The early twenty-first century has seen great interest in the relationship between human beings and the other animals with which humans share the planet. While recent theological arguments for a kinship model of relationship have received increasing attention,Footnote 1 the distinctiveness of the human experience continues to be a topic of discussion. In both scientific and theological circles, the role of language in human experience is a focal point in the examination of the relationship between humans and other animals. While humans share genetic similarities with other animals, the capacity for language, itself related to self-consciousness, has long been seen as a dividing line between humans and other animals. For Christians, the Christological link with the logos of God has only served to enhance this distinction; if language is a point of connection between humanity and God, it has also been regarded as that which makes us “other” than an animal. In the pages that follow, I will argue that sung language, particularly as it is experienced in liturgical celebration, offers a key to a deeper understanding of the theological kinship between humans and other animals. In presenting this argument, I will first draw on the work of sacramental theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet to consider language in the context of identity-constructing relationships—including those mediated by the sacraments. I will then turn briefly to the work of anthropologists and linguists who suggest that the relational origins of human language are to be found in cadenced sequences that resemble the “calls” of some other animals. Finally, I will turn to the liturgical context to suggest that the choices surrounding what and when to sing have the potential to affect Christian understanding and experience of kinship with the rest of creation.
Language, Communication, and Human Identity: “Us or Them?”
There is widespread, although perhaps eroding,Footnote 2 agreement among theologians and social scientists that language is both intrinsic to what it means to be human and a marker of distinction between humans and other animals. Such a marker of division can be helpful in specifying human responsibility within the world, yet it has also created a potentially dangerous division between animals that are known to use language (humans) and the majority of other animals that (seemingly) do not. This section will first consider the significance and distinctiveness of language as understood by both theologians and scientists. It will then turn to the work of Louis-Marie Chauvet, a sacramental theologian whose work has been informed by the social sciences, to consider the ways that language functions theologically in Christian identity formation. It will conclude by suggesting that the term “communication” offers a more precise description than “language” for that which mediates the salvific relationship between God and humanity.
Despite the differences in their approaches, theologians who are concerned about revelation and sacraments, and anthropologists who are interested in the characteristics that make us human, each take a strong interest in the topic of human language. Theologians are interested in language as the medium of communication between God and humanity in Scripture and tradition, as well as in its role as an essential element of ritual celebration. Anthropologists concern themselves with the ways that language and identity develop as well as with the origins of human language in relationship to symbols, consciousness, and music. In these parallel pursuits, the two groups define language somewhat differently even as they pursue distinct, yet related, questions.
From the perspective of anthropology, paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Steven Mithen offers a basic definition of language as “a communication system consisting of a lexicon—a collection of words with agreed meanings—and a grammar—a set of rules for how words are combined to form utterances.” In a wry understatement, he adds: “But even this definition is contentious.”Footnote 3 Mithen wishes to distinguish fully functional modern languages, complete with grammatical structures, from earlier forms of human communication that lacked grammar and a set lexicon. In a similar vein, evolutionary biologist William Tecumseh Fitch clearly differentiates between “language,” which is generally associated with humans, and “communication,” which can be applied to other species more broadly. Many animals communicate, but only humans, as far as we can tell, have language as Fitch defines it.Footnote 4 As Fitch puts it, “Language represents and communicates meaning in a different, and much more flexible and detailed, way than … other systems,”Footnote 5 such as facial gestures (smiles, frowns) and discrete gestures (such as a “thumbs-up,” indicating approval). Distinguishing between signed languagesFootnote 6 and gestures, Fitch emphasizes the nearly boundless flexibility and creativity of spoken and signed human language. When compared with the more restrictive communicative potential of human facial expressions and signals, or the similar capacity in other animals to signal emotion or danger through somewhat limited gestures such as snarling or chest thumping, human language, according to Fitch, offers a degree of flexibility and nuance that does not appear in other systems.
