Beethoven and religion

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Tegan:

Opus 131, why do you say he didn't worship a Christian god? I'm just curious; I'm not sure I have ever heard that before.

I expressed that one wrongly (damn english), i'm sorry.

What i was trying to say is that he wasn't limited to christianity, and that he thought God encompassed all creation and all nature and that all religion worshipped the same entity.

Another point, he wasn't very open with his relation with God and it was entierly personal (unlike any active worshipper).

In a way, he was no worshipper at all, he had a personal emphaty.

This is i why, i beleive, the Missa expresses no other sentiment than his musicality...

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Chris:
It is rather odd to say a person believes in "God, but not the Christian God." God is God. There is no other God. People may have vastly different views of God (the Christians vs. the Muslims, etc.), but it's basically the same - an infinite being that is the cause of everything else.

Not according to the Bible, nor the accepted Christian disposition of the time, which is why Beethoven personal idealogy was peculiar.

Obvioudly, his conception of God was more broad then that of a Christian, i really couln't picture him kneeling down and pray to the Lord, something Haydn did on a daily bases for one.

Originally posted by Chris:

To be really different from this, you'd have to believe in no God or many gods or some kind of "God is everything but nothing" idea. (There are plently of philosophies that hold one of these views, of course.)

Or you can just belive all religions are false except your own...


[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 30, 2004).]

[Chris]

Not according to the Bible, nor the accepted Christian disposition of the time, which is why Beethoven personal idealogy was peculiar.

No, that is and has always been the "definition" of God (insofar far as a definition is possible). Anything more specific is simply identifying the motives or characteristics of that God (or in Beethoven's case, perhaps NOT identifying them).

Originally posted by Opus131:
Or you can just belive all religions are false except your own...

OK...that really has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited January 30, 2004).]

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Chris:
No, that is and has always been the "definition" of God

Originally posted by Chris:
OK...that really has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

Commandment no.1 :

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."



[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 31, 2004).]

[Chris]

That commandment does not characterize God in any way. It doesn't even define God in any way. All it does it communicate God's intent that nothing be placed above him. If it says anything on the matter, it simply implies that there is a God.

[Pastorali]

1814, Beethoven wrote in his diary book:

"God is immaterial, therefore it goes over each term; since he is invisible, then he cannot have a shape. But from what we become more aware of by his works, we can close that he is eternally, all-powerfully, all-knowing and pervasive. Which he is free from all desire and lust that the powerful one is he alone. No larger one is than he..

(Sorry, if alienated... )

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by Opus131:
Mmmh, no, there's no answer there.

Beethoven did beleive in God, but not in the christian God.

Even for the times, his conception of God was more broad, encompassing all religions as under the same paragrim (he beleived they were all different forms to worship the same divinity).

When he wanted to feel God, he didn't go to a church, he went about the green fields of Bonn or Vienna, celebrating his spirituality throught nature.

If i remember correctly, he even had a interest in foreign religions, even buddism.

Obviously, he was an inquiring mind and looked constantly for the truth and repuded accepted beleif, quite extraordinary for man born in the 18th century...

Beethoven did beleive in a Christain God, it
is obvious when in fact he excepted the last rites of the Catholic Church while, still in charge of his faculties, on his death bed.
One need not belong to a church to beleive in a "Christain God".

As to Beethoven's submitting to and receiving
the last rites. On the day of her brother-in-law's death,Frau van Beethoven said that after receiving the viaticum he (LvB) said to the priest,"I thank you ghostly sir! You have brought me comfort!" (Thayer:1049)

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by Opus131:
Mmmh, no, there's no answer there.

Beethoven did beleive in God, but not in the christian God.

Even for the times, his conception of God was more broad, encompassing all religions as under the same paragrim (he beleived they were all different forms to worship the same divinity).

When he wanted to feel God, he didn't go to a church, he went about the green fields of Bonn or Vienna, celebrating his spirituality throught nature.

If i remember correctly, he even had a interest in foreign religions, even buddism.

Obviously, he was an inquiring mind and looked constantly for the truth and repuded accepted beleif, quite extraordinary for man born in the 18th century...

Beethoven did beleive in a Christain God, it
is obvious when in fact he excepted the last rites of the Catholic Church while, still in charge of his faculties, on his death bed.
One need not belong to a church to beleive in a "Christain God".

As to Beethoven's submitting to and receiving
the last rites. On the day of her brother-in-law's death,Frau van Beethoven said that after receiving the viaticum he (LvB) said to the priest,"I thank you ghostly sir! You have brought me comfort!" (Thayer:1049)

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Chris:
That commandment does not characterize God in any way.

It characterize the believes of Christianity, which is what we are disscussing here, or is it ?!?

