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The truth of metaphorical God-talk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2010

J. Muis
J. Muis*
Affiliation:
Protestantse Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlandsjmuis@pthu.nl
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Abstract

This article tries to show that metaphorical God-talk can be descriptive and true. First, it is established that true metaphorical descriptions of reality are possible. No special theory of ‘metaphorical truth’ is required for metaphorical descriptions. Next, it is argued that a realistic metaphorical description of God is possible because we can know the transcendent creator in the experience of being addressed by him in Jesus Christ. God-talk is an extension of our response to God's address. The truth-condition of metaphorical God-talk is God's self-revelation; its truth-criterion is biblical God-talk.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , May 2010 , pp. 146 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2010

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References

1 For a Scotist argument for this position see Williams, Thomas, ‘The Doctrine of Univocity is True and Salutary’, Modern Theology 21 (2005), pp. 575–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §43. An example of this approach is Markus Mühling-Schlapkohl's context-theory of meaning: Gott ist Liebe: Studien zum Verständnis der Liebe als Modell des trinitarischen Redens von Gott (Marburg: Elwert Verlag, 2000), pp. 24–32; Markus Mühling-Schlapkohl, ‘Metapher. III Religionsgeschichtlich. IV Fundamentaltheologisch’, RGG 4, vol. 5, pp. 1167–70.

3 See the arguments for this assumption in Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Czerny, Robert with McLaughlin, Kathleen and SJ, John Costello (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 28Google Scholar.

4 Frege, Gottlob, ‘On Sense and Meaning’, in Geach, P. and Black, M. (eds), Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), p. 58Google Scholar. This is the essence of the description theory of reference.

5 Ricoeur, Metaphor, pp. 297–9.

6 We can call the normal meaning of a word in a particular use and context its literal sense in that context; Henle, Paul, ‘Metaphor’, in Henle, P. (ed.), Language, Thought and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 174Google Scholar; Soskice, Janet M., Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 68, 69Google Scholar. Alston rejects the idea of a literal sense; he only accepts literal use; Alston, William P., Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1980), p. 42Google Scholar. Henle also accepts the figurative sense of a word (‘Metaphor’, p. 174), but Soskice argues that only complete utterances, not single words, can have metaphorical meaning (Metaphor, pp. 68, 69).

7 Henle, ‘Metaphor’, pp. 175, 176; Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 15, 54.

8 Soskice, Metaphor, p. 15.

9 Davidson, Donald, ‘What Metaphors Mean’, in Sacks, S. (ed.), On Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 30, 31, 43–5Google Scholar.

10 Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 27–31, 85, 86; Moran, Richard, ‘Metaphor’, in Hale, B. and Wright, C. (eds), A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 256–61Google Scholar.

11 Ricoeur understands the creation of new metaphorical meaning as the reverse of meaning-reduction. A word can have many different meanings (polysemy); the number of possible meanings is reduced by the context in which the word is used. In a metaphorical statement, all the meanings of a word are active, and a new, metaphorical meaning is produced; Ricoeur, Metaphor, p. 131.

12 Henle, ‘Metaphor’, p. 179. Jüngel explains this by supposing that the meaning of a word consists of different elements of meaning; when the word is used metaphorically one specific element of the meaning is selected. When the metaphorical statement is successful, speaker and hearer are focused on the same surprising resemblance between two things; Jüngel, Eberhard, ‘Metaphorical Truth: Reflections on Theological Metaphor as a Contribution to a Hermeneutics of Narrative Theology’, in Eberhard Jüngel, Theological Essays, trans. and introd. by Webster, J. B. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), p. 62Google Scholar.

13 Henle, ‘Metaphor’, pp. 179, 183–4.

14 Jüngel, ‘Metaphorical Truth’, p. 61; Jüngel, E., ‘Thesen zum Verhältnis von Existenz, Wesen und Eigenschaften Gottes’, in Ganz werden: Theologische Erörterungen V (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), p. 265Google Scholar; Brueggemann, Walter, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 71Google Scholar.

15 Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism, trans. Guder, D. L. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 291, 292Google Scholar; van Es, Justinus J., Spreken over God, letterlijk of figuurlijk? Analogie en metafoor in het spreken over God (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1979), pp. 161–3Google Scholar; Ingolf Dalferth, U., Religiöse Rede von Gott (Munich: Kaiser, 1981), pp. 231, 235Google Scholar.

16 Henle, ‘Metaphor’, p. 178; Max Black, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 25–47; Alston, Divine Nature, pp. 21–3, 43.

17 Black, Models, pp. 39–42. Henle speaks of ‘icon’; Henle, ‘Metaphor’, p. 177.

18 Ricoeur, Metaphor, pp. 224, 229, 230; The notion of split reference can also be found in Jüngel, ‘Metaphorical Truth’, pp. 60, 61, 68.

19 Ricoeur, Metaphor, pp. 230, 231, 247, 248.

20 Ibid., pp. 99, 133. Cf. Henle, ‘Metaphor’, pp. 187–9.

21 Soskice, Metaphor, p. 50.

22 Ibid., p. 48.

23 Ibid., pp. 127–9; van Huyssteen, J. Wentzel, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 171,172Google Scholar. According to Perler, this view can also be found in Duns Scotus; Perler, Dominik, ‘Duns Scotus’ Philosophy of Language’, in Williams, T. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), pp. 181, 182Google Scholar.

