Fearfully and Wonderfully, Part Two

Two weeks ago we discussed how language is just ridiculously complex and full of meaning to just emerge out of nonsense.

Music, like language, falls under the umbrella of something too complicated and perfect to pop into existence. Did it just happen that notes naturally fall into a pattern where every eighth one, ascending or descending, is the same as the first, just lower or higher? Pythagoras was the one to discover this concept, known today as octaves. A string that vibrates to make the sound of an ‘A’ note has to vibrate 440 times to make that pitch. Pythagoras figured out that if you had a string twice as long, it would vibrate at half the speed and be an octave lower. A shorter string would be twice the speed and an octave higher, and the pattern goes on. Is it just coincidence that the universe came into being with such mathematical precision built into things like vibration?

It can’t be – the odds are too ridiculously great.

But why would music exist in such orderly perfection… unless, perhaps, it was intended for use? Given the evolutionary picture of an unintelligent ape-man, it seems odd that somewhere along the line, one would abruptly start bashing rocks together to make a beat or begin to whistle a tune. But, an intelligent human being with the capacity for making, imitating, and experimenting could certainly copy the song of a bird or play around with the plink of two pieces of metal against one another. And if gorillas have had the same amount of time to evolve as we have, why haven’t they created music?

Animals may adhere to rhythm and melody naturally, such as crickets and songbirds, but they don’t invent or compose anything, nor do they make musical instruments or in any way preserve the music they make. Music – its discovery, invention, and the enjoyment of it – is something exclusive to humans and humans only.

The perfection and order that lies within the scales and keys is too precise to have just winked into existence sometime after oxygen also poofed into reality so we could hear said sounds. Like language, and its complexity and the depth of meaning, is something too grand, special, and purposeful to have accidentally come about.

Music has no effect on animals, not in the way it does on us. The most a dog will do when he hears music is howl along just for the sake of making noise, but to a human, that music could sweep them up in a passion of emotion, or bring tears to their eyes.

Whether you play a musical instrument or not, you’ve experienced music and its special power. You’ve seen a laughing, dancing group of people rocking out to the Church Clap, or a cheerful Mariachi band performing, or a crowd full of waving phone flashlights belting out the lyrics to a beloved song, or listened to your favorite soundtrack on repeat. If you do play, you’ve probably felt how cathartic it is to go at it on an instrument when emotions are raging high, or how wonderful it is to play in a high-ceilinged room and feel the notes swell around you. Music can soothe or energize, make one dance or make one cry. It is something so deeply spiritual that materialism fails to capture it.

Vishal Mangalwadi summed it up perfectly: “Those who think that the universe is only material substance and the soul is an illusion find it hard to explain music. They have to assume that music evolved from animals, but none of our alleged evolutionary cousins make music. (Some birds do “sing,” but no one has proposed that we, or our music, evolved from them.)”

He continues, “We cannot make a musical sound from just any string. To get a precise note, a string has to have a specific length, thickness, and tension. This implies that the Creator has encoded music into the structure of the universe.”

Amen. Order does not come from chaos. Beauty does not come from dissonance.

Music is a special gift from God, and just like all of the rest of His gifts, is one to be used and treated in a way that glorifies Him and shines brightly for the rest of the world to see. What music do you listen to? Is your worship music actually worshipping God? Would you be ashamed if someone read the lyrics of that pop song you like? There’s nothing like a song for getting stuck in your head, so be careful.

Alright, friends, keep shining. Have a wonderful week, and next time, we’ll discuss art!

Cheers!