Ch 2 Discovering Our Musical Beginning

How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign context, process and mode?

Do you remember when you were a baby? What did you do when you first came out of the womb? It would be remarkable if you could recall your beginning presence in the world. Yet, if we could clear away the accumulated content in our brains, perhaps we would remember our beginnings.

Assuming a baby’s auditory function is not impaired, the initial activity all babies engage is to listen to sounds, notably the sounds directed to them. In fact, babies are able to discern more sounds than adults and have the most acute hearing than at any latter stage of their development. For example, there are about 800 different sounds in the total languages of the world, approximately 600 consonants and 200 vowels. Without any previous exposure to these languages, babies can discriminate all the sounds of all the languages.[1] Babies all over the world are found to have this “early universal perceptual ability.” Furthermore, along with their innate discernment of the quantity of sounds, babies have a qualitative sensitivity to sounds from a parent, demonstrating also the relational awareness inherent to the significance of life from the beginning.

Unfortunately, everything goes downhill from this unique beginning, as a result of the combined effects of brain adaptations and human development in a narrowing-down process. As a baby develops, billions of the baby’s brain cells are neutralized in order to reduce their exposure, thus reducing their qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness. This reducing process and reduced condition speak to the irony of human “progress”—notably apparent in modernization and globalization—all of which point to the consequence that the human condition has on our beginnings. The only way that the significance of substantively more can unfold from our beginnings is for redemptive change to restore us to the definitive beginning for all persons, from birth to the grave.

The overriding basis for our theology and practice to be significant is the amplified Word, the means of which could be understood in theory but not always implemented in function. The underlying means for our theology and practice to be significant, and thus for being significant and living daily in significance, is our anthropology (presumably qualified theologically to compose our theological anthropology)—that is, how we define the human person and relationships and determine their function. Theological anthropology always has an underlying presence in our theology and practice, providing a means and basis for our persons and relationships, whether explicitly stated or implicitly presumed. The basis for our underlying theological anthropology is often not understood, and is usually assumed. Consequently, its means render our theology and practice less than significant and our function in variable discord with the harmony and fidelity of the Word.

Therefore, we can no longer merely assume our theological anthropology nor be unaccountable for its assumptions underlying ‘where we are’ and ‘what we are doing here’; our theological anthropology is the underlying means essential for what and who unfolds ahead, both in our current examination and in life together singing the new song, so we urgently need to discover what constitutes our beginning.

Because babies can discern the full fidelity of sounds in human speech in order to connect and communicate—even, for example, the ‘cooing’ of parents’ baby language—then we need to understand the primal sound in human life so that our beginnings can be restored for us to function in its significance. This functional change in our everyday life will require both being aware of and discerning the primal sound’s presence as well as its absence. However, this function will not fully emerge unless activated by the qualitative sensitivity demonstrated by babies.

This turns us back to the singing lecture/sermon raised in the first chapter. Babies probably have been trying to teach us since the beginning that human speech was not first heard in the sounds dominating today: the referential terms of prose composed in referential language, which is used in the secondary function of discourse for the purpose of transmitting information rather than the primary function of communication for the primary purpose of relational connection. Babies reveal to us that the sounds of referential language don’t have the harmony and fidelity for qualitative communication in relationship, but in fact take us in the opposite direction away from qualitative relational connection. Accordingly, looking to babies doesn’t cause us to regress but amplifies the primal sound for our redevelopment. Since the beginning (echoed by babies), primal humans are believed to have communicated by nonverbal sounds (tones, pitch, rhythm) of a protolanguage, the qualitative significance of which was basic to communication, and not merely the transmission of information. These rhythmic and tonal sounds infused human speech in poetry, which at its earliest was sung. Only later did prose evolve out of these musical beginnings.[2]

As embraced by human babies at birth, what is being discovered here is what innately emerged ‘in the beginning’ that is definitive for what is inherent in our beginning. As babies amplify, what these rhythmic sounds composed—even for those with little if any apparent discernment (e.g. those with Alzheimer’s or autism)—was the distinguished relational quality of music, whose primal sound resonated in hearts and made basic relational connection between those engaged, much to the delight of all babies at birth.

In other words or non-verbally, the relational quality of music is the primal sound for human life created by God. A singing lecture/sermon would only have more significance than a mere lecture if it has the relational quality to resonate and not only reverberate with the listeners. Music is the most basic sound that integrally resonates in our hearts and reverberate in our minds, because, as babies teach us, it’s from the beginning—primal for all human beginnings and thus essential to be restored in our beginning. The clarity of this primal sound, however, only emerges in the harmony and fidelity of music’s relational quality, not in any other forms and expressions, including musical sound bites. This distinguishes the relational quality amplified by the harmony and fidelity of the Word communicated in relational language with relational terms for the relational purpose and relational outcome of reciprocal relationship together.