On the theological side of the table, the Catholic sacramental tradition has defined language much more broadly. In the twentieth-century context, instrumentalist understandings of language as primarily a conduit for the exchange of information have been countered with arguments that language should be understood as predecessor and context for humanity. Karl Rahner, for example, speaks of the individual “in and with the language in which he lives, from which he does not escape, and whose verbal associations, perspectives and selective a prioris he appropriates even when he protests against them and when he is himself involved in the ever-ongoing history of language.”Footnote 7 Rahner sees language as occupying a particular place in the human experience, since it is through language that we know and participate in the world:
One has to allow language to have its say because one has to use it to speak and use it to protest against it.…Language itself is a part of the world, and at the same time it is the whole of it as known. When language speaks of anything it also expresses itself, itself as a whole and in relation to its ground, which is distant but present in its distance.Footnote 8
For Rahner, language is less a system that is used by humans to achieve specific goals, and more a preexisting system that is closely related to the outpouring of the logos in creation. For Rahner, humans exist in the context of language because God has first spoken to humanity, and humans are created with the capacity to respond to God's self-communication.Footnote 9 Although Rahner refers frequently to the “word” of God, he is not indicating any particular item in the lexicon of any human language; rather, he is referring to the offer of God's very self through the divine self-communication.Footnote 10
Theological approaches that consider the ways that language functions in human and ritual relationships likewise rely on definitions that are broader than those proposed by anthropologists. David Power, for example, has argued that language is “not restricted to the verbal, but refers to all human media of encounter and exchange, bodily and ritual, as well as verbal.”Footnote 11 Similarly, Nathan Mitchell has described language as “that whole complex, interactive system of communication, verbal and nonverbal, by which we become available to one another in both our embodied flesh and our interiority.”Footnote 12 Both Power and Mitchell focus on the possibility of encounter that language makes available to human beings. The inclusive nature of their descriptions highlights the reality that encounter cannot be reduced to written, spoken, or even signed words, but must also account for other embodied aspects of communication. Both definitions extend far beyond the more specific definitions offered by Mithen and Fitch. Power's definition clearly includes the facial and bodily gestures explicitly ruled out by Fitch. Mitchell defines language in terms of communication, thus combining the categories that anthropologists seek to separate.
Louis-Marie Chauvet's work on language and the symbolic order walks the fine line between attending to the possibilities that language use opens to humans in terms of ritual behavior and the more fundamental possibility of encounter that falls in the broader realm of communication. He argues that this attention to encounter has been lost “throughout the whole tradition of metaphysics, [in which] language has ceased to be what it was at the dawn of pre-Socratic thinking: the meeting place where being and humankind mutually stepped forward toward one another.”Footnote 13 Here the linguistic emphasis is squarely on the possibility of encounter, and, perhaps even more fundamentally, the development of identity. “The first function of language is not to designate an object or to transmit information—which all language also does—but first to assign a place to the subject in its relation to others.”Footnote 14 Thus for Chauvet, language has to do with the realization and construction of one's identity in relationship to all that precedes the individual (God, culture, the created world). When individuals find their places in relationship to others in their world, they find themselves able to communicate in the “meeting place” that exists in the difference between beings.
Chauvet is clear that the flexible systems that humans know as language play a critical role in the systems of ritual and symbol that allow human beings to relate to God through the sacraments.Footnote 15 He is also aware, however, that human language specifically is not the single most important element of an individual's relationship with God. While nuance and flexibility may be required for human beings who seek to discourse about God, Chauvet points out that the Holy Spirit, for example, is “beyond all language the other side of the letter, the breath that animates the body.”Footnote 16 He asks: “What can this Spirit whisper to us concerning God, this Spirit who ‘has every name’ and thus is ‘the only one who cannot be named,’ if not as Gregory of Nazianzus lyrically expresses it, a calling forth within us of a ‘hymn of silence,’ an inarticulate breath, a ‘sigh too deep for words’ (Rom 8:26), a discourse which breaks down into the pure ‘cries’ directed toward the Father (Rom 8:15, Gal 4:6)?”Footnote 17 This apophatic approach highlights the degree to which Chauvet's sacramental system, while intricately entwined with the ways that language and symbol function in human identity formation and ritual behavior, also makes space for the fundamentals of communication as well as language. The “cries” directed toward God do not require nuanced expression of meaning but suffice to articulate and support the relationship that exists between God and humanity. In the prelinguistic sighs and cries, the body is recognized as the place of encounter between God and humanity. It is also the place of encounter between human beings, and by extension, human animals and nonhuman animals.
These experiences of encounter are foundational for identity development. For Chauvet, the development of a Christian identity structured around the hearing of Scripture, celebration of the sacraments, and practice of ethicsFootnote 18 also requires an authentic and clear-sighted understanding of one's place and responsibility in the world. The context for this understanding is a recognition of creation, including other animals, as graced.Footnote 19 As Chauvet puts it, sacraments “reveal to us the ‘sacramentality’ of the world as creation. In virtue of its profane nature, therefore not sacralized, this world contains a prohibition against profanation. The most elementary things—water, bread, wine…—demand ‘respect.’”Footnote 20 These elements are not sacred because they are used in the sacraments; rather, they can be used in the sacraments because, as part of creation, they are already graced. If the water, bread, and wine are already worthy of respect, then by extension so are all human beings, along with the other animals with which humans share the planet.
