Abstract
To admit the clarity, indeed simplicity, of the central argument of this fine book – that we live in a ‘reductionist world’ that is at odds with the ‘counterpressures’ felt in an ‘uncontainable’ God as expressed in theology and the arts, and above all in music – is not to deny the subtlety and intelligence of its arguments. Behind it, as Begbie admits at the outset, one cannot but be aware of the theological presence of Rowan Williams, although the variety of styles of writing in the different chapters is Begbie’s own.
There is, indeed, something symphonic in the contrasts between the different chapters – and that is both a strength and a weakness. The ‘scriptural interruptions’ from the Fourth Gospel (and finally from Caravaggio) provide lively interludes in a broadly three-part whole. Part 1 describes well and acutely not only the reductive pressures in our secular world and their drive to singularity and ‘containment’, but also the snares and delusions of various forms of ontological reductionism. To avoid dangers we must understand their nature. But my hesitations begin in the responsive ‘theological’ chapters, 7 and 8. The impulse to express theologically the ‘uncontainable’ nature of the triune God becomes oddly laboured after a promising start with the encounter between God and Moses on Mount Horeb (Exodus 3), the difficulties beginning with references to Thomas F. Torrance on page 139. At the heart of this God-talk lies an ontology in the form of a seemingly necessary security that cannot shake off a hint of that very reductionism that has been established as the problem.
But this spills over into what is, for me, the best part of the book: the third section and its discussions of the uncontainable nature of the arts in poetry, paintings and above all music. Begbie is an accomplished musician and thoroughly understands the genius of J. S. Bach, and his account of the Goldberg Variations in particular is luminous and clear. But are the arts, in the end, actually just the handmaidens of the theology of the Church? Or are they themselves profoundly theological in their nature and resistance to all reductive tendencies? And, if so, what is the nature of the relationship between the resonances of music, painting and poetry to theology itself and its task of expressing (or containing?) the faith? As we move in the final pages of the book to the matter of worship, and Augustine’s writing on the jubilation of Psalm 33, are we perhaps progressing to what lies at the heart of the whole argument – a liturgical moment that is also deeply eschatological and towards which all art and all theology finally and mysteriously move?
Begbie has given us a book that is full of riches, prompting thought and questions but always engaging in a discussion that is of profound importance for our culture and society.