| In his book The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth, orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart discusses the language of beauty, the Triune God, and Creation. He states that the Christian understanding of Creation as beauty and gift, as the outward expression of the delight the Trinity has in itself, reveals a vision of reality different from the pagan or fatalist vision of reality. In an effort to explain this latter vision and to elucidate the difference between it and the former, Hart contrasts the music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883, which he cites as an example of the pagan or fatalist vision of reality), with that of J. S. Bach (1685-1750, his example of the Christian vision of reality). Whereas Wagner's music has to end when and how it does, Bach's music contains infinite possibility and could have ended (if he had been immortal) in any number of fashions. Hart adds that Bach's music further demonstrates the Christian vision of reality in how it accounts for dissonance; the music makes room for it, he states, without degenerating into mere discord. |
The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Eerdmans, 2003) |