The Christian's responsibility is thus to receive the world as a gift that can never be fully possessed and in return to participate in God's ongoing creation of the world—to create “a ‘house’ open to brothers and sisters where all can find their places.”Footnote 21 This sacramental worldview culminates in the understanding that “humankind is commissioned to offer God this return-gift throughout history by ordering this world in such a way that it cor-responds to its primordial divine plan.”Footnote 22 The image of the world as a home for all creation is one that has ethical implications not only for suffering humans, but also for other animals that do not undertake theological discourse, but that do sigh and cry out for help when they are suffering. Chauvet points out that Christ is not only the one who took on human flesh in the Incarnation but is also the one “who takes flesh in elements representing by metonymy creation and human history.”Footnote 23 The return-gift offered to God is thus grounded in the hospitable recognition that everything that has been received is a gift that must be held lightly and broken open, “just like one opens the dense wholeness of a loaf of bread in order to share it.”Footnote 24 If humans have received the world as a gift, one understanding of the return-gift could be a world that is ordered in accordance with Genesis’ vision for a world in which all living beings are regarded as “good” and are able to find a safe and stable place. Such a reordering is based on distinctions rooted not in language, but rather in commonalities that lead to respect for various forms of communication. Given the emphasis that sacramental theologians place on language understood broadly in terms of communication, this could include a theological acknowledgment of the potential that other animals have to communicate in ways that go beyond mere information transfer and extend to the establishment of relationships that are grounded in group communication patterns.
Both theologians and anthropologists are interested in the role that language plays in making us human. As theologians consider language in terms of both the divine-human relationship and the obligations that humans have to contribute to a world that must be a “home” for all, it can be helpful to consider some applications of the broader category of communication. Such a category shift avoids emphasis on information transfer and more accurately reflects the relational and identity-forming encounters that can be facilitated by sighs and cries as well as by words and rituals. To better understand this category, I turn now to look more closely at the communication patterns of one other animal species as well as at the possible origins of the human system of linguistic communication.
A World of Singers
To consider the foundational significance of communication, rather than fully evolved human language for sacramental and liturgical encounter, an evolutionary perspective can be helpful. This approach enables theologians to appreciate better the ways in which human language may have developed in relationship to the communication systems of other animals. Such an approach has the potential to deepen our understanding of what it means to be human while also emphasizing the close relationship between humans and other animals. Although the evolution of human language is both a hotly debated topic and one increasingly in flux among paleolinguists and evolutionary biologists, two points emerge as particularly helpful for sacramental understanding. First, it is necessary to pause to appreciate the complex communication patterns that exist among other animals. In order to do this, I will offer a brief overview of the relational communication patterns of the Hylobatidae family (otherwise known as gibbons). These evolutionary cousins of human beings do not offer a stepping stone along the way to human language, but rather have a system of communication that has evolved in parallel with human language. Second, I will consider one theory about the evolutionary origins of human language among our direct ancestors. This theory highlights the relational aspects of human communication and thus offers a foundation for a primordial understanding of sacraments as experiences of encounter.
In order to understand better the human place in the context of the graced world, it must be acknowledged that many nonhuman animals have highly developed systems of communication that allow them to flourish in their natural environments. Some of these systems rely on gestures, or even dances; others on scent markings; and still others on various forms of vocalization. Such systems need not meet the criteria associated with “language” in order to be effective. Among these various systems of communication, that found among gibbons is interesting both in terms of the relatively close evolutionary relationship between humans and gibbons and for its relational emphasis.
The last common ancestor of gibbons and modern humans is thought to have existed about twenty to fifteen million years ago.Footnote 25 By contrast, the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is thought to have existed about five million years ago. Modern humans ourselves date to only 200,000 years ago. Australopithecines, the genus from which our genus Homo evolved, lived approximately three million years ago. Fifteen to twenty million years of evolution in each species have moved both humans and gibbons well away from our last common ancestor. Thus, it must be noted that gibbons themselves are not our evolutionary ancestors, but something more like cousins in a family tree.
