The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 62 - The Divine Dialogue: Language, Analogy, and the Infinite Nature of God

August 22, 2024 • Paul

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Can we ever fully convey the infinite nature of God using our limited human language? Embark on a profound exploration with us as we grapple with this age-old theological question. We begin by dissecting the concept of analogy and the inherent limitations of language, considering whether apophatic theology's emphasis on describing God through negations provides a more accurate picture. Simultaneously, we challenge this view by reflecting on the Bible's positive assertions about God's nature and the significance of language as a divine gift. Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we delve into whether human words can indeed meaningfully describe the divine.

Despite our linguistic shortcomings and sinful confusion, there's a way to communicate God's truths effectively. We discuss the delicate balance between portraying God as too small or too abstract, emphasizing God's use of our cultural and linguistic contexts to reveal Himself. Drawing on insights from Verne Poythress, we affirm that truth is rooted in God and made accessible to us as a divine gift. Finally, we explore the intricate relationship between truth, language, and human understanding, highlighting how God's design of language encompasses both unity and diversity. This fosters a shared understanding of truth, rich with infinite variety, while maintaining its fundamental sameness. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that pushes the boundaries of how we perceive language and the divine.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. As we continue to explore language and words and I'd like to think about analogy, the concept of analogy, the power of language to speak truth in complex ways, it's worth exploring more deeply here. The great problem in human thought about God is the sense of the inadequacy of human language. If all our words are shaped and limited by human experience of finite and physical things, then how can our words hope to describe the unlimited and eternal life of the Trinity? As soon as I ask that question, actually I'm just going to interject to myself to say that question carries some baggage with it, because even in juxtaposing human experience as finite and physical, as over again say, infinite non-physical life of God See, already I've imported assumptions and ideas that could have already skewed the entire conversation, because if I say, oh well, obviously God is completely antithetical or opposed to or out of harmony with what is physical, I've basically just written off Jesus Christ and the incarnation and the idea that all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. So you know I'm struggling with language, aren't I? Even now I'm trying to talk about why human language is inadequate and in doing that I am struggling with it Because I'm wanting to sort of try to acknowledge the limitations of our language. But even in trying to describe the limitations of our language I'm very limited. What can I really say? I'm very limited, what can I really say if I'm going to be really truthful about describing the living God? So let's pick the concept of power, let's pick on something specific that we can grapple with. Maybe that will help us. What we mean by the word power? It falls so far below the kind of power that the living's power we might say that.

Speaker 1:

So one approach is to say that we cannot say anything positive at all about God, the living God, because all such statements, any positive, assertive statement about the living God, is more misleading, misleading. It's more harmful than helpful. This is known as apophatic theology. The word power is so limited and messed up that that's misleading. So why don't we try to restrict ourselves to saying what God is not, rather than what God is? And so we might say oh yeah, that sounds a better, more stable or more hopeful approach to at least speaking truthfully. So we might say God is not weak, god is not weary. This living God Father, son and Spirit, not weary. This living God, father, son and Spirit, not limited, or, we might say, not sinful. The Trinity is not lonely, yeah, that seems safe to say, not silent. And then what about not spatially confined? Or the Father, son, spirit is not ignorant, etc.

Speaker 1:

Well, there is a certain humility to such an approach, at least apparently so, least apparently so. But it is it the way. The bible speaks about the living god only in negatives and the idea. People who are big fans of apathetic theology would say ah well, even when the bible appears to be making a positive statement, it can really be translated into a negative statement, like what God is not. And that's really what the only safe language. But that's not apparently true. Because in the Bible we get many positive assertions about the character, action and nature of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1:

And if we say and the nervousness about this apophatic approach is, it seems humble to go, well, we're so nervous of the weakness of our language to positively describe anything about God, we'll just limit ourselves to try and say what he isn't. But underneath that is this idea that our language can describe God in any way, shape or form, or that what we're doing is attempting to kind of it's human beings attempting to come up with an adequate description of God, and there's a whiff about it that what we are doing is sharing our insights about God and that it's our language that is weak or strong or whatever, whereas I think what we've been trying to discover is that describing the living God in language predates humanity completely. It belongs to eternity. It belongs before the universe existed, long as before the universe existed. God the Son, as the divine word, has already spoken out the truth about God in words and possibly even wrote it down in books and scrolls or whatever. Is a suitable medium for the eternal God before the foundation of the world may be stored on some sort of file system or I don't know whatever, but the idea that it's written and spoken, the truth about God has been spoken and expressed before we ever came along. So the idea, in a way, to say ah, language cannot do this, you're like whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on. It can be done and has been done. It depends who is speaking and whether they can speak with authority. Like it has been done, god has been fully, exhaustively, comprehensively described in language by God the Son before the universe ever came to be.

