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| Takuya Kuroda Jazz Concert at The Red Room at Cafe 939 Boston, Saturday, April 25, 2026 |
Music mirrors the
divinely ordained
mathematical harmony
of the universe.
+ Vishal Mangalwadi
+ Vishal Mangalwadi
As one of my sons has continued to grow in his love and prowess of music through the instruments of piano and trumpet, enjoying concerts with him across Massachusetts has become a fun way to fill his early teenage years.
In receiving the gift of new memories with him with the soundtracks of jazz, funk, soul, rock, blues, Gospel, hip hop, stretch music, and more, this summer, I was gifted by my sister-in-law with a book that gives thoughtful rationale to the transcendence of music and how it continues to move and shape us as human beings.
In the first chapter of philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi's The Book That Made Your World, the author articulates a brief development of music through the past 1,500 years that brought a smile to my face and appreciation for this gift that is part of our universe.
In receiving the gift of new memories with him with the soundtracks of jazz, funk, soul, rock, blues, Gospel, hip hop, stretch music, and more, this summer, I was gifted by my sister-in-law with a book that gives thoughtful rationale to the transcendence of music and how it continues to move and shape us as human beings.
In the first chapter of philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi's The Book That Made Your World, the author articulates a brief development of music through the past 1,500 years that brought a smile to my face and appreciation for this gift that is part of our universe.
Writing Music into the West's DNA
St. Augustine, the author of the six-volume On Music, was a key figure in inserting music into Western education and worldview. His first five volumes are technical and could have been written by a Greek philosopher. But Augustine was most excited about his sixth book, which gives a biblical philosophy of music.
Music is, of course, integral to the Bible,
in which the longest book is Psalms.
The last psalm, for example, asks creation
to praise the Lord with the trumpet,
lute, harp, tambourine, strings,
pipe, and cymbals.
in which the longest book is Psalms.
The last psalm, for example, asks creation
to praise the Lord with the trumpet,
lute, harp, tambourine, strings,
pipe, and cymbals.
Why are these physical instruments
able to make music?
Augustine saw that the scientific basis
or essence of music lies in
mathematical "numbers" or
scores at the core of creation.
Since music is mathematical,
Augustine argued, it must be
rational, eternal, unchangeable,
meaningful, and objective —
it consists of mathematical harmony.
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.
This insight was not new. It had been noted by Pythagoras (570-490 BC), whose school Plato attended before starting his Academy. Augustine promoted this insight because the Bible presented a view of creation that explained why matter could make music.
Augustine taught that while
this musical code is "bodily" (physical),
it is made and enjoyed by the soul ...
In (the book of Job)
God Himself tells Job of
the connection between
music and creation:
"Where were you when I laid
"Where were you when I laid
the foundation of the earth? ...
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God
shouted for joy?"
The Bible taught that a sovereign Creator (rather than a pantheon of deities with conflicting agendas) governs the universe for His glory. He is powerful enough to save men like Job from their troubles. This teaching helped develop the Western belief of a cosmos: an orderly universe where every tension and conflict will ultimately be resolved, just as after a period of inexplicable suffering Job was greatly blessed.
This belief in the Creator as a compassionate Savior became an underlying factor of the West's classical music and its tradition of tension and resolution. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, Wester musicians shared their civilization's assumption that the universe was cosmos rather than chaos. They composed consonance and concord even when they experienced dissonance and discord.
In the novel The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien gives us a beautiful, fictional exposition of the Augustinian perspective on the relationship of music, creation, the fall (evil), and redemption. Tolkien's Middle-earth experienced much more suffering than the Buddha's India. Tolkien's "earth" was to be captured, corrupted, and virtually controlled by evil. Suffering was real, brutal, and awful. Yet the Bible taught Tolkien that the Almighty Creator, who was also a compassionate Redeemer, was loving enough and powerful enough to redeem the earth from the greatest possible mess, sin, and suffering. This helped Tolkien to celebrate creation, both in its origin as well as in its ultimate destiny:
In the novel The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien gives us a beautiful, fictional exposition of the Augustinian perspective on the relationship of music, creation, the fall (evil), and redemption. Tolkien's Middle-earth experienced much more suffering than the Buddha's India. Tolkien's "earth" was to be captured, corrupted, and virtually controlled by evil. Suffering was real, brutal, and awful. Yet the Bible taught Tolkien that the Almighty Creator, who was also a compassionate Redeemer, was loving enough and powerful enough to redeem the earth from the greatest possible mess, sin, and suffering. This helped Tolkien to celebrate creation, both in its origin as well as in its ultimate destiny:
" ... Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of the Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. ... "
Prior to becoming a follower of Christ,
Augustine had been
a professor of Greek philosophy.
He knew that
Augustine had been
a professor of Greek philosophy.
