*Reprinted from Luther and Culture by special permission of Luther College Press.

The use of the term “philosophy” in an investigation of the reason for the existence of an act or custom among people is valid only if we understand the term in quite nonphilosophical language: “How do they get that way?” in the sense of the boy taking apart a clock to see what makes it tick. To go into the discussion of a philosophy of Lutheran church music thoroughly—and it has to our knowledge not been done—would mean to investigate the whole realm of theology and music with special reference to Lutheran theology. The problems connected with such an investigation would be many and perhaps would at some point lead to a conjoining of music and theology in the question: Why sing in church?

We can readily see that the theme does not put the emphasis on philosophy, for then theology would take a back seat. It is not a question therefore of philosophy or theology, nor a question of aesthetics or ethics (and we do still in Christian circles differentiate between the two), but it is rather a question that asks in a very realistic way: When and why can we call music used in worship “Lutheran music” or music suited for the worship of a Lutheran, or more significantly, of a Christian congregation? The answer will not be a prescription of certain types or modes but rather a challenge to responsible and knowing men within the area of the church to recognize the proper blend of philosophy and ethics necessary to produce or use such music as is the proper aesthetic expression of the Christian faith.

Certainly the matter has been discussed in Europe and in our own country, in Europe evidently more than here, and such discussion has been among men who were particularly interested both as theologians and as musicians. The Luther research of the past few years has also touched upon the Reformer’s direct and indirect contribution to the music of the church. No one has questioned Luther’s intense love of music, and no one has expressed any doubts as to his training and proficiency in music. His training was no doubt equal to, if not better than, that received by candidates for the Master’s degree in music at most of our colleges and universities today. Luther scholars are, however, still endeavoring to interpret the implications of Luther’s musical philosophy. Was he a product of the Middle Ages, which saw the climax of the cantus firmus technique of the Netherland School? The manner in which he solved the problem of placing his texts under a melody, and the manner in which he approached a musical expression, seem to indicate this. The great cantor Johann Walther, Luther’s friend and collaborator, admiring Luther’s ability to combine text and melody in a most artistic manner, said: “As among other things it can be seen from the German Sanctus (‘Isaiah, Prophet, Seer of Old’) how masterfully and well he arranged the notes to the text, that I at the time felt obliged to ask his reverence from what or from where he had this piece or this instruction, Whereupon the good man laughed at my simplicity and said, ‘The poet Vergil taught me these things.’”^[1]

Luther’s mind was never static, nor did he have a closed mind against new ideas or interpretations in music. He knew quite a number of prominent musicians of his day, among them Senfl, of whom it has been said that he was a “king of music,” who could demonstrate musical effects. There were also Heinrich Finck, Pierre de la Rue, and Josquin des Pres, and of course Walther. Of Josquin Luther said: “Josquin is a master of the notes; his music flows evenly and is not forced, not according to rules, like that of Finck.” Luther here praises the genius of Josquin, and this does not seem to fit into the pattern of the philosophy of music based on medieval concepts. The artistic ingenium (genius) is a discovery of humanism and lies far afield from the thought processes of the Middle Ages. The humanist Henricus Glareanus, one of the first theoreticians of the musica reservata,^[2] published his Dodekachordon in 1547, a year after Luther’s death. It actually belongs, according to its contents, to the year 1510 and is thus contemporary with both Luther and Josquin. Almost exclusively did he take Josquin’s compositions as a material basis for his theories, neglecting altogether the contemporary Italian music. According to Glarean, a work of art requires two prerequisites: ars and ingenium. Ars he interprets as the laws and rules of music that can be taught and learned. Ingenium to him means the original and creative impulse of the musician, which is purely a gift. Where ars and ingenium meet in the process of composing, there will necessarily ensue a perfect work of art. Ars alone is not sufficient, and ingenium alone is despicable, since it places itself above all musical order, and by denying the validity of the ars draws music into impossible subjective situations. (Music must always be a manifestation of objective situations to be found in the ars musica.) Therefore the ingenium must accept the ars as the criterion of its creative process, and it must respect the objective limits dictated by the rules and regulations of the ars.

