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Language, Metaphor, and Chalcedon: A Case of Theological Double Vision*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Stephen W. Need
Stephen W. Need
Affiliation:
L.S.U. College of Higher Education, Southampton, England
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Extract

The question of how human language functions in relation to God constitutes one of the most difficult problems in Christian theology. I contend that Christian notions of language about God should be constructed in light of christology, since both are concerned with the relationship between the human and the divine. Northrop Frye, drawing on the poetry and thought of William Blake, speaks of the importance of “the double vision of a spiritual and a physical world simultaneously present” in understanding how religious language works. This fundamental quality of double vision or tension characterizes the relationship between the human and the divine both in language about God and in christology. In this article I shall examine several aspects of the relationship between the human and the divine: first, the basic problem of theological language as discussed by George Lindbeck; second, the notion of theological language as metaphorical, as discussed by Sallie McFague; and third, christology as found in the Chalcedonian definition of Christian faith. I shall conclude that it is appropriate to construct notions of language about God in light of Chalcedonian christology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 237 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1995

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References

1 Frye, Northrop, The Double Vision: Language and Meaning in Religion (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) 85Google Scholar.

2 Lindbeck, George, The Nature of Doctrine: Theology in a Post-Liberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984)Google Scholar. In the last decade this work has continued to provoke and influence discussion. See, for example, Modern Theology 4 (1988); Lints, Richard, “The Postpositivist Choice: Tracy or Lindbeck?” JAAR 61 (1993) 655–77Google Scholar; and Stell, Stephen L., “Hermeneutics in Theology and the Theology of Hermeneutics: Beyond Lindbeck and Tracy,” JAAR 61 (1993) 679–703Google Scholar.

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11 Ibid., 94.

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14 See, for example, Soskice, Janet Martin, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; McFague, Sallie, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982)Google Scholar; Ortony, Andrew, ed., Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Kittay, Eva Feder, Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987)Google Scholar.

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24 Ibid., 92.

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26 Ibid., 73.

27 Ibid., 20.

28 This danger also permeates McFague's more recent work, for example, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987); and idem. The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). See also Bromell's, David J. discussion of McFague's work in “Sallie McFague's ‘Metaphorical Theology,’” JAAR 61 (1993) 485–503Google Scholar.

29 McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 196.

30 Ibid., 48.

31 Ibid., 42–43.

32 It is interesting that in The Body of God McFague moves clearly toward a dynamic incarnational view of the relationship between God and world.

33 White, Roger, “Notes on Analogical Predication and Speaking about God,” in Hebblethwaite, Brian and Sutherland, Stewart, eds., The Philosophical Frontiers of Christian Theology: Essays Presented to D. M. Mac-Kinnon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 224Google Scholar.

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45 My translation. The original Greek is ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρὶ κατὰ τὴν θεότητα, καὶ ὁμοούσιον τὸν αὐτὸν ἡμῖν κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα. See Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193 and 234–35. For a full translation of the Chalcedonian definition, see ibid., 232–35 and Stevenson, J., ed., Creeds, Councils, and Controversies. Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church A.D. 337–461 (London: S.P.C.K., 1966) 334–38Google Scholar.

46 LPGL, s.v. οὐσία.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Stead, Divine Substance, 193.

51 Prestige, George L., God in Patristic Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1956) 197Google Scholar.

52 Ibid., 209.

53 Stead, Divine Substance, 241.

54 For a comprehensive account of this word's background, see Lohse, Eduard, “πρόσωπον,” TDNT 6 (1968) 768–80Google Scholar.

55 My translation. The original Greek is εἰ ς ἓν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν συντρεχούσης, οὐκ εἰς δύο πρόσωπα μεριζόμενον ἢ διαιρούμενον. See Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193 and 235.

56 Prestige, Patristic Thought, 157.

57 For a comprehensive account of this word's background, see Koester, Helmut, “ὑπόστασις.” TDNT 8 (1969) 572–89Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., 574.

59 Sellers, Council of Chalcedon, 139.

60 See Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193.

61 LPGL, s.v. ἐνυπόστατος.

62 See McIntyre, John, The Shape of Christology (London: SCM, 1966) 100–101Google Scholar.

63 For a comprehensive account of this word's background, see Koester, Helmut, “φύσις,” TDNT 9 (1968) 251–77Google Scholar.

64 Translation by Sellers, Council of Chalcedon, 211. The original Greek is ἐν δύο φύσεσιν … γνωριζόμενον. See also Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193 and 235.

65 LPGL, s.v. φύσιζ.

66 For ἐν δύο φύσεσιν and μίαν ὑπόστασιν see Bindly and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193 and 235.

67 See Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Faith (3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928) 393Google Scholar; and Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (trans. Mackintosh, Hugh R. and Stewart, James S.; London: SCM, 1978) 2. 148Google Scholar.

68 Macquarrie, John, “Foundation Documents of the Faith III: The Chalcedonian Definition,” ExpTim 91 (1979) 68–72Google Scholar.

69 See Koester, “φύσις,” 252–53.

70 Aristotle Metaph. 1014b (trans. and eds. J. A. Smith and William D. Ross; 12 vols.; London: Oxford University Press, 1908–1952) 5. 4.16.

71 Translation from Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 235. It is worth noting that not only are these four terms not wholly negative in intention, but they are also actually adverbs not adjectives. This makes the usual translation “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” less appropriate. The translation I have used draws attention to the fluid and dynamic nature of the relationship between human and divine in the Chalcedonian definition.

72 My translation. The original Greek is οὐδαμοῦ τῆς τῶν φύσεων διαφορᾶς ἀνηρημένης διὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν. See Bindley and Green, Oecumenical Documents, 193 and 235.

73 My translation. Bindley and Green have “concurring into one.” See Oecumenical Documents, 235.

74 For a discussion of music and christology, see Gunton, Colin, Yesterday and Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983) 115–24Google Scholar.

75 Barth, Karl, Dogmatics in Outline (trans. Thomson, G. T.; 1949; reprinted London: SCM, 1957) 66Google Scholar.

76 Neither Lindbeck nor McFague doubts, in principle, that theological language has meaning and achieves reference. Broadly speaking, both operate from a position of critical realism in which theological language has meaning but must not be absolutized. It is not my concern to enter into the problems of reference in relation to theological language. The notions of the fixing of reference found in the following discussions, however, would certainly be continuous with my overall argument: Kripke, Saul, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981)Google Scholar; Donnellan, Keith S., “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” in Schwartz, Stephen P., ed., Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977) 42–65Google Scholar; Boyd, Richard, “Metaphor and Theory Change: What is ‘Metaphor’ a Metaphor for?” in Ortony, Andrew, ed., Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 356–408Google Scholar; and Soskice, Metaphor, chaps. 7 and 8.

77 Many factors have contributed to this decline, one of the most obvious being the development and predominance of logical positivism, especially as found in Ayer, Alfred J., Language, Truth and Logic (1936; reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971)Google Scholar.