50 Key Concepts in Theology
Participation: a term used to describe the way that everything we
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50 Key Concepts in Theology - Rayment-Pickard
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Participation: a term used to describe the way that everything we experience in life participates in the life of God. Secular reason (or ‘instrumental reason’): the use of reason for purely human ends. BOOKS John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward (eds.), Radical Orthodoxy, A New Theology (Routledge, 1999) Douglas Hedley and Wayne Hankey (eds.), Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy (Ashgate, 2005) Religious Language The status of religious language or ‘God talk’ has been an issue since the beginning of Christian theology. The question of the status of religious language, or how we speak about God, has, implicitly or explicitly, been at the centre of all Christian theology. This is because religious language is the basic medium for formal theology. The problem of religious language is raised in the first place by the texts of Scripture: how do they speak about God? Origen, one of the first academic theologians, argued that Scripture is essentially allegorical rather than literal, speaking about God in figures and metaphors. He shared the Platonic view that language is a poor substitute for pure thought, and saw allegory as a way of moving beyond words into a hidden realm of pure spiritual meaning. The Platonist view that language cannot express God or truth finds its most powerful religious form in the Christian mystics, particularly the negative theologians, who believed that we have to let go of language in order to contemplate God. In the Middle Ages, the question of religious language was raised again by Thomas Aquinas, who wanted to explain how language could talk positively about God. Aquinas argued that we cannot speak in a precise (univocal) way about God because our languages are imperfect. However, our talk of God is not entirely false (equivocal) either. Religious language has the status of analogy, so when we speak of God as Father, we do not think that he is literally our father, but we do accept that he is our father in an analogous sense. This is true for all our religious language: our statements about divine love, truth, justice and so on, are analogies of God’s real love, truth and justice. In this way Aquinas established a powerful general theory of the way in which religious language works. In the twentieth century a number of conflicting theories have been advanced. Karl Barth argued strongly against the theory of analogy, saying that words cannot speak about God except by grace, which operates miraculously to make our theological languages meaningful. Religious language only works because God chooses to reveal himself in it. The logical positivists, notably A. J. Ayer, argued that the word ‘God’ is meaningless because statements about God can never be verified, or indeed falsified. The phrase ‘God is good’ is an article of faith which cannot be ‘checked out’, therefore having as much real meaning as the phrase ‘X is good’. Ian Ramsey (in Religious Language) responded to the positivists by arguing that talk about God is in fact anchored in the ‘religious situation’ of the speaker. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the so-called post-structuralist theory of language opened up a new understanding of God-talk. The post- structuralists (and others like Ludwig Wittgenstein) argued that language is a fluid system in which the meaning of words is never stable. We have no choice but to understand our world, and God, within free-floating networks of linguistic meaning. This controversial theory argues that God-talk takes its meaning not from reference to God, but from the underlying system of human language. Although few theologians have adopted a full-blown post-structuralist theory of language, the influence of post-structuralism has been immense and most theologians now accept that languages operate flexibly within cultures. THINKERS Don Cupitt (1934– ) argues (in The Long Legged Fly) that religious language says nothing about God, who doesn’t exist, but functions to provide us with a sense of cosmic order, purpose and values. Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) argued that all languages are systems of differential signs (or différance) in which there are no absolute meanings. Derrida suggested (very tentatively) that God might be the reality of language itself rather than just a concept within language. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) developed the theory of language games (see below). He once said that the essence of religion does not lie in the meaning of language, but in the act of using language: ‘Thus it does not matter if the words used are true or false or nonsense.’ IDEAS Allegory: a story in which the characters, events, objects and locations refer to other realities. The parable of the prodigal son, for example, is an allegory of God’s forgiveness. The doctrine of analogy: the theory (developed by Aquinas) that human words operate as analogies to divine realities. Glossolalia: the Christian practice of ‘speaking in tongues’ which was common in the early Church and is now widespread among Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. Language games: the theory (invented by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the early twentieth century) that particular instances of language can only be understood within the context of language games, and that these games always have a cultural setting or ‘form of life’. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which the meaning of a word is ‘carried over’ and used in a different context. ‘God is a rock’ is a metaphor. Pentecost: an event described in the book of Acts, when the apostles spoke to a crowd of people from different countries, but their speech was understood by all. Speech act theory: the idea (advanced in the 1960s by John Searle and John Austin) that language communicates through the way it is ‘performed’. Symbolism: a word or image that stands for some other thing. For example, the sun is often used as a symbol of Christ. The Tower of Babel: a mythical tower (described in the Old Testament) which was built to give humans access to God. God demolished the tower and punished humanity by making them speak different languages. BOOKS Ian Ramsey, Religious Language (SCM, 1957) Dan Stiver, The Philosophy of Religious Language: Sign, Symbol and Story (Blackwells, 1996) |
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