“There is always a danger of intense love destroying what I might call the ‘polyphony’ of life … God requires that we should love him eternally with our whole hearts, yet not so as to compromise or diminish our earthly affections, but as a kind of cantus firmus [pre-existing tune] to which the other melodies of life provide a counterpoint. Earthly affection is one of these counterpoints or themes … Even the Bible can find room for the Song of Songs, and one could hardly have a more passionate and sensual love … Where the ground bass is firm and clear, there is nothing to stop the counterpoint from being developed to the utmost of its limits. Both ground bass and counterpoint are ‘without confusion and yet distinct’.”
“In the words of the Chalcedon formula, like Christ in his divine and human natures. … Perhaps … polyphony in music is a musical reflection of this Christological truth, and … therefore an essential element in the Christian life … Only a polyphony of this kind can give life a wholeness, and at the same time assure us that nothing [calamitous] can go wrong so long as the cantus firmus is kept going… Perhaps … the separation which lies ahead will be easier for you to bear [with this in mind].”
Bonhoeffer, a concert level pianist, extends the musical analogy to Christ’s two natures, divine and human, which join without confusing or destroying divine and human love. The intimacy of the Incarnation links divine and human life and love through the membrane of Christ’s manhood. The natural sphere of human love is not annihilated by heavenly, ultimate, “supernatural” divine love, but nature is preserved and perfected by grace. As Bonhoeffer’s mentor Karl Barth said, “God doesn’t have to make humanity small to make himself big”. God is not a distant divinity or generic “God-ness”, nor is humanity an abstract rationality, but both are found in the particular divine human person of Jesus Christ, the very definition of divine and natural life and love.
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