Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- June 14, 2018 Firbush Retreat Summer 2018 Jeremy Begbie, "Theology and Music IV" https://tftorrance.org/node/1641 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:07 Thank you, Robert. Great. Well, everyone, has anyone done anything wild? 00:07-00:12 Climb their in-laws? No? What's the wildest story we have? 00:12-00:15 Because you've got to have something dangerous to tell the folks back home. 00:15-00:18 I braved the winds. No, no one's been outside, I expect. 00:18-00:21 Is that right? Just sitting indoors talking to the others? 00:21-00:22 A conversation with Gary Ditto. 00:22-00:26 Oh, that's like windsurfing, but in a different forefront. 00:26-00:28 Just go with the spirit. 00:28-00:32 I know. Okay, music to start with. 00:32-00:52 The beginning of a Bach two-part invention. 00:52-00:59 And at any one point in time there, two notes are sounding at the same time. 00:59-01:01 It's a point about two parts. There are two lines of music. 01:01-01:06 So if you stop the tape at any time, you'll find that two notes are sounding. 01:06-01:10 In most of the music which streams to us day after day and surrounds us, 01:10-01:16 you will have two or more notes sounding at the same time, whatever kind of music it is. 01:16-01:23 We are hearing, to be more accurate, the simultaneous sounding of differently pitched tones. 01:23-01:29 And I'd like to try to convince you this afternoon that there's something remarkable going on here. 01:29-01:37 That this very simple fact of so much music can jolt our imaginations, if we let it, 01:37-01:41 and unlock one of the great themes of Christian faith. 01:41-01:43 And that is the theme of freedom. 01:43-01:48 Music for theology. Hope was the last theme. Music for theology. 01:48-01:52 Freedom is this session's theme. 01:52-02:00 And I'm going to suggest that when it comes to freedom, most of us in the West have been trapped by ways of thinking, 02:00-02:08 certain spatial ways of thinking, that have smothered or clouded the issue of Christian freedom. 02:08-02:15 Not far from where I work and live for a lot of the year in Cambridge is Trinity College, 02:15-02:19 where this man used to live and lecture. Anyone know who this is? 02:19-02:25 Wittgenstein, indeed. Philosopher. Everyone likes to quote, but very few actually read. 02:25-02:30 Now the key thing you remember about Wittgenstein is he looks very like Hugh Laurie or Dr House, 02:30-02:34 as some of you may know him well, right? That has nothing to do with what I'm going to say from now on. 02:34-02:36 But it's something that might just help you identify him. 02:36-02:40 I don't think they really have very much in common. Certainly not philosophically. 02:40-02:48 "A picture held us captive," he wrote in one of his philosophical investigations, this kind of cryptic phrase. 02:48-02:52 "A picture held us captive, and we could not get outside it for a lay in our language, 02:52-02:56 and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably." 02:56-03:02 He's talking there about a way you understand the relationship between language and reality. 03:02-03:05 You understand it according to a kind of picturing theory. 03:05-03:08 That's what he's attacking. 03:08-03:13 "We get stuck in habits of mind," he's saying, "that trap us." 03:13-03:18 But the word picture is very apt. I've nothing against images or the eye per se. 03:18-03:23 But I do think we've been too often trapped by visual ways of thinking, 03:23-03:29 or patterns of thinking that take their cue from the way visual perception operates. 03:29-03:35 And when it comes to freedom, I think that's been disastrous, the way we conceive freedom. 03:35-03:42 And I'm going to suggest that music can jolt us out of some of these ways of thinking, jolt our imaginations, 03:42-03:46 and unlock, so to speak, the world of authentic freedom. 03:46-03:51 Now this does, as you will see, link up with T.F. Torrance in particular. 03:51-03:58 T.F. Torrance, in my own view, I think he slightly overdoes the attack on the visual, but I know what he's getting at. 03:58-04:03 And full disclosure, I wish I'd had a chance, well I probably did have a chance, 04:03-04:10 to share some of this material with him when he was alive, at least on this earth, alive. 04:10-04:16 Because I do think, and I hope, you tell me what you think, 04:16-04:21 that what music is doing for theology, or can do for theology here, is parallel, 04:21-04:28 perhaps even supportive to the kind of things he was saying about space in particular, theology in space. 04:28-04:34 Now, if that all sounds very weird to you, don't worry, much more will be clear in the next hour or so. 04:34-04:39 What do I mean? Let's talk a bit about sight problems, freedom and zero-sum theology. 04:39-04:44 And by the way, just in case there's any confusion, I'm not against the eye. 04:44-04:48 If you're a visual artist, I love you dearly. That's not the issue. 04:48-04:55 It's the problem of over-relaying on one sense, one sensory mode, that I think is the problem. 04:55-04:57 And that can happen with the ear as well. 04:57-05:02 But anyhow, zero-sight problems, freedom and zero-sum theology. 05:02-05:07 Let's just think of a very obvious way in which we see the world. Point out something obvious. 05:07-05:13 And that is that you can't see two different things in the same place as different. 05:13-05:18 When a painter paints red and yellow in the same space on a canvas, 05:18-05:25 the colours will either hide each other, or if the paint is still wet, they'll merge to make orange. 05:25-05:31 Right? That you can't see red and yellow as different in the same space at the same time. 05:31-05:34 It's simply the way our eyes were. 05:34-05:41 Objects in our visual field occupy bounded locations, discrete zones, 05:41-05:45 zones with edges such that things are there, or they are here. 05:45-05:48 This keyboard is here, it is not there. 05:48-05:53 It occupies, as I look at it, a bounded space in my visual perception. 05:53-05:59 And by the same token, you can't have the keyboard here and there at the same time. 05:59-06:02 It is either here, or it is there. 