What Glarean means when he speaks of art and genius, Luther also means when he names Josquin a master of the notes. The other “songmasters” like Finck and la Rue are musicians with great ars—skill, but without the corresponding ingenium. In one of his sermons Luther once expressed the wish that during the singing of the Credo in the liturgy all should kneel at the words “et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine, et homo factus est.” It is clear that Luther here expresses the desire that the music should in a special manner interpret the text and bring it home to the congregation.

Luther was not interested in contemporary musical developments. Had he chosen music as a career, he no doubt would have ranked with the great musicians of his time. He had a much more important work to do. And yet, because of his remarkable gift of music, supported by excellent training in both theory and applied music, and especially because of his great love of music, which remained with him all his life, he used this special—you might say this additional—gift of God for the purpose of implementing his work, preaching the Gospel through his hymns, and finding an honored place for music in the liturgy of the church. “Die Noten machen den Text lebendig,” he said, and “Sic Deus praedicavit Evangelium etiam per musicam,” and again, “Demnach habe ich auch . . . etliche geistliche Lieder zusammengebracht, das heilige Evangelion zu treiben und in Schwang zu bringen” (1524); “dass es andere auch hoeren und herzukommen” (1545).

Thus Luther’s musical philosophy must be interpreted on the basis of his theology, and if we wish to arrive at a definition of a Lutheran philosophy of church music, we must seek first of all its theological basis. The problem therefore is the problem of musicians who are theologically concerned, and of men who are theologically trained and musically interested. That is why it is not idle talk to demand a philosophy of Lutheran church music. It is rather a necessity in an area in which either the untheological or unmusical man is liable to set up a musical program for the church—for one reason or another—but without a good foundation in one or the other of the aspects which must be considered together

We do not propose to undertake an analysis of Luther’s development in this respect. He showed a more theological evaluation of music later in life and a more philosophical view in younger years. Our contribution may be of value to all who seek to find answers for the music of worship if our answer lays foundations from which, provided they be firm enough and high enough, a man can see into distant fields, high over the clouds of man’s secular industriousness, and yet not get dizzy or lose the feeling of the solidity of the foundation he stands on.

To get back to a previous question: Why do we use music in worship? Is it an inherent characteristic of music or theology that leads them together? Is the spoken Word of God insufficient? Is the praise of God spoken in words of man deficient without song? Must we add music? Should we avoid music in worship? Or does music possibly constitute a worship complete in itself, needing no words? All these questions might seem superfluous and unreal since our music is traditionally a part of the congregation’s worship. But we know that there have been and will be people who say that music can only interfere with the Word of God. Music, they affirm, plays on the emotions of man, expresses passions and moods of men, and can have no power to add to God’s Spirit, who speaks through the Word. We know that both Calvin and Zwingli, as Soehngen puts it, “are not only far removed from a medieval understanding of the cosmological-theological relevance of music, but positively reject that position. Music is for them, it is true, still a gift of God, but it remains a worldly thing” Calvin would classify music on the same plane as other inventions, as, for example, gunpowder, as accomplishments of Cain. We may have a different attitude to music, but why?

Again we might say that other people, deeply religious people, would consider music without the Word of God a perfectly good way of worship. If we think this attitude extreme, let us remember that our choral preludes are only by implication connected with the Word of God. To what degree can music without the Word be worship, whether it is worship-connected or not? In considering these two extreme possibilities of relation between the Word and music we will naturally admit that worship without music, that is, with only the spoken Word, is possible; whereas the opposite is hardly possible: there can be no worship in the proper sense without the Word.

The area between the two possibilities is the battleground where men shoot with opinions and experiments. The fact that music is almost invariably a part of our worship services ought not be based merely on apostolic word and sanction but must have theological, yea, also philosophical reasons. May we now bring of both theology and philosophy enough to enable us to evaluate the place of music in the worship in order that we may form judgment as to the kind of music that should be used in the Lutheran worship services?

