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Does Scripture Teach That God Created All Music?

Discussion in 'Music Ministry' started by Scripture More Accurately, Sep 15, 2020.

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  1. Yes

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  2. No

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  3. Unsure

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  1. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    Yes, Jesus created the gold, but it would be wrong to say that He created the calves.

    Moreover, it would be blasphemous to say that Jesus created pornographic images, pictures, movies, etc.

    There is a vast and very important difference between saying that God created the raw materials that things are made of and that He created the combination products that wicked men have made from those products. God is not the Creator of their wicked products. The Bible does not in any way teach that God is the Creator of all the combination products that demons or wicked humans have made.

    When wicked men have created wicked things by combining good things that God has made, those combination products are wicked things that God did not make.

    Furthermore, those combination products are not just good things used for evil; they are distinct entities that are not just a good sum of the good parts--they are wicked things in and of themselves.
     
    #101 Scripture More Accurately, Sep 26, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2020
  2. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    So it is with music. Anyone here believe God created some of the songs performed by John Valby, David Allen Coe, etc?

    That's why I said that God gave man the ability to make music, which man can make for good or for evil. God didn't make the actual music.
     
  3. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    It seems that you are talking only about the words and not the instrumental aspects of songs performed by people. If so, your view is different than mine.

    Music without words is not inherently amoral, neutral, or good. Evil angels and men have created evil music that is evil regardless of what words it accompanies or even if it does not accompany any words.
     
  4. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    Scripture says in several places that God gave songs to people. He gave Moses all the words in the song that is recorded in Deut. 32. In Job 35:10, we read that God gives songs in the night. The Spirit inspired the writers of the Psalms to write 150 perfect songs whose every word is from God.

    Moreover, as I have already previously said, God made birds to sing music that has no words. God created their music that they produce.
     
  5. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Don't see how a MELODY WITHOUT WORDS could be evil.

    But my view is that God gave at least some humans the ability to make music, and also at least some angels that same ability.
     
  6. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Obviously, as God can give men the ability to make music, He Himself can make perfect music. But he didn't make ALL music; He have some people & at least some angels the ability to make music.
     
  7. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    Whether you can see how it could be evil or not is not what determines whether it is evil or not.

    Do you know and understand everything there is to know about the music of heaven? Do you know and understand everything there is to know about all the music that demons have produced?

    Humans do not and cannot understand everything that there is to know about music without words. The Bible never teaches that music without words is inherently amoral, neutral, or good.

    Furthermore, music without words is not just about melodies. It is also about differing rhythms, harmonies, timbres, volumes, etc.

    Those who say that music without words is inherently amoral, neutral, or good are just stating their opinion that they cannot prove, and it is an opinion that is false.
     
  8. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    I have never said that He made all music. I categorically deny that He did.
     
  9. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Now, I didn't say that God never made music. And he gave birds the ability to make sounds unique to each species that are actually mating calls, but that people consider to be music.(Same for several species of insects.)
     
  10. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Still, I don't see how a wordless melody can be evil.
     
  11. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Good !
     
  12. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    It does not matter whether you can see how it can be evil or not. Claiming that it cannot be evil must be proven--it cannot just be asserted.
     
  13. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Same with saying certain melodies without words ARE evil. it must be PROVEN.
     
  14. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    Actually, no. In a fallen world that has been universally corrupted, claiming that there is a realm that was not corrupted by the Fall must be proven. Those who say that instrumental music cannot be evil have the burden of proof of showing biblically why it was not affected by the Fall, as all of the rest of the universe was.

    The way that some (many?) Christians seek to prove that claim is to assert that God created all music and therefore all instrumental music is inherently good. This is one of the reasons why this discussion is very important.
     
    #114 Scripture More Accurately, Sep 27, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2020
  15. SGO

    SGO Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps not all music is inherently good.



    Why dissonant music strikes the wrong chord in the brain

    (article shortened by me)

    Why dissonant music strikes the wrong chord in the brain

    The common aversion to clashing harmonies seems to be due to mathematical relationships of overtones.
    12 November 2012
    [​IMG]
    Hero/Corbis

    Whether we find music pleasant for not depends on the 'harmonicity' of the notes being played.

    Many people dislike the clashing dissonances of modernist composers such as Arnold Schoenberg. But what’s our problem with dissonance? It’s long been thought that dissonant musical chords contain acoustic frequencies that interfere with one another to set our nerves on edge. A new study proposes that in fact we prefer consonant chords for a different reason, connected to the mathematical relationship between the many different frequencies that make up the sound1.

    Cognitive neuroscientist Marion Cousineau of the University of Montreal in Quebec and her colleagues evaluated these explanations for preferences about consonance and dissonance by comparing the responses of a control group of people with normal hearing to those of people with amusia — an inability to distinguish between different musical tones.