06:02-06:11 Now in line with this, or supporting it, is a very influential understanding of space 06:11-06:13 that T.F. Torrance speaks a great deal about. 06:13-06:17 Space is seen as a kind of container or receptacle, which is his word for it. 06:17-06:22 A receptacle quite distinct from what goes on inside it. 06:22-06:24 In other words, space is basically a container, 06:24-06:30 and it happens to have things that go on inside this space. 06:30-06:34 So according to one theory, you have something called absolute space, 06:34-06:40 and time indeed as well, forming a kind of envelope in which things go on. 06:40-06:45 But there's no inherent relationship between the space, the container, 06:45-06:48 and the things that go on within it. 06:48-06:54 And the things in this space, in this container, are mutually exclusive. 06:54-06:59 You can't have two things in the same place within this space at the same time. 06:59-07:03 Nor one thing in two places at the same time. 07:03-07:05 Okay, simple. 07:05-07:12 The trouble starts when we transport that way of thinking into, well, theology generally, 07:12-07:15 but particularly a theology of freedom. 07:15-07:16 Let me explain. 07:16-07:18 Take God and the world. 07:18-07:24 If we think of God and the world like this, like two objects in visual space. 07:24-07:30 God up there and the world down here, and we have to use that spatial language of course. 07:30-07:35 Clearly we're going to have problems if we want to say God gets involved in the world. 07:35-07:41 We want to say God can do things in the world, change things, alter things. 07:41-07:45 Well, according to this model, it's very hard to see how that can really happen 07:45-07:53 without the world in some sense being invaded or having to shrink or become less of itself. 07:53-07:54 Why? 07:54-07:56 Because we have two objects in the same space. 07:56-08:02 If that's going to be in this space as well, that's going to have to shrink to make room for the bigger thing. 08:02-08:03 Right? 08:03-08:07 As long as we're thinking that world, thinking that way. 08:07-08:10 The more active God is in the world then, according to this model, 08:10-08:15 the less room the world will have to be itself, the less free it'll be. 08:15-08:22 Because it's as if God and world, so to speak, are competing for the same space within this box. 08:22-08:23 Are you with me so far? 08:23-08:25 Straightforward? Okay, fine. 08:25-08:34 If the world is going to be really free, it needs to be free from God, at least as much as possible. 08:34-08:36 Maybe not entirely, but as much as possible. 08:36-08:41 So in the West, we meet a world view broadly known as Deism, which Gary was talking about. 08:41-08:44 It's an English invention, you'll be pleased to know. 08:44-08:48 17th and 18th century, but very popular in America. 08:48-08:53 In its strong form, strong form, weak form, strong form, God started up the world, 08:53-08:58 wound up the clock as it were, and now it just runs by itself and God is not involved in it. 08:58-09:01 God is the absentee landlord. 09:01-09:05 And like many landlords, not that keen on getting involved. 09:05-09:08 Transcendence, we say, yet not imminent. 09:08-09:14 The weaker forms of Deism, we're told, God "intervenes". 09:14-09:18 Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in miracles, I believe God acts in the world, 09:18-09:21 despite my very liberal appearance, I'm very orthodox. 09:21-09:23 I really believe that. 09:23-09:30 But the problem with the language of intervention, well, tell me what's the problem. 09:30-09:35 I understand what's being said, but if you use that metaphor and only that metaphor, 09:35-09:37 what could you suggest? 09:37-09:39 Yes, David? 09:39-09:41 It implies that he's not here already. 09:41-09:43 That he's not here already, indeed. 09:43-09:45 But the world's not really his. 09:45-09:47 It's like a burglar breaking into a home. 09:47-09:52 He intervenes, oh and then he's out again, and he's running really quite well by itself. 09:52-09:54 And there's a violation? 09:54-09:59 And there's a violation, it's saying precisely, on this month it's bound to be a violation. 09:59-10:06 As God moves into this world, it's bound to be an interference that could only be destructive, 10:06-10:08 you would think, anyhow. 10:08-10:14 I mean, I tell you this, it's more like the landlord coming in to repair the plumbing. 10:14-10:17 But then he can go out again and be completely absent. 10:17-10:24 Now of course, the problem here, oh sorry, yeah, okay, so that's David's, 10:24-10:28 which you will notice of course, again, what's happening in this model, 10:28-10:35 is that God and the world are being set against a kind of super space, a super box, right? 10:35-10:42 Perceptical, and I would, so it's almost like there's a giant meta space in which God and the world are. 10:42-10:45 And such are the more of God, the less of the world. 10:45-10:52 The only other option according to this model is that, the merger of God and the world. 10:52-10:57 Or orange theologies, as I call them, right? Red and yellow together. 10:57-11:02 Some kind of confusion, or fusion, as Bob and Gary were saying, 11:02-11:07 as such that God is infused into the world, or the world is infused into God. 11:07-11:11 And the problem is here, of course, both lose their integrity in the process. 11:11-11:15 In the scriptures it's very clear God is not the world, and the world is not God. 11:15-11:18 There is an absolute distinction between them. 11:18-11:24 Not, please note, an absolute separation, but a distinction between the two. 11:24-11:29 So then, where does that get us? 11:29-11:37 How are we going to speak of God active in the world, without invading the world's space? 11:37-11:42 Well, as long as you think according to this kind of model, it's very hard. 11:42-11:49 Very hard not to say something like, the more free God is, the less free the world is. 11:49-11:54 Second then, God and us. Same story. 