Latest / Reformed Thinking / Two Special Issues: Biblical Criticism and Theological Language

Transcript

Two Special Issues: Biblical Criticism and Theological Language · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Imagine a group of highly credentialed scientists and
0:03
philosophers you know, sitting you down and telling you that
0:06
saying God loves you has the precise intellectual meaning of
0:09
stubbing your toe and screaming Ouch.
0:11
Oh. Wow.
0:12
Yeah, they argue your faith isn't factually wrong.
0:15
They argue it is literal, meaningless noise.
0:18
That is a harsh claim. It really is well welcome to
0:21
Reform Thinking. This is the deep dive where we
0:23
take a critical look at the ideas shaping our faith and our
0:27
worldview. Glad to be here.
0:28
Today we are opening up of a massive discussion based on
0:32
issues laid out in Miller J Erickson's Christian Theology.
0:35
Right, a classic text. Yeah, we are looking at two
0:38
major hurdles that confront any serious student of the Bible.
0:43
The 1st is Biblical criticism, which is the academic discipline
0:47
of dissecting the biblical text. And the second one.
0:49
The second is theological language, that is, the
0:52
philosophical debate over whether we can say anything
0:55
meaningful about God at all. Two massive topics.
0:58
Huge. But before we jump in, we need
1:02
to set the table regarding our worldview.
1:04
For the listener joining us, you should know we assess these
1:07
academic methodologies through the lens of traditional
1:10
Protestant Christianity. We align specifically with
1:12
Reformed theology, and it peered to the Westminster Confession.
1:16
That means we approach this discussion holding that the
1:19
Scriptures are the authoritative, infallible Word
1:22
of God. We definitely do not treat the
1:24
Bible as a simple human artifact.
1:26
Exactly. I mean, perfectly stated.
1:28
OK, let's unpack this. Our mission for today is to help
1:32
you understand how modern scholars have attempted to take
1:34
the biblical texts apart. Yeah.
1:36
And then, moving into the philosophical realm, how we can
1:40
intelligently defend the cognitive meaning of talking
1:43
about a supernatural God in a highly skeptical scientific
1:46
world. Well, it is quite an agenda and
1:48
to grasp it we really need to trace a massive historical
1:52
shift. OK, where do we start?
1:54
For much of church history, you know, doing theology was viewed
1:57
as a relatively straightforward endeavor.
1:59
A theologian would look at the Bible, recognize it as a
2:02
straightforward record of historical occurrences and
2:05
divine pronouncements, and then they would just summarize its
2:08
doctrinal teachings. But as the modern era dawn, the
2:11
discipline of historiography began developing entirely new
2:15
methodologies. We saw the rise of what became
2:18
known in academic circles as higher criticism.
2:22
Now we have to distinguish this from earlier practices, like
2:25
what? Well, textual criticism for one.
2:28
Sometimes called lower criticism.
2:30
That was the attempt to find the original text of the biblical
2:32
books by comparing all the surviving ancient manuscripts.
2:36
Oh, right, and that is a necessary, logical and highly
2:39
beneficial process for anyone who values the text.
2:42
Absolutely. Following that came literary
2:44
source criticism. This was the effort to identify
2:48
the prior written documents that biblical authors might have
2:50
referenced or incorporated. I think I know where you're
2:52
going with this. You see this most famously with
2:54
the Q document. The letter Q comes from the
2:57
German word quell, meaning Source, right?
2:59
Scholars hypothesized that Q was a distinct written collection of
3:04
Jesus sayings used independently by the Gospel writers Matthew
3:08
and Luke. OK, that makes sense.
3:10
But scholarship did not stop at the written sources.
3:13
It pushed further back in time, reaching behind the part and the
3:16
ink to a discipline called form criticism.
3:20
So if they're going behind the written documents, they are
3:25
moving into the era before anyone wrote anything down.
3:27
Yes, precisely. They're looking at the spoken
3:30
word, the oral traditions of the earliest Christians.
3:33
Form criticism is the endeavor to get behind those written
3:36
sources entirely and peer into the oral traditions that
3:39
preceded them. What were they looking for?
3:41
Scholars wanted to isolate the spoken forms that circulated by
3:44
word of mouth before anything was certified in writing.
3:47
They were searching for a concept they called the Sits in
3:50
Laben. Sits in Laben.
3:51
What does that mean? That is a German phrase
3:54
translating to the setting in life.
3:56
They wanted to find the specific setting in life of the early
3:58
church. Oh, I see.
4:00
They asked, you know, what specific situations, disputes or
4:03
problems in the early Christian community prompted them to
4:06
preserve these oral traditions or, in the minds of some radical
4:10
critics, invent them? So they have some underlying
4:14
theories about how this all worked.
4:15
They do. The form critics operate on a
4:17
few major assumptions or axioms regarding how these stories
4:22
function before they became the Gospels we read today.
4:25
What is the first one? The first major assumption is
4:27
that stories and sayings about Jesus first circulated in small,
4:32
independent, self-contained units.
4:34
Really like just floating around on their own.
4:36
Yeah, the critics look at the Gospels and observe that the
4:39
geographical and chronological transitions between the stories
4:42
are sometimes vague. Because of this, they assume
4:45
these transitions are just the artificial work of a later
4:48
editor who is trying to force a bunch of independent, unrelated
4:52
pieces into a single flowing narrative.
4:55
Well, I try to visualize this to understand how they are treating
4:57
the text. Imagine you are cleaning out
5:00
your grandmother's attic and you find a giant shoebox full of
5:04
scattered random family recipes written on loose index cards.
5:09
I like this analogy. Some are for main courses, some
5:12
are for desserts, and some have little family anecdotes attached
5:15
to them form critics. Look at the Gospels and see that
5:19
chaotic shoebox. That is spot on.
5:21
They assume the gospel writers were like a later family member
5:25
who took all those loose, unrelated index cards and glued
5:29
them into a bound cookbook, adding little transitional
5:32
phrases like after dinner we had this dessert just to make it
5:35
read like a cohesive book. Yeah, they assume the pieces
5:37
existed completely independently of the whole.
5:39
Exactly. Some scholars describe the
5:42
critics view of the evangelist as having a heap of unstrung
5:45
pearls that they simply strung together on necklace.
5:48
That analogy of the shoebox and the unstrung pearls captures
5:51
their starting premise perfectly.
5:53
And once they assume they're dealing with a heap of unstrung
5:55
pearls, the next Axima form criticism dictates that you have
5:59
to categorize those individual pearls.
