In the first essay, I suggested that music, in itself, does not and cannot express either truth or goodness. Music cannot say what is true or false about the world or about ourselves, and it cannot tell us what to do and what not to do. Although music is autonomous in these respects, and therefore amoral, I would not argue for a full-blown art for art's sake position. A distinction between two or more categories does not entail a separation. As the philosopher Jacques Maritain said, one distinguishes in order to unite.

What brings music together with truth and goodness is the fact that human beings are involved with all three. As human beings, we are faced with the necessity of making choices in regards to truth and goodness. The human being seems to be naturally constructed to seek the truth. Usually a person would like to know if there is an oak tree one step ahead before taking the next forward step. We also seem to be naturally constructed to seek what is right. We are constantly faced with choices as to what we are going to do next and the question as to which is better becomes inescapable. There is the freedom willfully to disregard the truth and willfully to choose what one believes is wrong. That is, we can walk right into the oak tree in front of us as an act of defiance if we wish. The point is, no matter what we do with them, questions of truth and goodness accompany us every step of the way through life, although decisions range from the trivial to the momentous.

Now the activity of music, either as composer, performer, listener, or all of the above, does not make demands in terms of truth and goodness. However, as long as human beings are making the music, then the questions of truth and goodness enter in. Playing the violin in a symphony orchestra is, in itself, a morally neutral activity. Poking the eye out of a talented violinist so as to get a more advanced position in the orchestra is far from morally neutral!

I will simply assert the value judgment that it is better for a human being to be whole rather than be scattered psychologically. I realize that all of us feel some lack of wholeness, but usually, when we become aware of this lack, we try to get ourselves put together as much as possible. However, some of us become split and either choose not to seek wholeness or lose the ability to do so. Thus, it is psychologically possible for a musician to give musically sensitive performances and yet be highly insensitive, or even downright malicious, in relating to other people. The same goes for composers. In some cases, we shrug our shoulders and decide that the personal life of the musician or composer is irrelevant to the art. If a composer kicks a child down the stairs right after writing a beautiful melody, the melody is just as beautiful but the composer is hardly being a beautiful person. The bad will might not be quite as irrelevant as is often thought, however. For all we know, a talented conductor of manifest bad will would have been an even greater and more sensitive conductor if he had been more personally committed to goodness. Since real life does not have instant replays, however, we cannot test this hypothesis by testing two versions of the same person. In any case, although a person can radically separate music making (or any art) from other human qualities such as moral choice and the seeking of truth, the deeper the split, the worse for the person and for everybody else. The closer they come together, the better for all concerned.

In relation to truth and goodness, music is like an autonomous country sharing a planet with two other autonomous countries. Each country has its own government but each country must have a foreign policy of some kind, whether it is to try and ignore the others, make war, or set up trade agreements. In this analogy, each country has resources the other countries need but do not have. The three countries, then, will only have what they need if they choose to cooperate and relate constructively to one another.

In drawing out this analogy a bit more, then, I would say that no one country can maintain purity through separation from the others. Likewise, music cannot be purely itself separate from other human qualities. The humans who make music inevitably create a context for their music and this context necessarily has qualities subject to moral judgment. A concert, for example, is not a morally neutral ground for the making of music although there is a tendency to create that illusion. Whether the musicians wear formal attire or sloppy dress may not be a moral issue. Matters such as the overpaying of some musicians and underpaying of others or making the concert a benefit for war victims are moral issues. No matter how badly some people might want music to be aloof from all non-musical concerns, the fact is that just about every human endeavor is accompanied by music. The music for a setting of the Mass may be the patterning of organic energy suggested in the first essay, but when the setting is sung at as part of a worship service, the context asserts the truth claims that God exists and that God became a man. The context also asserts the moral claim that since God exists, God should be worshiped. Likewise, a march for a brass band has, in itself, nothing to do with politics, but it can quite easily be used in a government's political rally. Leonard Bernstein's dramatic performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony to celebrate the tearing down of the Berlin wall is a morally fervent context for music making if there ever was one. Words, when they accompany music as a sung text cannot escape some involvement with truth and goodness, even if the claims are as weak as the suggestion that it is nice that there are roses and petunias in the world. Many tunes are easily recognizable through word-associations so that it is not possible to hear the tune "Rock of Ages" and not think of it as a hymn. The music for a song advocating hatred and violence may be good, effective music and, in itself, the music is morally neutral, but one can't hear such a song sung and ignore the moral questions of the words. As a result, some music is spoiled for some people on moral grounds because of such inextricable associations, as the Nazi context imposed on Wagner's music has spoiled Wagner for some people who have suffered from that regime.

