I’m very thankful to have had the opportunity to have spent the last three days learning from some of the wisest men in the homeschool community. I believe that How Christians must take Dominion in music (1) was one of the most impacting to me personally. To put it simply: You can’t take dominion consuming. Yet why are Christians only consuming music instead of producing it? What if we only taught children to read and not write? Yet that is what we are doing with music. “Music is a craft, not an art-it can be trained and learned.”(2) Bach, the greatest Christina composer of all time, only achieved what he did through hard work, not some unexplainable talent.
Christian music is based on a hierarchal system. Instead of a mass of chaos, we have order. Yet order is not the only matter involved in hierarchal music. Mr. Selbrede compared the decline in this musical structure to governmental systems. Bach wrote a monarchal type of music, yet we have declined to a republican system, then to a democratic system, then to a Marxist system of equality. And yet through all of this unbelievers cannot help meet up with God and His system. Even our instruments are based on this organization.
As far as I understand, this hierarchy works through keys of the musical system. This is not to say no dissedence is allowed for, in fact so long as dissedence resolves it makes a piece great. However, some music today has been created so disorderly it breaks the musical system. What such composers fail to understand is liberty in rule. They think no rule is liberty-. Yet law is the only thing that brings the liberty they are seeking. I think the ultimate example of this is atonal and polytonal music which has such a tone of dissidence it is almost unbearable.
Another factor to Hierarchal music is the equal balance of both chords and melody. This is characteristic of Bach’s music.
A last and final point I thought was worth highlighting was the “heresy” of elitism in music. If music needs taken dominion of for God’s glory why do we want only a few experts in this area? Shouldn’t we be teaching all God’s people to play and sing for Him?
While I was there, I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Rushdoony on a subject that had been puzzling me for quite some time: What is the biblical view on metaphysics (3) and how does it compare to the Greek view? To explain my question, I had been confused about the whole spiritual/ material realms and how they comport with each other. Basically, the answer is this. Christians are not materialists, in other words, we believe there is something more than just the physical realm. Plato himself understood this, and granted for another realm where ideas are. For example, the Greeks put much emphasis on ideas living in a separate realm of ideas such as humanity, love, justice, etc. According to the Greeks, the problem with mankind is the fact that we are materially human. The goal of humanity is to reach the spiritual realm and become a god.
Christians also believe there is more than the mere physical. Angels would be an example of this. Yet we do not separate the realm of ideas as much; we see the spiritual realm and the physical as equal creations, the Greeks put more importance on the spiritual realm. For a Christian, humanity is only the plural for humans; and sin, instead of being a mere idea, must be part of a sinner.
Yet these two metaphysics are not mere presuppositions that must fight the battle on equal stance. The Greek thinking has many logical problems, mainly that of, “How do these two realms comport with each other?” Aristotle, Plato’s top student, saw this dilemma and took an opposite realm of materialist atheism. And yet, materialism has basic problems as well. For example, according to materialism, there is nothing that cannot be experienced by the senses. And yet, they are inconsistent in using the laws of logic for their arguments. The laws of logic are not material; they cannot be tasted, touched or smelled. Without the laws of logic, contradicting is allowed and therefore I can say they do believe in a spiritual realm. Do you see the problem here? (4)
Another talk I enjoyed was The Danger of Abstract Thinking in our Theology by Mark Rushdoony.(5) I will readily admit that my dad will have to explain some of it to me that I didn’t understand, but nevertheless, it was beneficial.
One point he made was that rationalism puts God under the microscope of man’s mind. It makes truth an abstraction. We are asking, “Is God’s word true according to me?” An example of this is many people can’t believe in a God who ordains people to go to hell? Yet, who decides what standard God has? Us? If it were up to us, who then is God? This is the danger of abstract thinking.
Or another one: God is awesome because of His love and mercy. Here we are choosing an abstraction to fear God because of some of his attributes instead of all of them. A god of just love and mercy is a different god than the God of the bible, whatever you choose to call him. Creating an abstract god is violating the second commandment.
Dualism leads to abstraction because it is separating the spiritual and the physical realms. As Christian, we believe in spirit and matter, but they don’t conflict.
(1) How Christian must take dominion in music, Martin Selbrede-2011 Christian Home Educators of Colorado Conference
(2) Ibid
(3) The nature of reality
(4) Ideas from Greg Bauson’s work, Defending the Christian Worldview against all Opposition.
(5) The Danger of Abstract Thinking in our Theology, Mark Rushdoony-2011 Christian Home Colorado