“The Lord is my strength and my song” (Ex 15:2); “He put a new song in my mouth”—distinguished from sound bites in referential terms (Ps 40:13); therefore, “…at night his song is with me” (Ps 42:8)—signifying the primal sound of God’s presence and involvement, which resonates in the heart just as babies enjoy with satisfaction (cf. Ps 131:2).

However, this primal relational process does not unfold in reciprocal relationship together without our qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness. That brings us to a crossroads.

The opening texts from the Word at the top of this chapter (Ps 137:1-6) illuminate human origins and discerning the primal sound basic to life and for life to be significant. In this pivotal decision point in the history of God’s people, they faced where they were in their theological anthropology and how they would function where they were. What is illuminated are the following issues: (1) human nature (ontology), either in reduced condition or whole from inner out, (2) human function, either fragmented from outer in or whole with nothing less and no substitutes, and (3) human relationships, either fragmentary with anything less and any substitutes or whole in the primacy of relationship together.

During their captivity in Babylon, God’s people were subjected to a foreign context in a process of enslavement, which basically sought both to define where they were and to determine what they were doing there. Thus, God’s people faced the pivotal decisions over these issues—decisions that only they could make or by default have the decisions made for them by deferring to that context and process. The pressures from a surrounding context complicate making these decisions, and Christians today can often be found deferring to their contexts and the processes prevailing in them.

Not surprisingly, their captors liked music. But they weren’t asking for music that would resonate with their hearts, because their persons were reduced to outer in. Consequently, they wanted to be entertained by these captives with the mirth of songs in a language with which they had no harmony or fidelity. That is to say, they wanted the expressions of persons reduced in their persons and relationships, just as they themselves were; and where they were was dissonant to the primal sound and thereby had no consonance with the inherent relational quality of music. This was the reductionist context and process facing God’s people. Thus, they urgently needed to decide who would define their human nature, what would determine their human function, and how their relationships would be with God, each other and those in the surrounding context.

In this pivotal juncture, God’s people rightly asked: “How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign context and process?” Certainly, from a cultural perspective, they could expose their culture to the Babylonians; or from a missionary purpose, they could introduce the Lord to them. But that was not the issue facing them. “Foreign” (nekar) is not limited to culture, ideology or geography. The Lord’s song is only composed in relational language, communicating in a relational context by a relational process. Anything less and any substitutes for this function and purpose are not in harmony and fidelity with the Word amplified in this song, because they are foreign to it; thus, any such reduced expressions neither resonate with its relational quality nor reverberate in its primal sound. Therefore, the pivotal decisions facing God’s people revolved around their inherent nature or ontology, their basic function, and their depth of relationship together. “Foreign,” then, encompasses what is common, the norm, and what prevails in human contexts and processes—that is, the scope of reductionism composing the human condition. Accordingly, “foreign” is in ongoing contrast and conflict with the whole relational context and process of the amplified Word, who constitutes whole persons and relationships in the image and likeness of the whole of God.

This wholeness is the theological anthropology at stake here for all God’s people, which revolves around the ongoing pivotal decisions facing us with anything less and any substitutes from the “foreign.” This crossroads glares in our face and ongoingly confronts us. So, we have to ask rightly and basically also: How can we be and function, and have relationships together in a foreign context and process without having a theological anthropology of nothing less and no substitutes? And we either make the pivotal decisions necessary to distinguish our theological anthropology in wholeness, or we defer to surrounding context and process—which could also be a reducing Christian context and process—to define who and what we are and determine how we are.

Resorting back to our infancy in order to discern the primal sound is neither a regression nor a contradiction to our progression in life. On the contrary, it returns us to our innate beginning inherent to the persons and relationships created in the qualitative image and relational likeness of God’s wholeness constituted in and by the Trinity. The regression and contradiction to our progression are always heard in the sound of anything less and any substitutes, which do not resonate with babies.

What, then, do you hear in your theological anthropology that discerns where you are and what you are doing here? The music we listen to, and how we listen and why, inform us of our beginnings. Furthermore, the harmony and fidelity of our music provide the key to knowing our where and to understanding our what.

The function of music serves different purposes for persons, even if they don’t like music. When I was a child, I wanted to play the drums but that sound was too noisy for my family. Reluctantly, piano became my default instrument. Still, the rhythm of the drum really reverberated in my mind, and I often used sticks or kitchen utensils to simulate that rhythm. Yet, to my knowledge, the drum rhythm only reverberated in my mind and its sound didn’t really resonate in my heart. In contrast, for example, when I played the music of Moonlight Sonata on the piano, its sound resonated in my heart, which continues to this day. What’s the difference in how music functioned for me both in my beginnings and currently?

