The Audiological Argument for the Existence of God

The Audiological Argument for the Existence of God

Darrell Dooyema, D.Min., Colorado Christian University
Jared D. Dooyema, Coronado HS

“Come let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Come let us sing to the Lord!” Psalm 95:1

To the Christian mind, it is not difficult to equate the transcendent power of music with the poignant and loving presence of God. Is it possible, however, that the existence of such a God can be proven through music? What is the value of music as an apologetic argument? The Audiological Argument attempts to prove that the existence of music and the human experience of its beauty gives rational and compelling evidence for the existence of a divine being, and even further strengthens the case for the existence of a human soul in relationship to God.

Before further developing this argument, it may be necessary to mention one small caveat: Nicholas Cook, in his introduction to Music, writes the following: “Elvis Costello is one of many people who have said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and he added, ‘it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.’”¹ As we begin this potentially ‘stupid’ endeavor, we hope that our written reasonings do not detract from, but rather enhance the possibility for existential enjoyment of musical beauty in the world and cause us to raise our eyes towards the one who has given it as a gift to humankind.

While many have recognized music’s connection to God, very few have attempted a full explanation or given it the treatment it deserves within the larger body of Natural Theology. Peter Kreeft, for example, writes “There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Therefore, there must be a God. You either see this one, or you don’t.”² Alvin Plantinga gives a brief one paragraph treatment in what he calls the Mozart Argument as part of a lecture on the existence of God. Others have begun to flesh the argument out to some degree such as Phillip Tallon and Gavin Ortlund, but generally give it a bit part in the larger Argument from Aesthetics.^[1] All seem to recognize (though not explain) what early Gospel singers observed, “Over my head I hear music in the air, there must be a God somewhere!”⁴ Music on its own defies naturalistic explanations, calls us to consider the transcendent, and ultimately points us to God. 

In keeping with the long and esteemed philosophical tradition of ponderous quarreling over definitions and the use and meanings of words (a short thanks to Wittgenstein), we will begin by defining a few terms. Music has been defined in many ways, and by many people. The ancient Greeks were the first to point out the orderly ratios in music, and theorized that the entire universe worked in harmony (the music of the spheres). Plato argued that music could influence the soul, and Al-Kindi even claimed to have healed students using music! In the choral and performing arts, some have stated that all music can be defined simply as ‘organized sound,’ while the Ancient Roman Philosopher Boethius labelled it “number in time,” and wrote an entire work on the topic,⁵ adding to the ideas of Pythagoras 1000 years prior. This definition is particularly interesting given that all music can be reduced to tones and the lack of tones, which can in turn be reduced to vibrations of sound waves over an interval of time, thus verifying the claim that pitch is rhythm, and music is math. While this is an intriguing definition, it certainly does not exhaust the many relational aspects that appear to be essential in the creation and enjoyment of music.

Perhaps the best definition of music, and the most suitable for this paper is that of the Oxford English Dictionary, which states that music can be defined concisely as, “Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.”⁶ 

Biblical Perspective

Music, thus defined, is given a place of great prominence and importance in the Biblical account. Job 38:7 describes God creating the world “while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.” Music fills the sky at the birth of Christ,⁷ and trumpets will announce his final return.⁸ It is, of course, central to worship, and used for thanksgiving and praise,⁹ but also for instruction and admonishment.¹⁰ Colossians 3:16 instructs us to “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within [us], with all wisdom teaching and admonishing [each] other with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in [our] hearts to God.” Musicians led the battle charge of the Israelites, and the city walls of Jericho crumbled at the sound of music.¹¹ God also broke down jail walls, setting the apostles free as they sang hymns.¹² In addition to the sounds of victory, music figures prominently in lament and expressions of sorrow; the Psalmist writes, “My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble, I sought the Lord.”¹³ David appointed 288 full-time musicians and singers to serve at the temple,¹⁴ and after the exile, Nehemiah restores these singers, ensuring that they are paid a tithe and not required to work other jobs.^{15 16}

There are hundreds of other references to music in the Bible, all of which demonstrate its central role in the biblical narrative, pointing us towards God himself. Just as Van Gogh’s cypress tree in his famous Starry Night points us upwards towards the celestial bodies, so music fixes our attention on the transcendent God. Even hardened critics of God, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, recognize its transcendent power. He writes, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”¹⁷ Perhaps, then, philosophers should pay more attention to music as an apologetic argument.