6:01
So they sort them out. They do.
6:03
They sort these self-contained units of oral tradition by their
6:06
literary forms. They operate on the observation
6:10
that primitive cultures transmit oral traditions using very
6:13
fixed, predictable patterns. OK, So what does that taxonomy
6:17
look like? First, you have the sayings,
6:19
which they subdivide into parables, proverbs that sound
6:22
akin to ancient wisdom literature, prophetic
6:25
utterances, legal prescriptions for the community.
6:29
Wow, that is a lot of categories.
6:31
There's more. And what they call I words such
6:33
as Jesus saying I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
6:37
it. OK, so those are the sayings.
6:39
What about the narratives? Moving past the sayings, they
6:41
categorize the stories. They identify a category called
6:44
Apothem Stories. Apothem stories?
6:46
What are those? These are basically short
6:48
narratives whose sole function is to provide a historical setup
6:52
for a punchy pronouncement from Jesus.
6:54
The story only exists to deliver the punchline.
6:57
Got it. What else?
6:58
Then you have miracle stories. Next, they categorize some
7:01
material as legends, which they compare to the exaggerated tales
7:04
of holy men and other ancient religions.
7:06
Legends. That sounds dismissive it.
7:09
Is finally they identify myths, defining them as literary
7:13
devices used to convey a transcendent spiritual truth
7:17
wrapped in an earthly supernatural narrative.
7:21
That is a highly clinical way to chop up a narrative.
7:24
I mean they are slicing the text into tiny categorized specimens.
7:28
Yes, they really are. But they don't just stop a
7:30
categorizing them, do they? They take it a step further and
7:33
try to build a timeline out of these isolated categories.
7:36
Yes, once everything is sorted into these neat little boxes,
7:39
the critics move to the third axiom, which is stratification.
7:43
Stratification. They attempt to arrange these
7:45
forms chronologically. They want to decide what is bold
7:48
and historically reliable and what is a late, highly
7:51
unreliable addition to the oral tradition.
7:53
Can. You give me an example of how
7:55
they do that. Sure.
7:56
For instance, they look at the miracles form.
7:58
Critics will often categorize healings and exorcisms as
8:02
typically Jewish in flavor, matching the cultural
8:04
expectations of 1st century Judea.
8:07
Therefore, they assign those specific stories to the earliest
8:10
period of the Church. But when they look at the nature
8:12
miracles, like Jesus stealing the storm on the Sea of Galilee
8:16
or multiplying the loaves, they categorize those differently.
8:20
They say those reflect A Hellenistic or Greek interest in
8:23
divine men controlling the elements.
8:26
Based on that assumption, they stratify the nature miracles as
8:29
later, less authentic additions to the tradition created after
8:33
Christianity spread into the broader Greek speaking world.
8:36
Well, this is where I have to offer some serious pushback.
8:38
When you look at how they stratify these events, labeling
8:41
some as early and authentic and others as late and fabricated
8:44
based purely on a supposed Hellenistic flavor, isn't there
8:48
a massive assumption hiding in plain sight?
8:51
There absolutely is. Form criticism implies that the
8:53
early Christians simply did not care about actual, verifiable
8:56
history. The critics assume the early
8:58
believers were just generating stories on the fly to solve
9:02
their local community problems. But from a Reformed perspective,
9:06
and just from a basic reading of the New Testament documents,
9:09
historical events were absolutely everything to the
9:12
early church. They were central.
9:13
Yeah, the apostle Paul rests the entire Christian faith on the
9:17
physical, historical resurrection of Jesus in First
9:20
Corinthians 15. If it didn't happen in real
9:22
history, he says, our faith is futile.
9:25
You cannot separate the theology from the history.
9:28
You are hitting on the primary flaw in their logic, and
9:31
scholars have vigorously pointed this out.
9:34
The theologian Stephen Neal offers a brilliant, logical
9:37
critique of this mindset. He asks a very basic question
9:42
about human nature. Why would the first generation
9:44
of Christians, the actual eyewitnesses, be completely
9:48
uninterested in the historical context of Jesus, only for the
9:51
second generation to suddenly develop a massive obsession with
9:54
writing down historical? That makes no sense it.
9:57
Defies rational sense. If you are an eyewitness to an
10:00
event, you pass on the context along with the quote you say I
10:04
was standing there when he said this.
10:05
You don't just pass on a disembodied proverb.
10:08
That is a great point. Furthermore, form criticism
10:11
ignores the cultural realities of the ancient Near East.
10:14
It ignores the absolute tenacity of the Oriental memory.
10:18
Oh, the memory culture. Yes, in that specific culture,
10:21
memorization was a highly developed, rigorous skill.
10:25
The Scandinavian school of biblical scholarship has
10:27
highlighted that the words of a Jewish rabbi were considered
10:30
wholly by his pupils. They were memorized and
10:33
preserved with absolute precision, often using mnemonic
10:36
devices. The disciples were not playing a
10:39
chaotic game of telephone. They were functioning as
10:41
designated tradition bearers. Right.
10:44
And you know, the critics act as if nobody could write anything
10:47
down during Jesus's actual ministry, as if literacy didn't
10:50
exist in Judea. But what about Matthew?
10:53
That is a fantastic. Point.
10:54
He was a tax collector. He was literally a professional
10:56
record keeper for the Roman government.
10:58
His entire job revolved around taking precise notes, keeping
11:01
ledgers and maintaining records. He was a professional.
11:04
Yeah, it is highly probable, almost certain, that a man of
11:08
his profession would keep written notes or a diary while
11:11
following a prominent rabbi. To assume the traditions floated
11:15
around as purely oral, unstrung pearls for decades, mutating
11:19
wildly, is to completely ignore the actual people involved in
11:23
the narrative. The forum critics often assume
11:25
that a theological motivation automatically cancels out a
11:29
historical motivation. Oh, that is a false dichotomy.
11:31
Exactly. They assume that if the early
11:34
church preached a story to make a theological point, they must
11:37
have invented the historical details to fit that point.
11:40
But as you noted, the Jewish context of the Disciples demands
11:43
a high view of historical transmission.
11:45
So form criticism has some major holes.
11:48
It does. Now.
11:49
If form criticism proved inadequate by isolating the
11:52
pieces, the academic world had to evolve.