The vocal communication patterns of gibbons are distinctive among most primates. Like many primates, gibbons have a complex social system. They generally are known to live in small family groups of two parents and one to three juvenile offspring. As many animals (including humans) do, gibbons sometimes vocalize to convey information and to warn one another of impending danger. These types of vocalization also alert potential intruders that a particular territory has already been claimed. Gibbons are unusual among primates, however, in that they also vocalize for reasons that seem to have little to do with information transfer or warning; longtime mated pairs of gibbons engage in twenty- to thirty-minute daily morning “duets”Footnote 26 in which they alternate vocalizations with one another and sometimes incorporate practiced movements that are the same each time.Footnote 27
These gibbon duets are commonly referred to as “songs,” and appear to evoke effects that are comparable to at least some of the effects of human singing (to be discussed below). Relying on a classic definition from W. H. Thorpe,Footnote 28 primatologist Thomas Geissmann defines “song” as “‘a series of notes, generally of more than one type, uttered in succession and so related as to form a recognizable sequence or pattern in time.’”Footnote 29 While following a general gender-based pattern, each mated gibbon pair eventually produces a unique duetFootnote 30 that they learn together and practice. Such duets take place whether or not any potential threat is present.Footnote 31 The duets cannot, therefore, be explained as elaborate alarm calls that, in some animals occur as an involuntary response to danger;Footnote 32 however, it is likely that the vocalizations serve some sort of evolutionary purpose.Footnote 33 In this case, the purpose may be more relational and emotional than informational.Footnote 34 As Geissmann and Mathias Orgeldinger point out, there is a correlation between gibbon pairs that spend the most time duetting and pairs that demonstrate the other behaviors associated with a strong pair bond; siamang gibbons who duet together also groom each other, stay close to each other, and synchronize their other activities.Footnote 35 Geissmann and Orgeldinger suggest that the duetting could thus strengthen the pair bond and contribute to long-term sexual monogamy in part because individual gibbons are reluctant to have to start all over with a new duet partner.Footnote 36
Although we cannot understand the thought processes or emotional life of the siamang, observation indicates that their communication system includes a form of vocalization that is not reducible to information exchange. Without delving too deeply into theory of mind or potential motivation, it seems clear that at some level the emotional bond between partners in gibbon pairs is fostered in part through the practice of daily vocalizations and accompanying movements; this shared experience of vocalization and movement is fundamental to their relationship. Such an example found among nonhuman animals highlights the reality of the emotional lives of animals and the significance of nonlinguistic vocal communication for long-term relationships. Parallels to this can be found in hypotheses concerning ancient hominid communication systems as well as in human experience today.
While the Hylobatidae form of communication cannot be directly compared to fully developed human language as we know it today, attention to the complex and communicative “calls” that comprise the gibbon duets can help to shed light on one possible theory of hominid language development. This form of communication, which can be seen as a precursor of fully developed human language, is described by some scholars as a “proto-language.”Footnote 37 According to the protolanguage theory, at an early stage of hominid evolutionary development, individuals did not yet have the brain capacity to make flexible use of a system that we now know as language.Footnote 38 They did, however, likely communicate with one another through a series of cadenced calls that might have borne some resemblance, in both sound and effect, to the gibbon duets and to other animal calls. A careful look at this stage of development can help to illustrate the relational significance of human language and the reality that some modern human beings do not use human language, but do experience the more foundational relational results of human communication. In the following section I will examine the ways that this cadenced communication system may have evolved not only into discursive language, but also into song.
The dividing line between full-fledged language and hominid communication remains blurry.Footnote 39 Many scholars suggest that the time period of Homo erectus (1.9 million years ago until 200,000 years ago) offers a possible starting point for the earliest indicators of hominid language and song. The theory of a protolanguage consisting of cadences or holistic phrases has existed since the time of Charles Darwin,Footnote 40 and is described by modern-day scholar Alison Wray as “a phonetically sophisticated set of formulaic utterances, with agreed function-specific meanings, that were a direct development from the earlier noises and gestures, and which had, like them, no internal structure. Each would be phonetically arbitrary, unrelated in sound to even those utterances that meant similar things.”Footnote 41 Protolinguistic hominid vocal expressions were thus not built on individual words or even phonemes, but functioned as set units in the same way that birdcalls, as well as many human stock expressions of greeting, do today. As an example, we might think of a toddler who says “Bye-bye” without any sense of the spelling or syntactical function of the sounds. Given the presence of cadences in these set expressions, they may have been more similar to the multisyllabic “calls” or “songs” of birds, water mammals, and other primates, than to the more sophisticated and nuanced grammar-based languages that modern humans now use.
As Wray points out, cadenced formulaic expressions remain deeply ingrained in human communication. She suggests that such expressions take on a central communicative role around the fringes of human language use: in processes of language acquisitionFootnote 42 or language loss.Footnote 43 Under such challenging circumstances, individuals might lack the boundless flexibility that is generally associated with human language, but they can continue to rely on formulaic phrases to facilitate relationships and develop and maintain identities. As Wray has pointed out, even when these phrases are used somewhat arbitrarily and thus fail to successfully communicate nuanced meaning in the flexible and detailed ways usually associated with full-fledged human language, they nonetheless retain the capacity to facilitate relationship.