What is music? Not only sound, not only movement, not only rhythm, not only pitch, not just a change of all these in various combinations and varieties. We have samples of music, so called, that would qualify for all and sundry aspects. What the common man misses in these and the expert decries in such noise is “order.” What the philosophers since Plato have said about music is that it is order, in fact, part of a divine or created order. Plato’s interest is ethical and pedagogical. The order of the cosmos is reflected in the music. The Pythagorean concept of number is found in Plato’s concept of music as order. This aspect of music certainly is generally appreciated even today. There is an interesting line which can be drawn from Plato or Pythagoras to modern physicists who find a cosmic formula in numbers. Even the atheist Russell said that if there were a God, he would be a mathematician. Soehngen asserts that a modern scientist, Heisenberg, has found a mathematical “Weltformel.” We would say that we can see in the physical laws and in the mathematical or logical rules that govern our creation an order, created by God together with all other ruling laws. Not only “together with” but “integrated into” all the cosmos is the order of numbers and music. Bach knew it and expressed it both in his almost supernatural application of the order of music and in his application of a hidden number code in his works.

But music has another aspect, that of movement, sometimes called liberty. Music has a freedom that makes it what it is. The art of painting, until recently, has been tied to orders and rules that bind it to objects. Modern art has tried to liberate itself from certain laws and thereby from the object. The abstract type of art has its place, for no artist can be bound rigidly to the representation of an object. However, in our opinion the artist who moves too far from his object becomes an outlaw. (He may do what he pleases in his own bailiwick, but must not expect to exhibit his personal type of excrement to the public for appreciation.)

Music more than any other art is free from imitation of nature or of objects in nature. Music is expression, not representations. We are not in the habit of calling the rumbling of the drums which simulates thunder, music. The sound effects of the radio are not music, because they are representations and not free expressions. (This has implications for the relation of word and tone, to be noted later.) In this freedom, music is more able to “be” nature or be “like” nature than any other art. Thus music becomes creative in a greater sense than any other art. This we believe is true because in its essence music combines the best aspects of order “and” freedom. It is beyond me at present to say whether music is therefore necessarily best suited to express the essence of Lutheran theology of Law and Gospel. Yet music does present to man the possibility, in this fallen creation, of acting as if there were no damning law but only good rules, happily to be accepted by man as part of the order given by a gracious Creator for man’s enjoyment.

“Play” (Spiel) has occupied the thoughts of modern philosophers. Schlink, for example, quoting from Huizinga’s Homo ludens, says that play is not life but an abandonment of life. Play has rules that bind, to be sure, but only to serve the possibility of playing, just as laws serve liberty. The rules make it ethically possible to play. Music shares this character of “playing.” We know how the expression “playing” is connected with the concept of music, at least in the English language. To play is to accept certain rules for the sake of play. These rules are accepted and followed in playing in all forms of sport for the sake of playing, that is, for the very sake of enjoying freely a sport which would be impossible without rules. Playing brings a world of ordered freedom into a disordered world. Playing creates an artificial paradise.

So music, too, must bow to rules. Wherever all rules are abandoned for the sake of liberty for the individual, art ends in dissolution. Plato thought so seriously of this that he wanted certain modes elevated to laws and called for the prohibition of others. It is worth noting that the church to a great extent followed Plato in this regard; or perhaps better, here Plato was found to be in agreement with the Scriptural principle followed by the church. We have many examples of the praise of God by music as well as by the works of creation in the Psalms and other parts of the Old Testament. Luther in one of his Table Talks said, “Grammatica, musica conservatores rerum.” He found in “order” the law that held all things together and considered grammar and music examples, if not the evidence, of such order.

