The Aesthetic Argument

In Peter’s Kreeft’s essential book A Handbook of Christian Apologetics, there’s a chapter entitled Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God, and he and his co-author delve deep into them. Some of the arguments are ancient, some modern. Some have a more satisfying weight to them than others. Some are perhaps a little difficult to follow, mostly due to the rigorous logic they entail that our current least-common-denominator culture has no patience for. None in itself, Kreeft admits, will convince a strident atheist to rethink his position. However, all twenty, taken as a group, a whole, are quite persuasive.

One argument I found of considerable interest he calls the Aesthetic Argument. It’s really quite simple. Paraphrasing:

The musical works of Johann Sebastian Bach exist;
Therefore, God exists.

You either see this right away or you don’t.

This is philosophy I can understand (winks).

I suppose you could substitute whoever’s name for Bach’s, but the music has to have that almost indescribable quality of being sublime or transcendent. What type of music is sublime or transcendent? I don’t know, but I know it when I hear it. You don’t know either, but you know it when you hear it. And when you do hear it, you’re bound to experience such a strange combined feeling of awe and wonder that floods your body and, I assume, your soul. These overwhelming feelings of awe and wonder made me realize: This must be the human body’s way of realizing that there is a God.

The first piece of music that came to my mind writing this is Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 in D, particularly the first movement. I’d need to take a little while to create a thoughtful list, though. What music is sublime and transcendent to you?