philosopher, I see this as something akin to what I do in my study of various philosophers in the Western tradition.  That is, as I study Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Gadamer and others, I encounter numerous similarities and continuities with Christianity.  However, with St. Augustine, what I do not find in the (non-Christian) thinkers of the Western tradition is a God-made-flesh sacrificed for me. 

In closing, while I readily acknowledge that one’s application and explication of the analogy can always be refined and improved, I still see no reason why the incarnational analogy as a way to understand the nature of Scripture is unorthodox.  If the problem is with the particular way that Enns’ has formulated it or perhaps with the way that he applies it, then why not discuss those particulars and attempt to make adjustments.  Unfortunately, so many of Enn’s detractors fail to interact with Enns’ writings in a way that demonstrates that they have actually given the book a thorough read and are competent to summarize his claims such that Enns would say, “Yes, that is an accurate version of my position” (e.g., see the following reviews, here, and here, and Enns’ responses, here and here).  If Enns’ use or formation of the incarnational analogy is so heterodox that he, as a tenured professor, should be suspended or even dismissed, then it would seem only fair (not to mention charitable) to (1) at least present Enns and the rest of the faculty with a clear explication of Enns’ position, which Enns’ would recognize as his own, and (2) to give an equally clear and detailed analysis of that which is considered heterodox in Enns’ work.  From what I understand of the situation, neither of these has occurred. 

The one substantive objection that has somewhat frequently surfaced is that Enns’ analogy denies the supremacy of the divine nature of Christ in the Incarnation. Let’s call this the “SOSF” (i.e., the Standard Objection So Far). Even if the divine nature has a supremacy (which is, it seems true, provided we are careful about what we mean by that), that is irrelevant to Enns’ point – all it takes for his point to follow is that there is a human element present in Scripture and capable of influencing the form in which Scripture expresses itself. So far as I understand it, Enns’ position is not contingent upon assigning that human element any particular priority relative to the divine nature. If this is the case, then the SOSF is a kind of detractor that doesn’t really touch the issues that Enns is trying to address in his book and use of the analogy.

As a former student of WTS and one who benefited from Prof. Enns’ instruction, I am saddened by the current situation, and our family has asked that our names be removed from alumni mailing lists.  As I watch this drama enfold, I can’t help but to ask myself, “What happened to the Westminster that considered it part of our calling to engage the broader culture, including the academic culture, (particularly in light of the fact that we have so many “in vogue” atheists today churning out books to show the silliness and violence of the Christian tradition)?” 

Notes

Regarding the history of the term “improvisation,” and the unfortunate negative attachments that have come to be associated with it, Jeremy Begbie writes,

At first it [improvisation] carried the relatively neutral sense of extemporization, [...] By the 1850’s it appears to have acquired pejorative connotations-off-hand, lacking sufficient preparation (as in ‘improvised shelter’, ‘improvised solution’).  Many musicians and musicologists continue to view it with considerable suspicion, if not disdain.  For some it is synonymous with the absence of rigour.  There are educationalists who see it as a distraction from authentic music-making.[1]

Contra this pessimistic and mistaken construal of improvisation, I suggest that jazz improvisation requires just as much skill, creative genius, and intellectual stamina as written orchestral compositions, and that the latter in fact are not without improvisatory elements.  To begin with, it is important not to gloss over the pervasiveness of improvisation in music in general. Before going further, I should pause, however, to acknowledge the well-known difficulty among music specialists in arriving at a satisfactory definition of improvisation.  Given this difficulty, we shall move through a number of possibilities, noting various aspects of improvisation broadly construed with the hope of finally obtaining a working definition of improvisation as related to our present purposes.

If improvisation is understood as a simultaneous occurrence of composing and performance, then improvisation cannot be limited to jazz.  In fact, what we find is that improvisation characterized in this manner has been prevalent in a wide variety of cultures and musical genres-from Gregorian chant, to Baroque music, as well as the majority of non-Western expressions of music which are by and large not notated.   However, even subsequent to the development of music notation, we find composers such as J.S. Bach, Handel, and Mozart highly skilled in the art of improvisation and expecting those who performed their pieces to possess this skill as well.  Nonetheless, as concerts in the 18th and 19th centuries gained in notoriety, the growing sophistication of musical notation seems to have played some role toward a more diminished view of improvisation.  Although the increase in notation severely limited opportunities for improvising in classical[2] music, the improvisatory elements even in meticulously notated music cannot be totally removed so long as human beings are the performers.  Avid music listeners can attest that whether speaking of an individual soloist or an orchestral unit, the personalities, stylistic particularities, and interpretative nuances manifest in the actual performance of a musical work all contribute a degree of creative liberty that falls within the sphere of improvisation broadly construed.   For example, how do we explain why we prefer one well-known cellist playing Bach’s solo concertos over another renowned and equally proficient cellist?  The notes on the page are exactly the same; yet, we are aware of differences in the ways in which one performer interprets the piece or articulates a musical passage.  In addition, it is common for a soloist to engage in what is called “ornamentation.”  That is, rather than simply play the melodic line as written, one adds neighboring tones and trills[3] that dress up or “ornament” the melody line.     