11:54-12:00 If we think about God and us, if I am here in this space, God can't be here as well. 12:00-12:05 I'll have to shrink in some way. I'll have to be less free. 12:05-12:09 The more of God, the less of us. 12:09-12:14 Or, the other way around, the more of me, the less of God. 12:14-12:17 I take the first, the more of God, the less of us. 12:17-12:22 When I first came to faith, and you must have had this huge amount, Gary, in campus ministry with us, 12:22-12:25 where I've noticed some kind of student circles, those who are not Christians, 12:25-12:31 instantly assumed that when you became a Christian, vast amount in your life would have to shrink. 12:31-12:36 Of course certain things have to go, but is the basic movement a shrinkage? 12:36-12:41 That's what very many people are afraid of. I will have to be actually less myself. Why? 12:41-12:46 Because God is very big, right? And God is everything, and we are nothing. 12:46-12:49 That's what the Bible says, isn't it? 12:49-12:55 Right? We've all heard that. The more of God, the less of us. 12:55-12:58 You see the way? A picture holding us captive. 12:58-13:01 Or it could be the more of me, the less of God. 13:01-13:06 And it's little wonder that some of the strongest currents of modern atheism trade on this belief 13:06-13:10 that worshipping God will crush your dignity. 13:10-13:17 To enrich God, said Feuerbach, Ludwig Feuerbach, man must become poor. 13:17-13:22 That God may be all, man must be nothing. 13:22-13:26 Well, who wants a God who's going to make us nothing? 13:26-13:33 If humans are going to grow up, notice the language, expand, grow up and mature, 13:33-13:41 of course they need to get rid of this infantile idea, which is probably a projection of a super powerful God 13:41-13:44 who's going to fix everything. Drive that God out. 13:44-13:54 So the late and great Colin Compton used to speak of the drive in modernity as a drive towards the displacement of God. 13:54-13:56 Interesting phrase he used over and over again. 13:56-14:01 Because he must move God from our place, because that's our bit, right? 14:01-14:07 Into his bit, heaven or whatever, if you're going to be truly free. 14:07-14:15 And indeed when you look at the modern so-called new atheists, if you look at the God they're attacking, that's the God they're attacking. 14:15-14:18 It's the same God that Feuerbach was attacking as well. 14:18-14:24 The God who's basically a tyrant, and the more this God is involved in your life, the less free you can be. 14:24-14:28 So for goodness sake, grow up. 14:28-14:34 And within the church, we're talking about God's freedom and ours, dare I say, those who still believe in God. 14:34-14:41 Very captive to similar habits of thinking, and I'm going to be extremely controversial here, and tread on all sorts of toes, 14:41-14:44 probably including my own, if that were really sort of possible. 14:44-14:51 Think about salvation. On the one hand, someone comes to faith, is this God's work? 14:51-14:59 Or is that person's work? Or both? Or neither? Or a compromise? Or what? 14:59-15:07 On the one side, you have an idea of God's unmerited saving grace. It's all of grace. 15:07-15:13 The trouble then, this can sound like an unframmeled, unrestricted divine causality in the world, 15:13-15:19 a kind of nothing but power who turns into a kind of tyrant, right? 15:19-15:22 It's all of God, nothing to do with you. 15:22-15:26 That can sound like a crushing of the human. 15:26-15:33 On the other hand, theories of salvation where my decision for God takes centre stage. 15:33-15:39 The sort of thing that sent Tom and James, bleh, believing that God, as it were, 15:39-15:48 is now captive to our act that is a completely self-generated expression of my personal space. 15:48-15:52 I've got to have my say. And that can't have any to do with God. 15:52-15:58 Or else we're kind of very, very English and we like to kind of balance things out a bit. 15:58-16:02 Or we like to share the space. God does this much, but we have to do just a little bit. 16:02-16:07 God does 90%, but the 1%, you know, is your decision. 16:07-16:12 Or maybe we need a little bit more. Let's say 10%, all right? 16:12-16:16 You see what's going on there? A picture held as captive. 16:16-16:22 This limited space. And we'll carve up this limited space into the God bit and the human bit. 16:22-16:24 You see what's going on? 16:24-16:30 James Torrance, of course, is a fierce advocate of the distinction between covenant and contract. 16:30-16:37 What is a contract? It is precisely an attempt to find an agreement of how to occupy, so to speak, 16:37-16:43 the space between you and me, dependent on the fulfilling of certain conditions. 16:43-16:47 If we do this much, God will do that. Or, you can be the other way around, 16:47-16:52 God will do this much, but will expect this much from us if that's really going to work. 16:52-16:54 50%, 50%. 16:54-16:59 A picture held as captive. 16:59-17:03 What about you and me? I'm really depressing you, I know. 17:03-17:10 I'm really depressing you. Isn't it interesting the Bible doesn't seem to have that huge problem, 17:10-17:14 that salvation that we do? Just something to think about. 17:14-17:18 You and me, your freedom and my freedom, of course this applies to you and me. 17:18-17:21 If I'm here, you can't be here also. 17:21-17:25 Right yesterday, Bob was right here fixing the microphone. 17:25-17:33 That's my space, Bob! You're invading my space. I don't feel free. Of course not. 17:33-17:37 So you sit there, thank you very much, because this is my space. 17:38-17:41 The more free you are, the less free I am. 17:41-17:45 The more free I am now, the less free you are, because you have to sit and listen. 17:45-17:52 Zero-sum thinking. The rich can be free at the expense of the poor. 17:52-17:56 Men at the expense of women. The powerful at the expense of the vulnerable. 17:56-17:59 That's just the way the world is. 17:59-18:06 It's a zero-sum game in a zero-sum world, because we're all fighting for the same space. 18:07-18:12 This of course brings us face to face with one of the West's most cherished traditions of thinking about freedom, 18:12-18:22 so-called libertarian theories, which centre on being free from the process of removing external obstacles 18:22-18:25 of constraint to our thought and action. 18:25-18:34 Allied to this is very often the assumption that freedom is about the power of unrestrained choice. 18:34-18:37 Maximised choice, you maximise freedom. 