GF,
I'm so glad you came here.
Much of the world's true scripture is cleverly disguised as plays, poetry, stories, philosophy, songs and scientific papers. True scripture is scattered throughout the entire body of the world's literature and art. When I run across a verse of it, it raises an answering shout in the heart; I see a shower of gold, hear cymbals clashing, feel a new path opening for me to walk on -- my life is changed forever even if I forget the words (or tune) of the verse. True scripture consists of those ideas, however expressed, which do not "return empty" -- because they CAN'T.
A distinct shudder in my spine. Slowing down my pace as I walk. Lightening my eyes and elating my heart. Freude à la Bach.
You've so perfectly defined and expressed the only meaning I can give to authority of scripture.
French translations often use the feminine "elle -> la Parole";
Oh, my, now that's an entirely different word-cloud, isn't it? Parole vs. mot - for parole includes "promise", as distinct from mot which is all about speech – right?
Old French translations used the technical term le Verbe (masculine as the Greek logos), which is a convenient calque of the Latin verbum (neuter). Of course you're right about the broader scope of parole (including promise indeed: tenir sa parole = keep one's word). However both are about speech ultimately, and both logos and verbum can mean either parole or mot. There is something deep in the humble mot too. Le mot juste ("the right word") has much to do with the authority of scripture which I was referring to, I guess.
I don't really believe in "God" in the common theistic sense.
Do you believe in it in some other, uncommon sense then? A sort of cautious animism, or panentheism, maybe? (I'm taking my cue from Marcus Borg when I bring in panentheism.)
I would like to refer to "God" in a metaphorical sense (much like modern literature refers to the long-dead gods of polytheism -- meaning what Zeus, Aphrodites, Apollo or Dionysos stand for). However this is impossible in a discussion with hardcore believers who hold that "God" is not a metaphor. In such a context I have come to feel it is more honest to introduce myself as a religious atheist -- an atheist who is still very much interested in "God" (most often that's puzzling enough).
I have been very much attracted to animism and panentheism (especially by Paul Tillich's definition of the latter), provided they are not reduced to nature (as in vitalism) but encompass culture and deal with the radical antagonism which I feel symbolism, or language, introduces into the structure of human reality. This is exactly what I was trying to express in my first post. The Word who was "God" was also with "God" -- there is a basic difference there. "God" may be the Father of beings and the Father of words, the Ground of being (another expression from Tillich) and the Ground of language, but in a very different way inasmuch as words are not reducible to a category of being (or, semantics are not reducible to ontology). The Lacanian "symbolical cut" cuts through "God" it/him-self.
Classical trinitarian theology distinguishes between ontological Trinity (Father, Son & Holy Spirit) and economical Trinty (Father, the God-Man Jesus and Holy Spirit in believers).
Oh my. I've never heard the phrase "economical Trinity" before, but the way you define it is extremely liberating. And it just puts an intellectual imprimatur nihil obstat on the places my experience has been leading me over the past couple of years.
The nihil obstat here comes from Karl Barth: identifying the two "trinities" instead of separating them as classical orthodoxy used to do is perhaps the epistemological center (or trick, according to his orthodox adversaries) of his deeply inspiring christocentrical Dogmatik. I came across his short treaty The Humanity of God (a late reflection on his work) shortly before entering the theological college and it helped me survive it. I had found how traditional theology could be meaningful to me, at least to an extent.
Someone offers an idea, and whoever feels like it modifies it after its own mind/soul; the first or a third one catches it where it has stopped and pushes it a bit further. Nobody is expected to elaborate on his/her posts. Anybody can develop another's idea. Ambiguity and clarity are equally welcome. An open model of conversation (broken line in a space or irregular spiral) rather than a closed one
Now, Joan Borysenko would say that's a very feminine way of doing theology ;)
Interesting. I had not heard of Joan Borysenko, but when I wrote those lines I was distinctly thinking of the kind of conversation (so different from Platonic dialectics) which led me out of the WT: my main interlocutor then was a "sister" right in Bethel, and she helped me start thinking differently -- she is still a JW btw.
Ross,
I tend to think of concepts in a more Jungian way, but your thoughts on a Lacanian paradigm for sub-conscious thought interests me. ; Which model do you think best represents dreams?
Of course each "school" would claim it does!
The Lacanian structuralist paradigm may appear somewhat counter-intuitive as to the expression of dreams: images are not just images but point to words and puns -- this is already apparent in Freud's approach of dreams. And to an extent it seems to work.
Are we actually able to "name" things before we've considered them and perhaps turned the crystal to observe it's facets? ; I suspect that before we apply conscious thought to them, they remain mere symbols, albeit the sub-conscious can do remarkable things with such symbols especially if it has trodden that path before.
It seems to me that, from infancy, "things" always occur to us together with "names". What we don't "name" we don't "see," i.e. identify as separate objects. Moreover, to consider a "thing" as a "symbol" seems to imply a linguistical pattern of meaning, by which the "thing" (a smile, for instance) is deemed as a signifier -- the exact definition of a "word". A green light only means "go" to somebody who is basically able to understand the sound "go" as meaning "go" too. It then can work translinguistically (I could understand a green light in Beijing even though I do not speak Chinese), but that doesn't make it pre-linguistic. Maybe Pavlov's dog could be brought in as a counter-example, but I'm not even sure this would be correct. The connection of cause and consequence (e.g. reward and punishment) is not exactly symbolism. At the very least language comes so early to a human mind that it is very difficult to define a non-linguistical relationship to "things".
You question the ability of mystical experience to give hope for the reconcilliation of words and thing; If we were to take it in isolation I would agree with you; However surely all experience, be it of the five senses, the use of logic and reason, by intuition, or mystical revelation, plays a part in the manner in which we interpret? By stopping the process do we perhaps have an opportunity to re-examine the flow of information, instead of merely being washed down the stream with it, along well worn water-courses?
In the Lacanian paradigm, the real (symptom or pain, for instance) does interact with the symbolic and imaginary -- provided we (subjects) accept to voice it (symbolically) and let the subsequent dissonance modify our representation of reality (imaginary).
Every stop of the course eventually develops into a (n only relatively new) dis-course ( back atcha).
The Genesis concept of Taoism is that :
- Wu Chi is void - pure potentiality.
- Tai Chi is reality - the result of Wu Chi expressing itself in existence.
- Wu Chi gives birth to all, creating a universal Oneness (Tao), that is filled with (or is) the combinations of Yin/Yang energies, swirling in a maelstrom of activity, mixing, merging, producing.
Hope that helps some
It sure helps, thank you. I have enjoyed some Taoist writings (Lao Tsu, Chuang Tsu) -- in translation, of course -- but have not read any synthetical exposition (or long ago and I don't remember)...
A possible way to push the reflection further: we speak (and write, or draw) to fill a lack in being -- the memory of the missing being who was and isn't there, the desire of what is not yet or will never be... In that way too word and being would be related, though "antagonistically".
