Critique – Part IV: Critique of Language

The Moon

The notion that truth has many levels is front and center in the book I’m currently reading. This is not new to me, though the author’s discussion of how human language is formed and how it’s understood has gotten my attention. The book, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language, by Sallie McFague, is especially focused on language as metaphor and also the language of metaphor.

The journey out of certitude and into the world of healthy skepticism, especially toward literalism has caused me to forge an alliance with symbols, image, metaphor and the like. They have become my preferred method of gaining understanding and trying to communicate truth.

McFague writes that, “…metaphorical thinking constitutes the basis of human thought and language…” and that metaphor is “…the way language and, more basically, thought works.” Metaphors act as building blocks for language. They suggest “this is like that,” expanding our view of the world. To understand this may give insight into understanding how to critique language.

Describing metaphor as the building blocks of language McFague says that, “From the time we are infants we construct our world through metaphor; that is, just as young children learn the meaning of the color red by finding the thread of similarity through many dissimilar objects (red ball, red apple, red cheeks), so we constantly ask when we do not know how to think about something, ‘What is it like?”

McFague describes metaphors as an open and dynamic system in language, and as an interpretive method of perceiving the world in contrast to an interpretive method that has more concrete characteristics. The concretized way of using language may have the effect of elevating the language we use to the level of entrenched idolatry rather than understanding it as a flexible tool to look at the truth behind the words.

To illustrate this point McFague invokes the words of a Zen sutra, who referring to the language of poetry, says it is “like a finger pointing to the moon.” She quotes British theologian Ian T. Ramsey, “To equate the finger with the moon or to acknowledge the finger and not perceive the moon is to miss the point.”

Our most sacred traditions, whether religious, patriotic or cultural, are embedded into our lives largely through language. As we endeavor to critique the language we use, let’s acknowledge that it is merely a “finger pointing” and not the “moon” itself.

Language is essential to our being. McFague speaks of, “…the fundamental importance of language to human existence.” She quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein, “the limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world,” and Martin Heidegger, “Language is the house of being” to make her point.

Let’s take care that our “house of being” has enough flex and give to withstand the storms that will inevitably come.

What “finger” have you mistaken for the “moon?”

Writing Prompt for the Week: Certitude