Why Meaning Matters

A number of years ago when the MacNiel/Lehrer Report still appeared on PBS, there was an economist who answered a particular question using some of the technical language of his discipline.   The response from the other guest was instructive.   Listening to what the economist had offered, he remonstrated, "Why, that's just theological."  

The economist had clearly taken a heavy hit.  Calling his language theological in that context was to suggest a number of things:  1) His language was not clear, 2) His language was ambiguous, 3) His language made only dubious claims to truth, 4) His language was needlessly complex, 5) His language was useless. 

I have from the beginning of my time in theology sought a particular precision.  The reason for this is simply that very early on I learned how captivating theological language could be.   It seemed to me that one could enter another world by using such language.   When I was young it was great fun to read theology, to envision new possibilities, and to address theological problems.   But something happened to me on my way to a Ph. D.   

I began to realize that everything I was thinking when I was thinking theologically was comprised of propositions comprised of terms and predications of identity and attribution.  I began to think that if what I was thinking was to be true, I must get very clear on what it was precisely that I was thinking so I knew what it precisely was that was to be true.   This meant that I must analyze the language of my theological thinking to see what precisely it meant.  

But when I began to explore what it is precisely that theological language meant, I ran up against a host of problems.  Though I could use theological language correctly, - - I could use it in such ways that fit the linguistic situation (one might say, I could satisfy the appropriate stimulus/response conditionals theologically) - - I did not know exactly how my theological language related to other kinds of discourse.   When talking to people who did not know how to employ theological language like I thought I then did, I started to realize that I did not always know how to translate what I was saying theologically into types of language that they grasped, language that related to the world in which both they and I lived.  In this way, I began to worry about what precise claims I was making theologically and whether there was evidence to support those claims I was making.  

Long ago I concluded that the more one likely agonizes over what precisely one means when doing theology, the less theology one is likely to do.  Wonderful, learned and deeply evocative theology can be written without one knowing precisely what one means in the writing.  This is, of course, to a degree true of all disciplines.   Does one know the precise identity conditions of each term one uses in fundamental particle physics?   While the answer to this is perhaps, "no," there is a difference.   One has a public, objective semantic yardstick in fundamental particle physics that one does not possess in theology.   This is why one can look up the precise meaning of a term in the first context but not the second.   In theology, the meaning of terms and phrases depends deeply on who is employing them.  In theology it is fundamentally meaning  that matters.

The Institute of Lutheran Theology believes that it is critically important to grasp the semantic question in theology.   We in the developed countries of the West live at a time in which great numbers of people are abandoing the use of theological language.   The reason, in my opinion, is that far too many now think the language is not clear and unambiguous, that it makes dubious claims, and that is is complex and useless. For many people, in fact, the clearer the language becomes - - I am thinking now of some expressions of Evangelical theology - - the less likely many think it is to be true, and the more likely it is to be true, the less clear they believe it is.   Somehow in theology, meaning and truth, the twin pillars of semantics, have become inversely proportional.  

I have been posting this week about the Institute of Lutheran Theology.   At ILT we are serious about studying theology seriously.   This means, among other things, that not only God and his work in Jesus Christ is at issue for us, but also the meaning of God working in Jesus Christ.  The reason meaning matters is that it is necessary for truth, and when the truth at issue is the Truth, then the meaning that matters is that which really matters.