Speaker 1:

So apophatic theology of Kate. It's trying to say well, human language can't do that. But what if our human language, as we've been trying to reach for? What if God has given us language? What if it's a gift and that it's been given to us with a capacity to speak genuine, meaningful truth about the living God as a gift, and that if we learn how to wield this tool of language by the word, then is it humble to say our words can't do it? Or is that actually a form of rebellion, if he tells us, uses the words that he gave to us, the language capacity that he gave to us, and then he uses that very language that he gave to us to speak truth about God and then becomes one of us and does it in multiple different languages, european languages and Asian languages. He did that. Can we be so hesitant? Hesitant? So well, look.

Speaker 1:

Another approach is to say that although the human word strong so we're trying to say God is, say strong or powerful, say the human word power it. We might say that does not perfectly grasp the nature of God, but it can give us a sense of what God is like by analogy. So an analogy is to speak of one thing in terms of another thing, so we might know the kind of power that a king has, and we might speak of God's power by way of analogy of a king's power, or we might say that the love of God is like the love of a mother, or the love of a mother, or the love of a friend or a lover. The love of God is deeper, stronger than those other loves, but by analogy they give us a true but partial view of God's love, and we might extend this to all the attributes of God that we can imagine and find human analogies for. But maybe we just need to remind ourselves at each point that these comparisons are only approximations and they're very limited.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps, however, even this kind of talk needs further explanation. How can we be sure that the comparisons are valid or legitimate? For example, we might assume that it's always better to have more power, and so we might simply say that God is powerful, like a human king is powerful, but he has lots more power. We might even introduce a notion that isn't in the Bible but is a philosophical or mathematical abstraction that we might even feel is helpful, and we might say something like God has infinite power, and leave it at that. I mean, the Bible doesn't quite ever say things like that, because the concept of infinity, as we've perhaps touched on in our earlier explanations of mathematics, concept of infinity is by no means straightforward, but nevertheless we might say that God has maximum let's say maximum power and leave it at that. So that's good in one way to do that. So that's good in one way to do that.

Speaker 1:

But when we engage with the biblical revelation of God, we see, even that is quite misleading, almost to the point of heresy. See, the real and living God revealed himself most clearly when he became weak in death. Well, in his birth he's a helpless little baby. And when we'll say, well, god there is weak because he's a little baby, and we might say, ah, but that's not a good, that's not a true revelation of God, like that's just this human shell, but God isn't, isn't a helpless baby? And whoa, hang on, that baby is god, all the fullness of god in bodily form. So it's a weak baby and that is god in all his fullness. See, it's not like we have to be really, really careful because we might think we're being clever in saying, oh well, that's just his humanity, it's not his divinity. But what right have we to say that? We have to be just careful because we can. If we're not really really careful, we're going to end up saying that the human Jesus of Nazareth is not a revelation of the fullness of God. See, and I always want to argue that the maximum revelation of God is actually the death of God. When he there is this, he becomes weak to the point of dying a cursed, god-forsaken death.

Speaker 1:

And think about this too. He came not to be served but to serve. And what does that mean about power? Like the king, we might say he has power like a king. Well, a king has this power to be served and have armies that obey his commands. And yet the living God says well, I want to show you what I'm like by coming not to be served but to serve. And he took the form of a servant and showed us what obedience looks like. He was born as a helpless baby. The broken-hearted God who forgives his enemies might seem weak compared to a powerful, assertive human king, and yet it's the almighty God who holds true power, whatever power means. Now See, power. Once we think we know what power is. And then we come to this living God and we think, oh, it's not what I thought it was.

Speaker 1:

Another example. We might say that God is love, and we might use all kinds of analogies of parents and lovers to capture something of this love. However, the love of god is, say, shown in the outpouring of the wrath of god at the cross. So the outpouring of his anger is part of it, or at least compatible with um love. He does whatever he pleases with all his creatures. He brings war, disasters and disease to judge and discipline, and even when he's disciplining, that's a sign of his love. He is glorified in judgment as well as salvation.

Speaker 1:

All these things have to be borne in mind, so that we have to be careful that we don't import a notion of love that betrays the real living God. All the things that are revealed about God make us cautious about unfiltered human concepts of love from any one culture or experience. The extent to which he will go to demonstrate his love is further than we could imagine. We would say there are limits to how far you can go in loving somebody, and then the living God, we find, goes further than that and does something impossible. Like it's impossible for the immortal God to die, he finds a way to do it, to demonstrate his love. So the point is this the point? Is this what we mean by power or love or anything or any of these things?

Speaker 1:

In our fallen and fleshly life is confused by our sin and rebellion. Satan has taught us to speak about things in the wrong way, and so, having been indoctrinated to speak about things in the wrong way, how can we then use those words to speak in the right way? Because how we've become used to speaking about all these things love, power, relationship, service, treasure, beauty, service, treasure, beauty all these things, how we've learned to speak about them in a wrong way, how can we then use those words in the right way? Our minds tend to bring God down to our own systems of thought, and we either make him too small or we make him so abstracted, um, in an attempt to say oh no, we don't want to bring him down to our level. Let's thrust him out into an infinite abstraction. And that honors him both things. Neither of those things honor him. Both of them are blasphemers. So we might despair in ourselves of speaking the truth of God.

