Towards a Lutheran Theological Semantics III

Imagine two theories T1 and T2 indiscernible with respect to their syntax. To give an interpretation to this syntax is to define an ordered pair <I, n> such that I specifies a domain D of entities named by the individual constants of the theory, some Fx specifies a subset of D, and Fx . . . k specifies a k-ary Cartesian product in D. Let n now designate a naming function from names in the language to D, monadic predicates to subsets of D, and k-ary predicates to k-tuples in D. The function thus assigns for each and every nonlogical symbol an extension in D. What we are doing here is assigning a semantics to our language. Obviously, if both T1 and Ts use the same >, they will mean the same thing. Two theories indiscernible with respect to syntax and having the same interpretation have the same model. We say that M models a theory T if and only if all the sentences of the theory are true given the projection of the language onto the model. Obviously, if M models T1, and T1 and T2 have the same interpretation and mapping function n, then M shall model T2 as well.

Within the practice of science, the syntax of theories change as a function of new empircal data and concomittant theory adjustment. In science generally, the method of projection of the syntax of the theory upon a model is for the most part invariant, and it is this invariancy that makes possible scientific progress generally. Words like 'electron', 'boson', and 'p orbital' retain their interpretation (reference) across different theories generally. (We might say that in a situation of revolutionary change in paradigm, new interpretations and naming functions might arise.)

However, within the practice of theology, things are far different. Scripture and theological tradition has worked to produce a rather loose 'theological theory' whose syntax does not in general change. But as times change, the syntax of this theological theory takes on a new interpretation. Imagine T1 being classical christological formutions at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and T2 be the same classical christological formulations said by Paul Tillich in 1957. Here it is obvious that while the syntax of T1 and T2 remains the same, there is a change of the mode of projection of the syntax upon its model. Because T1 and T2 are both regarded as true, there are distinct models M1 and M2 that model the same syntax. The same syntax is modeled both by M1 and M2, or alternatively, M1 and M2 both model the same theory T1. (Remember that T1 = T2 syntactically.) The situation now is that we have two distinct models for the same syntax, two distinct ways that the world might be ordered that would make possible the truth of T1 = T2.

The question is this: What is the theological theory T1 and is it different then from T2 after all? The answer is, of course, that we do not regard scientific theory as mere syntax, but as syntax + an interpretation. Similarly, I aver, we ought not to regard theological theory as mere syntax but syntax + an interpretation. How can it be then that many today in theology, particularly in ecumenical theology, think that syntax alone does a theology make? How can it be that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification can claim agreement on 'justification' because the syntax of the language is similar between Lutherans and Rome?

We should remember that Luther said he was not interested in agreement in words (verbis) but in things (in rebus). Although Luther was not using the language, he was, of course, interested in the disparate models the same theological syntax could sustain. When one thinks about it, this is how it has always been in theology. Was this not precisely what happened after Ephesus (431) that two sides used the same words while allowing different interpretations of the same language?

A theology that has lost interest in its interpretation and naming function, is a theology that has lost interest in truth, because only with the assignment of models is truth put in play. While sytax deals with form and structure, semantics deals with truth and meaning. Theology has always been about the latter. It is a mark of the recent theological poverty of our time that we could have been so bewitched for so long, and have not even noticed.