Ironically, Beethoven composed the sound of Moonlight Sonata after he became deaf. How was that possible? Moreover, how could Beethoven hear this sound that has resonated in my heart from the beginning?

The drum sound that only reverberates in my mind and that piano sound that also resonates in my heart illustrate the different functions of music engaged by different listeners (not necessarily the players). For me, the drum sound basically was analogous to a sound bite that caught my attention, and that I used for a secondary purpose. That is to say, this sound functioned in my person from outer in, going in me only to my brain, which certainly is not unimportant but lacking deeper significance. This, then, also illuminates a vital key for us to listen to:

Sound-bite music amplifies only a reduced harmony of where we are and a reduced fidelity of what we are doing here, thereby resounding in a reduced theological anthropology defining our persons and relationships and determining how they function. Although not by design, therefore, sound-bite music functions to provide us with this critical feedback needing to be listened to and responded to integrally with our minds and hearts.

In basic contrast and inherent conflict, the piano sound of Beethoven that resonates in my heart is analogous to a soundboard. Soundboards serve to deepen the resonance of instruments, without which would leave those instruments lacking in the quality necessary to resonate in the hearts of persons and not be limited to reverberate in their minds. So, how did Beethoven function as a sounding board even after he became deaf?

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, called “the poet laureate of medicine,” offered this explanation:

Many composers, indeed, do not compose initially or entirely at an instrument but in their minds. There is no more extraordinary example of this than Beethoven, who continued to compose (and whose compositions rose to greater and greater heights) years after he had become totally deaf. It is possible that his musical imagery was even intensified by deafness, for with the removal of normal auditory input, the auditory cortex may become hypersensitive, with heightened powers of musical imagery (and sometimes even auditory hallucinations). There is an analogous phenomenon in those who lose their sight, some people who become blind may have, paradoxically, heightened visual imagery. (Composers, especially composers of enormously intricate, architectonic music like Beethoven’s, must also employ highly abstract forms of musical thought—and it might be said that it is especially such intellectual complexity that distinguishes Beethoven’s later works.)[3]

Beethoven’s brain likely indeed became hypersensitive after his total deafness, but this only addresses Beethoven from outer in and not his total person from inner out. To go deeper, I offer from the experience of my beginnings that it was the qualitative sensitivity emerging from Beethoven’s heart—released to new depths after his deafness—which formed the basis for him to integrate the secondary elements of music into music’s primary function: to go beyond just reverberating in the mind to encompass resonating in the heart.

Certainly, Beethoven’s music (notably Moonlight Sonata) doesn’t resonate in everyone’s heart. Nevertheless, what emerged unmistakably from Beethoven in deafness is the qualitative sensitivity of his person from inner out, which wasn’t defined and determined by the limits and constraints of his person from outer in. This is crucial to distinguish in theological anthropology and its underlying means in all theology and practice. In deafness, Beethoven not only heard the primal sound clearly but better knew where he was as a person and understood what he was doing musically as that person. Therefore, I say, without apology, that Beethoven was a soundboard resonating a whole theological anthropology distinguished from a reduced theological anthropology, and whose music functions to help us hear the difference—functioning in basic contrast to and inherent conflict with sound-bit music and what it signifies.

Are these sounds helping you discover your beginning and composing what is basic to your person?

What is illuminated in our examination is the basic key in life from the beginning that is essential for us to listen to, embrace, and express:

2. the inherent fidelity of living with the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness to be those whole persons in whole relationships together,

· constituted in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the whole relational context and process of the Word distinguished by nothing less and no substitutes of the Trinity.

From the very beginning, therefore, the function of soundboard music resonates with human hearts (a) to make vulnerable the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ essential for all life, and (b) to highlight the ‘how’ essential for life to be significant—resonating with nothing less and no substitutes for our response to be with nothing less and no substitutes.

The outcomes from sound-bite music and soundboard music are evident in the daily life of where persons are and what they are doing there. Their specific outcomes compose either the relational reality and experiential truth of the amplified Word, or its illusions and simulations amplified by reductionism. Whether the outcomes of those sounds are discerned or not, their effects are definitive for who and what emerges and determinative for how they will function in daily life. Based on this discussion, who and what would you discern in your beginnings? Given your beginning, how would you assess its current outcome?

There are three dynamics in the human context and process—a context and process routinely confused or conflated in our theology and practice with God’s relational context and process—which reveal (1) the underlying means of our theological anthropology and (2) their effects on persons and on the relationships affected by these persons. The first dynamic is texting, a relatively new dynamic that extends the boundaries of emails beyond reason, and enhances social media with unrestrained imagination, and which has swept over the human context and process by idolizing its function (e.g. bowing down to Twitter).

