How What We Say Affects How We Think

[makesends]

Scripture shows two things, almost like two sides of the same coin, concerning 1) how what we say affects how we think, and 2) how what we think affects what we say. Interesting video, in the Videos forum, under The Christian Walk board.

Thread 'How Language Shapes The Way We Think'

Tuesday at 1:15 PM

Interesting, (and multi-lingual people would confirm this).

• makesends

1) "...Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." Matthew 12:34
2) "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” Matthew 15:11

 

[Hazelelponi]

Good thread.

 

[John Bauer]

Good thread.

I liked your earlier version.

 

[Hazelelponi]

I liked your earlier version.

Do you get frustrated with me because you have to tell people what I mean all the time?

 

[makesends]

Not to move things off on a tangent, but somewhat related to the op, is the implication to what language will be like in heaven, when communication is pure and immediate and valid (at the least). Consider how God himself doesn't just speak meaning, but FACT into existence.

Backing away from that extreme, how often do we speak with hardly a thought? And worse, assume that what we speak is THE WAY things are?

I keep remembering CS Lewis' term, "the babble we think we mean".

 

[makesends]

On these forums, and elsewhere, I keep seeing people assuming their manner of thinking —the constructions in their minds that depend on their language— is altogether valid. Look how often we see people presenting what they take for necessary implications of a word or term or principle as though that implication is valid, then saying, "NO! THAT IS WHAT THAT WORD MEANS!"

 

[John Bauer]

Do you get frustrated with me because you have to tell people what I mean all the time?

I don't think I do that—do I?

I mean, other than that one time. But it was one time.

 

[John Bauer]

On these forums, and elsewhere, I keep seeing people assuming their manner of thinking —the constructions in their minds that depend on their language— is altogether valid. Look how often we see people presenting what they take for necessary implications of a word or term or principle as though that implication is valid, then saying, "NO! THAT IS WHAT THAT WORD MEANS!"

What if that manner of thinking is not theirs but rather God's? While it is true that the constructions in their minds depend on their language, it is also true that God has revealed himself to man in their language. While what God can tell us about himself is limited by the perspective and constraints of our language, surely it is also nevertheless true.

 

[makesends]

What if that manner of thinking is not theirs but rather God's? While it is true that the constructions in their minds depend on their language, it is also true that God has revealed himself to man in their language. While what God can tell us about himself is limited by the perspective and constraints of our language, surely it is also nevertheless true.

Since I wrote the OP, I guess I can claim it is not off topic to go where your question asks: sends me: induces me to go: God uses man's language to tell absolute truth. Even when he does what I call anthropomorphisms, I think he is still telling absolute truth. (It would go further off topic to talk about the phenomenon where he says truth for the purpose of blinding blind eyes, and making deaf the ears that won't hear him, so I'll leave that there.)

We certainly don't comprehend his truth, but we can make some sense of it, and know even more of it with the heart, and some things even intuitively, not to mention the work of the Spirit of God in us increasing knowledge of him.

But what I wanted to mention in answer to your question is the way that he can say things that we understand 'naturally' that do not imply that the truth is at all earthly or cosmically 'natural'. For example, when Jesus refers to his Father (in Heaven) it is the REAL Father, and not like the fathers here on earth —WE fathers are the ones who are like (take after) HIM, and not the other way around. We should not read him to be claiming as someone recently did here, that Christ was mere offspring related to God. After all, we already know that this temporal 'reality' is a vapor, and will pass like a shadow compared to the solid reality of God's economy. I think that principle parallels this language issue—at least, when he speaks to us absolute Truth, in our language.

This next might also be going off topic, but it is like the above: I tend think some [usually prophetic] things that we naturally interpret to be symbolic or parabolic are not, but rather are the REAL thing. For example, maybe the gates to the New Jerusalem are actual pearls, and these down here are poor imitations. Maybe the streets are actual gold, and ours is only a representation of the real thing.

The fact we read His language to us in our language doesn't mean our manner of thinking is His. This is why I tend to think that our language, or at least our use of it, is, as CS Lewis said, "the babble we think we mean".

 

[John Bauer]

Possible tie-in to the original post: How what God says affects how we think.

God uses man's language to [reveal] absolute truth. ... We certainly don't comprehend his truth, but we can make some sense of it, and know even more of it with the heart, and some things even intuitively, not to mention the work of the Spirit of God in us increasing knowledge of him.

But this is consistent with what I was saying. I will use myself as an example: Most of the things that I talk about in these forums (involving theology and soteriology) are indeed presented under the assumption that this manner of thinking, these constructions that depend on human language, are altogether valid—but not for anything inherent to this language or because I'm particularly clever, but rather on account of them being what God has revealed (which is why it's crucially important to me that my arguments and views are a product of sound exegesis). I have done precisely the kind of thing you were talking about critically when, for example, I have argued about the meaning of propitiation (e.g., 1 John 2:2). In such cases, I am arguing for the "necessary implications" of that word "as though that implication is valid," and confidently asserting, "That is what that word means!"

Why am I so confident about what this word means and implies? Because it's what God has revealed and preserved in the biblical text, particularly the Koine Greek in the case of propitiation. As the Westminster Confession of Faith asserts, in part, "The New Testament in Greek ... [was] directly inspired by God and [has] been kept uncontaminated throughout time by his special care and providence." There is a reason why these human languages are regarded by the church as authentic and to be its ultimate source of appeal in every religious controversy.