Originally posted by Chris:

All it does it communicate God's intent that nothing be placed above him.

It communicates that no other God be be placed above that of christianity, that's what it says...

Originally posted by Chris:

If it says anything on the matter, it simply implies that there is a God.

I'm having an hard time following your logical patterns here.

First of all, how does it imply there is a God ?!? It only implies christians are very limited in their beleives, if anything.

Second of all, what does that have to do with the discussion !?


[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 31, 2004).]

[Opus131]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
Beethoven did beleive in a Christain God, it
is obvious when in fact he excepted the last rites of the Catholic Church while, still in charge of his faculties, on his death bed.
One need not belong to a church to beleive in a "Christain God".

As to Beethoven's submitting to and receiving
the last rites. On the day of her brother-in-law's death,Frau van Beethoven said that after receiving the viaticum he (LvB) said to the priest,"I thank you ghostly sir! You have brought me comfort!" (Thayer:1049)

I never said he stopped being a Christian.

Christianity does not inherently implies foundamentalist bigodry and not anybody who doesn't abide to such bigodry stops being a christian, all of a sudden.

I've met many christians who think the bible is mostly a work of fiction, so there..

Of course, this has nothing to do with the topic.

Did Beethoven expressed worship devotion in his Mass ?!? No he didn't, for the reasons that he wasn't that type of personality.

The Mass was the work of a musician, not that of religious fervor...

[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 31, 2004).]

[spaceray]

Don't get away from the question here,did Beethoven believe in God?This is not a discussion of whether there is a God.
That question would belong on another forum.

If Beethoven had his doubts he didn't express them,perhaps he would feel that this is a question too personal to ask.

I'm not too sure how I would respond to it myself.

[Chris]

It communicates that no other God be be placed above that of christianity, that's what it says...

Since that commandment existed many centuries before Christianity did, I doubt it.

First of all, how does it imply there is a God ?!? It only implies christians are very limited in their beleives, if anything.

Actually, it not only implies the existence of God by virtue of the fact that it exists, it explictily states it: "I am the Lord thy God."

Second of all, what does that have to do with the discussion!?

It has everything to do with the discussion, because your false representation or understanding of Christian doctrine prevents you from understanding Beethoven's true standing on the matter.

I am quite sure that no priest of his time would suggest that Beethoven was guilty of a mortal violation of the First Commandment.

The point here is that what Beethoven refers to as God is the very same thing that Christians (and Jews and Muslims and philosophers) refer to as God - an infinite being that is the cause of the all other things. Everything else is just deatails on God's motives, desires, and the like, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the original question.

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited January 31, 2004).]

[Tegan]

Are many people on this forum Catholic?

[Opus131]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Don't get away from the question here,did Beethoven believe in God?

That, i'm afraid, was never MY queston.



[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 31, 2004).]

[Opus131]

Originally posted by Chris:
Since that commandment existed many centuries before Christianity did, I doubt it.

Since christians beleive in the same God the commandment is speakin of, i beleive it's completely irrilevant WHEN it was first coined.

It says what it says, surely you are not implying Christianity disreguarded the first commandment for virtue of being so old ?!?

Originally posted by Chris:
Actually, it not only implies the existence of God by virtue of the fact that it exists, it explictily states it: "I am the Lord thy God."

What does ?!?

Originally posted by Chris:

It has everything to do with the discussion, because your false representation or understanding of Christian doctrine prevents you from understanding Beethoven's true standing on the matter.

I analize Beethoven's true standing on the matter on who he was, and a PERSONAL conception of things he propably had about life and his own religious feelings.

In times where everybody was thought to be a Christian, Beethoven merely followed the current cultural trend.

He was a christian, but does listening to the Great Mass rapresents proof of his devotion ?!?

I say it doesn't, and that's what i'm contesting here, again, because of who he was.

I never did say he never beleived in God or that he was not a religious individuals, only that his personal conception of God doesn't express itself with sermons or scriptures, he didn't follow his heart that way.

Saying that the Mass is proof of his religious feelings (by mere force of it's aestetics) it's missinterpretating Beethoven inner self and the way he looked at life.

You don't praise God by abiding to arbitrary aestetical values, it's something that runs deep inside and i think that Beethoven expressed that feeling in ALL his music, that, and hundreds of other sensations as well.

It's ridicolous to think the Mass rapresents a testament of his devotion just because it 'sounds' religious, the current connotations of what sounds religious it's a completely arbitrary conception.

If he wanted to 'praise' God that way, he would have written a lot more than a couple of Masses, he would took communtion, he would have followed sermons, you name it.

But he didn't, because his relation was purely presonal.

Everytime he walked by a church, he didn't rush in to 'praise' God, he propably talked to God within himself...

[This message has been edited by Opus131 (edited January 31, 2004).]