11:54
They had to ask, what about the people who actually put the
11:57
pieces together right? If form criticism looks at the
11:59
beads, the next movement looks at the person stringing the
12:02
necklace. This brings us to redaction,
12:04
criticism. So the focus shifts from the
12:06
oral community back to the actual authors.
12:09
Yes, the German term is redactions keshta, a discipline
12:13
pioneered by scholars like Willie Markson falling World War
12:17
2. OK, what do they argue?
12:19
Redaction critics argue that the Gospel writers were not passive
12:22
collectors who just blindly glued traditions together.
12:26
Instead, they view Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as highly
12:30
self-conscious, deliberate theologians.
12:33
According to this view, the evangelist actively shaped,
12:36
modified, expanded, and even created material to fit their
12:39
specific specific theological agendas.
12:41
Oh, so they are treating them like modern editors?
12:44
Exactly. So while form criticism talks
12:46
about 1 sits in Laban, the setting of the early church,
12:50
redaction criticism introduces 3 sits in Laban.
12:52
Three of them, yes, you have the original situation in which
12:56
Jesus actually lived and taught. Then you have the situation of
12:59
the early church trying to survive, preach and minister.
13:03
And the third. And thirdly, you have the
13:05
specific situation and theological purpose of the
13:08
Gospel writer himself. The Radical redaction critic
13:11
believes that what we read in the Gospels is primarily the
13:14
theology of the writer, tailored for his specific audience, not
13:18
the actual history of Jesus. Well, if we assume the gospel
13:22
writers were altering and creating material from scratch
13:25
to fit their theological agendas, aren't we crediting
13:28
these ancient authors with an unrealistic, almost hyper modern
13:31
degree of editorial ingenuity? It really is a stretch.
13:34
It feels like we are applying 21st century literary techniques
13:38
to 1st century fishermen and tax collectors.
13:40
That is a very robust objection, and scholars like Rs Barber have
13:44
pointed out massive flaws in how redaction criticism is
13:47
frequently applied. What are the flaws?
13:50
First, there's an overwhelming tendency for critics to assume
13:52
that every single verse, every single inclusion or omission in
13:56
the Gospels was engineered to address a very specific,
13:59
localized problem in the author's audience.
14:01
That seems like a staggering assumption.
14:03
It is. While the New Testament letters
14:06
like Paul's epistles are undeniably occasional documents
14:09
addressing specific church problems in Corinth or Ephesus,
14:13
it is a massive leap to assume every single line of a gospel
14:17
narrative is a coded message for a specific local dispute.
14:21
Right. The Gospel writers were writing
14:23
biographies of the Messiah, not just drafting ecclesiastical
14:26
policy manual. Exactly.
14:27
Wait, if an academic claims that Matthew is just editing things
14:30
to fit his specific agenda, how do they actually go about
14:34
proving that? They can't just guess, they must
14:36
have some sort of metric they use to spot the editing.
14:39
They rely heavily on linguistic criteria, but as Barbara notes,
14:42
these criteria are incredibly subjective.
14:45
Give me an example. The scholar William Walker
14:48
proposed rules for spotting redaction, and one of his main
14:51
criteria relies on raw word frequency.
14:54
Just counting words. Pretty much.
14:55
For instance, he points out that the Greek word tote, which
14:58
translates to them, occurs 91 times in the Gospel of Matthew,
15:02
but only 6 times in the Gospel of Mark.
15:04
A redaction critic looks at that statistical discrepancy and
15:08
concludes that Matthew must have artificially inserted the word
15:11
then as a redactional tool to stitch his fabricated narrative
15:14
together. Wait, they base a massive claim
15:17
of historical fabrication on how many times a guy uses the word
15:21
then? Yes they do.
15:22
That seems incredibly flimsy. Yeah.
15:24
If I write an e-mail and use the word furthermore five times and
15:29
you write an e-mail about the same meeting and never use it,
15:32
it doesn't mean I invented the meeting, right?
15:34
It just means I have a different vocabulary habit.
15:37
Just because a writer favors a certain conjunction or
15:39
transitional word does not mean they are making up the
15:42
historical event they are describing.
15:44
What's fascinating here is that despite these very valid
15:47
critiques of the radical approach, there is a way to
15:50
utilize the observations of redaction criticism without
15:53
abandoning a high view of scripture.
15:55
Now so. We do not have to accept the
15:57
premise that the evangelist invented material out of thin
16:00
air. The evangelical scholar Grant
16:02
Osborne points out that a careful, restrained use of
16:05
redaption criticism can actually substantiate the veracity of the
16:08
text. Oh, that is an interesting flip.
16:11
When we study the specific theological emphasis of Matthew
16:14
versus Luke, we are not looking at contradiction, we are looking
16:18
at application. Application, right?
16:20
The Gospel writers were taking the genuine historical teachings
16:24
of Jesus and interpreting them, adapting them for their specific
16:28
audiences under the the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
16:31
So they were tailoring the true events.
16:33
Yes, Matthew highlights Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish law
16:37
for a Jewish audience, while Luke highlights Jesus's
16:40
compassion for the marginalized for a Gentile audience.
16:44
Both are historically true, they are just utilizing different
16:47
facets of the same historical reality.
16:49
That makes total sense. If two reporters cover a press
16:52
conference, the financial reporter will quote the numbers
16:55
and the political reporter will quote the policy changes.
16:58
Spot on. They aren't contradicting each
16:59
other, they're applying the event to their specific readers.
17:03
Exactly right, and this introduces A crucial distinction
17:06
in theological studies that protects the integrity of the
17:09
text. The difference between Exisma
17:11
Verbur and Exisma Vox. Let's break those Latin phrases
17:15
down for the listener. Think about telling a friend
17:17
what your boss said to you at work.
17:20
You might not use the exact literal syllables your boss
17:23
used, right? You might paraphrase slightly to
17:25
make the story flow. You weren't giving the obsisima
17:28
verba the literal words, but you perfectly capture their exact
17:33
voice, their tone, and their precise meaning.
17:36
You give the obsisim of Ox. That is a perfect translation of
17:39
the concepts. Obsisima verba means the exact
17:43
literal words, the precise phonetic syllables that came out
17:46
of Jesus's mouth. Obscism of ox means the exact
17:50
voice, the exact substance and meaning of his teaching.
17:52
Because Jesus likely taught primarily in Aramaic during his
17:56
earthly ministry, and the Gospel are written in Greek, we already
17:58
know we are reading a translation.
18:00
Right, that is a given. We may not always have the
18:02
Epsysimaverba, the literal Aramaic phonetic sounds, but
18:06
through the faithful spirit inspired recording of the
18:09
Evangelist, we absolutely have the Epsysima vox.