24 Ricoeur, Paul, ‘Stellung und Funktion der Metapher in der biblischen Sprache’, Evangelische Theologie Sonderheft (Munich: Kaiser, 1974), p. 53Google Scholar; Ricoeur, Metaphor, pp. 222, 229, 230, 243–6; Paul Ricoeur, ‘Nommer Dieu’, in J. P. van Noppen (ed.) Theolinguistics: Studiereeks Tijdschrift Vrije Universiteit Brussel, ns 8 (1981), pp. 349, 350; Ricoeur, Paul, Réflexion faite: Autobiographie intellectuelle (Paris: Éditions Esprit, 1995), pp. 47, 48Google Scholar.

25 McFague, Sallie, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 132–7Google Scholar; McFague, Sallie, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 39Google Scholar.

26 This is demonstrated in Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament. On the one hand, he does not deny that the witness of the Old Testament supposes the existence and reality of Yahweh, and brackets the ontological explanation of this reality only methodologically; ibid., p. 118. On the other hand, he argues that there is no reality behind the text, and that ‘the very character of God in the Old Testament depends on the courage and imagination of those who speak about God’ (p. 65); an imagination which requires metaphors (p. 70). He also says that ‘Yahweh is generated and constituted, so far as the claims of Israel are concerned, in actual practices that mediate’ (p. 574). This second claim contradicts the first one if is not meant epistemologically, but ontologically.

27 Ricoeur, ‘Nommer Dieu’, p. 363; Ricoeur, Paul, ‘Philosophische und theologische Hermeneutik’, Evangelische Theologie Sonderheft (Munich: Kaiser, 1974), pp. 42, 43Google Scholar.

28 Ricoeur, ‘Nommer Dieu’, pp. 348, 363.

29 Ibid., p. 364.

30 It is interesting to note Ricoeur's criticism of Marion's proposal to think God ‘without being’. LaCocque, André and Ricoeur, Paul, Thinking Biblically: Exegetical and Hermeneutical Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 358, 359Google Scholar.

31 Black, Models, pp. 226–39.

32 Soskice, Metaphor, p. 120.

33 Ibid., pp. 122–4.

34 Ibid., p. 133; Van Huyssteen, Essays, pp. 145, 146.

35 Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 55, 59, 112, 116.

36 Brümmer, Vincent, ‘Introduction: A Dialogue of Language Games’, in Brümmer, V. (ed.), Interpreting the Universe as Creation: A Dialogue of Science and Religion (Kampen: Kok, 1991), pp. 10–14Google Scholar; Brümmer, Vincent, The Model of Love: A Study in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: CUP, 1993), pp. 13, 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 I will concentrate on metaphorical predicates. To be sure, a metaphorical statement can have a metaphorical subject as well, but such a statement can be rewritten in a statement with a metaphorical predicate: ‘The king is my shepherd’ means: ‘He, who is king, is my shepherd’; van Herck, W., Religie en metafoor: Over het relativisme van het figuurlijke (Leuven: Peeters, 1999), pp. 148–50Google Scholar.

38 Ricoeur, Metaphor, pp. 247–9, 254–6.

39 Ibid., pp. 310, 312; Ricoeur, Paul ‘The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling’, in Sacks, S. (ed.), On Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1979), p. 151Google Scholar; Ricoeur, ‘Nommer Dieu’, p. 351.

40 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Time and Being, §44.

41 Van Es, Spreken over God, p. 172.

42 Alston, Divine Nature, pp. 20, 21, 26, 41, 42.

43 Soskice, Metaphor, p. 94.

44 Alston, Divine Nature, pp. 30–3.

45 Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 86, 90, 93.

46 Ibid., pp. 115, 120, 132. Because the truth of a metaphorical statement is not a direct, one-to-one relation, McFague calls a metaphorical assertion a ‘likely account’ (McFague, Models, pp. 33–5); Van Huyssteen talks about ‘approximate truth or likelihood’ (Essays, pp. 175–7).

47 Soskice, Metaphor, p. 86; Van Es, Spreken over God, p. 172.

48 Van Es, Spreken over God, p. 172.

49 Kripke, Saul A., Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 91–7Google Scholar.

50 Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 137, 139.

51 Ibid., p. 140; cf. pp. 137, 154.

52 Soskice's essay on Philo is illuminating in this respect. She chooses the term ‘names’ of God instead of ‘attributes’, and argues that God is unknowable; nevertheless, we can know God as he is for us; Soskice, Janet M., ‘Athens and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Edessa: Is there a Metaphysics of Scripture?’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 8 (2006), pp. 150, 152, 158, 159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Jüngel, Mystery, pp. 3–14, 281–98; Jüngel, ‘Metaphorical Truth’, pp. 47, 58–67; Jüngel, ‘Thesen’, pp. 263–6.

54 Jüngel, ‘Metaphorical Truth’, pp. 57, 63, 64; ‘Thesen’ pp. 263, 265.

55 Jüngel, Mystery, p. 11, n. 17.

56 Ibid., pp. 12–14, 287, 288.

57 Cf. Dalferth, Religiöse Rede, p. 667.

58 According to Jüngel, created being is essentially lingual as well; creation is address and being created is being addressed; Jüngel concludes from this that the creator participates in creature and creature participates in the creator. Jüngel, E., ‘Die schöpferische Kraft des Wortes’, in Gäde, G. (ed.), Hören-Glauben-Denken. Festschrift für Peter Knauer S.J. (Munich: LIT Verlag, 2005), pp. 20, 22Google Scholar.

59 Augustine, Confessions, XI, vi, 8.

60 McFague, Theology, pp. 40, 41, 138, 142; McFague, Models, pp. 192, 195; Soskice, Metaphor, pp. 108–12; Van Huyssteen, Essays, pp. 175–7.

61 Ricoeur, ‘Stellung’, p. 66; ‘Nommer Dieu’, pp. 363, 364; Van Huyssteen, Essays, pp. 135, 138.

62 I would like to thank Mr Jim Satterthwaite for his comments on the first draft of this article.