(Continued)
Greatness
The answer is, yes. By the grace of God, we can have a habitual vision of greatness. Yes, we can!
Let us return to Plantinga. He declares that “the beauty and delightfulness of a Mozart sonata are objective properties of (tokens of) the pattern of sounds; they aren’t just subjective reactions.”9
There are indeed true, good, and beautiful objects for our vision of greatness, Bach and Mozart among them. In January of 2011, The New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini proposed a list of the ten greatest composers of all time.10 It was a controversial list because not everyone agrees with his selection. But, it shows that as a society we have not entirely lost our vision of greatness.
However, as Steiner and Plantinga have testified, knowing about the vision and having it are two different things. Let’s use the music of Mozart as an example. According to Karl Barth, angels play Mozart.11 I have also heard that parents play Mozart to their babies to turn them into geniuses.12 The Swiss theologian Hans Küng even wrote a sustained argument for the greatness of Mozart in his book Traces of Transcendence.13 In other words, Mozart is great. No question here. But, if we simply listen to Mozart as if taking a magic pill, what do we accomplish? Remember what happened to the Israelites when they used the Ark of the Covenant as a magic charm to ward off the Philistines (1 Samuel 4-6)?14
Let’s hear from Bruce Lockerbie. He asks: “What is ‘the habitual vision of greatness’ you set before your students? Is it merely great books, great ideas, great inventions by great figures in history?” Here is his answer: “Sad to say, Alfred North Whitehead—towering intellect that he was—knew and offered nothing higher than the classic myths of Greek and Roman deities. At your Christian school, may there be a more sublime vision of the abundant life, a life made possible by obedience to the commandments to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbor. May God enable each of us to live what we teach so that when our students look at us, they see what they can become—and more!”15
How should we then live? I suggest we turn Whitehead’s phrase around. Instead of saying that moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness, let us say that the habitual vision of greatness is impossible apart from moral education, or more precisely, from obedience to Christ. Jeremy Taylor says: “They that will with profit make use of the proper instruments of virtue must so live as if they were always under the physician’s hand.”16 In other words, without the redemptive grace of faith, hope, and love, our vision of truth, goodness, and beauty will always be illusory.
The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes: “Catch only what you’ve thrown yourself, all is mere skill and little gain; but when you’re suddenly the catcher of a ball thrown by an eternal partner . . . catching then becomes a power—not yours, a world’s.”17 John Sailhamer explains: “When one understands theology in relation to the concept of divine revelation, it is the study of what God has revealed about himself or about the world. It is, in Rilke’s words, a catching of ‘a ball thrown by an eternal partner.’ As such it is a power not one’s own, but ‘a world’s.’”18
We must find our habitual vision of greatness through the eyes of biblical faith. The Psalmist says: “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints are unseen” (Psalm 77:19). It is by faith that we recognize the greatness of God in His creation, in His providence, and in His redemption.
The German Marxist philosopher Jürgen Habermas once characterized his own atheistic thinking as “religious unmusicality.” The context of his remark was his March 2004 dialogue in Munich with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Habermas even went on to warn “against the loss of the concept of sin” and mourned “the loss of resurrection hope.”19 What an amazing confession from an atheist!
Scripture’s vision of greatness is found in Isaiah 6—in that passage we see simultaneously God’s sovereign majesty and man’s utter sinfulness. Despondent over his blindness, John Milton caught sight of the seraphim of Isaiah 6 worshiping God and said: “God doth not need either man’s work or his own gifts. . . . They [the seraphim] also serve who only stand and wait.”20 Our own University Hymn reminds us: “Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, / Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; / Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, / Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!”21 It is the real presence of our Lord Jesus that enables us to have a habitual vision of greatness. The Apostle Peter tells us: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).
The French composer Olivier Messiaen said he wanted to produce “a music that touches all things without ceasing to touch God.”22 In all that we do let us never cease to touch God. When we listen to Mozart, our joy comes not from some traces of transcendence but from our Christian yearning, from what C. S. Lewis calls our Sehnsucht for heaven.23 In his famous essay “The Weight of Glory,” Lewis says: “The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.”24 How’s that for a habitual vision of greatness?
Conclusion
Dallas Willard, a seasoned teacher, offers this helpful advice: “If you are in a good field, you must work on the things that are really central and essential to that field. And you ought to believe that God will enable you to do work in that field that will be a benefit and challenge to everyone.” With holy boldness he then gives us his vision of greatness: “We want to get to the point where people scattered around the academic world are worried about what we are doing. They sit up at night and think about us. They get on the internet, and they chase our work down. I really challenge you to believe that about yourself, whatever your area of work is. Not because you are so good, but because God is so great.”25 I hope this will inspire us as we begin a new academic year.
In her celebrated article written after our move to Langhorne, Mae Stewart exhorts her students and colleagues with these good words: “God wants us to choose the best. We can approve and experience that which is excellent, but it will take self-examination and self-discipline.”26 Today, President Williams points us to the same vision. He says: “We are to trust God who directs our paths, and travel the course of life and ministry in wisdom and grace and service to God. These ideas are in the warp and woof of our Christian faith and biblical worldview. And this is why we keep these things before our students at PBU.”27