Music and Monotheism

This Element explores the connection between music and the belief in one indivisible God. It argues that music, as a non-linguistic medium, can symbolize the personal, loving, communicative God of Scripture and the Prophets. This communication facilitates Abrahamic monotheism and dialogue between monotheistic faiths.

What connects the phenomenon of music as an art with the belief in one indivisible God? What has music, a non-linguistic medium, to say about the personal, loving, communicative God of Scripture and the Prophets, or the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, transcendent God of the Philosophers and can it bring these ''concepts of God'' together? To answer these questions, this book takes divine Creation as its starting point, that the God of monotheism must be the Creator of all that is. It thus argues that anything which instantiates and facilitates communication within the created realm has been enabled to do so by a God who communicates with His Creation, and who wishes that His Creation be communicative. Indeed, it will argue that the communication allowed by music, and aesthetic experience in general, is the very raison d''être of Abrahamic monotheism and might thus allow an opportunity for dialogue between monotheistic faiths.