Speaker 1:

Yet this living God, father, son and Holy Spirit is the sovereign God who made us and cares for us. Behind all our sinful confusion, there is still this Lord, god Almighty, father, son and Spirit, who made all things and controls all things and can act and speak to us through us, even using our messed up languages. See the world even though it's broken and fallen and messed up, it's not been abandoned. There is the cosmic divine emperor who still rules over all things and holds them all together by his powerful word and he gets us all, he understands us all and he can speak our languages. He really can. The world is not a random, disconnected occurrence of chance, but it is the carefully designed God's governed creation of the living God. He's designed and controlled our lives to such an extent that our words, with all our cultural and personal experiences that shape them, our words, are able to convey the meaning that he intends them to convey.

Speaker 1:

So there's something we could get into, but it's a big thing. It's just like Acts 17 truth, and it's back in Deuteronomy also, the idea that all the nations and cultures and languages of the world, he's ruled over them and appointed us to be in the particular nation that we are in in our cultural and linguistic setting. He has put us there precisely so that we would be able to reach out to him and know him through Christ, in the power of the Spirit. So that is telling us in this huge way and this raises massive questions that go beyond what we can deal with in this episode that nations and cultures are ruled over by the cosmic divine emperor and that we can trust him, that he has placed us in a context where it is possible to know and speak truly of the Father, son and Holy Spirit so he can truly speak to us and teach us to speak, even in the words and fallen cultures that we have.

Speaker 1:

This world really does display the glory of God. That Psalm 19 point does display the glory of God. That Psalm 19 point, not because of its own nature or power, but because of this eternal word who created it and sustains it by his word. In fact, all the different experiences of power and love, just to pick those two, power and love, all the different experiences of power and love, the living God is in control over those teaching us truth, either warning us away from false views of power and love, or else showing us glimpses of true power and love. So we want to be guided by his word, his written word, the Bible, and when we do that we're able to interpret our experiences of power, love, all the other things, such that we can learn to truly speak of the living God. So the Bible gives us genuine analogies to grasp the life and character of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, this one eternal God. Yet these can only ever be a partial understanding of the qualities and character of God, but they are true Nonetheless. It is truly speaking of these things.

Speaker 1:

As long as we constantly compare our use of language to the biblical revelation and always try to keep as close as we can to his words, his meaning, then we can speak with confidence about this eternal God, father, son and Holy Spirit. As amazing and impossible as this sounds, it is all of what we're saying. It's a consequence of his gift of language and culture and creation to us. Our words are coloured and flavoured by all the experiences and cultures that form us. But rather than see those things as corrupting the power of words, rather those variations and details that colour and flavour are all under the control of the living God, giving us extra possibilities of understanding about the truth. I want to end this episode with a quotation from Verne Poythress in his book on language, from Verne Poythress in his book on language, and it's something that's worth meditating on. I find this helpful, this quotation, and with this we'll end this episode. He says this it's on page I think about 245-ish yeah, 245 in his book.

Speaker 1:

Do we have access to truth? This is how he begins this book. Do we have access to truth? This is how he begins this. Do we have access to truth?

Speaker 1:

Mere human beings are never infallible. They are not god, and this lack of infallibility seems particularly troubling to many people who want to operate independently of God. For them, access to truth would seem to demand infallible, assured access. The foundation for truth is in God. God knows all things. God knows all things. Truth, we might say, is what God knows. God made himself known supremely in Jesus Christ in order that we might be restored in knowing these truths that are most centrally important, these truths that are most centrally important. Truth belongs first of all to God and to his word, but God also makes truth of many kinds accessible to human beings as a gift. The partial character of human knowledge need not be a threat, because God takes care of us.

Speaker 1:

But rebels do not acknowledge this, and so they worry. Human beings who aspire to autonomous mastery of the truth often hope to achieve mastery through their power of reason, infinite precision, and then, for the sake of mastery, they end up trying to reduce truth to a context-free abstraction, a proposition with simple features but with no variation, no context. And against this picture postmodernism rebels because it has become aware of variation. It has become aware of differences in how human beings grasp a particular utterance. The grasp of truth varies among human beings. In fact, we have both unity and diversity. God has designed language in such a way that it has both aspects through and through.

Speaker 1:

If we may simplify, we may say that people grasp truth in the basic features which they share with other human beings and through which they have access to the truth in God's own mind. But simultaneously, each person grasps the truth in a unique variation, colored by the unique personality, the unique situation and unique background. History of language, that is the language learning that colours the association they bring to words. That's the end of the quotation. That's just brilliant. He's created us in such a way, and super intends our lives in such a way, that we should have this confidence to speak truth in such a way, and super intends our lives in such a way that we should have this confidence to speak truth in such a way that there is genuine, united truth spoken. But that also is compatible with the idea that each individual person has their own colour and flavour and appreciation of that, and the fact of that doesn't undermine the fact that we're all speaking the same truth. The same truth, but with all this infinite variety, colour and flavour.