18:12
That is a huge comfort. We have the true, uncorrupted
18:15
substance of his message, carefully applied to the needs
18:19
of the reading audience. This view maintains the
18:22
infallibility of Scripture while acknowledging the human
18:25
authorship and editorial choices of the writers.
18:29
That distinction between the exact syllables and the exact
18:32
voice is incredibly helpful for maintaining confidence in the
18:35
biblical text. So the academic critics tried to
18:39
take apart the oral history of the text and failed because they
18:42
ignored the culture of memory. Then they tried to attack the
18:45
authors, claiming they were just making things up, but that
18:47
failed because it ignored how authors actually apply true
18:51
events to different audiences. But if you cannot destroy the
18:55
history and you cannot destroy the author, what is the next
18:58
logical step for a skeptic? You destroy the meaning itself.
19:02
You attack the reader's ability to understand the text
19:04
objectively, and that brings us to the postmodern turn.
19:08
Yes, the progression is quite revealing.
19:11
If redaction criticism makes the human editor the primary creator
19:15
of the text's meaning, the ensuing postmodern turn took
19:19
things to an entirely different level by trying to remove the
19:23
author from the equation all together.
19:24
Wow. This leads us into structural
19:27
criticism, reader response criticism, and canonical
19:30
criticism. Let's start with structuralism.
19:33
You started that. The linguist Ferdinand de
19:36
Soschur laid the groundwork, and scholars like Daniel Patte
19:39
applied it to biblical studies. Structuralism is fascinating
19:43
because it completely stops looking outward at history.
19:46
It doesn't care about the historical background.
19:47
Not at all. It doesn't care about the Roman
19:49
Empire, the cultural background of 1st century Judea, or the
19:53
author's intent. Instead, it looks entirely
19:55
inward at the text itself. What are they looking for?
19:58
It searches for what they call deep structures and mythemes.
20:02
These are theorized as universal subconscious literary
20:05
constraints that force themselves onto any author,
20:07
regardless of their culture or time period.
20:09
That is wild. Structuralists believe that
20:12
beneath the surface narrative, there is a mathematical grid of
20:16
meaning that the author didn't even know they were using.
20:20
That sounds like they are trying to turn literature into algebra.
20:23
They essentially were, but structuralism collapsed under
20:26
its own weight. It lacked any clear way to
20:28
verify its results. I can see why.
20:30
If you claim to find a hidden subconscious structure in a text
20:34
that the author was unaware of, how does anyone prove you right
20:37
or wrong? It becomes highly subjective,
20:39
right? Add to that the rise of post
20:41
Freudian psychoanalytic skepticism, which argues that
20:45
humans are incredibly skilled at deceiving themselves.
20:48
Scholars simply lost confidence in their ability to objectively
20:51
map these supposed deep structures without projecting
20:54
their own biases onto the text. So if structuralism failed,
20:58
where did the academic world pivot?
21:00
That collapse paved the way for an even more radical
21:02
subjectivism in the late 1960's. The focus shifted entirely away
21:07
from the text and away from the author, landing squarely on the
21:10
reader. The reader.
21:11
This is known as reader response criticism.
21:14
In this methodology, the locus of meaning does not reside in
21:18
the words on the page, it resides solely in the mind of
21:22
the person reading them. Oh boy.
21:24
The text is treated almost as a blank screen onto which the
21:27
reader projects their own meaning, shaped by their own
21:29
experiences and culture. I always think of reader
21:32
response criticism like walking into a highly avant-garde modern
21:36
art gallery. You walk in and there is a
21:39
massive canvas painted entirely white with one single red dot in
21:43
the lower corner. I know exactly the kind of art
21:45
you mean. You ask the curator what it
21:47
means, and they look at you and say, well, what does it mean to
21:50
you? And how do you respond to the
21:51
curator? I would say I want to know if
21:53
the artist was trying to tell me, but in reader response
21:56
theory, there's no objective message from the artist.
21:59
If the red dot makes you feel anxious, then the painting is
22:02
about anxiety. If it makes you feel joyful, it
22:05
is about joy. The meaning is entirely
22:08
manufactured by your emotional and intellectual response in
22:11
that moment. Now, if you apply that mindset
22:14
to the Gospel of John, you can see how devastating it is to
22:18
classical theology. You are no longer reading God's
22:20
revelation to humanity. You were just reading your own
22:23
internal thoughts reflected back at you.
22:26
That is a highly accurate assessment of the danger.
22:29
The scholar Stanley Fish is one of the most radical proponents
22:33
of this view. Stanley Fish, what do you say?
22:36
Fish argues vigorous against the idea that meaning is objectively
22:39
embedded in a text waiting to be extracted.
22:42
Now Fish realizes that total interpretive anarchy is a bad
22:46
look for an academic discipline. Right.
22:48
If anyone can mean anything, communication breaks down
22:50
entirely. So he tries to establish a
22:53
goundary by arguing that communities constrain meaning.
22:56
You cannot just make up any meaning you want because your
22:58
interpretation is regulated by the social or institutional
23:02
community you belong to. OK, so groupthink basically.
23:04
Essentially, A Marxist community will read a text one way, a
23:08
feminist community another, a conservative community another,
23:11
and all are equally valid within their spheres.
23:14
But this entire approach is brilliantly self defeating.
23:18
When Scanley Fish sits down and writes a whole book explaining
23:22
his theory of reader response criticism, what does he want his
23:25
readers to do? Read his book, presumably.
23:28
Does he want them to invent their own arbitrary meaning for
23:32
his book? If I read his book and say I
23:35
think Stanley Fish is arguing that we should all eat more
23:37
vegetables, he would be furious. He absolutely would.
23:40
He expects me to extract the objective meaning he intended to
23:44
communicate. It is a completely hypocritical
23:47
methodology. You cannot live it out in the
23:49
real world. It's a devastating philosophical
23:51
contradiction. If words have no objective
23:54
meaning, then writing a book to argue that words have no
23:57
objective meaning is an exercise in utter absurdity.
24:00
Exactly. The philosopher Ludwig
24:01
Wittgenstein had a brilliant critique for this kind of
24:04
academic theorizing. He warned against prescribing
24:07
how language must work based on abstract ivory tower theories.
24:11
What did he suggest instead? Instead, he said we need to look
24:13
and see how language actually functions in reality.