18:37-18:41 Freedom of choice means typically freedom of opportunity. 18:41-18:46 Freedom of consumer choice. And very often both go together. 18:46-18:55 I must be free to make my choice for this product, and the more products that I have, the freer I will be. 18:55-18:59 The more brands of coffee I have, the more free I will be. 18:59-19:02 Or will I? 19:02-19:06 I go to order an egg in America, at least when I first went to the States. 19:06-19:10 An egg for breakfast. I suddenly got paralysed with decisions. 19:10-19:12 Now would you like it this way over here? 19:12-19:18 If you go to a café in, I don't know, Dunbar or somewhere, it's just the one way where you do it. 19:18-19:21 Well could I have it like this? No. No. It's just like this. 19:21-19:22 Oh, alright, sorry. 19:22-19:24 Go to America, well how would you like this? 19:24-19:25 This kind of egg, that kind of... 19:25-19:29 I suddenly sign up and go, oh just get me an egg. I don't care. 19:30-19:37 Anyhow, so freedom becomes the power to determine your own choices so long as you don't deprive others of their good, right? 19:37-19:40 Or impede their efforts to attain their good. 19:40-19:46 Freedom then names the ability to choose otherwise spontaneously. 19:46-19:48 Or to put it another way, David Bentley Hart. 19:48-19:54 What we habitually understand in democratic liberty to be, what we take that is our most exalted model of freedom, 19:54-19:59 is merely the unobstructed power of choice. 20:00-20:07 Notice on this model in its extreme form humans are pictured as godlike figures, or potentially godlike figures, 20:07-20:14 searching for infinite space to act as far as possible without any influence from outside, 20:14-20:19 with no limits to what they can do in principle, and indeed no limits to their progress. 20:19-20:24 There are various forms of political thought that do seem very close to that. 20:25-20:31 The underlying drift of thought is wonderfully enshrined in that indispensable source of wisdom, Wikipedia. 20:31-20:38 Freedom in philosophy, we are told, is the human value of a situation to act according to one's will 20:38-20:40 without being held up by the power of others. 20:40-20:45 From a philosophical point of view, freedom can be defined as the capacity to determine your own choices. 20:45-20:50 It can be defined negatively as an absence of constraints, subordination and servitude. 20:50-20:54 Of course, there is some truth here, of course. 20:54-20:57 You release someone from prison, they will be freer. 20:57-21:02 But is that the heart of freedom, removing constraint? 21:02-21:06 Or is there something deeper we need to be freed from? 21:06-21:14 One of the most important social studies to merge in North America in recent times comes from a sociologist at Notre Dame, 21:14-21:21 Christian Smith, a massive survey of the spiritual inclinations of North American 18 to 23 year olds, emerging adults. 21:21-21:24 I quote with permission from an email he sent me. 21:24-21:29 "Emerging adults believe absolutely in the sovereign individual and insist on that for themselves, 21:29-21:34 but have much less idea what is good or best or right to do with that freedom." 21:34-21:44 In other words, I strive for a clear space without any constraints, but I'm not sure what to do with that space. 21:44-21:47 If you have a parented adolescent, you know what I'm talking about. 21:48-21:52 Therein lies a paradox. We're convinced about what we need to be freed from, 21:52-21:58 but we never really discover, because we think we know what we need to be freed from. 21:58-22:02 We never really discover what we're to be freed for. 22:02-22:07 God world, God us, you and me. 22:07-22:13 And of course, let's take the further step on page 2 and talk about God. 22:14-22:18 Here we are as Christians, we want to be orthodox, at least on Sundays. 22:18-22:21 We claim allegiance to the doctrine of the Trinity, Father and Son and Spirit, 22:21-22:28 but in practice, as the Torrenses used to say, we keep the Trinity fairly quiet, 22:28-22:30 because it's so hard to think about. 22:30-22:34 Indeed, it is, with the eye. 22:34-22:40 Because you can't have three colours in the same space, visible as three distinct colours. 22:40-22:45 You can't see three things in the same space at the same time as three. 22:45-22:52 So we quickly resort to the language of balance or mystery, and try to change the subject. 22:52-22:57 Of course, there are lots of compromises on offer, if you think with the eye alone. 22:57-22:59 Or, let's say tendencies. 22:59-23:01 Top left, Unitarianism. 23:01-23:07 Where the triunity of God, the three-ness of God, is dissolved into one. 23:07-23:09 On the right, what would you call that? 23:09-23:10 Tritheism. 23:10-23:12 Tritheism, yeah indeed, three gods. 23:12-23:18 The accusation, typically from the Muslim, you believe in three gods, if you're really going to speak three. 23:18-23:20 Especially if you use the language of person. 23:20-23:23 After all, person means individual, does it not? 23:23-23:26 So, you have three individuals, of course, in God. 23:26-23:27 This one's a little subtler. 23:27-23:33 This actually used to be the symbol of a church I attended in Cambridge, called Herbie Trinity. 23:33-23:37 And they got rid of it after a bit. 23:37-23:39 What would your comments be on this? 23:39-23:43 I'm not necessarily thinking it's wrong in every respect. What could it suggest? 23:43-23:49 That's quite complicated. 23:49-23:50 Yes, go on. 23:50-23:56 They actually part of each other in the sense that their father is the son, and the son is the... 23:56-23:57 That's certainly possible. 23:57-24:01 I think that's what I'm saying about total immunity. 24:01-24:02 Sorry, we're getting two people. Yes? 24:02-24:07 But they're not totally unified on everything. 24:07-24:08 Have bits that they share. 24:08-24:11 They agree on something. 24:11-24:16 There's a bit in the middle where there's no real distinction between them. 24:16-24:18 Where there's absolute oneness. 24:18-24:20 On the outside, they're three. 24:20-24:22 There's modalism, there's sibelism. 24:22-24:25 But God, on the outside, is three. 24:25-24:29 God reveals himself as Father, Son and Spirit. 