This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Can I know?
Can I know?
How shall I interpret life?
Is there a hidden key?
Did mindless molecules collide?
Did living things evolve by strife
to make complexity?
Am I being taken for a ride?
How shall I interpret life
and comprehend its joys?
When I perceive the beauty of
the one who has become my wife:
is this just girls and boys?
Surely there is more depth in 'love'?
When I've proved a fact of maths,
is this a real proof?
Is maths just how my mind is wired,
how brainwaves travel down their paths,
illusion, not real truth?
Or is man's brain in fact inspired?
Can I know if there's a God
who made this universe?
For if there is, he holds the key:
explaining all the things so odd
which now look bad, or worse.
This is the quest that's driving me.
Can I know if life's a joke
and death's the final straw?
Should I just eat and drink and chat
and pass the time with other folk
and never seek for more?
Does life not warrant more than that?
What if God came down to earth?
Suppose he made that choice?
I wonder: would I recognise
a visitor of such great worth
and see him, hear his voice?
Would I be blind, or see him rise?
Words and music copyright © John Hartley 2007.
Story behind the song
This is a song which attempts to list and comment on a number of different questions to do with the existence of God. Commentary on it will probably destroy it, but here are some points in the "blurb" I wrote on the Christian Songwriting Organisation web forum in asking for critiques of it:
Verse 1 is obviously about creation and evolution, intelligent design and so forth. Does it even scratch the surface of such a deep subject?The last verse indicates something of my own journey: for me, and exploration of the real story of the gospels, and the question of whether or not Jesus really rose again, was my way into finding the existence of a God whose presence then started to give answers to the other questions. Isn't it odd how a six-verse hymn seems incredibly long, but how each verse seems to need unpacking with a whole chapter of discussion?Verse 2 is about whether "love" really exists or whether it's just sexual selection of a desirable mate for the sake of propagating one's genes into the next generation. Is the bit about one's wife just too twee? Is the bit about "just girls and boys" too crass?
Verse 3 reflects my background as a research mathematician. It's about C S Lewis' argument (in 'Miracles') that we need an external God to be reassured that the laws of maths and physics are prescriptive for the universe instead of just being derivative from the evolution of the human brain. Does anyone else get this point or is it just a piece of abstruse irrelevance?
Verse 4 is an attempt at the problem of suffering. Does it get anywhere close to that?
Verse 5 is more a combination of 1 Corinthians 15:32 and the "always look on the bright side of life" philosophy (as in the final song of Monty Python's film 'The Life of Brian'). Does it work?
And finally, verse 6 is supposed to contain the tiny hint as to the place I might look to answer the main question, which is about God's existence. Is this hint too obvious? Or is it too obscure?
John Hartley.
At the end of the last verse it would be possible to use a "tierce de Picardie" (i.e. to resolve the tenor from G to F# instead of to F in the last chord).
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.