However, the human context surrounding the making of music and its issues of Truth and Goodness must be distinguished from the patterned organic vitality of music in itself. I doubt that anyone would argue that patterns, in themselves, are morally neutral. Only if the patterns were made with representational items could that become a possibility. That could happen with wallpaper but not with music. That the expression of emotions, or organic energy, is morally neutral is more contestable. Many emotions expressed in music are considered by many to be uncomfortable and even devastating. Does that mean that the expression of some emotions, or forms of organic energy, are intrinsically immoral? I would argue that the answer is No. Does that mean that it is okay for a composer to portray a temper tantrum in music? Yes. One might argue that temper tantrums are a bad thing, at least most of the time. However, if a character in a play throws a temper tantrum generated by egotism and thwarted lust, one does not usually judge the playwright as being immoral for including the incident in the play. The temper tantrum and the character who throws it are evil, or at least highly imperfect, but that does not mean that no play should include the throwing of a temper tantrum. Temper tantrums happen in real life and a play reflects things that happen in real life. So does music, in its way. It expresses emotions that really occur in human experience, although it often articulates them in such a way as to increase awareness of their reality. If a piece of music is too distant from anything in a listener's emotional experience, that listener usually does not find the piece very compelling, even if it is well-crafted.

It is impossible, to identify anything portrayed in the music itself as evil. If a villain walks on the stage and kidnaps the heroine, evil has been portrayed. But does a sequence of grinding tone clusters blared out by a full orchestra depict evil? (This is not the same question as to whether or not one is willing to listen to an orchestral work featuring tone cluster harmony.) One might hear some groups of musical sounds as menacing or ominous, but basically, hearing anything in the music itself as portraying evil requires some connection with language and musical conventions connected with language. Film music, for example, often uses these conventions so as to use suitable music for the incidents in the movie.

The nonrepresentational character of musical expression allows for quite a wide latitude as to what is expressed. Since music cannot present propositional material, a thirty-minute work of bleak music does not amount to the proposition that life is totally, unmitigatedly bleak. There is a chance that the composer does believe that, but the music cannot say that. The music only expresses the experience of bleakness. The same is true of a work that bubbles over with joy. The music does not say that life is an ongoing celebration. It expresses the joy that can, at times, be experienced. There is much music that is highly contemplative, such as the works of Palestrina. For many composers and their listeners, such music facilitates contact with God or some ultimate reality of the universe. But again, the music does not enumerate the attributes of God or the structure of the cosmos. Not even the patterns of order in the music have this status in reality. A composer may believe that the order constructed in a composition reflects the order of the universe, but the music cannot say that the universe is so ordered. It can only portray its own imminent order. By convention, some music and some styles of music are considered "religious,"but the religion is not in the music in itself. The tune of the Passion Chorale from the Lutheran hymnals and the works of J.S. Bach stir Christians to a great devotion to the sufferings of Christ. But this tune began life in the taverns of Germany. Everything that is expressed in music, then, is contingent reality. It might be joyful or devastatingly sad or highly contemplative of believed-in eternal truths, but whatever is expressed in the music is contingent. Even when the music is overwhelming to the listener, it is never telling the whole story because music can never tell the whole story of reality.

The human context around the portrayal of evil in any work of art is of great importance. First there is the context furnished by the artist. It is not necessarily immoral to write a play in which acts of adultery are a prominent element in the plot. The playwright might be purposely trying to show how dysfunctional adulterers are as human beings in the hope that members of the audience who are inclined towards adultery will change their ways. The playwright might be primarily concerned with generating sympathy for weak human beings who get entangled in difficult situations. Tolstoy's celebrated novel Anna Karenina shows both of these concerns. The playwright could be primarily interested in manipulating the erotic desires of other people for the purpose of making a lot of money on the play. The audience will bring similar human issues to the play and react according to them. Even if the play is portraying adultery as a bad thing, it is possible for a member of the audience to enjoy being consumed by lust in the course of the performance. It is also possible, of course, for either the playwright or members of the audience to see the play only in terms of eloquent speeches and dramatic scenes with no moral content whatever, regardless of what the characters do and what happens to them. Such an amoral stance is, however, still a moral decision. The broader context provided by the society and culture is also of great importance. The portrayal of violence in a play or a television program is experienced very differently in a society where violence is happening all around compared to a relatively nonviolent society. It shows a narrow focus to blame violence in the media for all the violence in real life. It can easily work the other way round as well.

Since music never expresses Truth or Goodness, it seems that neither Truth nor Goodness would ever wish to cultivate music. Indeed, given the logocentricity deplored by some contemporary thinkers, Beauty is often considered the poor sister of the other two transcendental categories of Truth and Goodness. And yet, Truth and Goodness are constantly coming to woo Beauty, and even to woo music, that most amoral of the arts. The amorality of music causes Truth and Goodness to approach cautiously, however. Beauty has her own agenda and she can not be trusted.

