What is music to Man? It is a manifold beauty that richly communicates information that has structure, meaning, purpose and plan as elaborate as any advanced science, technology or philosophy. (1) Its purpose is given action through creative expression (2) and has rules of order that assign specificity to complexity. (3) In Man music stimulates special interactive networks through synaptic transmission of neural codes. The codes ascribe patterns of melody and theme to assemblies of frequencies, tempos, rhythms and harmonies. This is by a process of creative choice of human intelligence. (4) It is a language expressed only by Man and links Man’s physical being with the soul and spirit. (5)
Music expresses the character of God with the precision of science. (6) God has given us music with the aim to glorify Him, encourage counsel, warns, corrects, comforts and teaches truth. It describes His preeminence as the only true God and His eternal reign as Sovereign Lord and King. Music flows from a life that is filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit. It gives expression to the Gospel and is identified with Jesus Christ. It is the only art that has a place in heaven and will endure for eternity. (7)
William A. Dembski relates that certain Church Fathers as Gregory of Nazianzus have compared God’s created universe to a musical instrument. “But what if the universe is like a musical instrument?…Then it is entirely appropriate for God to interact with the universe by introducing design (or in his analogy, by skillfully playing a musical instrument). So long as there are consummate pianists and composers, player-pianos will always remain inferior to real pianos. The incompleteness of the real piano taken by itself is therefore irrelevant here. Musical instruments require a musician to complete them. Thus, if the universe is more like a musical instrument, it is appropriate for a designer to interact with it in ways that affect its physical state. On this view, for the designer to refuse to interact with the world is to withhold gifts.” (8)
When we sing or play music on instruments we are giving witness to our Creator and Savior and King who indwells us and has given us reasons to believe in Him through music.
References
1. Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 1999), 1-82; Werner Gitt, “Information, Science and Biology,” Technical Journal 10, no. 2 (August 1996), 181-187; John R. Pierce, An Introduction to Information Theory, 2nd revised ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1980), 107-124.
2. Gitt, Ibid, 181-187.
3. William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 134-138.
4. W. Maxwell Cowan and Eric R. Kandel Synapses (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 1-87; Rodney Douglas and Kwan Martin, The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, ed. Gordon M. Shepherd (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 459-509; Idan Segev and Michael London, Dendrites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 205-230; Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code, eds. Fred Rieke, David Warland, Rob de Ruyter van Steveninck, and William Bialek (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 103-187; Nelson Spruston, Greg Stuart, and Michael Hausser, Dendrites, eds. Greg Stuart, Nelson Spruston, and Michael Hausser, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 231-270.
5. Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man (New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1977), 21-68.
8. William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 328.