24:29-24:31 God acts as Father, Son and Spirit. 24:31-24:36 But in God's own being, he's basically one without distinction. 24:36-24:41 That is a crude summary of what goes by the name sibelism or modalism, 24:41-24:47 which many have said is the kind of constant default of a lot of Western theology. 24:47-24:51 That God is basically one, but unfortunately three. 24:51-24:52 Right? 24:52-25:00 Is it any accident that most of the illustrations we hear on Trinity Sunday will be visual? 25:00-25:03 Tricycles, clover leaves, all the rest of it. 25:03-25:07 I have not yet heard a sermon on what we call Trinity Sunday. 25:07-25:11 In my tradition, we have this great Sunday where we all suddenly believe in the Trinity for once a year. 25:11-25:13 And we celebrate the Trinity. 25:13-25:18 And every sermon I've heard on Trinity begins by saying, "Gosh, this is an unbelievably complex subject. 25:18-25:21 And the greatest minds have struggled with us for centuries. 25:21-25:25 I'm not really a theologian, but I give it the best shot that I can." 25:25-25:31 And then out come the tricycles and the clover leaves and the rabbit's ears and the triple drainpipes and the rest of it. 25:31-25:35 And they are all visual illustrations, you notice. 25:35-25:38 And then you get to the end, you wipe your breath, thank goodness that's over for another year. 25:38-25:40 We can go back to believing one God again. 25:40-25:44 And what have you told your congregation? That God is a problem to be solved. 25:44-25:47 The glorious news of the Gospel. 25:49-25:55 And that God is basically an idea, as in the phrase people will use, "the doctrine of the Trinity." 25:55-25:57 Is that God, we're basically a doctrine. 25:57-26:00 No, when you speak of the Trinity, you're speaking of God, not a doctrine. 26:00-26:03 We are speaking of the life of God. 26:03-26:13 Who, as it were, comes at us through these texts as triune, in a way that is indeed liable to throw us and confuse us. 26:13-26:18 But God is not a problem to be solved. God is a reality to be enjoyed. 26:19-26:22 And in which to participate. 26:22-26:30 Is it any accident that the commonest heresies with regard to God and the Trinity are the ones that are most easily visualizable? 26:30-26:34 A picture held as captive. 26:34-26:37 Well, I think you can probably imagine what's coming. 26:37-26:44 Suppose we are to move from the world of the eye, good as it is for certain purposes, to the world of sound. 26:44-26:46 We get a jolt, a jolt of the imagination. 26:47-26:59 Because when we hear a single note, what we're hearing there fills the hole of our aural space, my heard space. 26:59-27:09 The note that we hear doesn't occupy a bounded location. We don't say the note is there, but it is not there. 27:09-27:13 We can say, "Yes, it's coming from here." That's a different point. 27:13-27:19 What we actually hear is not a bounded reality in our aural perception. 27:19-27:22 Please note, this is about how we perceive sound. 27:22-27:29 It's about what the phenomenologist would call the phenomenology of sound. 27:29-27:33 It is not a point about physics. This is not what I'm talking about at the moment. 27:33-27:36 It's simply about the way we perceive sound. 27:36-27:40 Suppose I play a second note along with the first. 27:41-27:50 That second note also fills the same heard space, yet I hear it as distinct, irreducibly different. 27:50-28:00 In the world of heard sound, it seems two things can be in the same space at the same time and be heard as irreducibly distinct. 28:00-28:05 One tone, one note, does not take up more space than the other. 28:05-28:09 There is no "the more of the first, the less of the second." 28:09-28:15 We're not speaking of objects jostling for room in a spatial box. 28:15-28:19 Or to put it another way, the notes don't have to get in each other's way. 28:19-28:25 Of course they can do if the tenor sings too loud in the choir, but they don't have to. 28:25-28:30 Notes can sound through each other. 28:30-28:37 They can essentially in each other while being audible as two distinct notes. 28:37-28:43 They can, in other words, interpenetrate while remaining quite distinct. 28:43-28:50 Now at this point visual artists get very kind of twitchy because they want to kind of save visual art from what they think is an attack. 28:50-28:59 And they say, "Hey, look at someone like Paul Klee, 20th century painter, who paints a whole series of inspired art inspired by musical polyphony." 28:59-29:01 That is the many voices of music. 29:01-29:04 Paul Klee fascinated music as was Kandinsky. 29:04-29:09 And these paintings do radiate a sense of overlapping colour. 29:09-29:14 I think in visual art you can suggest what I'm talking about, and sometimes very powerfully. 29:14-29:20 But the fact remains, we are not actually perceiving distinct colours in the same place. 29:20-29:26 Even when the colours do intertwine, they are perceivable as different only in distinct units. 29:26-29:32 I'm not denigrating as achievement, it's simply highlighting a difference between two kinds of perception. 29:32-29:41 And along with interpenetration, let's just remember what we had, I think it was in an earlier talk, about harmonics. 29:41-29:51 That when I open that string, the string here, without sounding it, I can set it off by playing the lower string. 29:51-29:53 And you would soon hear that. 29:53-29:59 That's known as sympathetic resonance. 29:59-30:04 The upper string has been freed to vibrate by the lower string. 30:04-30:11 The more the lower string sounds, the more the upper string sounds. 30:11-30:16 The two tones are not in competition, and they don't just tolerate each other. 30:16-30:18 Freedom is not tolerant. 30:18-30:20 These are not only tolerant. 30:20-30:23 It's ridiculous to say that one tone tolerates the other. 30:23-30:28 The lower sound establishes the life of the other, frees it to be itself. 30:28-30:34 And what's more, when other strings are opened up, or certain other strings are opened up around these two notes, 30:34-30:36 they too will be set off, they will come to life. 30:36-30:41 And when that happens, the strings enhance each other. 