The Audiological Argument

The following six areas present us with intersections where the Audiological Argument deepens and brings existential color to the cumulative case for the existence of God. First, the high levels of design found in music and the universal principles of what can be called musical grammar point to design features in the universe, bringing depth to the Teleological Argument. Second, the complex biological system necessary to receive music bears the marks of Irreducible Complexity and Fine-Tuning. Third, the intense first-person experience of music strengthens the Argument from Consciousness. Fourth, the experience of musical beauty in the world contributes to the Argument from Aesthetics. Fifth, music is particularly powerful in its ability to create experiences of transcendence, thus bringing depth to the argument from Religious Experience. And finally, we are moved to consider the larger Cosmological question in a new way, pondering what could qualify as a first cause of our complex experience of music. The Christian worldview gives us the best explanation, where musical theme, improvisation, dissonance, and resolution follow a Biblical pattern of Creation, Freedom, Fall, and Redemption.

Teleological Argument

We now turn to how the Audiological Argument strengthens and deepens several key aspects of the cumulative case. The unique elements of design found in music draw our attention first to the Teleological Argument. The Teleological Argument states that the universe displays complex and orderly design features, implying the existence of an intelligent designer. These design features are certainly prevalent in music, not only through written compositions (which necessarily possess the design imposed on them by their creators), but also through the structure and constitution of the laws necessary for the creation of music (pitch, rhythm, melodic structure, phrase, etc.). In the article, “Universals in the World’s Musics,” secular psychologists and musicologists Steven Brown and Joseph Jordania devise a list of 70 universals they found to transcend the music of all cultures and be absolutely necessary in any musical composition.¹⁸ It is important to note that these universals, similar to the laws of mathematics, were not created but rather discovered. Just as a NASA engineer might employ the discovered and universal laws of mathematics in calculating the trajectory of a lunar-bound rocket, musicians use the universal design elements of music theory (whether consciously or not) to create their compositions.

Some raise the objection that laws in music theory can be changed or broken to produce a unique sound; however, it is necessary to understand that these are not the same as the universals mentioned previously, and that while some musical laws may indeed be broken, a complete abandonment of them will result in an unpleasant cacophony, hardly to be regarded as music. In this way, music and musical laws exemplify the biblical principle of freedom within boundaries. 

Secular musicologists resist using the term universal, knowing its dangerous connection to the eternal. Some have called these universals by other names, such as Musical Grammar. Robert Gjerdingen asserts: “musical grammar can mean the basics of the art just as grammar school refers to the place where one learns the basics of literacy and numeracy.”¹⁹ Rather than recognizing these building blocks as universal, materialists are quick to describe this grammar in terms of function or current use, noting that different languages use different grammars. Following Wittgenstein, who stated that “the meaning is the use,” these thinkers hope to show that the universals of musical grammar may not be universal at all, but pliable, and perhaps culturally constructed. Yet, each scholar who attempts such a description returns in the end to note a universal need for the principle being studied. Indeed, these universals are the bones on which limitless musical creativity is formed. Perhaps Nietzsche more clearly understood the danger of this pointing to a Designer when he wrote, “I fear we shall never be rid of God so long as we believe in Grammar.”²⁰

The universals mentioned above display what William Dembski calls Specified Complexity.²¹ They are necessary elements and conform to patterns needed for meaningful musical expression. This specified complexity found in the laws of music calls for both an explanation and a designer, and points to the telos or purpose of music. Music is then a perfect example of William Paley’s ‘watch found on the heath.’  

Fine-Tuning and Biological Complexity

Music not only possesses in itself direct elements of design and connections to the Teleological argument, but also possesses these qualities in relation to the unique biological processes involved in its perception. The human ear is, in following the pattern found in nature, most finely tuned to allow for what is absolutely necessary for human survival: speech. However, it is also incredibly fine-tuned for what is considered entirely useless to human survival and evolution: music. This calls into question the idea of a strictly materialistic, naturalist view of humanity in relation to music. Once more, the evidence points towards an intelligent designer who caused these complicated systems to be arranged with a purpose. 

