The Song that Sustains Creation

"All the earth worships You and sings praises to You"

Tolkien begins his Silmarillion, a history of Middle Earth, with a creation story. In it, Iluvatar (God), creates the world through his singing, and he enlists his heavenly beings, the Ainur, to help him shape that world with music. It is a beautiful chapter, and a beautiful beginning to the rich world of Middle Earth. Likewise, in The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis has Aslan sing Narnia into being as well. Both of these men were inspired by the medieval concept of the Music of the Spheres, the idea that the whole universe, planets, sun, stars, and moon, are by their very motions and movements making music in the heavens. After the Renaissance this idea fell out of popularity, but perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye.

In his article titled The Song That Sustains Creation, physicist Joel Strand writes “Of all the metaphors for God and His works, my favorite is the image of God’s voice issuing forth and taking shape in creation.” He describes how his understanding of how God shapes the world through his voice was deepened by reading Saint Augustine:

Augustine had an extended meditation on the meaning of God’s creative word that resonated with me. He declared that God’s word is not transitory, spoken once only to fade like an echo. Instead, God’s word is eternally spoken and sustains creation continually. In Augustine’s words, “Your word is spoken eternally, and by it all things are uttered eternally…No element of your word yields place or succeeds to something else, since it is truly immortal and eternal. And so by the word coeternal with yourself, you say all that you say in simultaneity and eternity.” This means that at the beginning of Genesis, God did not say the word “light” as a mere announcement, like flipping a switch to turn on the sun, which then keeps burning on its own. Rather, God is saying “light” continuously, and should He ever stop saying that illuminating word, then we would be left in darkness. We exist moment by moment only because God is speaking us into being. (Hebrews 1:3) I found that this idea of ‘eternal words’ made even more sense when I replaced ‘word’ with ‘song.’ A note being sustained for a long time is a familiar concept, and it is easier for me to imagine a word being sung forever instead of being spoken.

And this is not just a metaphor. Strand describes how as his knowledge in the world of physics grows, he has come to see this underlying, sustaining song in the very movement of the sub-atomic particles that make up everything in the world. Waves and vibrations are present everywhere, from the movement of the planets in the sky to the movement of the electrons in our own bodies.

“Everything really is made up of waves, and if those waves ceased to oscillate, if all the quantum mechanical motion were to cease, then so would the existence of those atoms. It is truly as if God is singing a song composed of a nearly infinite number of notes, with each note making up a subatomic particle and every object representing a chord of a trillion trillion notes. As Jesus said, even the stones shall cry out (Luke 19:40). Just imagine the colossal fanfare when the universe began in Genesis 1:3. Picture a radiance so intense that protons could not even form until it dimmed–that is what holiness looks like!”

Strand goes on to describe how his studies in science have helped him to be more appreciative of God and His creation, how Christianity and science are far from being at odds with one another, and how amazing it is that the song of creation is one that we also get to participate in. “There is something sublime about being a part of a talented chorus or orchestra and losing oneself in the rich harmonies, but that is just a weak earthly approximation of the music in heaven. I look forward to the experience of joining the choir of angels and every living creature around the throne, worshiping God without any of the discordant notes of sin.”

You can read the whole of the article here.