30:41-30:50 The lower tone, actually, even in this, the lower tone will become richer and fuller by itself as it sets off the other one. 30:50-30:57 Now before we go back to theology, music takes advantage of this simultaneity. 30:57-31:00 As no other form, art form, can. 31:00-31:03 This interpenetration and mutual resonance. 31:03-31:10 At the end of the 19th century, Claude Debussy, French Impressionist, used a fascinating metaphor for some of his music. 31:10-31:13 And it's actually a visual metaphor, which is interesting. 31:13-31:17 He wants to sound like it were "lit from behind", he says. 31:17-31:23 That is, that there was a translucency of texture, each detail thrown into relief. 31:23-31:32 Each detail audible, because of interpenetration, and each detail enhanced because of mutual resonance. 31:32-31:40 A little later, in 1913, Igor Stravinsky writes a revolutionary piece called "The Rite of Spring". 31:40-31:46 Thank you very much. Thank you. 31:46-31:53 We have it well spotted. 31:53-31:58 The world is saved. 31:58-32:02 And it goes "bing" just to say "thank you". It's so sweet. 32:02-32:06 Stravinsky, what we call "The Rite of Spring". 32:06-32:14 And he evokes in sounds the eruption of springs, birds awaking, plants breaking through, in a multi-phonic whirlwind. 32:14-32:24 All the themes up until this point I'm going to play now, that have happened in the previous bit of music, are now superimposed. 32:24-32:32 So you have 12 layers of music, all of them audible, as they would be in a forest. 33:08-33:23 And so on. One of the things you can do because of this feature of music, is you can have different sets of words, set to music, saying radically different things, at the same time. 33:23-33:37 So in Verdi's opera "Batella", in Act II there's a famous quartet, when what happens in the Shakespeare play on different occasions, a dialogue about one thing, a dialogue about another, they're brought together. 33:37-33:46 Four voices sing simultaneously in one texture. Now if that were simply spoken, it would be impossible to understand, let alone enjoy. 33:46-33:53 Most people don't enjoy listening to two or three people speaking simultaneously about different things, unless you enjoy listening to the House of Commons. 33:53-34:03 That is. We thought, no, no, please, just one at a time, right? But no, this is four at a time, or at least two dialogues at the same time. 34:03-34:11 And it's captivating because it's taken into the order of music. Another interesting example, a U2 song, called "The Fly". 34:11-34:21 A low voice sings of a man crawling up on a sort of cliff on the sheer face of love, like a fly on the wall. 34:21-34:29 A gospel voice, at the same time, it's called "Gospel Voice", sings of love coming down from above. 34:29-34:36 While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, at the same time. 34:36-34:41 Not this happened, oh and that happened. They were happening together. 34:41-34:48 Two very different sound worlds, hearing two different sets of words at the same time. 34:48-34:54 And another thing you can do, therefore, with music, is you can have two different types of music at the same time, 34:54-34:59 as a world with two very different kinds of messages, which will create a kind of ambiguity. 34:59-35:05 Are we in this key, or are we in this key? Anyone like Downton Abbey? 35:05-35:09 Does anyone ever watch Downton Abbey? Yeah, good, we do. 35:09-35:14 I was playing at a wedding, once in a Presbyterian church, you'll appreciate this. 35:14-35:21 And they said, could you play some quiet music before the service, just to kind of quiet people down, kind of prayerful, you know, religious music. 35:21-35:28 So I brought along my religious music and played very quietly, and the more these guests came in, the louder it got. 35:28-35:32 And about 150 people, absolutely the top of their voices, I was completely drunk. 35:32-35:36 I tried this, I strived for Vince Ginch, I coscied, loud, scarf, great. 35:36-35:40 I could not shut this bunch of over-talked Presbyterians up, alright? 35:40-35:43 So then I thought, well I know, let's try this. 35:49-35:52 Which is the theme tune to Downton Abbey, it was in America. 35:52-35:54 In sudden quiet. 35:54-36:00 The power of music, they thought, it's England, it's home. 36:00-36:02 You know, there was something, I don't know what was going on there. 36:02-36:06 Why is that interesting? Because it's full of... 36:06-36:12 That's E minor, F major, they do not belong together. 36:12-36:16 But together they create this ambiguity. 36:16-36:19 See, Downton Abbey is not just about the glory of England. 36:19-36:23 It's about war, and it's about a changing social culture. 36:23-36:25 It's slightly disturbed and disturbing. 36:25-36:31 And you're given a hint of that before you've seen anything, or before a word has been spoken. 36:31-36:36 That's not comforting, is it? 36:36-36:43 And that's a very ancient technique, Stravinsky used it excessively, called bitonality. 36:43-36:46 You have one key on top of another. 36:46-36:48 Stravinsky liked this kind of sound. 36:48-36:52 Isn't that gorgeous? 36:52-36:54 That's from Protriska. 36:54-36:57 Protriska, sordid person, sordid puppet. 36:57-36:59 Who knows? Who knows? 36:59-37:02 Psycho. 37:02-37:05 Bernard Herrmann's music for Psycho. 37:05-37:10 What's Psycho about, you remember? Norman Bates, who's both murderer, and there's the mother. 37:10-37:14 There's the two parts that are never resolved. How does the film end? 37:14-37:16 With that chord. 37:16-37:20 Which is actually that chord, over that chord. 37:20-37:22 And there the film ends. 37:22-37:25 Because we never get to. 37:25-37:27 Right? No. 37:27-37:32 The tension is not resolved, and you hear that through the music. 37:32-37:37 There's a photograph of two images, but it's not nearly as effective as the music, which is deeply disturbing. 37:39-37:42 Without the music, that film would never have been famous, incidentally. 37:42-37:45 So back to freedom, with all this in mind. 37:45-37:47 Why don't I... Sorry, I got a little bit carried away there. 37:47-37:49 Interpenetration, sympathetic resonance. 37:49-37:50 Rethinking freedom. 37:50-37:54 Let's revisit those dilemmas about freedom we touched on earlier. 