Consider the vast amount of biological fine-tuning necessary in the simple act of hearing: Music begins as vibrations of an instrument are translated into vibrations in the air. Sound waves are then funneled towards the ear hole or acoustic meatus, where they first encounter the Middle Ear Tympanic membrane, causing it to vibrate. The vibrations are then transmitted through three ossicles or hinges in the inner ear, referred to as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. Next, muscle tension is produced to reduce loud noise inputs as the vibrations are transported to the oval window, which converts vibrations in the air into fluid paralymph, or liquid vibrations. This is necessary in order to compress the area of the sound. Following this transduction, the sound is transferred into the inner ear, where it enters the spiral-shaped Fibonacci sequence of the Cochlea. Due to the unique Golden Spiral shape of the cochlea, unwanted sounds such as spurious resonances are naturally suppressed, allowing for a clearer and more precise range of sound. Here, the ear can handle an incredible dynamic range of 140db representing a ratio of 100,000,000,000,000:1 between the loudest and softest possible reception.²² Within the cochlea, the Organ of Corti translates these analog waves into digital signals and sends them using the Cochlear nerve to the acoustic centers of the brain in yet another signal transduction. In order to account for the vast 20-20,000Hz range in frequency discernible to humans, and our aptitude for pitch discrimination, biologists have devised the Place Theory, which states that the area on the Organ of Corti where a vibration reaches determines the pitch it relays to the brain. Included in this process are hundreds of necessary and highly tuned sequences, both neurological and physiological, occurring before the brain receives these signals and transduces them into other types of signals, relaying them throughout the brain, and eventually resulting in the capacity for hearing. ²³

This is a simple remediation of the incredibly complex and intricate biological processes necessary in the reception of sound.²⁴ The numerous finely tuned and vital aspects of the biological operation of hearing cry out for an intelligent designer, especially when considering the significant portion of those organs and processes that are allotted to providing humans with nonessential functions such as pitch discrimination and a vast auditory range.  Many of these nonessential functions allow only for the appreciation of and aptitude for music, which materialist scientists have deemed of “little to no evolutionary value.”²⁵ The structures mentioned above possess compelling amounts of Telos or purpose, and may even possess what Michael Behe refers to as “irreducible complexity,” a concept that Charles Darwin claimed would destroy his Theory of Evolution entirely.²⁶

The response from neo-Darwinist materialism is lacking. Jeremy Begbie writes that “[Naturalistic Reductionism] betrays a narrowness of outlook that excludes or quickly dismisses phenomena that it cannot readily account for within its own parameters but that nonetheless seem to cry out for attention and some kind of explanation.”²⁷

The Argument from Consciousness

The Audiological Argument helps us to understand the Argument from Consciousness in a deeper and more powerful way as well. Listening to music gives us a first-person conscious experience that cannot be reduced to mere algorithmic inputs and outputs. Indeed, to use Thomas Nagel’s terminology, there is a powerful “what it is like”²⁸ to hear Beethoven, Bach, or Beyoncé, for that matter. This conscious experience does not happen as a disparate set of unbound sensory inputs, but rather as a unified whole. Experiences like this point our attention to the existence of a self, or soul, and resist attempts to explain them in physicalist terms, such as Hume’s empty theater. JP Moreland notes that first-person conscious experiences like this “provide confirmation for biblical theism and evidence against scientific naturalism.”²⁹  

Even further, our conscious experience cannot be reduced to a mechanistic process where a certain input produces a certain response (such as being pricked with a pin produces pain in the nerve endings). Instead, we evaluate and freely respond to our musical experience as a person. We might be motivated, saddened, excited, inspired, angered, or any number of various responses. Individuals do not all respond in the same way to each piece of music. I remember a student explaining to me how he found his particular brand of heavy metal music to be “beautiful.” While this point was entirely lost on me at the time, and I could think of many other ways to describe his music (such as being pricked with a pin), I was able to reflect on the freedom we employ in our musical tastes. We experience and enjoy music as a person and recognize its ability to produce in us a powerful and memorable conscious experience. This fits quite well into a worldview that begins with a Mind and includes human beings made in the image of God with the ability to receive, evaluate, enjoy, and create music of their own. 