A second consideration possibly fueling a negative view of improvisation as somehow intellectually substandard is perhaps due to an overly rigid distinction that we in the Western musical tradition tend to make between improvisation and composition.  As I have indicated, improvisation is often understood as non-calculated, free-flowing and as lacking in intellectual rigor.  Composition, in contrast, is thought to be more or less inflexible, rule-governed and by nature, given its high degree of musical notation, purposely without spontaneity.  However, as we shall see, both views are misleading and set up sharp distinctions that do not correspond to what takes place in actual music making and performance. 

Notes

What I have in mind with this flexibility that maintains identity (see part I) can be illustrated by way of a jazz musical example, specifically, what is called in jazz parlance, a “lead sheet.” A jazz lead sheet is similar to a notated score for a classical piece; however, only the melody is written out in standard musical notation. In other words, in contrast to a classical score in which the bass line, the chords or harmonic structure, and more or less every note that will be played is written out in full musical notation, a lead sheet allows for significantly more flexibility. For example, above the melody line one simply finds chord symbols, as opposed to chords displayed in standard notation with specific voicings.[1] Writing the chord symbols in this manner affords the pianist or guitarist, as well as the bassist, a significant amount of creative freedom in performing the piece. However, we should be clear that this freedom does not destroy the identity of the piece, as one must choose harmonies and bass lines that fall within a certain trajectory of the specified chord symbol that will support the melody and mark out the general harmonic structure of the piece. Thus, with a jazz lead sheet, one is in a sense “tied to” the “score,” i.e., one must agree to submit to the “givens” that make the piece to be what it is and respond accordingly.[2] Yet, in other sense, one’s own personality, skill level, and creative sensibilities also come through making each performance something unique. One might even say that the flexibility that lead sheets afford, coupled with the distinctly human traits and personal idiosyncrasies that manifest in improvisation, in a sense engenders greater intelligibility and appeal to the piece itself. That is, the built-in flexibility of lead sheets aids in preserving the piece through the passage of time while simultaneously allowing and even expecting various re-articulations and new insights because it “has room for” the creative expansions that come with temporal progression and the furthering of tradition. Here I imagine that someone might object, stating that such places of indeterminacy might apply to jazz, but what about classical music in which the score is very precise? Doesn’t the extensiveness of the written score in classical music ipso facto rule out the possibility of the kind of indeterminacies that I have described? Although this is a commonly held opinion, it seems to me based upon a number of assumptions, two of which include: (1) the idea that jazz is a kind of free-for-all in which musicians simply improvise as it were ex nihilo, whereas classical music, in contrast, eliminates all improvisatory elements, and (2) the notion that a strict division exists between the work (as a kind of suprahistorical essence) and its performance (which allows for variations and supplementations). In the next post, I shall address the issues and questions surrounding (1).
Notes

As Bruce Ellis Benson explains in chapter two of his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, 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.  First, why assume that a process of revisions always leads to a better version, much less to the “perfect” version?  Beethoven, for example, was known for ceaselessly revising and offering a number of variants for musical passages and even entire sections of his symphonies. Even if we grant that his revisions generally improved his work, why should we necessarily conclude that they always did?  Second, is it not the case that pressing deadlines, familial responsibilities, or creative inertia also factor into to a piece coming to completion. That is, the artist may not in fact be satisfied with his or her final version, and yet the work must be brought to a close.  If this is the case, then we might even say that the composer is aware of the imperfections in his or her work-the places that at some later time, he or she if given the time, would want to change or develop the work.  Third (and closely related to the second point),  is there a sense in which a composition becomes “fixed” and definite when written down, 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 states that although composers have “reasonably” definite intentions, “it would be impossible for their intentions to encompass all of the details of any given piece.”[1]  In other words, often or perhaps even most of the time, the composer himself is unsure exactly how he wants every aspect and detail of the work to sound until the piece is actually played with a specific group and with very particular instrumentation.  As Benson highlights, Mozart would at times perform different versions of the same piece to a group of friends in order to seek their input as to which version they thought best.  Having performed in several jazz orchestras and dabbled in jazz composition myself, I find this claim rather convincing.  It was often the case that our director, who was an accomplished composer and arranger, would present us with his scores and then during the rehearsal time, numerous changes would be made-changes that he could not foresee until the actual music appeared.  Clearly, he had a definite intention of how he wanted the piece to sound, yet the various intricacies of tempo, dynamics, and so forth were not solidified.  