As Christians, and particularly as Lutheran Christians, we have more to add to these ideas, for we see with eyes enlightened by the Spirit of God. We see order in God’s creation, but we see better still the order God has imposed on man for man’s benefit. God made man in His image; that meant, God gave man a responsibility which is literally the ability to be answerable to God. God would expect man to understand His will and appreciate His wisdom. Heavenly harmony was the beginning of man’s existence. But we know that man “fell,” in the fullest and most tragic sense of the word, for the lie of Satan that doubted the order of God. Ever since, law and order have irked man. Now the law becomes man’s persecutor and prosecutor. No more can we equate cosmic order and the law of God. The law of God does not fit man into the harmony of creation, but rather puts man in his place as opposing God’s will and order. A Christian recognizes this in his own life and looks for the final redemption from all evil as the day when he will be in the glory of new existence with God, in perfect order and in harmony with the new heaven and the new earth.

But what of the element of liberty in music? Here, too, the Christian may have more than any other man; all men have felt the treadmill of the cycle of night and day, life and death, work and play, summer and winter; but the reason they have known life as the labor of Sisyphus is that it has been labor and sorrow and disappointment without the real freedom from the fear of death to which all men during their lifetime are subjected. All men yearn to be free. All want freedom from guilt. And men seek this freedom in many ways. The Christian has found it in the Gospel, in the forgiveness of sins, in the redemption through Christ and His payment for all guilt. Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation. We are made free if the Son makes us free.

Just here is the point at which music recommends itself to the believer as the medium for worship in connection with the Word. Christian liberty, or, if you will, freedom, accepts the order of this world, the laws and the law of God as blessings, as a possibility of a joyous existence. If we draw the picture of Paradise, then let it be that kind of place, world, and life, incomprehensible to us now, in which order and law are the liberty which makes us free to play and sing unto the Lord. Here, we may say, God sets up for us rules for playing, and we enjoy this playing according to the rules, for without rules there is no playing. In Paradise our existence is in the full agreement and harmony with the will of God. Then we, like Christ in His day, have that food, that meat that keeps us happy. “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.”

The life of the Christian in this world is a life between freedom and order. Both must be a part of his life. Without order no freedom, without freedom no order. Translate that into Luther’s theology, and we will find that it coincides very clearly with his statement and confession of the Christian as saint and sinner at the same time: “simul iustus et peccator.” Man, even the believer, is totally a sinner. The forgiveness makes him totally a saint in the eyes of God. Neither one nor the other permits of a mixture, so that a Christian is not a cross between the two, partaking of both characteristics.

Rather, a believer has full forgiveness before God in Christ. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Yet at the same time there is no grain of false modesty in the believer’s confession that he is a poor, miserable sinner. This mystery of our existence must be believed. It cannot be solved or doubted, nor can it be explained. It is of the worship of such men, of such a congregation, that we speak, and here we may say, both analogically and paradoxically, the essence of music meets the essence of the man in Christ. Law and Gospel, saint and sinner. Freedom and order can begin to be a part of worship. No more does music violate religion if it is used and appreciated under that philosophy, if we may call it a philosophy. So the Christian cannot say no to music in Christian worship. Even when music has been misused too often in the world and its practices, music still is to be used in worship.

We may ask, “Can we sing and play under the cross?” Is there an art that can survive the crushing wrath of God as evidenced at the cross of Christ? Is there a song that was sung on Good Friday 1,900 and more years ago? Did Christ leave us music or poetry? These questions are not facetious. They must be faced and are always faced when we ask about the music for the liturgy or for worship. How may we sing “Beautiful Savior” in view of Him who had no form or beauty? But Christ did sing, even on the night in which He was betrayed.

The church has always sung in the presence of the cross. Paul asks us to do our “teaching and admonishing” in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16). It seems needless effort to list the passages of Scripture where song and music are mentioned as means of thanksgiving, confession, or praise. Not all of worship is proclamation. Martin Luther would call attention to the fact, indeed, that all confession is proclamation and praise of God, and that no believer confesses, that is, speaks of his faith, without praise of God and proclamation of His name. To differentiate between passages where keryssein (proclaim) is used and those indicating other aspects of worship or the use of God’s name is unnecessary for our purposes. Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:19 are not special instances in which teaching and admonishing are separated from preaching or confessing. A Christian is a preacher precisely when he uses the name of God. After all, the sermon of the preacher is the sermon of the congregation, and the hymns of the congregation are the expression and often the sum of the sermon’s message, especially if the hymns are chosen and used properly.