The Religious Experience Argument

The powerful first-person conscious experiences of music noted above often develop further into experiences of transcendence. In this way, the Audiological Argument intersects with the argument from Religious Experience. Religious experiences resonate throughout the world and philosophers are by no means exempt. From St. Paul’s vision of Christ to Augustine’s revelation to take up and read to Pascal’s “night of fire,” personal experiences of God and His presence abound.³⁰ Alf Gabrielson chronicles 1000 stories of religious experiences in his work, Strong Experiences with Music.³¹ Perhaps as you hear this paper, you can remember a powerful musical experience of your own.  

Consider even my own religious experience of attending Bach’s B Minor Mass while in college. I came to the event primarily because I was interested in a young lady who sang in the choir, but was stopped in my tracks by the beautiful musical arrangement of the Kyrie. The variations of the voices, the musical overtones, the harmonies and intricacies of the arrangement of a singular phrase repeated in endless ways engaged and intrigued me. When I scratched through the program to discover the meaning of Kyrie Elision and found it to be a powerful repeated confession, a cry for mercy to the God of the universe, I was overcome, internally joining my own voice with the choir in this beautiful prayer. 

If God exists and has created human beings with whom He desires to be in relationship, we would expect Him to interact with them in the world in various ways. Given the importance placed upon music in the Biblical narrative, we would also expect that experiences of worship would bear the marks of transcendence and usher people into such religious experiences. This is precisely what we find all over the world. 

Richard Swinburne argues that religious experiences such as this offer the kind of evidence necessary to move one in the direction of God. He writes, “I suggest that the overwhelming testimony of so many millions of people to occasional experiences of God must, in the absence of counter-evidence…be taken as tipping the balance of evidence decisively in favor of the existence of God.”³² 

The Argument from Aesthetics

The Audiological argument also intersects with the Aesthetic Argument, and this is where music is most often mentioned in apologetic arguments. The argument from beauty can be presented through the following points:

1. Musical beauty exists.
2. Musical beauty is not adequately explained (or explainable) from a materialistic worldview.
3. Musical beauty fits quite naturally into a Theistic worldview.
   Conclusion: Musical beauty gives evidence in support of a Theistic worldview.

Through the framework of naturalistic evolution, musical beauty (as with any beauty) must be reduced or redefined. It is explained as either beneficial solely for our survival and reproduction or written off as a mere evolutionary spandrel (in the words of Stephen J. Gould). Stephen Pinker admits that “music is an enigma.” He continues, “What benefit could there be to diverting time and energy to the making of plinking noises, or to feeling sad when no one has died?”³³ He explains that music has no evolutionary benefit and he therefore labels it “auditory cheesecake.”³⁴ He means to tell us that music is ultimately of no value, but our brains are tricked into enjoying it by misunderstood survival desires, just as we would enjoy cheesecake or other unhealthy pursuits even though they do not nourish us. As Gavin Ortlund has pointed out, “It seems implausible that such richness of experience could emerge from such poverty of causation.”³⁵

The argument from aesthetics faces opposition from those who claim beauty resides merely in the eye of the beholder as a subjective experience or personal preference. Yet, this hollow explanation misses the way humans experience beauty in all of its objective richness, as CS Lewis, clearly points out in Abolition of Man. Perhaps it is true then, as Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote, “The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”³⁶ 

In contrast to the reductionist view, the Bible presents us with a rich account of the origin and purpose of musical beauty. All beauty originates in God Himself, as Psalm 50 notes, “Out of Zion the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.” (ESV) This allows for an objective quality to beauty rooted in the maximally perfect character of God. Psalm 19 instructs us that beauty is communicated to all humans in nature, accounting for the subjective qualities or personal enjoyment of beauty: The Psalmist explains, “Their voice goes out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.” Note particularly the term qav in Hebrew, often rendered voice or line, is perhaps best translated as musical string or sound according to Strongs. This global language of musical beauty speaks without words, communicates without language, and permeates the entire globe. It is both objective and subjective. In other words, it is relational. There is a giver of beauty and a receiver. In the Biblical view, we also find that musical beauty has great purpose; namely, producing awe and enjoyment in humans, causing us to worship, and drawing our attention to God.