Texting has become the prevailing dynamic of human contact, further reducing human contact to narrowed-down terms using shorthand communication in order to facilitate human interaction as well as to control the contact on one’s own terms. The shorthand (with active fingers) of texting is the most convenient substitute for voice communication and has displaced the primacy of face-to-face communication with faceless contact and voiceless communication—further evidenced in the proliferation of emoji. The consequences of texting are exposing both the persons using this dynamic and the relationships engaged in this ‘new normal’ of what’s primary.[4] What is clearly evident is the lack, absence and loss of relational quality, which is ongoingly demonstrated in the lack, absence and loss of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness.

What is your experience with this new normal? How would you assess your level of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness in the midst of its parameters? Yet, regardless of its pervasiveness, what’s exposed in this new normal is in reality merely an enhanced version of a human dynamic that has evolved from the beginning of the human context and process. This enhanced version, however, amplifies the human condition more distinctly by the nature of the contact it makes and the composition of the so-called communication it generates. Texting, in shorthand words, accelerates the consequences of the human condition, our human condition, while embellishing it with the illusions and simulations from reductionism, thereby unmistakably both revising the composition of persons and relationships away from their original beginning (constituted in Gen 1:27; 2:18; 2:25) and thus redacting the Word in reduced terms.

Our human condition persists in this revised composition when the second dynamic in the human context and process is engaged. Even more dominant than texting, though not as prominent, is human engagement in the dynamic of confirmation bias. In its subtle workings, confirmation bias encompasses the widespread pattern used by nearly everyone as follows: to interpret or selectively remember information—for example, from what we hear or read, even of the Word—in such a way that confirms and reinforces what we already believe, without an openness to test its validity. This dynamic pervades the human context more extensively than texting, which has become even a subordinate means serving confirmation bias, and dominates the human process by discrimination and stereotyping to support its thinking and position on matters. Since we all participate in this human context, it is highly unlikely that this human process hasn’t influenced or shaped our human condition.

When Jesus made the relational imperative for his disciples to “pay attention closely and discern what you hear from me,” he made it axiomatic that “the measure you give or use to engage in daily life will be the measure you get back” (Mk 4:24). Implied in the Word’s axiom is the reductionist measure of confirmation bias, which can only have reduced outcomes narrowed down by our biases—notably outcomes supporting, confirming and reinforcing our biases; nothing else or to the contrary is allowed to emerge as meaningful to pay attention to. Moreover, included in such reduced outcomes are relational consequences that reduce others by the process inherent in confirmation bias of discriminating against them as insignificant to pay attention to, and stereotyping them in those negative terms, as well as stereotyping in reduced positive terms those who support our biases.

Peter learned all this the hard way in a humbling (if not humiliating) experience with the amplified Word (Mt 16:21-23). When Jesus vulnerably shared with his disciples what was going to happen to his person—communicating in relational language and not transmitting information in referential language—Peter couldn’t process the Word amplified to him face to face (contrary to a text message). Rather Peter reacted to the facts and objected to the truth, essentially rendering them as fake news, whereby he discriminated against the Truth and imposed on the Word his stereotyped view of the messiah in reduced terms. Consequently, no way could this happen to his messiah, so he set the record straight by reprimanding Jesus for being wrong. The measure Peter used was confirmation bias, and the measure he got countered the trajectory of the Word, misdirected the relational path of Jesus, and reduced Jesus’ person and their relationship together to the narrowed-down terms of Peter reduced in his own person (“on human things,” v.23). Confirmation bias always has this reduced outcome and relational consequence.

What is unmistakably distinct in confirmation bias is the human dynamic that avoids the truth of life, and thereby denies the realities in life. Such denial of the truth keeps progressing as biases are imposed on the human context and process. Confirmation bias encompasses the human condition, thus it subtly incorporates two other pervading biases. The first of these biases is the biased influence we all experience from and exert in our particular surrounding contexts (whether family of origin, social, political, cultural), which notably has shaped our persons and relationships in the limiting process of contextualization. This unavoidable process is the contextualized bias. The second bias incorporated into confirmation bias is the biased influence we all demonstrate from the common workings of reductionism composing the human condition, which has had the assumed primacy (even antecedent to contextualization) to define our persons and relationships and determine their function in the constraining process of common-ization. This inescapable process is the commonized bias. The process of contextualization has been misunderstood in our theology and practice, and the process of common-ization has been ignored or simply resigned to or accepted as an assumed reality—both consequential for our theological anthropology to remain reduced and not become whole.

Not surprisingly, this human condition is sustained as our human condition as Christians, as long as confirmation bias (incorporated with contextualized bias and commonized bias) continues to be engaged to deny the truth and realities of life, as well as to keep our persons and relationships from being vulnerable for the change necessary for their transformation. Where are you and what are you doing in all this?