He knew that
although music was encoded
into the structure of
the physical universe, being finite,
it could never provide
ultimate meaning to life.
Therefore, he reasoned that
to be meaningful,
music had to be integrated
into the ultimate aim of human life,
which was to love God and
one's neighbors.
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| Kings Kaleidoscope Concert at Brighton Music Hall Boston, Sunday, May 3, 2026 |
Roman Catholic churches began to develop polyphonic music. This style, which combines several differing voice parts simultaneously, began to flourish at Notre Dame (Paris) by the eleventh century. That development in Christian worship laid the foundation for the entire spectrum of Western classical music, religious and secular.
In the tenth century AD, Augustine's biblical philosophy of music inspired a group of Benedictine monks to build the world's largest pipe organ in the cathedral of Winchester, England. The organ required seventy men and twenty-six bellows to supply wind to its four hundred pipes. Technologically, the pipe organ was the world's most advanced machine until the invention of the mechanical clock. Europe's organs stood as emblems of the West's unique desire and ability to use the arts, science, and technology for the glory of God as well as for the relief of humanity's suffering and toil.
Augustine's biblical philosophy of music was an important tributary that contributed to the river of mechanical arts that began to flow out of Christian monasteries and churches. This tradition used technology to worship God and to love one's neighbors.
Taking Music to the Masses
Martin Luther (AD 1483-1546) took the biblical-Augustinian philosophy of music out of the cloister and choir loft to Europe's masses.
Martin Luther (AD 1483-1546) took the biblical-Augustinian philosophy of music out of the cloister and choir loft to Europe's masses.
Following Jesus and the apostles, the early church sang worship together until Jerome the Great encouraged priests to take over chanted worship in the fifth century. Since then until Luther's time, congregations rarely sang during Christian worship — and then only in Latin.
Luther rediscovered the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, which made it necessary for the entire congregation to worship God by singing as well as by prayer and other means. Because of his belief in the priesthood of all believers, Luther wrote hymns in the language of his people — German — and brought music to the lungs and lips of even the poorest peasants in the congregation.
For Luther, music had to have a prominent role in education as well. In putting music at the heart of worship and at the core of his curriculum of education, Luther simply followed the Jewish (biblical) tradition of temple musicians and singers who were "prophets" or "sons of prophets." An early meaning of the phrase "to prophesy" was ecstatic singing accompanied with music. King David — the driving force behind the temple worship in Jerusalem — was Israel's musician, singer, and poet par excellence. The Bible calls him "prophet." The New Testament asked the followers of Christ to seek the gift of prophecy. In the light of the Old Testament, that exhortation had to include learning music, as did the "sons of prophets."
For Luther, music had to have a prominent role in education as well. In putting music at the heart of worship and at the core of his curriculum of education, Luther simply followed the Jewish (biblical) tradition of temple musicians and singers who were "prophets" or "sons of prophets." An early meaning of the phrase "to prophesy" was ecstatic singing accompanied with music. King David — the driving force behind the temple worship in Jerusalem — was Israel's musician, singer, and poet par excellence. The Bible calls him "prophet." The New Testament asked the followers of Christ to seek the gift of prophecy. In the light of the Old Testament, that exhortation had to include learning music, as did the "sons of prophets."
The modern West confirmed
Luther's educational philosophy
that musical literacy produces people
with an intuitive awareness of
a logical and orderly universe.
It is not a coincidence that universities such as Oxford and Cambridge that have a distinctly Christian heritage still hold music in greater respect than most of the universities founded upon secularism during the twentieth century.
The Flowering of Western Music
It takes barely five minutes to walk from the Bach house at Eisenach, Germany, to the house where Luther had lived as a student, and it takes less than ten minutes to drive up the hill to the castle of Wartburg where Luther translated the New Testament into German. By the time Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was born, that area had become a Lutheran province.
Philosophically, Johannes Kepler reinforced the biblical-Augustinian-Lutheran view of creation and music by teaching that music mirrors the divinely ordained mathematical harmony of the universe.
Bach was a musical genius
because he was a mathematical genius
who received as a part of his education
this (non-polytheistic) biblical outlook
of an orderly creation.
" ... At the school which Bach attended
in Ohrdruf the system of education
was little changed from the old
(Augustinian-Lutheran) prescription.
Music was second in importance
only to theology,
and was taught by the same master,
who believed that music makes the heart
ready and receptive to the divine Word
and truth, just as Elisius (Elisha)
confessed that by harping
he found the Holy Spirit ... "
For Bach, as for Luther,
"true music" pursues as its
"ultimate end or final goal ...
the honor of God and
the recreation of the soul."
Bach believed that music
Bach believed that music
was a "harmonious euphony
for the glory of God."
+ Adapted excerpts from
Vishal Mangalwadi's
The Book That Made Your World,
pgs. 12-21
The Book That Made Your World,
pgs. 12-21
Christ is all,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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