The Cosmological Question

Considering the expansive collection of evidence presented above, the Audiological Argument calls us back to the grand cosmological question: where did this all originate? What is the cause of musical universals? What first purpose moves the complex biological processes of hearing music? What spark could have set aflame the powerful first person conscious experience of it, the rich enjoyment of its beauty, and the global reports of transcendence? Attempting to assimilate all of this evidence into a bland naturalistic framework is impossible. At each turn, one must ignore evidence or even possibly invent terminology (such as emergentism) in order to follow the just-so story of physicalism. The best explanation of this cumulative case from music is indeed the Biblical story of the existence of God and our soul in relation to him. 

Jeremy Begbie draws our attention to the Cosmological Argument, quoting Jacques Maritain who wrote, “‘things are not only what they are. They ceaselessly pass beyond themselves and give more than they have…because from all sides they are permeated by the activating influx of the Prime Cause.’”³⁷ The Prime Cause has created all, and given us the ability to understand and relate to it with our souls made in His image. 

Thus far, the Audiological Argument has attempted to prove the existence of a God or divine being. Yet, here we notice that music points even more specifically to the Christian God.  If there is a God, and it is the Christian God, then we would expect the story told by music would reflect the Christian story.

We discover in Genesis that humans are created in the image of God, the Prime Cause and creator of all. As image bearers, we imitate His creative genius, employing the freedom bestowed upon us. Yet, we have fallen into sin, are deeply corrupted, and need a Savior to restore, renew, and remake us for eternity. J.R.R. Tolkien’s deep Christian faith and understanding of this pattern inspired him to write the background story to Lord of the Rings in The Silmarillion, describing God as singing the world into existence. He imagines the Fall as represented by disharmonious tones, sung by rebellious creatures. Yet in the end, the divine figure incorporates these complex tensions, and the final song (and magnificent story) becomes even more beautiful, being ultimately and purposefully resolved. 

Music in the world closely follows the pattern of Creation, Freedom, Fall, and Redemption. Begbie illustrates this point in his book on Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts with the following poem by Malcolm Guite, beautifully blending together these themes:

None of this need have happened, all of this, 
These unexpected gifts, this overflow
Of things we know, and things we’ll never know,
None of this had to be, but here it is,
The here-and-now in all its strange surprise; 

A space to be ourselves in, and a grace
That spins us round and turns us to the source
Whence all these gifts and graces still arise.

And now the one through whom all this was made,
Whom we ignore, on whom we turn our back,
Whom we denied, insulted and betrayed,
Gathers and offers for us all we lack
Voices on our behalf creation’s praise,
And calls us to become the song he plays.³⁸

Conclusion

So what is happening when you hear your favorite music? A complex language, representing unique logical arrangements of musical universals, has been written down, skillfully performed, converted into acoustic waves moving through the medium of our atmosphere according to the finely tuned laws of physics, received by a highly complex recording system known as your ear, transduced from acoustic to liquid waves, equalized, compressed, sorted, and interpreted. These processes give rise to a powerful first-person, conscious experience, awareness of aesthetic beauty, and perhaps even produce an experience of transcendence. Is this incredible process mere auditory cheesecake, the accidental product of chance, natural selection, and survival benefit? Or, is it more likely that this process bears all the hallmarks of design, powerfully pointing to a Designer who creates beauty, recognizes dissonance, endorses freedom, values harmony, and has given this incredible gift of creativity and expression to humans, with a purpose of drawing their attention to Himself?

We conclude, then with two points for application: 

One, music is an incredible gift from God, and it is meant to be enjoyed. Experience this gift! Go listen to music! And two, there is an incredible potential for music as an argument for God. Go and research the Audiological Argument! Proverbs 25:2 says this: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. To search out a matter is the glory of kings.” (NIV) We hope that we have here demonstrated that the Audiological Argument is a matter worthy of searching out.