There are still two considerations regarding the church’s worship and its music. On the one hand, the death of Christ caused the church to regulate its life in an imitation of Christ. It was said, He suffered; we, too, must suffer much tribulation to enter the kingdom of God. He had no place where to lay His head; men, too, ought to consider poverty a virtue. He was not married; how could a serious servant of Christ be married? He did not dance or make music; how can a serious Christian dance and make music? On such ascetic considerations some Christians have based their attitude toward music in the church. For them, music has to be heavy and sad.

But the church also has in its history another and a better attitude toward music. Since Christ died that we should live, why should not the tremendous change also invade all aspects of the Christian life? He wept that we might laugh. He was sad that we might have His happiness. That does not mean that we know no more suffering, cross, or trial; it means that we are free from the curse of the Law and fear of death and hell. Why should we not sing, even in the face of death—even at funerals and at the graveside? The character of Christian music is to be determined by the Law and the Gospel and by the sinner-and-saint concept of the individual Christian. Free from the Law, we serve God in glad obedience of faith. Free to use all and everything, we choose and decide in love toward God and man. The regenerated creature of God is born to a new and different existence; he is born into a better wisdom than that of the world. We need not expect any applause from the world that must hate us as it hated Christ; but the world should also learn to envy us our peace and hope, our firmness of purpose, and our ability to choose that which is good and adequate.

In the sense of the redemption from sin and for eternal perfection, our music should be of the kind which bespeaks and gives a foretaste of that transformation which is to take place in eternity and which has already taken place in our hearts by the miracle of faith. It cannot be a true beginning of that new world, but it can express our hopes of it. It cannot be the beginning, for our music in its laws and its freedom is yet a part of the creation which is subject to vanity because of the fall of man. No picture of heaven will tell us what it is like, only how much beyond our expectations; and no chord, ever so quickly lost, can actually bring down the heavenly Jerusalem or sound the song of the angels.

Our music is a gift of God, and it can be an echo to God’s Word, an answer of our believing hearts, and a confession of our consecrated lips. In this sense we should find in music for worship the challenge to bring the best and purest of all as an offering of thanksgiving. May we say, quite incidentally, that in God’s Word we are not told that heaven will have sculptors, painters, engineers, scientists, physicists, or even theologians; but it is very evident that there will be music—and therefore surely musicians—in heaven!

These are some aspects familiar to all Lutherans who are conscious of the message that Luther brought forth again in Christendom. The great truths of our faith ought to be presented in a confession of song and music, not only in worship but also in our daily life. Seeing the world clearly for what it is and knowing of the salvation for this world, every believing musician and artist should regard himself the salt of the earth, also musically speaking. A major part of our philosophy should therefore be that we break out of the artificial limit set for us in what is called music for worship and create a Lutheran music for life, for living in the world and with the world. If we accept the fact of redemption of all and liberty won for all, and if we see clearly what is meant when we are told all things are ours, we will recognize that the music we compose and sing and play belongs to us, but belongs also to God.

Certainly music for worship has a different character from everyday music, but only in degree or spiritual strength. A Sunday religion is no religion, for the relation to God is not switched off and on like a spiritual air conditioning. God is not so available or disposable as the Philistines thought when they took the Ark of God into their temples. We can dot our landscape with beautiful churches and in these churches provide decorations, organs, and music, but these must not be a witness against a people but for their faith and life. We can have beautiful music in our worship, but it must in its difference from secular music not be a witness against life but a testimony of that which is believed and lived, of that which we sing from Monday to Saturday. Let the Lord’s day be the high ground of Christian experience as we hear of Him, and then our Sunday music will actually be a singing and playing unto the Lord. The splitting asunder of the religious and secular spheres of lives is the bane also of the Lutheran Church. To ask for proper music for worship would be to demand that we ask first for a proper worship in our lives. So much of the music we reject is unfit for use because it does not truly testify to the glory of God and His church. If we fail to reject music not suitable for Christian nurseries, kindergartens or schools, or any other sphere of life, we cannot expect our Christian congregations to appreciate a solemn, dignified testimony or a joyous expression of their faith according to the “best” liturgical and musical traditions and standards.