So why do Truth and Goodness keep coming back to Beauty and even to music? It has to do with the patterns of organic energy in music. Truth and Goodness can construct some patterns and express some organic energy, but they compete very badly with all the arts and especially with music. It is difficult to assert that God created and redeemed the world and not sing about it. A party feels a lot more like a party if there is a Cabaret pianist in the crowd. Just as singing tended to energize the workers who laid down the tracks of the railroad, music tends to energize just about every human activity. The cultivation of Truth and Goodness are fundamental human activities, but both tend to become dry and lifeless without the vitality of artistic expression. When that happens, they fail to fulfill their missions. It is the vitality of the patterns of organic energy in the arts that motivate people to care about what is true and what is good. Beauty, on the other hand, appears to be the aloof maiden who rejects all suitors. Music in particular has her own world of vital patterns which have no need of anything Truth and Goodness have to offer. That is true, but no human being can be aloof from Truth and Goodness in this way, as has already been demonstrated.

Beauty is the poor sister among the transcendentals and her impudent attitude toward her more richly rewarded sisters does not help her rise above the poverty level. If music is not the most impudent of the Arts, it isn't for lack of trying. Unrestrained by any other consideration, music will penetrate into the guts of any human she can get a hold of. There is nothing that raises Beauty's hackles more than any perceived presumption on the part of Truth and Goodness to run the world without her or to make her toe their lines on their own terms. People who feel responsible for defining Truth and Goodness for everybody else as well as themselves are usually the quickest to feel uncomfortable with the Arts and with music in particular. It is no accident that totalitarian regimes in this century have tried to keep a tight lid on the arts. Usually they have given music a most narrow scope in which to operate. Music, whose emotional expression offers the least hint that something might be wrong somewhere is most threatening to anybody who has set up a supposedly perfect society. Control is not necessarily an evil thing. We all have to learn some self-control. A parent has to control the behavior of a three-year-old child before its behavior becomes hopelessly wild. Some people need the persuasion of an armed delegate of the social order before they will be persuaded to respect the safety of others. But it is easy to get too much of a good thing. We easily get carried away with controlling behavior because it makes us feel safe although that safety is an illusion. When this happens to us, Beauty's status as one of the three transcendentals of classical Western thought becomes quite inconvenient. A rebellious sister can be quite valuable if Truth and Goodness seek to be too controlling. If the three stay locked in a family fight that nobody can win, then there is room for God to be among them.

I will give an example of the interrelationship between Music and the demands of Truth and Goodness through a bit of my own experience. The St. Matthew Passion of J.S. Bach is a work I have known most of my life. As a boy chorister, I sang the chorale line of the opening chorus with the Detroit Symphony. My love and appreciation of this powerful expression of the sufferings of Christ continue to deepen over the years. During my college years, I was quite agnostic, although quite committed to wrestling with religious ideas. I certainly did not have faith in Christ at the time, although I had a lot of admiration for him, which is not the same thing. One Good Friday I listened to the St. Matthew Passion and was even more deeply moved by the music and the narrative than usual. I remember taking quite a long walk to soak in that experience. As I walked, I was haunted by the firm and deep conviction that the death of the Savior portrayed in the Passion revealed a Reality deep at the center of the Cosmos. This was not a firm belief in Jesus as embodied by the biblical outcry: "Jesus is Lord!" It was a conviction that Sacrifice, radical self-giving to the point of death, was at the heart of the universe. It was a few years later that, in a way that is hard to explain, I experienced the Gift of Faith that convinced me that Jesus is Lord. I was not listening to Bach at the time. Since then, listening to Bach's Passion has been a source of strength for sustaining and deepening the faith that I experienced as a gift from God.

I see my experience as illustrating the ability of powerful music to help bring one to the threshold of a decision concerning Truth and Goodness. The package that is the St. Matthew Passion is not pure music, of course. The entire text of the Passion narrative in St. Matthew's Gospel is sung in the course of the work. Fine poetic responses for devotional purposes are also in the text. (Many of the texts Bach set to music were terrible, but for this work, he hounded his librettist until he got it right.) So the power of this work owes a lot to the power of Matthew's Gospel and the story that it tells. Matthew's Gospel, for that matter, can also is an artistic work. However, the combined art of Bach, the Gospel, and the librettist were not enough to make a Christian of me. The commitment to the Truth of the Gospel came not from the music, or even from Matthew's writing. It came from a growing willingness before God on my part and the Work of God. Perhaps the conversion could have happened even if neither the St. Matthew Passion nor a comparable work had ever been written. Surely that is so, for God can do anything. But surely Heaven would be the poorer without the music of Bach and so many other makers of music.