Denial or being vulnerable are two antithetical dynamics that cannot be synthesized in any assumed dialectic, although there are illusions and simulations of such a hybrid in everyday life. Texting and confirmation bias are innately engaged in denial, whether intentional, understood or not. The human condition of our condition, amplified by texting and sustained by confirmation bias, raises issues for our theological anthropology. These issues must be resolved for the change needed to transform where persons are and what we are doing in our relationships. The first set of issues involves the three inescapable issues of harmony, prevailing in negative versions:

1. How we define the person—which is defined from outer in based more on the quantitative parts of what we do and have, whereby our identity (ontology) is based and our function as that person is determined.

2. On this basis, this is how our person engages in relationships with other persons—whom we define in the same outer-in terms, whereby all our reduced persons then reduce the depth level of involvement in relationship together.

3. This becomes the inescapable determinant for how we live as church—these reduced persons in reduced relationships together then become the defining basis and determining mode (the default mode) for how we practice our beliefs and consequently how relationships together function as the church and in its related institutions (notably the academy).

These ongoing interrelated issues are critical for the necessary accountability of our identity and function in order to be vulnerable for their change. The pivotal shift from the beginning in the primordial garden illuminates the consequences of being reduced from “embodied whole from inner out and not confused, disappointed in relationship together” (Gen 2:25) to “embodied parts from outer in and reduced to relational distance” (Gen 3:7-8). To this day, this shift continues to evolve with ongoing consequences; and their implications directly challenge (indeed, confront) our theological anthropology and hold us accountable for its assumptions defining our identity and determining our function.

This unmistakable shift to reductionism highlighted in negative versions of the three inescapable issues of harmony in our identity and function is further exposed in interaction with the three unavoidable issues of fidelity (prevailing in negative function) for all our practice, which are necessary to account for in all moments of our life:

1. The presentation of our person in the everyday contexts of life—which focuses on the outer-in parts of our person presented to others that define our primary identity and determine our prevailing function, thereby conveying to others who and what we are based on these reduced facts, not complete reality—an ongoing presentation of self (e.g. “naked from outer in…”) that is limited by covering up the vulnerable from inner out and enhanced by favorable masks.

2. The integrity and quality of our communication from that person presented to others—in which our communication becomes shallow, ambiguous or misleading in the presentation process with others, and how this communication compromises the integrity of open relationship necessary to be honest and vulnerable together (e.g. “the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate,” Gen 3:12).

3. The depth level of involvement in relationship to be significant—consequently, contrary to the significance of inner-out involvement in our contacts and connections, the involvement level engaged in reduced relationship is shaped by our identity presented from outer in and its related communication, and thus determined by levels of relational distance, not depth (e.g. “…they covered up,” “I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself,” Gen 3:10).

Regardless of where we are and what we are doing here, we all are accountable ongoingly for the type of person presented, the nature of our communication and the level of involvement engaged in our relationships. These are unavoidable issues of fidelity that interact with the three inescapable issues of harmony, which define the person presented and determine relationships on that basis both in everyday life and in the church. Interrelated and interacting reflexively, these defining issues influence and shape our lives—even in the commonest expressions along the full breadth of the spectrum locating anything less and any substitutes for wholeness of persons and relationships. Therefore, until we resolve these issues in our theological anthropology, our theology and practice will not be in the harmony and fidelity of the Word, thus with the relational quality of life.

Given the reality of our condition, would you consider change as urgent and, indeed, nonnegotiable for our identity and function today?

Given how entrenched the first two dynamics are in the human context and process, changing their influence so that our condition will indeed be transformed in this present life is (a) neither forthcoming simply because we recognize it, and (b) nor to be expected simply because we want it. This change, however, is possible for persons and relationships when they become vulnerable distinctly by the depth of involvement in the third dynamic in the human context and process. While the least popular and the most challenging of the three dynamics, the dynamic of facing the truth offers the most hope, satisfaction and fulfillment for persons and relationships.

Facing the truth is always contingent on being vulnerable. Yet, being vulnerable is not an easy decision to act on, given the biases influencing the thinking in our minds and the feeling in our heart. This directs us back to the primal sound of music.

From the beginning, the primal sound of music has evolved in human history. Music has evolved either as sound bites shaped by adapting to the limits and constraints of human contexts, or as soundboards composed by adaptations from the openness (variable vulnerability) of human contexts. One genre of music is of notable interest for our discussion, not because of its style but for its relevance. This is the country music developed in the U.S.

