The Johan Sebastian Bach Argument

[Charlemagne_II]

What I have noticed is that friends of mine who are not religious, and who are even anti-religious, will avoid sacred music like a plague. This tells me it calls out to them in a way they cannot refute.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Would this line of argumentation also mean that there exists an “Anti-God”?

Not necessarily; the proof is a complicated one, and I got the number wrong (it’s the fourth way). I’ll give you a link:

newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

**
The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God. **

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Charlemagne wrote: *What I have noticed is that friends of mine who are not religious, and who are even anti-religious, will avoid sacred music like a plague. This tells me it calls out to them in a way they cannot refute. *​

I have noticed this in some people. If they are really genuine lovers of classical music, however, they still may continue to love great sacred music for aesthetic reasons, even if the religious aspect holds no attraction for them. My friend Larry loves Bach`s masses and passion settings very deeply, and Larry is, essentially, an agnostic verging closely on atheist, a current-day votary of Voltaire.

As a former Lutheran and one steeped for so much of my life in the old Lutheran chorales, when I hear Bachs cantatas or passions, I recognise the chorales that Bach quotes musically, usually because of the specific religious allusions in their texts. This awareness only serves to increase my amazement at Bachs mastery and that composer`s profound Christian piety.

Certainly, cheap. tawdry, merely sentimental relgious music has no claims on anyone, Christian or unbeliever, and the atheist will have no patience soever for such stuff. Bachs or Cherubinis sacred music, however? That is entirely another matter!

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Not necessarily; the proof is a complicated one, and I got the number wrong (it’s the fourth way). I’ll give you a link:

newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

**
The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God. **

Hmm, thanks, I’ll have to take a further look.

 

[CarloMagnus]

Peter Kreeft, in his 20 proofs for the existence of God that he put into his “Handndbook of Catholic Apologetics”, offers this proof, with brief commentary:

**There is the music of Johan Sebastian Bach.
Therefore, there is a God.

You either see this one or you don’t.**

What are the merits of the proof? Discuss.

What an odd rationalization…Maybe it has something to do with how I don’t know who Johann Sebastian Bach is.

-Karl

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Jerry

**My friend Larry loves Bach`s masses and passion settings very deeply, and Larry is, essentially, an agnostic verging closely on atheist, a current-day votary of Voltaire. **

It always amazes me that atheists are so keen on Voltaire. Apparently most of them have never read what he said about atheism.

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability….That was how things went with the Roman Senate which was almost entirely composed of atheists in theory and in practice, that is to say, who believed in neither a Providence nor a future life; this senate was an assembly of philosophers, of sensualists and ambitious men, all very dangerous men, who ruined the republic." (from Voltaire’s essay On Atheism).

 

[Jerry_Parker]

Charlemagne wrote: In reply to: *My friend Larry loves Bach`s masses and passion settings very deeply, and Larry is, essentially, an agnostic verging closely on atheist, a current-day votary of Voltaire * he wrote this: *It always amazes me that atheists are so keen on Voltaire. Apparently most of them have never read what he said about atheism.

“The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability….That was how things went with the Roman Senate which was almost entirely composed of atheists in theory and in practice, that is to say, who believed in neither a Providence nor a future life; this senate was an assembly of philosophers, of sensualists and ambitious men, all very dangerous men, who ruined the republic." (from Voltaire’s essay On Atheism).*​

I find that atheism is brittle and reductive. Apparently Voltaire had his reservations about pure atheism. I am not the expert on Voltaire that Larry is, but he seemed to lean to Deism rather than to orthodox Christianity on the one hand, or to atheism on the other. We know that Voltaire greatly admired the Church of England (Anglican Church). He had his problems, though, with the decadence and authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic Church in France of his own period.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

jerry

**He had his problems, though, with the decadence and authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic Church in France of his own period. **

No doubt many Catholics in France and elsewhere had the same problems with corruption in the Church. We have some corruption in the Church today that refuses go away.

All of this only proves we are the Church Christ founded.

“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves." Matthew 10:16

 

[ReapReason]

If music expresses objective meaning, then this would suggest that there is an aspect of reality that transcends physicality insofar as it cannot be defined physically.

 

[Enrique34]

Too late to post in this thread, I know, but … who knows? Of course Kreeft’s argument is naive. Instead of considering it as proof for the existence of God, let’s take it as a statement about Bach. Then we find he is telling us that that music is so perfect (if perfection admits degrees) that it is just below God.

In this respect he is not entirely devoid of reason. Generations and generations of human beings have considered Bach as the summit of Western music.