24:16
And in reality, authors write to be understood.
24:19
Yeah, when you write a grocery list, you expect your spouse to
24:22
buy the specific items on the list, not to interpret the list
24:25
as a poem about seasonal depression.
24:28
That perfectly grounds the absurdity of it.
24:31
If you are listening to this on your commute, you might be
24:34
wondering why a 1960s theory on reading comprehension matters to
24:38
your Sunday morning sermon. It matters a lot.
24:41
It matters because if the reader creates the meaning, then the
24:45
Bible loses all authority to correct the reader.
24:48
You become the God of the text. Which is why maintaining the
24:51
authors intent is so vital now within this postmodern
24:54
landscape. There is one other approach
24:56
mentioned in our sources that takes a different angle, and
24:59
that is canonical criticism. Canonical Criticism.
25:02
Primarily associated with the scholar Brevard Childs, Childs
25:06
accepts many of the findings of historical criticism.
25:08
He acknowledges that the texts have complex histories and
25:11
sources. But what is his main point?
25:13
He argues that for the purpose of theology, the historical
25:16
reconstruction is not the final authority.
25:18
What matters is the final canonical shape of the
25:21
Scriptures. Oh, the final form.
25:22
His argument is that the believing community, the
25:25
historic church, received the final edited form of the text as
25:29
authoritative, not the hypothetical oral traditions or
25:33
the independent cue sources. So he is saying we should focus
25:37
on the final product, the Bible as we have it, rather than
25:39
getting lost in the weeds of how it was assembled.
25:42
Yes. Now Child's does not hold the
25:44
traditional Reformed view of biblical inerrancy that we
25:47
affirm, right? But his emphasis is highly
25:50
useful because it brings the academic focus back to the text
25:54
as it was received by the church.
25:56
Rather than leaving the Bible as a dissected laboratory specimen
25:59
for academics to endlessly to argue over, it treats the Bible
26:03
as a theological document again. Here's where it gets really
26:05
interesting, because the attacks on traditional Christian belief
26:09
didn't just come from biblical critics looking at ancient
26:11
manuscripts or postmodernists looking at readers.
26:14
Where else did they come from? The attacks also came from
26:17
modern philosophers who wanted to destroy the very vocabulary
26:21
we used to talk about God. If the postmodernists destroy
26:25
objective meaning in reading the text, the modern philosophers
26:29
tried to destroy the basic building blocks of language
26:32
itself. Oh, the philosophical shift.
26:34
This brings us to a massive philosophical movement known as
26:38
logical positivism, which dominated the intellectual world
26:42
in the early 20th century. Logical positivism was a
26:45
formidable challenge to any form of religious belief.
26:49
These philosophers engage in a process called verificational
26:52
analysis. How does that work?
26:54
They decided to divide all human statements into two strict,
26:57
mutually exclusive categories. The first category consists of
27:01
analytic or a priori statements A.
27:03
Priori statements. These are propositions that are
27:05
true by definition. Think of mathematical equations
27:08
like 2 + 2 = 4. Or think of definitions like all
27:11
bachelors are unmarried. You do not need to investigate
27:14
the world to know those are true.
27:16
The predicate is contained within the subject.
27:19
However, the positivists argued that these analytic statements,
27:23
while true, tell us absolutely nothing new about the physical
27:26
reality of the world. They are just logical
27:29
tautologies. Right.
27:30
Knowing a bachelor's unmarried doesn't tell you how many
27:33
bachelors live in your neighborhood.
27:34
You need a different kind of statement for that.
27:36
Precisely that leads to the second category, synthetic or a
27:40
posteriori statements. An example would be all
27:43
bachelors are tall. OK, you cannot know if that
27:47
statement is true just by defining the word bachelor.
27:50
You have to go out into the real physical world, gather sensory
27:53
data, measure the height of all the bachelors, and verify the
27:56
claims. Synthetic statements make claims
27:58
about the actual physical universe.
28:00
And that division created massive trap for theology.
28:04
The logical positivists establish what they called the
28:06
Verifiability principle. Yes, the core rule.
28:09
They declared A strict rule if a synthetic statement cannot be
28:13
tested and verified by the five physical senses sight, sound,
28:17
touch, taste, smell, it is literally nonsense.
28:20
It is completely devoid of cognitive meaning.
28:23
So they demand sensory proof. Exactly.
28:25
So when a Christian stands up and says a theological sentence
28:28
like God is a loving Father, the positivist demands empirical
28:32
proof. They ask what physical sensory
28:35
data proves this statement. And of course there isn't any
28:38
physical data for that. And conversely, what physical
28:41
data would falsify it? Because God is a super sensible
28:44
supernatural being, we cannot put him under a microscope.
28:46
We cannot measure his love with calipers.
28:49
Therefore, according to the rigid rules of logical
28:51
positivism, the statement God is a loving Father is deemed
28:55
entirely meaningless. It does not describe reality in
28:58
any verifiable. Way.
29:00
And because they deemed theological statements factually
29:02
meaningless, they had to categorize them somewhere.
29:05
So the positivists relegated all religious, ethical and moral
29:08
language to the category of emotive language.
29:11
This goes back to my opening scenario.
29:14
Under the rules of logical positivism, saying God loves you
29:18
has the exact same cognitive weight as stubbing your toe and
29:21
yelling Ouch or watching your favorite team score a touchdown
29:24
and yelling Hooray. Just raw emotion.
29:27
It is nothing more than a vocalized emotional reaction.
29:31
The positivists look at theologians and say you might
29:34
think you were describing the reality of the universe, but in
29:37
reality you are just giving vent to your internal psychological
29:41
feelings. It reduces 2000 years of robust
29:44
Christian theology to a highly sophisticated series of grunts
29:48
and groans. It tells the listener that their
29:51
prayers are just emotional noise.
29:53
It was a brutal assault on the validity of faith, but just like
29:56
reader response criticism, logical positivism suffered from
30:00
a fatal self-inflicted wound. They did.
30:02
The entire movement collapsed spectacularly because
30:04
philosophers realized the verifiability principle itself
30:07
cannot pass its own tests. Let's break that down, because
30:09
it is brilliant. The central rule of positivism
30:12
is the statement. A proposition is only meaningful
30:14
if it can be empirically verified by the physical senses.
30:17
Now apply their own 2 categories to that statement.
30:21
Is that statement an analytic tautology like 2 + 2 = 4?
30:25
No, no, it is not true by definition.
