The Calvinistic composer
Once upon a time, so the story goes, there was a wondrous and creative composer whose heart was filled to the brim and flowing over with beautiful music; music so beautiful that he felt he couldn't keep it to himself so he purposed a grand planetary concert during which he would play his music to gathered billions whom he would create.
Since the music rose from nowhere but himself, when he shared it with others he was sharing himself and, they, when they gloried in it were glorying in the composer.
But there was something odd about the composer for although he was said to be gracious without limit and though his music would fill a thousand creations and countless hearts with splendour, he chose, so the story-tellers say, to limit his grace and his music and the joy of his person to a tiny minority.
It wasn't that he purposed to create only one thousand listeners who would rejoice in his music. No, he didn't choose to limit himself in thatway. Instead he chose to fill the vast planetary theatre with millions of people and he would see to it that the vast majority of them would be born completely and utterly deaf. He said to himself, "I will see to it that millions will never be able—ever!—to hear and rejoice in me or my music; not a note of it! I purpose it and I will bring it about that when they enter the world at birth they will be permanently disabled so that they cannot even want to hear my music or rejoice in me; I will arrange it and bring it about that they will not want to sing or dance or rejoice; I will arrange it and inexorably bring it about that they will be incapable of really hearing my music and my love songs. I will so arrange it that it isn't that they will be able to truly hear my music and dislike it—they will not even be able to hear it so they won't be able to express an opinion on it one way or another."
And yet, the wondrous composer of this story, so the story-tellers tell, when the concert is ended will gather all the stone-deaf, all those he ensured would be and remain stone-deaf from birth—he will gather them all together and send them to eternal torture cells because they didn't rejoice in the music he played.
It's a bizarre story but one that these story-tellers say they learned from the composer. But it would be more charitable to think that such a composer was mad than to believe he was coldly logical and heartless. Many who listened to this story could make no sense of it—even within the terms of the story! They wondered, since the aim was to sound out the glory and beauty of the composer as it could be heard in the sound of music, why he created the majority of the vast audience incapable of hearing it. That is, they didn't just "happen" to be stone-deaf, the composer saw to it that they were born that way. It wasn't that they became stone-deaf at some point during the concert; the composer saw to it that they were stone-deaf when he brought them there; prior to the concert he had it arranged that they would be incapable of rejoicing. It wasn't that they truly heard the music for a while and despised it; no, the composer arranged it that they nevertruly heard a note!
During the concert one of those who could hear turns to one born stone-deaf and says, "Isn't the music wonderful?" Of course he gets no response.
One of his hearing colleagues reminds him, "The composer saw to it that he's stone-deaf, he can't hear the music."
"Yes, but the music is so beautiful only a Philistine could despise it, so if this person doesn't appreciate it it's clear he's unworthy of it."
"His lack of appreciation for it is not a mark of his Philistine character, it's due to the fact that he was born deaf and is even now deaf. He didn't choose to be deaf and he certainly hasn't made a choice to despise this wondrous music."
"Yes, but if the composer wants him to hear it and…"
"But that's precisely the point, my fellow-hearer; the composer doesn't want him to hear it. He purposed and accomplished his purpose when this fellow was born and remains deaf. This man is deaf because the composer wanted him to be deaf!"
"But the composer is playing the music in his presence; he must want him to hear."
"You're mistaken. You clearly don't understand the composer at all. Those the composer wants to hear he makes them to hear—he gives them the capacity to hear. He's playing the music in the presence of this man but he doesn't really want him to hear. He might as well be playing to the chairs we're sitting in as play to that man. The chairs are no more deaf than he is."
"Surely you're wrong. What would be the point of saying he wants to be glorified in his music and then he ensures that most of the people present can't hear his music?"
"He wants to be glorified only in a minority."
"Yes, but why didn't he just create the minority? If he only wanted to be glorified in his music in a minority why would he create a vast majority stone-deaf in whom he can't be glorified?"
"He can be glorified in eternally torturing them for despising his music!"
"But you just said they didn't despise his music because the composer had made sure they couldn't really hear it."
"Yes, I know I did but you mustn't press me with 'alien logic'."
"Yes, but when I said the composer wanted them to hear and rejoice in his music you said he didn't want them to hear it and that's why he arranged for them to be born permanently deaf."
"Yes, I know I did but he does want them to hear though he doesn't want them to really hear."
"But how can he want them to hear when he really doesn't want them to hear, when he saw to it that they can't hear?"
"Now you can't force me into a dilemma like that using 'alien logic'. The composer could like to have one thing but want something else more. So he could want everyone to hear but want even more that only a small minority will actually hear."
"But how could he want everyone to hear when he deliberately made it impossible for everyone to hear and when he did it because that's what he eternally purposed to do? These people can't hear because the composer didn't want them to hear, they might as well be wooden chairs, you said, and now you tell me he wants them to hear. How can he really want them to hear if he arranged it that they would be born 'wooden chairs'?"
"Ah, there you go with that 'alien logic' again. Let's just accept the fact that it's all a great mystery, inscrutable in fact, and though the composer has destined the vast majority of humanity to eternal torture because like Philistines they despise his music let us rejoice that he has given us hearing. He is so wonderfully gracious."
"But…"
"Shush, isn't this music simply wondrous?"
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.