The nonlinguistic communication patterns of modern-day gibbons and early hominids can help to highlight the multifaceted roles of human language and communication today. Although language itself is a nuanced and flexible system, other forms of communication are equally important for human relationality. Some forms of modern human communication may be involuntary (e.g., exclamations of surprise). Other seemingly inconsequential “duets,” such as exchanges about the weather or day-to-day well-being, facilitate and develop relationships in ways that go almost unnoticed. Individuals who are unable to use language in its fullest flexibility often apply nonlinguistic communication patterns to sustain relationships that develop and confirm their identity and place in the world. Such communication patterns are both deeply ingrained in human identity and, to some degree, shared with other creatures such as gibbons, who also experience vocal communication as a means to relationship development.Footnote 44
By focusing on the relational elements of human language and other forms of communication, it becomes possible to see the primordial roots of the possibility for sacramental encounter; the ritual words and gestures of liturgical celebration build on ancient biological as well as anthropological patterns of interaction. In Chauvet's terms, the gibbon duets, the protolinguistic cadences, and the formulaic phrases used by modern humans are all forms of communication that facilitate a “meeting place” between individuals who relate to one another and are in the process of establishing and coming to understand their place in the world. While the identities and responsibilities of gibbons and early hominids may be different from those of modern humans today, the foundational elements of encounter are nonetheless present even without the flexibility and nuance of fully developed human language.
One instance in which the intersection between these various forms of communication becomes especially clear is in the experience of liturgical song. Liturgical song, while primarily reliant on modern human language, maintains many elements of the forms of communication discussed above. As such it serves as a helpful marker of the ways that human communication intersects with the experiences of some other animals.
Human Communication and Liturgical Song: The Lament of a Suffering World
For modern humans, song offers one way to bridge the gap between the nuances of full-fledged language and the emotional and relational structures of the broader category of communication. In the Christian context, this is particularly evident in liturgical celebration in which sung (or chanted) language has been prioritized. While language and song cannot be equated, as the protolanguage theory points out, the cadences commonly associated with sung language can also be found in the evolutionary roots of spoken language. In both the liturgical and the evolutionary contexts, human singing is understood as a particular use of language, a form of communication, with implications for the expression and indeed induction of general emotions, such as joy, sadness, and anger, as well as more complex feelings, such as a sense of unity within a group. First, I will consider the evolutionary argument for sung music as a facilitator of unity and as a means of both experiencing emotions and developing emotional intelligence; then I will consider the way that sung language functions in the liturgical context.
Human song is both a form of human language and yet also distinct from it. As Fitch puts it, “The main difference between spoken language and non-lyrical song is simply that the latter lacks specific, propositional meaning.… Song possesses the characteristics of openness and generativity, as well as cultural transmission, that are needed for language.”Footnote 45 Fitch is quick to add that many songs do indeed possess meaning, but in general they are not used (as language often is) to convey information from one individual to another in the most efficient manner. Whether songs are efficient or not, Fitch and others suggest that they function on a variety of other levels that point to intersections with the cadenced vocalization patterns of early hominids as well as other modern species.
As seems to be the case with gibbons, human songs can foster group unity as well as indicate its presence to potential threats. Highlighting the unitive characteristic of music, Mithen observes that “those who make music together will mould their own minds and bodies into a shared emotional state, and with that will come a loss of self-identity and a concomitant increase in the ability to cooperate with others. In fact, ‘cooperate’ is not quite correct, because as the identities are merged, there is no ‘other’ with whom to cooperate, just one group making decisions about how to behave.”Footnote 46 This unitive characteristic seems to be rooted in the capacity of singing, and other synchronized rhythmic activities, to increase oxytocin, a neuropeptide associated with bonding and other forms of social behavior in humans and other animals, such as singing mice.Footnote 47 Group song thus generally elicits a feeling of unity and well-being from participants.
Some scholars suggest that the complex social relationships that are possible between large groups of humans are connected in some way to humanity's ability (distinctive among primates)Footnote 48 for synchronized rhythmic displays—the ability to keep a beat.Footnote 49 Noting this difference between the gibbon duets and human songs, Geissmann observes that “a well-coordinated song may be a more effective display than a cacophony of voices, and other social groups are less likely to attack or threaten well-coordinated groups.”Footnote 50 While the cadenced gibbon duets facilitate and strengthen the monogamous pair bond, larger group singing facilitates a sense of group unity on a larger scale. This has implications not only for the sung “display” of the community, but also for other aspects of life together. As Mithen points out, “Music making is a cheap and easy form of interaction that can demonstrate a willingness to cooperate and hence may promote future cooperation when there are substantial gains to be made, such as in situations of food sharing or communal hunting.”Footnote 51 In the human context, sung vocalizations thus both effect and signal group unity. Both of these results contribute to the long-term safety and stability of the group and may have been important elements in supporting the growth and flourishing of early hominid communities.