30:27
So is it a synthetic statement? If it is, it must be empirically
30:31
verified by the five senses. Can you physically weigh the
30:34
verifiability principle? Can you measure it with a ruler?
30:38
Can you smell it or taste it? No, no, you cannot empirically
30:42
verify the rule that demands empirical verification.
30:45
Therefore, by its own rigid mathematical rules, the
30:48
foundational doctrine kind of logical positivism is a
30:52
literally meaningless noise. It blew itself up.
30:54
It's a philosophical dead end. They try to build a cage to trap
30:58
theology and they ended up locking themselves inside.
31:00
That is a great way to put it. But if positivism blew itself
31:03
up, where do philosophers go next?
31:06
Since they couldn't mandate rigid rules for language,
31:09
philosophy had to pivot. They began to look at how human
31:12
beings actually communicate in the real world.
31:15
This shift is known as functional analysis.
31:17
And here we return to the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
31:21
Earlier in his career he influenced the positivists, but
31:25
later he recognized their massive error.
31:28
What did he write? In his work Philosophical
31:31
Investigations, he recognized that language is not just a
31:34
mathematical equation or is a scientific laboratory tool.
31:38
Language is a dynamic human activity.
31:41
He developed the concept of language games.
31:43
He observed that telling a joke, reporting a fire to the fire
31:46
department, giving a military order, and praying to God are
31:50
all entirely different uses of language.
31:52
They are different games. They are different language
31:54
games, and each game has its own internal set of rules, its own
31:58
vocabulary, and its own standard of success.
32:01
The goal of the philosopher is not to force the rules of one
32:04
game onto another, but to observe the diverse games and
32:07
understand how they function in their proper context.
32:10
The analogy I use for language games is sports.
32:13
Imagine you were playing a game of baseball.
32:15
The rules are clear. You hit the ball with the bat.
32:18
You run the bases. You try to score.
32:20
Now imagine a linebacker from a football team runs onto the
32:23
baseball field, lines up and brutally tackles the shortstop.
32:28
Chaos ensues. The umpire immediately ejects
32:31
him, the linebacker argues. But tackling is completely legal
32:35
in the rule book. I executed a perfect form
32:38
tackle. And what is the umpires
32:39
response? The umpire says you are using
32:42
the football rule book for a baseball game.
32:45
The linebacker has committed a fundamental error.
32:48
I love that analogy. Wittgenstein and the functional
32:50
analyst point out that mixing the rules of one language game
32:54
with another causes massive confusion.
32:56
They call this a category transgression.
32:59
So when a logical positivist takes a theological statement
33:01
about the divine creation of the universe and demands we
33:04
evaluated using the strict empirical rules of a chemistry
33:07
lab, they are committing a category transgression.
33:10
They are tackling the short study.
33:12
The shortstop. They are completely
33:13
misunderstanding what theological language is designed
33:15
to do. That is an excellent
33:17
illustration. Recognizing that theology has
33:20
its own language game with its own rules protects theology from
33:24
the unfair, inapplicable attacks of the empirical sciences.
33:28
It provides a massive shield. But it raises a new, highly
33:31
pressing issue. If theology is just its own
33:34
distinct game, how do we prove that it actually communicates
33:38
objective truth about reality? That is the big question.
33:41
Fantasy novel has its own internal rules, but it isn't
33:45
real. How do we know we are not just
33:47
playing a very elaborate, self-contained fantasy game when
33:51
we talk about God? Right, we have to defend our
33:53
vocabulary as cognitively true. Exactly.
33:55
The philosophical text walks us through a few proposed solutions
33:58
that attempt to do this, but ultimately fall short.
34:02
First, there is William Hordern who proposed looking at
34:04
theological language as personal language.
34:07
How does personal language work? Horton argued that we talk about
34:10
God the same way we talk about other human persons.
34:13
We cannot empirically measure a human being's inner thoughts or
34:16
feelings. We have to rely on them to
34:18
reveal those thoughts to us through personal communication.
34:21
OK, that sounds reasonable at first.
34:23
Horton says theology works the same way.
34:25
God reveals his inner nature to us.
34:28
But this analogy breaks down philosophically.
34:31
Because we have direct physical sensory experience of human
34:35
persons, we can see them and hear them speak.
34:38
Oh, I see the flaw. We do not have that direct
34:41
sensory experience with God. The analogy fails to bridge the
34:44
gap to the supernatural. What was the other proposed
34:47
solution? Then you have John Hick, who
34:49
proposed an idea called eschatological verification.
34:52
Hick agreed with the positivist that verification is necessary
34:55
for meaning, but he argued that Christians will get their
34:58
empirical verification at the end of time in the eschaton
35:02
after death. So he is saying, I can't prove
35:04
it to you now, but when we both die and stand before God, you'll
35:08
see I was right. Essentially yes, but again, this
35:10
is philosophically flawed. The positivist demand present
35:13
physical sensory verification. How can a future post death
35:17
spiritual verification be considered empirical in the way
35:21
science demands? It changes the definition of
35:23
verification entirely. These solutions do not quite
35:26
solve the cognitive problem of how we speak about a
35:29
transcendent God right now. Which leads us to a much more
35:32
robust solution offered by the philosopher Frederick Furay, the
35:36
concept of metaphysical synthesis.
35:38
This is a highly significant concept.
35:41
Furay argues that theology deals with metaphysical facts.
35:45
A metaphysic is essentially a worldview.
35:48
A worldview. It is a comprehensive conceptual
35:50
synthesis that attempts to tie all of human experience, all the
35:54
disparate facts of life together into a coherent whole.
35:58
Got it? Think of your sports analogy
36:00
again. A worldview is like the
36:02
overarching strategy of the game that makes sense of all the
36:05
confusing action on the field. Without the strategy, it just
36:09
looks like people running around aimlessly.
36:11
So true. Every single person on earth,
36:13
whether they realize it or not, operates with a worldview.
36:16
The atheist scientist has a metaphysical synthesis and the
36:20
Reformed Christian has a metaphysical synthesis.
36:23
But that raises a massive question.
36:24
If everyone has a worldview, and everyone claims their worldview
36:28
is the correct lens, how do you grade them?
36:30
How do you prove 1 is better? How do you evaluate A worldview
36:33
to prove that the Christian worldview is objectively better
36:38
or more truthful than a secular materialist worldview?
36:42
If we connect this to the bigger picture, for a provides us with
36:45
a rigorous intellectual framework for doing exactly
36:48
that. He outlines 4 specific criteria
36:51
for evaluating any metaphysical synthesis.