But what about after all these things are made more precise, is it the case that at that point the work is finished?  This leads us to the next issue, viz. what counts as the correct interpretation of a piece?   To illustrate, Benson cites 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].[2]  

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.  That is, the performers, conductors and arrangers in some genuine sense continue to compose a work that is already as it were “finished.”[3] Yet, as we stated earlier, composers certainly have some definite intentions, but how extensive those intentions are is another issue.  Also, the fact that composers may not even be cognizant of places of indeterminacy in their own compositions until the music is actually performed suggests that a determinate intention, though having some definiteness to it, may also “contain” what we might call a kind of built-in-flexibility that does not destroy its identity. 

Notes

[2] Edward T. Cone, “The Pianist as Critic,” in The Practice of Performance Studies in Musical Interpretation, p. 244, as cited in Benson, Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, p. 70. 

[3] This idea of on-going composition strikes me as having something in common with Gadamer’s hermeneutical insight that texts always exhibit an “excess of meaning” upon which tradition builds.  Elucidating his position, Gadamer writes: “Every age has to understand a transmitted text in its own way, for the text belongs to the whole tradition whose content interests the age and in which it seeks to understand itself.  The real meaning of a text, as it speaks to the interpreter, does not depend on the contingencies of the author and his original audience.  It certainly is not identical with them, for it is always co-determined also by the historical situation of the interpreter and hence by the totality of the objective course of history. [...] Not just occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author.  That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well.“(Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed. trans. and revised Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York:  Continuum, 2004),  p. 296). 

Scotus discerns different senses of goodness, e.g., primary or essential and secondary or accidental goodness[1].   In Quodlibet, q. 18, we read,

Just as the primary goodness of a being, called “essential” and consisting in the integrity and perfection of the being itself, implies positively that there is no imperfection, so that all lack or diminution of perfection is excluded, so the being’s secondary goodness, which is something over and above, or ‘accidental,’ consists in its being perfectly suited to or in complete harmony with something else-something which ought to have it or which it ought to have.  And these two suitabilities are commonly connected.[2]

Interestingly, Scotus explains the good in each case in terms of a kind of suitability (convenientia) of which there are both proximate (the person’s judgment) and remote (the divine intellect) grounds.  What I find fascinating is the way in which Scotus utilizes a number of aesthetic terms in his theory of the moral goodness of an act.  For example, he speaks of the décor of an act, which is a relation or due proportion between a number of elements (e.g., power, act, object, place, time, manner etc.).  In addition to this décor or due proportion of elements, right reason is also involved.[3]  That is, an intellectual judgment takes place that serves as a guide and standard of what the act should be in order to be good.  For Scotus, moral goodness is not a “thing”–it is not a substance-but rather is a proper relation of various elements, and hence, an accident.  

Turning again to Quodlibet, q. 18, we read, “[t]he moral goodness of an act consists in its having all that the agent’s right reason declares must pertain to the act or the agent in acting.”[4] As mentioned above, Scotus appeals to an aesthetic category-what he calls “suitability” (convenientia)-to unpack his theory of moral goodness.  Every agent who elicits an act does so under a certain set of circumstances.  There is a suitability relationship that obtains between the act and the agent and between the act and the various circumstances that belong to the act.  In other words, Scotus has in mind an integral whole-agent, act, circumstances-that can either be suitable or unsuitable. 

With regard to secondary goodness, we have a distinction between subjective and objective goodness.  Subjective goodness is what the agent ought to have (it is that which perfects the agent), whereas objective goodness is what the deed ought to have; it is that which is suitable to the act or deed.  Lastly, an act is said to be good if it is a complete act (hence a purpose is involved).

Given that there are proximate and remote grounds of suitability, suitability is mind-dependent, that is, proper human judgment is required (i.e., “right reason”) in order for the act to be moral, and the divine intellect is required or else there would be no suitability relationships for one to discover.  In sum, for Scotus, the agent via his/her intellectual judgment or right reason assesses the suitability of the various elements in each concrete situation and then acts based on that judgment (will and right reason are co-causes).   If all of the elements/aspects do not obtain proper suitability relations, the act will be compromised. 

Notes

[4] Wolter, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 169. 

Given that we are in process of being confirmed in the Anglican Church and have been out of the narrowly defined Reformed world for a few years now (which by the way does not mean that we have abandoned our Reformed beliefs–just read the 39 Articles, which of course resound with Reformed teaching; the Anglican world just has more room for diversity–and yes, of course, it has its messes too and big ones), I am hesitant to post anything on more Reformed in-house fighting. Nonetheless, because I know Prof. Enns personally and have sat under his teaching and greatly benefitted from his courses, I’ve decided to post a short piece voicing some of my thoughts regarding the recent events at Westminster. In case you haven’t heard, Prof. Peter Enns, a tenured professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, was suspended for supposed heterodox teachings espoused in his book Inspiration and Incarnation. Strangely, Enns’ suspension went through even though a majority of the seminary faculty voted in favor of Enns’ orthodoxy. Apparently, the board has the power to override a faculty vote (there were of course those on the board who gave dissenting votes).

