The Four Sides

Aestheticism. This view uses quality as the standard of “good”. Put another way, higher quality equals higher moral excellence.

Aestheticism holds some truth to it, because it is true that God is best served by excellence in any field. It is also true that holiness (moral virtue) has some inherent connection with beauty (aesthetic excellence) (1 Chron 16:29).

However, aestheticism as a basis falls short in a few areas. For one, it risks elevating art as synonymous as God; and beauty, as holiness. While holiness is connected to beauty, beauty should not be confused with holiness.

Another issue that arises is that the standard of “high quality” requires some kind of external standard. This creates a difficulty with judging music—what standards should be used to determine high quality music? Over time, standards for art change, making it highly subjective as to what constitutes “high quality”.

Influence of Music. This view focuses on the effects of music on the mind. In essence, healthy music is “good” music.

While it is true that health is one aspect to glorifying God (1 Cor. 6:20), there are still several issues to this basis. To begin with, this philosophy tends to focus on the negative impact of music rather than on finding any prescriptive guidelines. In research, it is much easier to find “what not to do” rather than “what to do”. This generally fails to create constructive guidelines for music.

Another issue with this philosophy is that research in the field of the physiological and psychological effects of music are so far and few between.

On top of this, science becomes the standard of truth. To do so would fail to recognize that researchers have presuppositions—presuppositions that influence the results of their research. 

Pragmaticism. This view focuses on the results of music. This view evaluates music based on the end goal of music, and then uses whatever means necessary to get there.

Pragmaticism is true in that it views music as purposeful; in a biblical understanding, music exists to serve a holy purpose. However, pragmaticism assumes a sharp divide the content of the gospel and the delivery of the gospel. In other words, pragmaticism does not account for the need for harmony between the medium and message.

Theology of music. This view focuses on the biblical principles. Whatever the Bible says is good music is good music.

The issue with this approach is that there is so little biblical study done in the area of aesthetic standards. The bible does not give any direct approaches to aesthetics—standards must be derived from other biblical principles. Interpretation then becomes necessary, which naturally opens up the possibility for disagreement.

All four of these philosophies have issues, and all have some truth to them. So, which one do we believe in?

For us, we believe in the Bible as the basis for all our reasoning. Even though there is very little biblical research for aesthetic standards, we believe that they do exist—we just need to find them. We are on a journey to find truth, and in doing so, we believe we will find Jesus (Jn 14:6).

On this journey, we will continue to study the Bible; write music informed by our study; and play music to spread the gospel—and through it all, we will allow Scripture to be the interpreter of our experiences.

Spirit and Truth Studio exists because we want to find “something better” in music.

Perhaps you too are on this journey for truth. We invite you to join us.

References:

Stefani, Wolfgang Hans, "The Concept of God and Sacred Music Style : an Intercultural Exploration of Divine Transcendence/Immanence as a Stylistic Determinant for Worship Music with Paradigmatic Implications for the Contemporary Christian Context" (1993). Dissertations. 714. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations/714