Country songwriter Harlan Howard defined the essence of country music as ‘three chords and the truth’. Though not consistently fulfilled in country music history, speaking truth has been the defining norm in its songs. When the harmony of their three chords has the fidelity of truth, country songs have reverberated in listeners’ minds—with the unmistakable reality that the song speaks of where they are in life and what they are doing there. When those songs include the depth of feelings (e.g. pain, sadness, anxiety and anger) inherent to that reality, country music not only reverberates in persons’ minds but penetrates deeper to resonate in their hearts. Speaking truth and facing it in everyday life defines and determines country music at its best. Yet, the fact of the matter is, for country music to fulfill its speaking-truth purpose is always contingent on being vulnerable—the vulnerableness to face the rawness of reality in our human condition.

In my opinion, country music has consistently demonstrated a vulnerability to speak the truth of our human condition. Having said that, on the other hand, while country music speaks the truth of existing reality, it lacks the deeper truth underlying both the human condition and the necessary experiential truth and relational reality to transform this condition. Perhaps few in country music have vulnerably faced the Truth in order to experience its reality, whereby they can also speak the Truth that will integrally resonate in hearts and transform hearts—transform from the reductions and fragmentations inherent in the human condition to the wholeness of persons and relationship amplified by, in, and for the Word.

In the musical beginning of the human person, as discerned by babies at birth, the primal sound penetrates the innermost of the person from inner out, whereby the whole person is made vulnerable to the truth of “where you are” and “what you are doing here.” When music resonates the truth in harmony and fidelity with the Word, its relational quality amplifies the underlying means for persons and relationships to be transformed from their reduced condition to their wholeness. This wholeness has often had a deceptive composition when not in harmony and fidelity with the Word (e.g. “you will not be reduced…but be like God,” Gen 3:4-5). Amplified by the Word, their wholeness is constituted in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity, the irreducible whole of God, resonating in nothing less and no substitutes.

Thus, the relational quality of music is indispensable for facing the truth of our life and of our working theological anthropology underlying our persons and relationships in everyday life. Furthermore, the relational quality of music is irreplaceable for resonating the truth to the depths of our hearts as it reverberates in our minds—that is, the truth in unmistakable harmony and fidelity. Accordingly, what emerges in this relational context and process of truth about the human condition is the relational outcome vulnerably amplifying the Word with “songs of joy” (as in Ps 126:5)—that is, the only truth-filled expression of what’s resonating in the heart.

It is the truth of this essential relational outcome that is missing from the essence of country music, as well as lacking in many Christians (including Christian sound-bite music) that otherwise would distinguish the experiential truth and relational reality resonating in their persons and relationships, as well as in their churches.

The truth resonates in music functioning as a soundboard, but this basic harmony and fidelity are often confused with sound bites. The relational quality of music is not always distinguished by players and less so by listeners. One reason is that the music doesn’t have the right harmony and fidelity to be distinguished with significant depth, which characterizes sound bites. On the other hand, even when the music is in the right harmony and fidelity, that harmony and fidelity must be correctly discerned to understand the music’s relational quality. The primal sound of music amplifies the relational quality of life, but this relational quality is only distinguished in harmony and fidelity with the amplified Word communicated to us in relational language. What is this harmony and fidelity that resonates in persons’ hearts, yet that eludes many persons?

‘In the beginning’ the human brain was wired to recognize the qualitative and relational dimensions in life (demonstrated in Gen 2:25).[5] Yet, even when this relational quality is recognized, this does not mean that it is understood by the brain. Our brains encompass the person only from outer in. Despite how extensively the brain encompasses the person, it does not penetrate to the innermost to embrace the whole person from inner out. ‘In the beginning’ only the human heart embraced the whole person—constituted from the innermost (nephesh, Gen 2:7) in ongoing function by the heart (leb, Prov 4:23; 14:30; 27:19)—who is otherwise fragmented to one’s parts (most notably the brain). What is essential for our beginning is the primary priority of the qualitative in life over any and all of the quantitative, and its integration with the primacy of the relational (Gen 2:18).

In spite of the origin of human beginnings, adaptations have taken place to make the heart less vulnerable as well as to rewire the brain.[6] As these adaptations have evolved, the relational quality of life is less recognized much less understood. Consequently, as our hearts become less vulnerable, our person shifts to the dominance of the brain (mainly in the left hemisphere) and to the prevailing function of the person from outer in (demonstrated in Gen 3:7). It is this current human (our) condition that needs to be changed (as in redemptive change) in order for us to distinguish the harmony and fidelity inherent to the relational quality of life.