The feeling of unity that is fostered through group singing is not explicitly an emotion; it is, however, closely related to the experience and expression of emotions which can be evoked through music, including group participation in vocal music.Footnote 52 As Aniruddh Patel points out, particular types of music have the capacity to evoke particular emotions in listeners.Footnote 53 Music as a category of communication thus allows humans to interact with and potentially stimulate the emotions of others.Footnote 54 In this way, music can play an important role in identity formationFootnote 55 and in the emotional intelligence that has helped humans to survive and thrive in the complex social relationships that are the building blocks of our social world. Drawing from the work of Keith Oatley and Philip Johnson-Laird, Mithen suggests that while Western society may be inclined to dismiss “emotional” decisions, “our emotions … are critical to ‘rational’ thought; without them we would be entirely stymied in our interaction with the physical and social worlds.”Footnote 56 In evolutionary terms, music has likely played a key role in humanity's development of this capacity. In our own day and age, participation in music, particularly large group song, continues to inform and influence human decision-making in the social realm.
As Chauvet might put it, singing together, in an evolutionary context, is a form of communication that has allowed individuals to develop their identities in relationship to those around them and to find their places in the world. There is no means of knowing the content of the ancestral hominid songs that Mithen suggests were critical for societal development, nor is there really any need to know. Whether the songs were in the realm of the “sighs and cries” that Chauvet attributes to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, or whether they at some point possessed discursive meaning closer to that of fully developed human language, by identifying with a group through the outward display of sung participation, individuals took on a public identity and allowed themselves to be affected by it through their participation. As one voice among many, each individual in turn developed the emotional capacity to relate to a large group and contribute to the group's identity and shared action in the world.
In the present day, group song, complete with its complex evolutionary effects, is frequently found in the liturgical context. Here song is valued not for its efficiency as a form of communication, but rather for its historical and aesthetic contributions. As theologian and hymn writer Don Saliers has argued, “When we are engaged in sung prayer, we are not simply dressing out words in sound.”Footnote 57 In the combination of words, music, and communal participation, which comprises sung prayer, the rhythms, cadences, note sequences, and communal actions function together in a manner that is distinct from the way that any of these elements function alone. The communal practice of liturgical singing, to whatever extent it is possible, can thus be understood to have three potential effects that are grounded in humanity's evolutionary past. First, it helps to facilitate the unified integration of the assembly's group identity as the Body of Christ. Second, communal song offers access to various forms of emotional expression, including lament, which are often otherwise neglected in ritual worship. Third, since emotion can helpfully inform human decision-making, the experience of liturgical song offers a framework for reflecting on the place and ethical responsibilities of human beings in the world.
When a community sings together, its sense of unity and cooperation increases. In the context of Christianity, the resultant feeling of emotional closeness is thus of particular importance to the celebration of the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity.Footnote 58 Communal singing, which the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) calls for particularly in the gatheringFootnote 59 and communion ritesFootnote 60 of the Sunday liturgy, supports the transformation of the assembled community into the unified Body of Christ. As Judith Kubicki puts it, this communal sung or chanted “participation engages the imagination so that the event of gathering may negotiate both identity and relationships: as baptized members of the Church commissioned to do Eucharist, we begin to recognize ourselves as the Body of Christ, the presence of the resurrected Christ in the world.”Footnote 61 In this instance, grace builds on nature. Communal singing alone could not affect the sacramental unity of the eucharistic celebration, and yet its traditional presence and biological effect intensify the experience of unity at a basic anthropological level.Footnote 62 Like a sacrament, the communal singing both signifies and causes the unity of the assembly in the Body of Christ. Such effects are not the result of linguistic analysis or even necessarily the conscious decision to address God personally in prayer. Instead they emerge from ancient traits that were inherited from hominid ancestors and that modern humans continue to share with other animals on the planet. The capacity for communal encounter with God in the sacraments is to the best of our knowledge specific to humans; however, it must be considered in the context of traits that are shared with other animals.
In addition to the experience of unity that is evoked by communal singing, sung communication also invites the experience and expression of emotion in the liturgical context. Such an experience is not only a participation in the apophatic “sighs” and “cries” offered to God, but also provides a communal opportunity to continue to develop the emotional intelligence that humans use to relate to others in the world. As Saliers has pointed out, however, liturgical song has in recent years become narrowly focused on the expression of positive human emotions that have seemed most appropriate for public worship of God. Such emotions include happiness and thanksgiving, but have often excluded expression of the heart-wrenching sorrows that are part and parcel of existence in an evolutionary world.Footnote 63 Saliers suggests that the expression of more negative emotions is avoided because such emotions are regarded as an embarrassment to the Christian message of good news.Footnote 64 Thus either through musical arrangements that elegantly mute the sorrow and anger of the Psalmist,Footnote 65 or through a canon of hymns that deliberately limits the expression of raw emotion, assemblies have simultaneously stifled their own pain and suffering even as they have often ignored the suffering of the world.
