In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Genesis 1:1-3

This famous section of the Pentateuch not only serves to introduce the Bible, but also shows how God brought an orderly universe out of primordial chaos. It is noteworthy that God did so by speaking. He didn’t merely wave his hands, or by thinking, but said aloud, “Let there be light.” This magnificent image is echoed in the prologue to the Gospel according to John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.

John 1:1-3

According to the New American Bible, “The Word” (< Gr. logos, word) combines the creative word (Genesis) with the “personified preexistent Wisdom as instrument of God’s creativity (Proverbs) … and the ultimate intelligibility of reality (Hellenistic philosophy).” Thus, “The Word” is the origin and guiding force of all that is good in the universe — past, present and future.

But the question begs to be asked: If God created with a Word, what would this Voice have sounded like?

This same question seems to have haunted two famous orthodox Christian writers — C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Each chose to represent the mystery of creation in their own (somewhat allegorical) literary mystical worlds, also occuring through voice and music.

C.S. Lewis: The Magician’s Nephew

In this introductory tale, Lewis magically transports a group of visitors to the enchanting world of Narnia, just in time to witness its creation out of nothingness:

And really it was uncommonly like Nothing. There were no stars. it was so dark they couldn’t see one another at all and it made no difference whether you kept your eyes shut or opened. Under their feet there was a cool, flat something which might have been earth, and was certainly not grass or wood. The air was cold and dry and there was no wind. …

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it very hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. it was so beautiful he could hardly bear it. …

Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out — single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it … you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing. …

The Voice on the earth was now louder and more triumphant; but the voices in the sky, after singing loudly with it for a time, began to get fainter. And now something else was happening.

Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn gray. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir. The sky, in that one place, grew slowly and steadily paler. You could see shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time the Voice went on singing. …

The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose. … [As] its beams shot across the land the travelers could see for the first time what sort of place they were in. It was a valley through which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward toward the sun. southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colors; they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else.

It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song… [T]he song had now changed.

The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. it spread out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains, making that young world every moment softer. The light wind could now be heard ruffling the grass. Soon there were other things besides grass. The higher slopes grew dark with heather. Patches of rougher and more bristling green appeared in the valley. … [These trees] grew larger at the rate of about an inch every two seconds. …

All this time the Lion’s song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backward and forward, was going on. … Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) ‘out of the Lion’s head.’ When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them.

In another section, Lewis continues to recount the songs that created creatures out of mounds of earth and how the Lion, Aslan, breathed a fire akin to the Holy Spirit into the Talking Creatures. And then, with his final commandments, “Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak.”

Coming up in Part II, I’ll share how J.R.R. Tolkien used this musical metaphor to not only describe Creation, but also to introduce the Fall of Lucifer and the beginning of the great Spiritual War.