1.
Let us look at the different
specialisations that we find around us. There is specialisation in science—like
the science of monitoring the weather. There is science of medicine. If we
listen to people in these sciences talk and give information we will notice
that they speak in particular languages. Well,
there are specialists in fields like classical music and sports science. A concert
musician can have a very technical language too and we can notice this in the
music sheet. A sports expert has a specific language too including anatomy and
nutrition. Ok, so maybe we understand some of what they say, but they still
have complex words and phrases that belong to their fields of expertise. So
when doctors consult each other regarding a patient, they speak in medical
language that they understand well…while the patient may have to rely on vague
understanding.
2.
Specialists develop their
vocabularies and technical phrases to talk about things that concern them. This
holds for many things that we probably do not notice. For example if we go a
government office and fill in papers, we see how many technical terms to deal
with. A document can be filled with technical terms. Maybe when it gets too
technical we may need the help of someone—like an accountant or a lawyer.
3.
Well, if there is technical
language, there is also romantic language. Look at lovers talking to each
other…their eyes glittering with sparks. At some point in their relationship
both lovers develop a language of their own—and much of that is private to just
the two of them.
4.
Poetry is another form of
language. It has its own way of expressing. It can have analogies and images.
What is ordinary in daily life may be so emotional in poetry. There are times
when we ourselves may be using poetry in our conversations. When we e-mail to a
dear friend, we might be adding poetic language too. When we talk of a
difficult time in our lives we might use poetic language too.
5.
Language can also mean
gestures. We raise our voices, we clench our fists, we move our eyebrows, we
shift our stand, we shake our heads…etc. These are not exactly words but they
say something. They communicate in a language of gestures.
6.
What do we do with language?
Well, we try to understand our experiences and we try to express them in
adequate ways. Sometimes we need to be technical, romantic or poetic. If we go
deeper and deeper in an experience, we sense the need to express ourselves in a
more particular way. We feel that the usual words and phrases of daily life are
not enough…so we go into another level of language.
7.
Now, let us talk of the language of faith. If we read books
written by spiritual authors, we read a specific language. It is that of faith.
Founders and foundresses of religious congregations may have written texts and
we see how their writings are marked by a special language—the language of
faith.
8.
The language of faith is
different from, say, a language of medicine. The language of faith expresses an
experience of relating with God. Look
at the Bible. It is one big brick filled with the language of faith. We read
about the relationship of Israel with God…and the relationship of disciples
with Christ. Maybe we note poetry in some parts of the Bible—like the book of
psalms. But we notice that there is something more than poetry.
9.
So let us say that the language
of faith is the language that talks about
God and our relationship with God. Let us check this out.
10.
Some people might say, “God is
good”. What might they mean? They might want to say that God does no harm. They
might want to say that God provides for their needs. Just look closely, our
experience of “good” is really our experience of people doing good. What about God? How accurate do we get when we
say “God is good”? Faith language admits that “God is good” but not exactly in
the same way that my friend is good. God is good in a way that is beyond the goodness that we see around us. Faith
language admits that what is said implies something beyond. Human goodness—like the goodness of my friend—is still a
weak image compared to the absolute goodness of God.
11.
Already from long ago,
theologians would say that faith language is a “negative way” of speaking. It
is a negation. So when we say “God is
good” we say that God is good similar to
good people. Yet we negate this. We
say “God is good” unlike the goodness
of people because God’s goodness is absolute. Note: God is ___ yet more than. It is in the “more than”
where we apply negation.
12.
There is a challenge here. If
we apply negation to mean that “God is more than___”, how sure are we that we
are correct? How true is our statement?
13.
Language is limited. Our words,
phrases and gestures do not fully grasp and capture reality. We might be approaching reality but we cannot fully
capture it with what we say. There is something more than what we say. We may
have things to say about our dear friends, and we know that what we say are not
enough to fully describe them.
14.
We say that the sun rises in
the morning and sets in the evening. This is true. But it is also true that the
earth revolves around the sun—so it is not the sun rising and setting. See the
limits? See the degrees of truth?
15.
Faith language has its
different degrees of approaching truth too. In fact in faith language we
realize that we approach and not capture a
reality—the reality of God.
16.
Faith language can use myths. Myths are not the same as
information that we read in historical books. Myths are not necessarily
fictions. A myth does not function like a photograph or a video clip. A myth
has its own truth. Look at fables. Consider the story of boys throwing stones
at frogs in a river. The boys kept throwing stones and some frogs died. One
frog raised his head and said, “What is play for you is death to us”. Of course
frogs do not speak. But this fable has truth in it. One person’s pleasure can
be another person’s pain—this is true.
17.
In faith we have the same.
Faith can have something “mythical” in it, but it has its own truths.
18.
The Bible has many myths. The
big story we know is the Creation story. It is put in very mythical language.
But notice it has truths in it. There is the truth that the world exists and this existence did not arise on its own. The
Creation story also tells us that we start from dust and we end in dust. This
is true.
19.
Myths express truth in a
symbolic way. But faith language also has theophany.
(“Theo” means God and “phany” means meanifestation.) In the Old Testament we notice that God entered the lives of
Israel by words and action. He entered by “theophany”—by manifestation. Some
manifestations are thunder and lightning. It can be a gentle wind or an
earthquake. One theophany is the tearing of the Temple veil.
20.