Lutheran music, then, does not move out of the reality of life into a realm unreal and mystical. Our people need not be taken into a dimly lit, incense-laden place that is as alien to the living room of their homes as the chant is to the music they hear every hour of the day. It may be that the very contrast reminds them that there is something, but certainly it ought not to be different. Nor is the solution of the problem the one attempted by some unthinking go-getters—bringing the noise and glare of the mardi-gras world into church. The basic principle of order and freedom must be interpreted in the light of the Gospel as freedom for men in this world, though not of this world. The cleavage between the world and the believer is clearly shown by Christ who told His followers that men will hate them, as and when they show their affinity to Christ. No true worship can please the world, and no secular music of the type the world loves ought to be beloved of the church. But within this world we as confessors cannot deny the order of creation or the beauty of it. Our music cannot be a denial of the very gift God has given man. Our glorification of God and His Christ need not and must not be confined to music for Lutheran worship. And our music for worship must not begin at a point which has no tangent with the music we would want in our families and in our homes and at our play. Too long has religion been a foreign body in the lives of our people. If the spirit of true Lutheranism will not permeate lives, it cannot be a blessing. We should realize that the Spirit of Christ must permeate our whole life, including our music.

Martin Luther has taught us to recognize in music a gift of God—the viva vox Evangelii. It is a gift, in its very essence designated to be used by all that worship in spirit and in truth. Whereas there is no creation of God that cannot be used in praise of God, this creation of God, given particularly to man, is one that by its very nature demands that it be used to proclaim and praise the name of the Redeemer. No other art can come so close to illustrating or representing heaven on earth—and I do not mean this mystically. No other gift has hidden in its depths so much of order and liberty combined and is so well suited to the Law and the Gospel concept of Scriptural theology. It is our commission to use it according to its nature and not against it, and it is ours to use in our worship to proclaim the glory of the Lord and Savior. No Christian will deny that it can also be misused, even in worship; yet no musician having accepted Christ as his Savior, and being conscious of the Christian faith implanted in his heart, can refuse to seek to make music in every way a handmaid of religion, a living voice of the Gospel, and thereby also a means of preaching the Word of reconciliation.^[3]

Cited Reference and Notes

1. M. Praetorius, Syntagna Musicum, Vol. I. (Wittenberg, 1915).
2. Aesthetics of music as against ethics of music. The word now becomes important in its influence on form, rhythm, melody, and harmony. During the Middle Ages not the “word” but the numerus was the constructive principle of music. Cf. Christoph Wetzel, Studie zur Musikanschauung Luthers in Musik u. Kirche, Vol. 25, pp. 241 f.
3. Among the sources and references which the reader might profitably consult are these: M. J. Nauman, “The Character of Christian Worship,” in the Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church, Vol. V, St. Louis, 1959; Walter Blankenburg, “Luther und die Musik,” in Mitteilungen der Luthergesellschaft, Heft I, Berlin, 1957; Edmund Schlink, Zum theologischen Problem der Musik, Tübingen, 1950; Oscar Söhngen, “Theologische Grundlagen der Kirchenmusik,” in Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes, Vol. IV, 1961, Kassel; Karl Anton, Luther und die Musik, Zwickau, 1928; Walter E. Buszin, “Luther on Music,” in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. XXXII, No. 1, 1946; Erik Routley, Church Music and Theology, Muhlenberg Press, 1959.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume VI (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1963). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.