St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (Feb 2024)
Music in the Western Theological Tradition
Abstract
This entry examines the ways in which Christian theology has shaped and elucidated the activities of music-making and music-hearing, and in turn how musical practices have been appropriated to advance the enterprise of theology. Attention is focused primarily (though not exclusively) on textless music, and primarily to the music–theology interplay as it has been exemplified in Western Christian traditions. The most influential stream of thought governing the construal of music in Christian antiquity and the medieval era derives from Pythagoras and Plato, and was baptized into the church primarily through Augustine and Boethius. Musical sound mediates the numerical order of the cosmos, and in this way comes to possess both intellectual and ethical significance for those who participate in it. Theologically speaking, musical sounds can enable the ascent of the soul and bring about an apprehension of the ‘eternal numbers’ rooted in God, while also carrying the danger of pulling the soul away from God towards idolatry. In the Middle Ages, this broad understanding of music was instilled in the educational curriculum and widely enjoined in worship. However, in the late medieval era and in the sixteenth-century Reformations, its dominance waned. Music became increasingly distanced from a theologically grounded cosmos, and in due course was conceived primarily in anthropological and non-theological terms. In modernity, music has often been caught up in attempts to reinstate viable theological or religious sensibilities in contexts where the world tends to be imagined naturalistically. Some have seen music as playing a key role in stimulating a universal religious sensibility. Others have related music more directly to scriptural and doctrinal norms. In addition to showing the fruitfulness of theology for music, some theologians have been keen to demonstrate the potential of music for the enrichment of theology. The entry concludes by examining some of recent trajectories in musico-theological discourses: the growth of historically focused studies; the privileging of sociocultural perspectives; a keen interest in concepts such as presence, sacrament, ineffability, and transcendence; and a broadening both of the range of issues engaged and the diversity of participants involved.