A theophany is a form of
language. It is about the experience of something Absolute that has entered in people’s lives. The truth
about a theophany is in the fact that there
is an experience. It is an experience of mystery that both fascinates and
elicits fear. The experience is
undeniable.
21.
Let us look at the stories
about the disciples seeing the risen Lord. In the stories the disciples were
like “sleeping” before the resurrection. When they saw Jesus risen and alive
they “woke up”. They realized all that Jesus was telling them before. In the
experience of meeting the risen Jesus, the disciples had to explain. They needed
expression to describe the experience of meeting the risen Lord. How was the
experience described? It was describe in theophany.
22.
Look at the way the theophany
was described: angels in the empty tomb…the different apparitions of Jesus…etc.
Jesus is a very special theophany, for Christians. “Who has seen me has seen
the Father” (Jn.14/9). God has manifested in Jesus.
Kant
1.
Let us take, first, from a
German philosopher named Kant. He can be shaking and challenging us. Kant wrote
about what he called as “principles of understanding”. He said that we claim to
have understanding of things. There is understanding based on experiences. We
have had an experience of things and we know them. Kant called this knowledge
as “phenomenon” knowledge. But are we sure of this? Maybe there is something
out there which is beyond our understanding…beyond our experience….beyond what
we know. Kant called it the “noumenon”. Too often, wrote Kant, our
understanding does not notice its own
limits. We claim to have knowledge of what may outside our experiences. We have no access to that reality
outside—yet we claim to know it. All we have in the level of the “phenomenon”
but never do we have access to the level
of the noumenon.
2.
Because that reality is out
there, outside, in the noumenon, we
cannot really say if it is true or not true. We cannot say if it exists or does
not exit. So when we talk about it and say we are telling the truth…we may
only be in illusion!
3.
Let us apply this challenge to
faith language. Faith language has ways of talking about God. “God is good” or
“God is great” or “God is love”. We might apply the negative approach and say
“God is good but not in the same goodness
that we find in life. God is absolutely good”. “God is great but not in the same greatness that we find
in life. God is absolutely great”. “God is love but not in the same love that we find in life. God is absolute
love”.
4.
What would Kant say to all
that? Are we really talking truthfully…or are we in illusion?
Spinoza
5.
Spinoza rejects the idea of
“mystery”. It is something we can never understand, he says. No matter how hard
we try to think, a mystery stays as a mystery. It is beyond our access of understanding. If we say that God manifests,
we are not making sense in what we say. Why? Well, God is a mystery—someone
beyond us.
6.
What about the Bible? The
Bible, for Spinoza, is composed of rational
truths. These are truths discovered by reason—by our capacity to think
well. There were wise and deep people who used their thinking capacity a lot.
They may have put their ideas in writing. If we want to understand them, we can
look at their deep thoughts. Their deep thoughts are reflected in what they
wrote. We may not understand them so well because they are so wise. But we
believe in what they say. The basis of this belief is the fact that the wise
authors wrote from the depths of human
understanding.
7.
Whatever it is that we read in
the Bible is a result of deep thinking of very wise authors. What about the
realities they wrote about—like angels and God and the resurrection? We cannot
say if they are really true or not but…they
make us think. They “give to thoughts”. When we say “resurrection of Jesus”
we are not sure if it really happened. But the idea of resurrection makes us
think about life and makes us think that in life we are not always stuck in
defeat.
8.
Remember that God is a mystery
and for Spinoza we have no direct access to this mystery. Whatever religion and
the Bible give us, it is simply a deep rational teaching.
Lessing
9.
Lessing said that the things
that happened in the past belong to the past. If they were true in the past,
they do not have to be true now. The truth of the past cannot be permanent. Now
the Bible tells us that God manifested in history. God’s communication was done
in the past.
10.
It will be wrong to accept the
truth of the past, for Lessing. If we will use our capacity to think well, we
will not allow the past to have authority over us. The past will tell us what
to think and even how to think. We will follow what the past had said. But, for
Lessing, we must think and think for
ourselves. We should not let anybody else or any past idea to tell us what
to think.
11.
If there is anything true it
will have to come from us. Notice that for Lessing the Bible loses its
authority. The Bible is something of the past. It is finished business. So
there is no need to let the Bible influence us and say how we must live. For
Lessing, we must think for ourselves now.
Drop the past, drop the meaning given by the Bible. We need not invest
effort there.
Common to all
12.
Notice that there is something
common to all three, Kant, Spinoza and Lessing. They all belong to the modern
period. They all emphasize the capacity to think. They emphasize reason. What
is important is what we see, what we think and what we decide. Beyond this is
not important.
13.
In modernity what is important
and central is the human reason—the human capacity to think. All truth is what
human reason can discover and see. Anything beyond reason is not very important
because we never know what is beyond.
14.
Religion and the Bible are all
products of human reasoning. It is not wise to speak of what comes from God. Why? We have no access to God. We are not sure
if we can know God and if we can know what God is saying. But we know what our
thinking processes say. Faith is a psychological act, it is not really about
“reality out there”.
15.
If we accept the stands of the
three—Kant, Spinoza and Lessing—then we might have to drop our Christian faith.
We believe in God and we believe in the reality
of God out there. Are we ready to drop this? We cannot ignore what modern
thinkers say. They can be correct in many ways. What we need to ask is this: what is the basis of our faith? Try answering
this.
No comments:
Post a Comment