The somewhat neglected genre of sung lament, particularly in the context of sacramental celebration, provides for the ritual expression of such uncomfortable and yet necessary emotions. Operating at the anthropological level, laments allow worshipers the opportunity to recognize and experience the pain and suffering that is part of every human life. As Patel points out, musical pieces have the potential to evoke feelings of sadness and anger (as well as joy).Footnote 66 At the sacramental level of encounter with God's divine self-communication, the lament functions as a reminder that God does not necessarily operate in the realm of information transfer, but rather in the realm of relational presence to another. As Brian Wren writes, “The ‘Why!?!?!?’ of grief and lament is not a request for information, but an appeal for a listening ear. In the pastoral situation, one listens.…Perhaps God also knows better than to interrupt too early, with explanations.”Footnote 67 The genre of sung lament cries out not for discourse or explanation, but rather for assurance of God's revelatory presence in a time of suffering. Such a presence, the offer of friendship,Footnote 68 occurs on the emotional level, which is effectively mediated by sung communication. Here there is little need of efficiency, as Fitch puts it, in terms of spoken language but great need for honest emotional expression, which is to be found in song.
The expression and experience of emotions such as those articulated in sung laments foster the development of emotional intelligence, which, as Mithen argues, is critical for human flourishing. As such, it contributes to human identity formation in ways that correspond both to Patel's understanding of the way that music functions in human experience and to Chauvet's understanding of the way that Christian identity is developed through hearing the Scriptures, celebrating the sacraments, and practicing ethical engagement in the world.Footnote 69 As Chauvet argues that Christian identity ultimately requires a participation in God's saving action in creation, it could also be suggested that liturgical song can help Christians to become better informed about ways to direct their participation.
Songs of lament, often derived from the Psalms of the Old Testament, can, when authentically set to musical accompaniment that supports the tone of the content, play a pivotal role in both sacramental celebration and ethical engagement in a world that is home not only to humans, but to the many other species of creation. As Denis Edwards writes, “Kinship with the other species of our planet is not simply an intellectual conviction, but something that is felt. The experience of feeling that we belong with other species and other creatures is something for which we can make space, and to which we can attend.”Footnote 70 Liturgical song, particularly lament for the suffering that humans and other inhabitants of the earth experience, can help Christians to move beyond a mere intellectual understanding of the effects of global warming and climate change and toward a necessarily deeper feeling of solidarity with other species. As Saliers explains, “This is a form of ‘affective knowledge,’ [that] involve[s] more than cognitive understanding.”Footnote 71 This knowledge must also allow for the acknowledgment of human complicity in the suffering of the world. “Truth here involves the cultivation of the affections of sorrow or grief over what is described. The felt significance of what is lamented is awakened in the subject.”Footnote 72 In this case, sung lament has the capacity to awaken not only a feeling that, as Edwards puts it, “we belong with other creatures,” but also an experience of sorrow or penitence for the harm that human beings have done. Songs of grief remind humans that we were also prey, that we suffer, die, mourn the death of loved ones, and sometimes experience these events as meaningless. Perhaps as importantly, these songs invite change. Laments, as Mary Catherine Hilkert expresses it, are “threatening to ‘the way things are,’ because they carry the seeds of hope that the future can be different from the present.”Footnote 73 Laden with emotional impact, sung language can help humans to face honestly the difficult realities of our world, to see ourselves truthfully in relation to other creatures, and to form the convictions necessary to take up our responsibilities in relationship to God, one another, and the rest of creation.
The lens of song offers an approach to examining human language and communication that bridges several apparent divides. While language and communication are often thought of as dialogical experiences occurring between two parties, the unifying characteristics of sung communication disrupt this dichotomy and allow for the establishment of a group identity that can then be in relationship to the Other. Such an image is helpful in thinking about the unified nature of Christians, the Body of Christ, in the world, offering its shared praises and laments to God in the liturgical setting and offering itself in cooperation with God's plan for the world. The emotional effects of song on this same Body of Christ can help to stir it to corporate action in union with God and for the sake of the created world. As Christians feel the emotional effects of lament and embrace the suffering of the world, they are empowered to participate in God's ongoing creation. Communal song is not the only way in which these things can be accomplished; however, as an accepted element of liturgical celebration, it offers the potential to amplify the sense of unity and shared emotion that is already present in the sacramental context. By strengthening the bonds of unity and kinship with creation, liturgical song mediates the cries of a suffering world as well as God's intentions for a world that is truly a home for all.