37:54-37:57 God and the world, God's freedom and the world's freedom. 37:57-38:07 Think through sound, and we don't have to think of God's freedom and the world's freedom vying for the same limited space. 38:07-38:15 The lower string doesn't drown the upper string, and it doesn't merge with it. 38:15-38:16 Confusion. 38:16-38:22 It liberates the upper string to be the string it was made to be. 38:22-38:26 Those with ears, let them hear. 38:26-38:29 And we hear that audibly. 38:29-38:33 We hear that in the same audible space. 38:33-38:37 Can you see now we're beginning to up a biblical way of understanding freedom? 38:37-38:46 God is transcendent, yes, but that means he can be free for the world and liberate it to be the world it was created to be. 38:46-38:52 God is in the business of freeing this world to be the world God wants it to be. 38:52-38:53 That is the point. 38:53-38:57 God and us, God's freedom and our freedom. 38:58-39:04 No longer need we think of God's freedom and our freedom struggling for the same space. 39:04-39:09 God is freeing us to be the persons we were created to be. 39:09-39:15 The divine project is not to dehumanise it, it is to re-humanise it. 39:15-39:22 Someone came up to me after a talk once and said, "Yes, but what about that 'I must decrease that he may increase'?" 39:23-39:28 Well, that's John the Baptist who doesn't want people to confuse him with the Messiah. 39:28-39:32 So of course he's going to say, "Hey folks, don't look at me like this, this is the Messiah." 39:32-39:35 He's not saying, "I'm nothing and God is everything." 39:35-39:37 That's not the point of that, alright? 39:37-39:40 So just in case, we mustn't misuse that text. 39:40-39:47 Of course there is a right kind of decrease of course of us, but you get the point, I don't have to spell that out I'm sure. 39:47-39:50 Third, you and me, your freedom and mine. 39:50-39:57 On the other model, freedom is about me, the individual, of course, pursuing my own good in my own way, provided I don't impede others. 39:57-40:02 With musical sound, that kind of model simply crumbles. 40:02-40:12 In this piano chord, these strings don't simply allow each other room or tolerate each other, they build each other up. 40:12-40:17 Together they create a richness of sound not possible on their own. 40:17-40:19 And we hear that. 40:19-40:27 Freedom is not essentially about self-assertion in a vacant space, into which we project ourselves until we bump into somebody. 40:27-40:33 Freedom indeed is not our possession to assert, it is a gift. 40:33-40:38 It is something that happens to us when we are freed by the other. 40:38-40:44 What we have to be freed from of course is not the other, but sin. 40:45-40:49 In order that we can be for the other. 40:49-40:55 The Christian faith declares we are freed by the other, for the other. 40:55-40:57 Now Gary of course... 40:57-41:00 Oop, there you go, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. 41:00-41:03 Actually I haven't got that, sorry I haven't got the particular slides here. 41:03-41:07 But there's something I have to mention here and Gary will know about this. 41:07-41:10 A character called Jeff McSwain, might indeed be known to some of you here, 41:10-41:21 who set up an amazing experiment not far from where I live in Durham, North Carolina, called Reality Ministries for teens and adults with and without developmental disabilities. 41:21-41:25 And at one of their shows, they have these kind of open talent shows, 41:25-41:31 I remember hearing from a young man confined to a chair 24 hours a day and able to talk only through a computer device. 41:31-41:35 One evening he told us in effect, it was at the talent show, that's right, 41:35-41:40 that this was the one place in his life where he felt truly free. 41:40-41:46 But just as important as we listened to him of course, as the team got to know him, 41:46-41:51 they found they were freed from all sorts of inhibitions, 41:51-41:57 freed from years of prejudice, freed from the fear of showing affection physically and so on. 41:57-42:02 Some of you will know the work of Jean Vanier, the large communities, it's the same. 42:03-42:07 This is not a patronising attempt to help disadvantaged people. 42:07-42:10 This is about relearning Christian freedom. 42:10-42:13 They free us as much as we do what we can to free them. 42:13-42:16 That's the language of any of you who listen to him. 42:16-42:23 And what's very interesting about the Reality Ministries project I've been speaking about is the arts play a huge role in this enterprise. 42:23-42:30 In fact, there's hardly anything that you do that doesn't involve music and dance, and visual arts as well. 42:31-42:36 Freedom then isn't basically about preserving my space, though at times we might need to do that. 42:36-42:40 It's not basically about increasing the choices open to me, though it may involve that. 42:40-42:51 Deeper down, it's being freed from sin by another who loves you, and freed for another whom you can love. 42:51-42:56 And yes, you probably heard that a little bit earlier on. 43:14-43:19 This is the South African National Anthem, Okisele Africa, God bless Africa. 43:19-43:24 Thank you, yes I knew. With your South African connections you can't help but join it. 43:24-43:28 Interesting how people think of that as a kind of primordial indigenous African song. 43:28-43:33 It's not actually, it's a Victorian hymn tune, and I rather like that in a way that it's actually culturally mixed already, 43:33-43:38 but was used of course as a freedom song in the dark years of apartheid. 43:38-43:47 Why, when I sang that song in those gatherings, did I have this sense of freedom? 43:47-43:49 Partly of course because it was of the song's association. 43:49-43:56 But a major part of it I'm convinced was because of its four-part harmony, in which no vocal line predominates over the others. 43:56-44:03 If you sing this, generally, perhaps others can confirm, when you sing this with Africans they will not think of it as melody with accompaniment, 44:03-44:08 they will instantly harmonise. Instantly. You don't have to teach them to do it. 44:08-44:18 What's happening then? Your voice and all the others who are singing, and many of them different notes, fill the same heard space. 