36:54
How are they? He divides these into internal
36:56
criteria, which he calls syntactics, and extra criteria,
37:00
which you call semantics. Let's look at the internal
37:02
criteria first. The first internal rule is
37:05
consistency. This simply means there can be
37:07
no logical contradictions among the core symbols and statements
37:10
within the system. If a worldview contradicts
37:13
itself, it cannot be true. For instance, for instance, if a
37:16
system claims there is absolutely no moral truth, but
37:19
then claims you have a moral obligation to care for the poor,
37:21
it is inconsistent. Right, it fails its own internal
37:24
logic. However, consistency alone is
37:26
not enough to prove truth. You can have a perfectly
37:29
consistent system that is entirely fictional.
37:32
The rules of chess are perfectly consistent, but chess does not
37:35
explain the origin of the universe.
37:36
So what else is needed? That requires the second
37:39
internal criterion, coherence. Coherence means there must be a
37:43
genuine interrelatedness among the parts of the system.
37:47
The facts cannot just sit next to each other, they must rely on
37:51
each other. How does that look in practice?
37:53
Consider three statements. The price of bananas went up.
37:56
The wind is blowing W my dog is sleeping.
37:59
All three statements might be true, and they do not contradict
38:03
each other, but they lack coherence.
38:05
They're isolated, unrelated facts, right?
38:08
A true worldview must connect all its facts together into a
38:11
unified, interlocking hole. So a coherent worldview connects
38:15
the dots, but a worldview still has to engage with the real
38:19
world, which is where the external criteria come in.
38:21
Precisely moving to the external criteria, we evaluate how the
38:25
worldview interacts with reality outside its own system.
38:28
The first external rule is applicability.
38:32
The worldview must be capable of illuminating real human
38:35
experience naturally, without distorting it or forcing it into
38:38
an awkward mold. Can you give a theological
38:40
example? For example, the Christian
38:42
understanding of humanity as a fallen but inherently valuable
38:45
creation perfectly applies to our daily experience.
38:48
We see immense human greatness in art and self sacrifice
38:52
proving our inherent value, and we see horrific human depravity
38:56
and war and crime proving our fallen nature.
38:59
The Christian synthesis applies naturally to the reality we see
39:03
out the window. And what is the final criterion?
39:05
The final external criterion is adequacy.
39:08
A worldview must be theoretically capable of
39:10
accounting for all possible human experience, leaving
39:14
nothing out. Nothing left out.
39:16
Faray argues that a strict naturalist might have a
39:19
consistent theory that humans are just biological machines
39:22
driven by chemical reactions, but that theory becomes entirely
39:25
inadequate when they hold their newborn child and experience a
39:28
deep, transcendent, self sacrificing love.
39:31
Wow, that is a powerful point. The materialist worldview lacks
39:34
the categories to adequately explain that experience.
39:38
The Christian metaphysical synthesis meets all four
39:41
criteria. It is consistent without
39:44
contradiction, it is coherent in its theology, it is applicable
39:48
to daily life, and it is adequate to explain the entire
39:51
spectrum of human existence, from mathematics to morality to
39:55
love. That framework gives us
39:58
incredible confidence. When we use theological
40:01
language, we aren't just expressing emotion, we are
40:03
speaking cognitively meaningful truths that organize reality
40:07
better than any alternative system.
40:09
But there's another layer to how religious language functions on
40:12
a personal, individual level. It isn't just a mathematical
40:15
grid. The philosopher Ian Ramsey talks
40:18
about the concept of discernment and the idea of 2 levels of
40:21
meaning. Yes, Ramsey's work is
40:22
fascinating. Religious language isn't just a
40:24
flat list of objective facts you memorize for a test.
40:27
It acts as a trigger for a deeper realization.
40:30
Ramsay uses the phrase the penny dropping or the light dawning.
40:34
I like those phrases. I love the visual analogies used
40:36
to describe this. Think of those classic optical
40:39
illusions. You have a line drawing that
40:41
looks like a duck, but if you stare at it long enough,
40:44
suddenly your perspective shifts, your brain clicks, and
40:47
you realize it is also a drawing of a rabbit.
40:50
The duck rabbit illusion. Yes, both the duck and the
40:53
rabbit are objectively present on the page the entire time, but
40:58
you have to look at it until the penny drops and you discern that
41:01
second level of meaning. Ramsey's insight is vital
41:04
because it explains why theological language often
41:06
utilizes what he calls logically odd grammar.
41:09
Odd grammar. Theologians deliberately break
41:12
the normal rules of language to act as a pointer, trying to jolt
41:15
the listener into that moment of discernment.
41:18
For example, when trying to articulate the doctrine of the
41:20
Trinity, normal math and standard grammar fail us
41:23
completely, right? We use phrases that are
41:25
technically absurd under normal rules, like here 3 or day is 1.
41:30
We use riddles, complex analogies and paradoxes.
41:32
We are tackling the shortstop again, intentionally committing
41:35
category transgressions. Yes, but we are doing it with a
41:39
specific purpose. We are not being irrational.
41:42
We are trying to articulate a deeper, objective, supernatural
41:45
reality that simply cannot be obtained by standard empirical
41:50
vocabulary. We.
41:50
Are pointing beyond the word. The goal of this logically odd
41:53
language is to elicit that realization, the penny dropping.
41:57
It breaks the standard categories to force the mind to
42:00
reach for the transcendent. And when that discernment
42:02
happens, it leads to an active, life changing dedication from
42:06
the believer. The language demands a personal
42:08
response. It does not just convey DRY
42:11
information. And that idea of language
42:13
demanding a response transitions us perfectly into our final
42:16
major concept, speech act theory.
42:19
The basic premise here is that human language does not just
42:22
synthesize reality or describe facts.
42:24
Language actually acts upon reality.
42:27
Words are things that do things. This is a revolutionary way to
42:30
view language pioneered by the philosophers John Austin and
42:33
John Searle. They challenge the long held
42:35
assumption that the only purpose of speaking is to state a fact.
42:38
They realize that utterances are actually actions in themselves.
42:42
When you speak, you are performing a speech act.
42:45
They break this down into 3 distinct acts that happen
42:48
simultaneously when we communicate.
42:51
Let's go. 1st is the locutionary act.
42:54
This is the simple physical act of uttering the sentence with
42:56
its basic vocabulary and syntax. Second is the illocutionary act.
43:01
This is the force behind the words.