From what I can gather at least one of the concerns centers on Enns’ use of an “incarnational analogy” to speak of the nature of Scripture and whether or not this falls within the bounds of the Westminster Confession of faith. (I imagine that there are also concerns as to whether or not Enns’ engagment with higher criticism is “in bounds”; however, I haven’t heard the details on that).

Enns of course is not the first person in the history of Christianity to employ the incarnational analogy. For example, in Mary Healy’s article, “Biblical Inspiration and the Christological Analogy,” Healy discusses what she calls the “Christological analogy” and its hermeneutical implications in order to move us beyond the “false dichotomy between critical exegesis and Christian faith, so that the biblical text will once again be illumined as a means of access into the mystery of the God who revealed himself in time and space” (p. 193). Healy begins by presenting a basic definition of the doctrine of inspiration, viz., “the conviction that God himself is the primary author of the sacred books” (p. 190). In other words, God himself speaks through the biblical authors. Granting this, we must then take into account both the human and the divine authorship of Scripture. As Healy explains, the Christological analogy-comparing Scripture with the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ-was employed by the Second Vatican Council and has roots in patristic sources (e.g., Chrysostom). The SVC version reads, “For the words of God, expressed in human language, have been made like human discourse, just as of old the Word of the eternal Father, when he took to himself the weak flesh of humanity became like other men.” Here we see the sacramental character of Scripture corresponding to the sacramentality of Christ’s humanity. Moreover, just as Christ was fully human and fully divine, so too we must affirm Scripture as fully human and fully divine-neither elevating one over the other or seeing the two in tension. The human and divine aspects of Scripture form a unity and (contra modern critical practices) given this unity, we cannot presume to discern which passages are “divine” and which are merely “human” (p. 191).

Continuing with the Christological analogy, just as there heretical Christologies, so too are their imbalanced doctrines of Scripture and inspiration. One might, e.g., fall into a kind of “Monophysite” exegesis in which the human dimension of the text is severely downplayed. An extreme version of this would be a “dictation” theory. A second imbalanced approach would move in a direction in which the human aspects are unduly exalted and the divine (if attended to at all) serves as a kind of afterthought. Given our desire to avoid both of these extremes, Healy suggests that we consider a “‘Chalcedonian’ form of exegesis, which does full justice to the human and the divine aspects of Scripture in the integral unity, [...] one which takes seriously the human authorial processes and rigorously investigates the relevant manuscripts, languages, literary genres, historical contexts, cultural settings and so on-but [is] open from the beginning to the interior and vertical dimension. The logical priority of the human dimension is at the service of the teleological priority of the divine: interpretation is for the sake of the knowledge of God in Christ” (p. 192). Clearly, employing the Christological analogy as our hermeneutical key does not mean that we write off completely historical-critical methods. Yet, we do recognize that such “tools” are not neutral and are informed by our own convictions. For example, whether or not we believe that God acts in history will no doubt influence our interpretation. Though we all bring presuppositions to the table and begin with a certain perspective, “[t]he only perspective that is adequate to the realities mediated by Scripture is that which is open to the living God: that is, the perspective of faith. Faith is here understood not merely as assent to confessional doctrines but as a prophetic, that is, divinely bestowed, interpretation of all reality. Its absence-whether real or by artificial abstraction-will close off the most significant dimensions of reality from the perception of the interpreter” (p. 193). To illustrate her point, Healy gives the following excellent analogy taken from Farkasfalvy, “[e]xcluding the experience of faith from the exegetical process … is like subjecting a musical piece to the judgment of a jury whose members must be deaf, so that their aesthetic experience would not interfere with the unbiased objectivity of their judgment” (Farkasfalvy, “In Search of a ‘Post-Critical’ Method of Biblical Interpretation,” p. 303; as cited in Healy, p. 193).

If the current interpretation of the Westminster Confession finds the incarnational analogy heterodox, so much the worse for the Confession. (If there is more to it than this, someone please fill me in).

For more details on Enns’ suspension and his book, see the following blogs/websites:

Sacra doctrina (Dr. Joel Garver)

A review of Inspiration and Incarnation by Susan Wise Bauer

Brandon Withrow

Under the Sun

Christianity Today

*Healy’s article was published in Behind the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Craig Bartholomew, C. Stephen Evans, Mary Healy, and Murray Rae (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), pp. 181-195.