Yesterday morning I received an email from a priest friend having a go at (Don't call me Fr) Peter Kennedy of South Brisbane fame. He was complaining about Peter's media comment in recent days "We have made God in our own image. I can't believe in a God that grants some people miracles but punishes others, but I do think there is something more, but what it is, I have no idea." Later in the day the priest friend sent me a further email from another former priest friend of his who effectively said: "hang on a minute, Peter Kennedy is actually saying something theologically correct here". My friend had changed his mind: who can describe God? Could Augustine describe God? Or Thomas Aquinas? Could Jesus himself accurately describe his 'father in heaven'?" By coincidence, today's commentary from Andrew Thomas Kania explores this theological problem we have as human beings of trying to use language to describe things such as 'love', "commitment', 'virtue', or the hardest of them all 'the Mystery of God'. This is rich territory for meditation. ...Editor

The power, and limitations, of language...

The French aviator and author Antoine de Saint Exupéry in his novella Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), provides the adult with as much food for thought as he does the child; in fact it is often through the voice of a child that profundity is most loudly spoken, and in the case of Le Petit Prince simple but profound the novella is. At one point of the novella the Prince befriends a fox, and his inter-relationship with the fox brings forth a stream of poignant perceptions about love and friendship. The fox teaches the Prince how to tame him — and as part of this process, we read:

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince. "You must be very patient" replied the fox. "First, you will sit down at a little distance from me — like that — in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings." (de Saint Exupéry, 1945, p. 65)

The meaning of "love"...

Irrespective of the race that one is born into, or the social class of one's birth, or the talents or defects that one inherits genetically from one's parents — regardless of all these, that which has the longest lasting ability to simultaneously empower and disable, is the language that one learns as their 'mother tongue'. Walk into a room filled with people from a dozen linguistic backgrounds, and ask them, how in their language they say, "I love you", and what you may have is a good translation of what has been asked — but what we do not know is whether what they say, is in fact what you as an individual mean, and understand, by the word 'love'. A Frenchman may understand love to mean, something similar to what a German or a Maori understands, but the context of culture determines the flavour that attaches itself to words such as: 'love', 'commitment', and 'virtue'.

Thousands of years of cultural inheritance as well as national literature, help to build a language, and channel thoughts via this language. One could even say that we are slaves to language — for we think in language, and the limitations of a particular language, also limits the Spirit that lies within us. We cannot recall how we thought as an infant prior to learning language — yet we must have perceived the world somehow, attempting to rationalize our surroundings, prior to losing our 'innocence' — and becoming literate, and thinking the way of our tribe. We even dare to sneer at those who cannot pronounce our words, we like or dislike according to accents we hear — words become the source not only of misunderstandings, but of divisiveness.

Language liberates and imprisons...

Language is a great liberator of what is in our hearts and minds — but it is also that which imprisons us — for having been born into a culture; whether we wish it or not — the very language we speak, dictates to a large extent who we become. If our language has too few adjectives, if we are told by grammarians to place the verb at the close of a sentence, if we have no word for 'please', or if we still use 'thee' and 'thou' and polite titles, all these rudimentary parts of our language, teach us, every time we use them, that this is how we should construct our thought patterns and communicate with others; and that this is how everything that is in our hearts and minds should be understood and siphoned. Similarly, if our language is a minority language — our career options become limited. Additionally when one learns a new language — one does not become inasmuch a different person, one merely releases the Spirit within to express itself in new forms; finding a new medium by which the individual can be. For these reasons Aristotle once observed: "Words are signs of the impressions in the soul". (Ockham, 1990, p. 48) It is because the soul seeks to understand all that surrounds and exudes from it, and wishes to communicate that we have words. Yet words fail when what they attempt to describe is beyond their power; that is they are too mortal for that which is immortal, too finite for that which is infinite, and too profane for that which is sublime; in their limitation they show themselves as a child standing in his garden, on top of a bucket with a butterfly net, arm fully extended upward, seeking to capture the moon. Even St. John the Evangelist concluded his Gospel with an apology for the limitations of language. (cf. John 21: 24).

Is there any language to describe "God"?

Christopher Cullen in his summary of the mystical theology of St. Bonaventure, noted that the Seraphic Doctor, believed that the highest wisdom was "formless, because the mind is unable to grasp it in any concept or to express it in any proposition. In this way, it is beyond form; it is no-form. This wisdom is ineffable". (Cullen, 2006, p. 26) This high wisdom, that Bonaventure spoke about, is of course, "the eternal divine Word". (Ibid)

St Bonaventure (1221-1274)

Many centuries before St. Bonaventure, one of the great philosophers of the Eastern Church, Clement of Alexandria, taught, regarding the ineffable nature of God and the limitations of human language, that:

"For as man in his potentialities falls short of God, so too his language is weak and faltering, even in speaking not of God Himself, but of the attributes of God and of the divine Word. For the language of man is in its nature weak and incapable of expressing God I do not mean the mere name, for the use of the name is common not only to philosophers, but also to poets; nor do I mean the essence, for that is impossible but I mean the power and the works of God." (Tollinton, p. 286)

Oftentimes when one falls deeply in love, with another person, that which we attempt to put into words — fails, or at the very least falls short of what we truly would like to say and write; it as if the volume of emotion that is within us, cannot be enslaved by something as 'profane' as grammar; as such we turn to artistic forms so that the language that has failed us can be supported by song, dance or visual art. We seek to find a universal medium, by which to express a universal emotion. If this is true of cases where we deal with the emotion of love between one human being and another, how vastly difficult it becomes to put into words, or to confine into sentences and paragraphs that which is beyond all complete knowing — God?

Yet in Christ's Incarnation, we have God choosing a new language by which to speak with humanity. Through this single act of enfleshment — much more was said, without the use of language than with. For that which is written can often be lost in translation — but that which is enacted as a concrete reality — requires no words. A star appears in the sky — a choir of cherubs and seraphs sings, a child is born. In fact in the Christian Gospels we know nothing of that which was spoken in the cave on Christmas Eve. In what can only be described as a Divine play on words, God chose that which is simple to confound the complex; He chose to enter the world covered by a winter darkness in order for His light to be seen as more resplendent; and He chose to come into the world as the Word — yet speaking his wisdom to all men, as a babe through the language of silence, in peaceful slumber. As the Byzantine Liturgy for the Compline of the Holy Nativity exalts:

"Your nativity, O Christ our God, has shed upon the world the light of knowledge. Through it those who worshipped the stars have learned from a star to worship You, O Sun of Truth, and to recognize in You the One who rises from on high. O Lord, glory be to you".

Image Credits:
Clicking on the images in the commentary will take you to the original source.

Dr. Andrew Thomas Kania

What are your thoughts on this commentary? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

©2010Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

[Index of Commentaries by Dr Andrew Kania]