43:03
What do you mean by force? What are you doing with the
43:05
utterance? Are you warning someone,
43:07
commanding them, promising them something, or just informing
43:10
them? 3rd is the prelocutionary act,
43:13
which is the actual outcome or effect you achieve in the
43:16
listener, like successfully persuading them or frightening
43:18
them. Let's ground this with an
43:20
example. If a pastor stands up at a
43:22
wedding and says I now connounce you, husband and wife, he isn't
43:26
just describing the room right. He isn't stating a fact about
43:29
the weather. His words are actually altering
43:31
reality. He is creating a marriage right
43:35
there on the spot. The illocutionary force of his
43:38
words performs an action. That is a classic example of a
43:42
speech act. Understanding the illocutionary
43:44
force of a statement introduces the concept of the direction of
43:48
fit. Direction of fit.
43:50
Searle explained that different speech acts relate to the world
43:53
differently. Assertions like stating the door
43:55
is closed try to make the words fit the world.
43:58
You are describing reality as it is.
44:00
And the other direction. But commands like close the door
44:04
try to make the world fit the words.
44:06
You are using language to change reality because language
44:10
performs so many different functions.
44:12
Austin argued that statements shouldn't just be evaluated on a
44:15
binary scale of true or false. They should be evaluated as
44:19
felicitous, meaning happy or successful, or infelicitous,
44:23
meaning unhappy or unsuccessful. And utterance misfires or
44:27
becomes infelicitous if the circumstances are wrong.
44:30
If I stand on the street and yell at a passing stranger, I
44:32
sentence you to 10 years in prison.
44:34
The locution is clear. You understand the vocabulary.
44:37
Right. You understand my vocabulary,
44:38
but the speech act misfires entirely because I am not a
44:42
judge in a courtroom. The authority and the proper
44:44
context are absent, so the words fail to change reality.
44:48
The speech act is in felicitous. This raises an important
44:52
question for theological application.
44:54
How does this apply to the biblical text?
44:56
That is what I want to know. The scholar Kevin Vanhooser
44:59
applies the speech act theory directly to Scripture.
45:02
Vanhooser points out that God uses different literary genres
45:05
in the Bible to accomplish different divine speech acts.
45:08
God does not just make assertions.
45:10
He commands. He laments.
45:12
He promises, He warns. Now this brings up a massive
45:16
question for us as Reformed believers who hold a high view
45:19
of Scripture. If we are saying some verses in
45:22
the Bible aren't trying to state literal scientific facts, does
45:25
that weaken our traditional Protestant view of biblical
45:28
inerrancy? Does it give critics an opening
45:30
to say the Bible is flawed? It is a concern many
45:33
evangelicals share, but Vanhooser provides a rigorous
45:36
defense of biblical authority by focusing on the concept of
45:39
infallibility through this lens. How does he frame it?
45:42
He argues that infallibility means divine speech acts never
45:45
fail to achieve their intended purpose.
45:48
They were always perfectly felicitous.
45:50
Not every single verse in the Bible is intended to be a
45:52
scientific assertion trying to make words fit the physical
45:55
world. Oh, OK.
45:56
Some verses are divine commands designed to change our behavior.
45:59
Some are poetic laments expressing grief.
46:02
Some are eternal promises offering comfort.
46:05
So we have to read them according to their genre.
46:06
Yes. If we try to read a divine
46:08
promise or a piece of apocalyptic poetry as a
46:11
scientific textbook assertion, we are the ones committing a
46:15
category transgression. Recognizing the illocutionary
46:18
force, knowing what the specific genre is trying to do, helps us
46:22
read the text correctly without abandoning its divine authority
46:25
in any way. So it actually makes us better
46:27
readers. We stopped forcing poetry to be
46:29
math. Yes, exactly.
46:31
However, we must recognize the limits of speech act theory.
46:34
It is a brilliant hermeneutical tool for understanding how a
46:36
text operates, but it does not solve the underlying
46:39
epistemological problem of super sensible realities.
46:42
It has limits. It does Speech act theory
46:45
explains how God God's promises work within the text, but it
46:49
doesn't prove to a skeptic that God exists to make the promise
46:52
in the 1st place. For that, we still have to rely
46:55
on forays metaphysical synthesis to demonstrate that the
46:58
Christian worldview is rational, coherent and objectively true.
47:02
So what does this all mean? We have covered an immense
47:05
amount of ground today. We really have.
47:07
We started by looking at biblical criticism.
47:10
We saw how form critics tried to isolate the oral traditions and
47:14
how redaction critics tried to accuse the authors of
47:17
fabrication. But we also saw that if we strip
47:20
away the anti supernatural bias, studying the historical settings
47:24
and the editorial focus of the gospel, writers can actually
47:27
clarify the text and highlight the specific applications of
47:30
Christ's teachings. That is exactly right.
47:32
We move through the postmodern destruction of meaning,
47:35
realizing that reader response theory is entirely self
47:37
defeating. Then we tackled the
47:39
philosophical attacks of logical positivism, watching that
47:42
movement blow itself up with its own verifiability principle.
47:46
It was a philosophical dead end. Finally, we explored how tools
47:49
like functional analysis, metaphysical synthesis, and
47:52
speech act theory validate the rationality of our faith.
47:55
For you, the listener, the practical take away is immense.
47:59
It changes everything. When you open your Bible to read
48:02
or when you bow your head to pray, you are not engaging in a
48:05
meaningless emotive exercise. You're engaging in a highly
48:09
rational, cognitively meaningful activity that synthesizes all of
48:13
reality into a coherent worldview.
48:15
It provides A rigorous intellectual framework for the
48:18
faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints.
48:22
Our theological vocabulary is not a collection of nonsense
48:25
syllables. It is the language of reality
48:27
itself. I want to leave you with a final
48:29
thought to ponder as we close. We have established the human
48:33
language is capable of functioning as a divine speech
48:35
act carrying the infallible force of God's intentions.
48:39
If that is true, how should that alter the way we speak to one
48:42
another in our daily lives? If our own words possess
48:45
illocutionary force that literally shapes the reality
48:47
around us, are we using our daily vocabulary to build up a
48:51
coherent, life giving worldview for our families and
48:54
communities? That is a challenging thought.
48:56
Or are we carelessly creating infelicitous misfires, using our
49:00
words in ways that fracture our relationships and contradict the
49:03
very theology we profess? Thank you for joining us for
49:07
this deep dive on reform thinking.