44:18-44:24 But it's not a space of distinct voices, each with their exclusive space. You got me? 44:24-44:31 A space of overlapping sounds, an uncrowded expansive space, where the voices free each other. 44:31-44:36 Why was solidarity in South Africa so often expressed in a harmonious song? 44:36-44:42 Among many reasons, and there are many reasons I know, surely is that when crowds met to sing, 44:42-44:50 the music provided a taste of authentic freedom, when in virtually every other sense they weren't free. 44:50-45:00 Let's put it another way. They couldn't see freedom with their eyes, but they could begin to get a taste of it through their ears. 45:00-45:10 In this connection again I mentioned, I think earlier on, Thomas Tallis' ridiculous extravagant spam in Allium, 40 part motet, 45:10-45:19 where Tallis transports us into this breathtaking multi-voice sound world, 40 voices, all singing different lines, 45:19-45:28 and because it's so cleverly constructed, it never sounds jammed or crowded, each voice enabled to come more fully itself. 46:01-46:07 And then something much more recent, probably actually about 10 years ago this was. 46:19-46:21 Can you hear what that is? 46:25-46:33 It's 3,000 people singing over a chord, they're just giving a chord, and 3,000 people singing, well, singing in tongues actually would probably be called, 46:33-46:38 the Pentecostal Assembly. If you've ever experienced that kind of singing, you know it is extraordinarily liberating. 46:38-46:46 Why? Why? Well, in part because of the same thing that only music can do, you can have 3,000 voices in the same heard space. 46:46-46:53 Got it? They don't have to exclude each other. You're hearing a kind of sonic parable of communal freedom, 46:53-46:56 of the body of Christ's freedom. 46:56-47:06 Michael O'Sheil, another poet particularly interested in just a little, a few lines from one of his poems I think, says so much about this. 47:06-47:08 It's about jazz improvisation. 47:08-47:20 "Moody cellos, unique, the stamp of one voice, then pure concert as an ensemble improvises, hearing in each other harmonies of cross-purpose, 47:20-47:28 as though being ourselves we're more capacious." Isn't that great? You notice the play on cross-purpose. 47:28-47:37 It is the purpose of the cross, to free us from each other, and to achieve real harmony. Isn't that extraordinary? 47:37-47:45 And of course the last step you've got there, Trinity, the three-note chord. The resonance of life in three, the three interpenetrating, 47:45-47:53 without exclusion, without merger, irreducibly distinct, yet concentrating the one divine space. 47:53-47:59 That is the Trinity. Each animating, establishing and enhancing the others. 47:59-48:09 So I challenge you, so I challenge many audiences, next time you preach on the Trinity, ditch the visual illustrations, dare, I dare you, 48:09-48:16 and just get the organist to play a three-note chord. Believe me, the scales will fall off the eyes, if that's quite the right metaphor. 48:16-48:23 This is what my, you know, Cambridge colleague Richard Borkham, you've heard of Richard Borkham, you're a Testament scholar? Yeah. 48:23-48:28 A dear friend in Cambridge. We go to the same Bible study group in our church, we're in the same church. 48:28-48:36 And that's a lot of fun. But he talks about the in-one-anotherness of Father and Son in John's Gospel. 48:36-48:42 The in-one-anotherness. Father and the Son, Son and the Father. When I used to teach Trinitarian doctrine in Cambridge, 48:42-48:47 I used to, I haven't got it now, but I used to say, "Yes, the Father's in the Son, the Son's in the Father." 48:47-48:54 That's John's Gospel. I pull out a pen, I say, "Would someone just like to draw that on the whiteboard?" 48:54-49:02 Remarkably easy to hear. Just with two notes. That's what you're hearing. 49:02-49:07 Okay, enough said, I think. Enough done. A bit of music to finish. 49:07-49:10 A few years ago, two groups met in South Africa. 49:10-49:17 One, a vocal ensemble from the University of Oxford, specialising Renaissance music called Iphagi Leoni. 49:17-49:20 The other, a Gospel choir from Soweto. 49:20-49:27 They listened to each other, the way they sang, explored differences as well as things in common, and they made a CD together. 49:27-49:33 Recording tracks from live worship in churches, studios, also in the open air. 49:33-49:38 So here you will find Gibbons' "Oh Clap Your Hands" combined with a township rhythm. 49:38-49:43 You'll find 14th century macho with Cape Town cross rhythms. 49:43-49:47 And it's just an experiment. It's an experiment. See what you think. 49:47-49:52 Here is a chant for peace written during the apartheid era. 49:52-49:58 Over it, the Oxford singers weave a Gregorian chant setting of the Agnus Dei, medieval. 49:58-50:04 "O Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace." 50:04-50:08 Liturgical text, freedom chant for peace. 50:08-50:16 And then when the liturgical text comes in, they start improvising freely around that chant. 50:16-50:25 This is the Soweto Choir. 51:06-51:08 And now the chant. 51:50-51:55 What I like about that experiment, amongst other things, is that these were real people. 51:55-52:02 This wasn't done on a mixing desk. These were real human beings meeting each other. 52:02-52:07 Radically different texts, indeed political chant, given, you could say, one way of reading this, 52:07-52:12 new gospel depth through liturgical words, and vice versa. 52:12-52:18 Styles, of course, two different styles, two groups from radically different backgrounds. 52:18-52:26 All made possible by this very simple capacity of music into penetration, 52:26-52:31 or double capacity, into penetration and sympathetic resonance. 52:31-52:38 The person who gave me that was assistant to James Levine in the Metropolitan Opera for a bit. 52:38-52:42 And he said he played that through, it was absolutely fascinating. 52:42-52:49 He said, "You know, if more church music were like that, I could take it seriously." 52:49-52:53 Isn't that interesting? I'll leave you with that comment. 52:53-52:55 Thank you very much. There, exactly now. 52:55-53:05 [Applause]