What was initiated from the beginning in the primordial garden and continues to evolve in the human condition is distinctly the reduction or loss of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness. In this subtle yet unmistakable reduction, the quantitative has assumed priority and the relational has been rendered secondary, perhaps tertiary—that is, reduced in function though not necessarily in ideals. The qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness inherently functioning in the beginning to both recognize and understand the relational quality of life have now become dysfunctional, even in the theology and practice of many Christians and their underlying theological anthropology. But, how do we know that this qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness truly functioned in the beginning to help us live with and thus in the relational quality of life?

Persons today vary in their level of qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness because persons function at different levels of the basic harmony and fidelity that distinguish relational quality of life. This basic harmony and fidelity are innate to all persons who are created in the image and likeness of their Creator (cf. Gen 1:26-27). For us to clearly recognize this invariable harmony and fidelity is to discern the invariable image and likeness of God. Likewise, to discern this irreducible harmony and fidelity is to clearly realize the irreducible image and likeness of the Trinity. Now we have just gone from the Creator to God to the Trinity, because this is a crucial progression to clearly recognize then realize the image and likeness that constitute the innate harmony and fidelity distinguishing the relational quality of life.

This progression illuminates the light unfolding from the Word that gives us understanding beyond our human level of knowledge (Ps 119:130). If our image and likeness remains based on the Creator, all we have is referential information noting this fact, which merely tends to be filed away in our brain with no further significance. If our image and likeness proceeds to God, we may have more than information but commonly limited to a view of God as Object—for example, the object of our beliefs, worship, service, and the impersonal (read de-person-ized and de-relational-ized) object of our image and likeness. If, however, our image and likeness advances to the Trinity, we are faced with not the Object but now the irreducible whole of God as Subject, resonating in nothing less and no substitutes but the Trinity—whose Trinitarian persons (1) distinguish the relational quality intrinsic to life and (2) constitute human persons in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the integral Trinity.[7]

What the light unfolding from the Word illuminates, therefore, is the face of the Trinity—resonating in the innermost of persons and relationships functioning in their innate image and likeness. What the face of the Trinity (the integral face of Trinitarian persons) communicates to us face to face nonnegotiably and constitutes in us irreducibly is (a) the primary priority of the qualitative over the quantitative and (b) the primacy of the relational over any other function. Persons and relationships, thereby in the relational context and process of the Trinity, are constituted in the essential relational quality basic to life—innately and inherently, thus irreducibly and nonnegotiably.

Distinguishing the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity distinguishes the harmony and fidelity inherent to the relational quality of life. Functioning as persons innately in this qualitative image and relational likeness amplifies the harmony and fidelity of the relational quality inherent to the wholeness of persons and their relationships together—just as constituted in and by the Trinity. Nothing less and no substitutes can neither constitute our image and likeness, nor our function by, in, and with the relational quality basic to life. And vital to this relational process, our function becomes distinguished by the depth of our qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness, which deepens solely on the qualitative relational basis of our ongoing reciprocal relationship together with the qualitative relational Trinity. Irreplaceably, then, it is the experiential truth and relational reality of this whole relationship together that redeems and transforms us from anything less and any substitutes, and thereby restores our persons and relationships to nothing less and no substitutes. The wholeness of our image and likeness depend on this experiential truth and relational reality.

Any theological anthropology lacking the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity—who is distinguished only by the Word amplified in relational language—is a reduced theological anthropology. Just including the image and likeness of God is insufficient to reverberate much less resonate for persons and relationships. Likewise, any theology and practice without the experiential truth and relational reality of the Trinity is rendered insignificant. The nature, function and purpose of the Trinity are incomparably relational and uncommonly qualitative, thus beyond the limits of the human context and the constraints of the human process. Stated simply, the validity of these two inclusive contentious statements is based on knowing and understanding the Word (1) amplified in relational language, (2) embodied in qualitative relational terms, and (3) vulnerably present and relationally involved by the integral face of the Trinity illuminated in the Trinitarian persons

Knowing and understanding the Word distinguished by the above three requires us to be in the same harmony and fidelity of all three. In contrast and conflict, for example, the Word is not (1) amplified in referential language, (2) embodied merely in quantitative terms, and (3) present and involved with anything less than the unreduced whole of God, that is, the Trinity; consequently, any knowledge and understanding of the Word based on these latter three are fragmentary reductions of the truth and reality of God, and are reflected accordingly in a reduced theological anthropology and insignificant theology and practice. In other words, they are not in harmony and fidelity with the relational quality of life constituted by and in the nonnegotiable Word, the irreducible whole of God, the integral face of the Trinity.