    Unpleasing sounds
    Consonant chords are, roughly speaking, made up of notes that ‘sound good’ together, like middle C and the G above it (an interval called a fifth). Dissonant chords are combinations that sound jarring, like middle C and the C sharp above (a minor second). The reason why we should like one but not the other has long vexed both musicians and cognitive scientists.

    Related stories
    More related stories

    It has often been suggested that humans have innate preferences for consonance over dissonance, leading some to conclude that music in which dissonance features prominently is violating a natural law and is bound to sound bad. Others, including Schoenberg himself, have argued that dissonance is merely a matter of convention, and that we can learn to love it.

    However, there has long been thought to be a physiological reason why at least some kinds of dissonance sound jarring. Two tones close in frequency interfere to produce 'beating': what we hear is just a single tone rising and falling in loudness. If the difference in frequency is within a certain range, rapid beats create a rattling sound called roughness. An aversion to roughness has seemed consistent with the common dislike of intervals such as minor seconds.

    Yet when Cousineau and colleagues asked amusic subjects to rate the pleasantness of a whole series of intervals, they showed no distinctions between any of the intervals. In contrast, normal-hearing people rated small intervals (minor seconds and major seconds, such as C–D) and large but sub-octave intervals (minor sevenths (C–B flat) and major sevenths (C–B)) as very unpleasant.

    Out of harmony
    Then the researchers tested how both groups felt about beating. They found that the amusics could hear it and disliked it about as much as the control group. So apparently something else was causing the latter to dislike the dissonant intervals.

    “Rock bands often deliberately introduce roughness and dissonance into their sounds, much to the delight of their audiences.”

    Those preferences seem to stem from the so-called harmonicity of consonant intervals. Notes contain many overtones — frequencies that are whole-number multiples of the basic frequency in the note. For consonant intervals the overtones of the two notes tend to coincide as whole-number multiples, whereas for dissonant intervals this is no longer the case: they look more like the irregular overtones for sounds that are ‘inharmonic’, such as metal being struck.

    The control group preferred consonant intervals with these regular harmonic relationships over artificial 'consonant' ones in which the overtones were subtly shifted to be inharmonic while the basic tones remained the same. The amusics, meanwhile, registered no difference between the two cases: they seem insensitive to harmonicity.

    Co-author Josh McDermott at New York University reported previously that harmonicity seems more important than beating for dissonance aversion in normal hearers2. In the new paper he and his colleagues argue that the lack of sensitivity both to harmonicity and dissonance in amusics now adds to that case1.

    Diana Deutsch, a music psychologist at the University of California at San Diego, says that the work is “of potential interest for the study of amusia”, but questions whether it adds much to our understanding of normal hearing. In particular she wonders if the findings will survive in the context of everyday music listening, where people seem to display contrary preferences. “Rock bands often deliberately introduce roughness and dissonance into their sounds, much to the delight of their audiences”, she says.

    Sandra Trehub, an auditory psychologist at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, agrees, saying that there are plenty of musical traditions in which both roughness and dissonance are appreciated. “It's hard to imagine a folk tradition based on something that’s inherently negative,” she says.

    But McDermott says that the results do not necessarily imply that there is anything innate about a preference for harmonicity, and indeed he suspects that learning plays a role. “Other approaches will be needed to address the innateness issue,” he says.
     
  16. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    Actually, the "fall" affected only people. And those who say a wordless melody is evil have the burden of proof. That's same as saying a genre of songs with words is evil, when there are no evil words or actions it.
     
  17. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    No, the Fall did not just affect people. You are the only person that I have ever heard make that claim.

    As a result of the Fall, the serpent was cursed (Gen. 3:14). Man, of course, was affected and suffered many consequences, including physical death (Gen. 3:16-19). The ground was cursed (Gen. 3:17). The entire creation groans and travails in pain as a result of the Fall:

    Romans 8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. 20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, 21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

    The Fall affected the entire creation. Claiming that music without words was exempted must be proven.

    Those who make the claim that all music without words is inherently good must prove what they believe. Those who claim that every melody is inherently good do not have any biblical basis for making such a claim.
     
    #117 Scripture More Accurately, Sep 27, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2020
  18. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    Interesting article. Regardless of whether dissonant music affects the brain negatively or not, there is no theological basis for holding that all music without words is or must be inherently good.
     
  19. robycop3

    robycop3 Well-Known Member
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    No; music without words must be PROVEN evil. The BOP lies with the one who makes the assertion, not those who deny it.
     
  20. Scripture More Accurately

    Scripture More Accurately Well-Known Member

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    I already have. When the Bible provides universe-wide comprehensive statements, those who claim that one realm is an exception to that reality must prove what they assert.

    Given what the Scripture teaches about the whole creation being corrupted, the correct view is that there is music without words that is corrupt. If you deny the Bible, there is not anything more that we need to talk about.
     
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