Conclusion: Singing Together in a Common Home
In his encyclical on “our common home,” Pope Francis invites his readers to “sing as we go.”Footnote 74 Coming at the end of the encyclical, this phrase seems intended to offer a note of hope in the face of the daunting problems of climate change, global warming, and human responsibility in the world. Such problems might seem better addressed by dense scientific articles, flowcharts, or soaring rhetoric designed to inspire change. The pope's choice to end with the image of singing might seem frivolous in the face of such challenges. Like many of Pope Francis’ seemingly simple or homey expressions, the simple image of a communal song to ease the journey can function on multiple levels to point the way forward. In light of a consideration of the liturgical context from an evolutionary perspective, several insights emerge.
First, study of the evolution of human language suggests that, as philosophers and theologians have long argued, language does indeed precede modern humans.Footnote 75 It is not under human control to be used only as a tool, but existed in some form before modern humans and has thus shaped human group and individual identity. From a theological perspective, language grows out of what Karl Rahner calls humanity's “openness,”Footnote 76 our transcendental longing for connection, our optimism in the face of difficulty. As such, human language is rooted in the history of human communication, which has included the inarticulate “sighs” and “cries” of suffering, perhaps the cadenced calls of a kind of protolanguage, the singing of our ancestors, the gestures of ritual, touch that brings humans together, and eventually, for most humans but not all, the flexible and nuanced systems that we now call language. The mystery of these origins serves as a reminder of humanity's lack of control of the created world. Language emerged with us, being shaped by us, and making us who we are. It continues to operate on humanity in similar ways, and theologians are wise to attend to these processes.
In addition to preceding modern humans, the theory that human language developed from a sung protolanguage acts as a reminder that the most foundational components of human communication, the capacity for relationship through encounter, do not rely on the nuances and flexibility of fully developed modern language. While nuanced discourse has contributed to humanity's development as a species as well as to Christianity's structure of Scripture and ritual celebration, the protolanguage theory reminds us that singing as we go is both an ancient practice and an inclusive practice. When Christians sing to God and with each other, they symbolize the reality of the relationship that is anchored by God's self-revelation and the human response in faith. This relationship is one of honesty and mystery, of unity and distinction, of words and feelings that are beyond words. Such a relationship is mediated by human language, but perhaps more accurately, it is mediated by human communication—by postures and gestures, sounds and reactions, intuitions and rational thoughts. For all of the emphasis that Christianity places on the proclamation and preaching of Scripture and the ritual words of the sacraments, the church has never applied the expectation that everyone who seeks to encounter God must possess a sophisticated ability to communicate at the level of human language. Prelinguistic children are baptized, elderly adults who suffer from various forms of language loss celebrate the anointing of the sick. Individuals who experience intellectual disabilities are valued members of church communities. In each of these cases, the emphasis is on the possibility of encounter with Christ, the self-communication of God, who communicates through gestures and touch as well as through the words of human languages. Fully developed and shared language is not necessary for relationships nor for the process of singing (or humming or gesturing) as we go.
Finally, a focus on sung communication helps to clarify that while Christian identity brings with it a responsibility to participate in God's ongoing work of creation, to contribute to a world that is truly a home for all, it is also helpful to remember that humans are not so different from other species with whom we share the planet. The image of singing “as we go” invites a broader vision of the journey song—one that includes the duets of gibbons, the beat-keeping dances of parrots, and the elaborate and distinctive calls of whales and other aquatic mammals who use various forms of communication to express emotion and establish relationships. The shared capacity to sing points to the many deep genetic connections that link humans to other living beings. Through this lens, the image we are left with is not exclusively that of humans singing “as we go,” but rather of a world of singers, in company with others who communicate, sharing the journey of life together. Such an image does not dispel the responsibility that comes with human and Christian identity, but it can evoke feelings of solidarity that can help Christians to understand their responsibilities more clearly.
The self-conscious practice of liturgical singing is not the only answer to these complex problems, but given its centrality to the Christian tradition, it is one of many possible ways that Christian identity can be developed. In order for this process to be most effective, liturgy planners must prioritize singing in ways that make sense for their communities. When a group sings together, however well or badly, unity is fostered in a way that is not possible when the group is divided between active singers and passive listeners. The GIRM's recent efforts to foster this unified song, particularly during the gathering and communion rites, is one important step. Liturgies should also reflect the spectrum of the joys and sorrows of created existence, offered to God in laments as well as hymns of thanksgiving. When liturgies are experienced in this way the value that the Christian tradition has long placed on liturgical singing provides a helpful example of the unitive and emotionally expressive qualities of this form of communication. When considered (and experienced) in light of the shared experience of other species in the created world, sung liturgy can facilitate a sense of unity not only within the Body of Christ but within the context of the whole world, which, as Chauvet maintains, must be regarded as a home for all.