Once again, however, to be in the right harmony and fidelity requires our being vulnerable to both the qualitative and the relational in order to connect directly with the integral face of the Trinity. What is distinguished unmistakably in this vulnerability is the face, that is, the primary presence of the person (paneh, as in Ex 33:14; Num 6:25-26, cf. 12:6-8). Face necessarily includes the primary presence of our person, if indeed we are vulnerable in the qualitative and relational. When we vulnerably connect face to face with the Son, the Father or the Spirit, we connect with the integral face of the Trinity in the intimate involvement of reciprocal relationship together (as in Jn 14:9-10; 2 Cor 3:17-18)—the primary priority and function for all theology and practice. As the disciples discovered by Jesus’ exposure of them, they neither intimately knew the Son nor, thus, the Trinity, because they were not vulnerably in face-to-face intimate relational involvement with the Word vulnerably amplified to them.

The absence of intimate relational involvement face to face also commonly exists in not knowing the Spirit—the Spirit as person and not a force or notion of love. The primary presence of the Spirit as person is directly involved in ongoing relationship with us (as the Word amplified, Jn 14:15-17), whose face is vulnerable to our face (as in Eph 4:30) in reciprocal relationship together. This truth and reality seems to elude or is lost for many Christians. For example, how many songs and prayers have you heard frequently expressed that call out to the Spirit to come into their lives? Why? Even with the best of intentions, the Truth is contradicted and not experienced, and the relationship is countered and not a reality.

When we vulnerably enter into this face-to-face intimate relational involvement with the Trinity, this relational outcome follows:

the experiential truth of the relational quality of the Trinity constituting us from inner out in the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness, which unfolds immeasurably in the relational reality of reciprocal relationship together in wholeness with the Trinity.

Nothing less and no substitutes resonate the truth and reality of life in our hearts to make them integrally the experiential truth and relational reality.

This outcome is not merely the truth and reality referenced in the Word and then noted in our belief system or filed in our theological folder. To whatever extent that truth and reality may reverberate in our minds, this is the experiential truth and relational reality that resonates in our hearts (1) to functionally distinguish the relational outcome unfolding from vulnerably knowing and understanding the Trinity face to face, and now (2) being relationally constituted experientially in the Trinity’s qualitative image and relational likeness. Integrated in this relational outcome, in order to keep distinguishing the experiential truth and relational reality of the Trinity’s relational quality in our persons and relationships, is an intensified qualitative sensitivity and an inclusive depth of relational awareness, which resonates in unmistakable harmony and fidelity with the Trinity, with the vulnerable human heart, and with the involved connections in relationships. Nothing less and no substitutes bring forth this relational outcome, and anything less and any substitutes never resonate as the experiential truth and relational reality of our persons and relationships in wholeness as in the Trinity.

This essential harmony and fidelity of relational quality composes our beginning in the unique wholeness of the Trinity. The extension of our beginning must continue to be in harmony and fidelity for our persons and relationships to unfold whole as well as uncommon (whole-ly) to the human condition (cf. commonized). When theological anthropology is composed according to wholeness, it amplifies the harmony and fidelity for our persons and relationships to be and function in wholeness—regardless of what commonly prevails in the human condition and permeates our surrounding contexts.

Progress in discovering our musical beginning is ongoingly challenged by other sounds, and confronted by illusions of truth and simulations of reality. This is the expected workings of reductionism that we can count on throughout our examination. So, in vulnerable terms, where do you find your person and relationships? Are they compatible with the experience of the truth in the Word amplifying the Trinity? And are they congruent with the reality of the qualitative image and relational likeness amplified in the Trinity? Experiencing a reality of anything less and any substitutes in our theology and practice reduce the above from their whole beginnings and recompose them in sound bites with a harmony and fidelity dissonant to the inherent relational quality of life essential in their innate image and likeness. Whenever dissonance happens, discerned or not, the face of the Trinity is grieved.

[1] According to research by Patricia K. Kuhl, “Early Language Learning and Literacy: Neuroscience Implications for Education,” Sept 1, 2012. Available at ncbi.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC 3164118.

[2] See Oliver Sacks, for a discussion on perfect pitch, tonal communication and protolanguage in Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Also see Iain McGilchrist’s discussion on this qualitative process as ‘musilanguage’ in The Master and his Emissary, 102, 105.

[3] Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia, 33.

[4] See Sherry Turkle for the functions and consequences of this technology in Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011).

[5] See related studies in neuroscience by Antonio Damasio, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010), and by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick, loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008).

[6] For further discussion about this rewiring, see Ski Chilton with Margaret Rukstalis and A.J. Gregory, The Rewired Brain: Free Yourself of Negative Behaviors and Release Your Best Self (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016).

[7] For an extended discussion on the Trinity, see my study The Face of the Trinity: The Trinitarian Essential for the Whole of God and Life (Trinity Study, 2016), online at http://www.4X12.org. For further discussion on the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity, see my study The Person in Complete Context: The Whole of Theological Anthropology Distinguished ((Theological Anthropology Study, 2014), online at http://www.4X12.org.