Colloquially, I do comprehend God's truth—obviously, since I believe it and strongly enough to stake my life on it. But maybe you meant that in its technical sense, namely, that we don't (and indeed cannot) grasp his truth exhaustively or circumscribe it fully in our understanding. But then your comment to which I had responded didn't require that technical sense of comprehend.

I am practically certain that nobody posting in these forums is under any illusion that he or she fully understands the things of God; we seek to truly understand what he has revealed, even if we can't exhaustively comprehend it—because God's revelation is accommodated to our capacity, including our language. Again, as I said, it may be limited by the perspective and constraints of our mind and language, but surely it's nevertheless true.

But what I wanted to mention in answer to your question is the way that he can say things that we understand 'naturally' that do not imply that the truth is at all earthly or cosmically 'natural'. For example, when Jesus refers to his Father (in Heaven) it is the REAL Father, and not like the fathers here on earth —WE fathers are the ones who are like (take after) HIM, and not the other way around. We should not read him to be claiming as someone recently did here, that Christ was mere offspring related to God. After all, we already know that this temporal 'reality' is a vapor, and will pass like a shadow compared to the solid reality of God's economy. I think that principle parallels this language issue—at least, when he speaks to us absolute Truth, in our language.

You are exactly right. When you say that Christ's reference to his "Father" doesn't imply an earthly truth but the divine reality from which earthly fatherhood derives, you are intuitively operating with the classic Reformed distinction between archetypal and ectypal knowledge. God's self-knowledge (archetypal) is exhaustively adequate to his own being; our knowledge (ectypal) is a finite replica accommodated to the creaturely mode. Consequently, every term God applies to himself in scripture—Father, Judge, Shepherd—is analogical, conveying genuine truth delivered at the scale and limits of creatures. This distinction safeguards the Creator-creature distinction in the noetic realm.

Our knowledge is analogical; it is neither univocal (as if we could know God exactly as he knows himself) nor equivocal (as if our words are meaningless when applied to him), but genuinely true knowledge according to the mode of a creature. Because revelation is analogical, we avoid both anthropomorphism (projecting creaturely limits onto God) and agnosticism (refusing to affirm what God has revealed). And here is an important key: The Son, who alone knows the Father archetypally, mediates ectypal knowledge to us (Matt 11:27).

 

[Hazelelponi]

I don't think I do that—do I?

I mean, other than that one time. But it was one time.

That's only the latest incident. You have to do it more than you realize, but you understand me and the people understand you so it works...


@makesends has a good point, we should strive to be clear and understandable, but there's something to be said for being able to be ourselves too.

 

[Hazelelponi]

The fact we read His language to us in our language doesn't mean our manner of thinking is His. This is why I tend to think that our language, or at least our use of it, is, as CS Lewis said, "the babble we think we mean".

In considering your thoughts concerning a general sense of the unknowability of what God is in reality, a reality that is veiled from our natural eyes and only clear "in part" (1 Corinthians 13:9), I thought for a while and prayed on an unrelated yet oddly related personal topic and decided after the clarity of voice to speak to this thread also.

(in my own voice so use ChatGPT or @John Bauer to tell you what I'm talking about .. .

On a personal note I have experienced this salvation experience, I have not simply read it in a book. I can say with confidence I know my God and I know what I worship. We aren't merely going through motions we have a living, breathing speaking God who is with us always and to the ends of the earth.

We are called not to be purveyors of the word, but to be His witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Well the people think we aren't witness because we didn't see the living Christ in our day, but we are witness because each of us carries His Seal and the proof of Him is in our own bodies.

We were blind and naked and pitiable, wretched and poor and God lifted us out of death and gave us Life everlasting in Christ (who lives forevermore Amen).

We KNOW what we worship and we have His proof inside and out, His perfect love permeating every pore, keeping each beat of our hearts in time until the last.

We know to the limit of our knowledge in this moment and at this time and perhaps can communicate, if God gives us the commission, that understanding to others.

I am no longer as the Samaritan woman who knew not what she worshipped but I'm worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth and because of this God says to us we are His Witnesses, we don't have to see with natural eyes but with our Spiritual eyes we can see the Angel of the Lord in the midst of the fire, with us, and keeping us safe.

God says to us:

"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

This is we, we are we. This is not vain babbling, it's Life itself and it is given to us to communicate Life to others.

God has given this to His people, a Word which is sure, and Shepard's after His own heart to guide us, and a body to feel whole m all our needs are met, and it's a disservice to God to say that we don't have but vain speech.

We have God's own words, and through the Spirit they are communicated IN Christ - who gave His Life for the sheep.

There are still sheep not yet in the fold. God is with us always, even to the end of the age.

@John Bauer says it better, but I wanted to say we understand in part, and that part is only vain babbling if Christ be not in it. But if Christ be in it, it is the power of God unto salvation.

CS Lewis is wrong.

 

[makesends]

makesends said:
The fact we read His language to us in our language doesn't mean our manner of thinking is His. This is why I tend to think that our language, or at least our use of it, is, as CS Lewis said, "the babble we think we mean".

In considering your thoughts concerning a general sense of the unknowability of what God is in reality, a reality that is veiled from our natural eyes and only clear "[color=purple]in part[/color]" (1 Corinthians 13:9), I thoughtf for a while and prayed on an unrelated yet oddly related personal topic and decided after the clarity of voice to speak to this thread also.

(in my own voice so use ChatGPT or @John Bauer to tell you what I'm talking about .. .

On a personal note I have experienced this salvation experience, I have not simply read it in a book. I can say with confidence I know my God and I know what I worship. We aren't merely going through motions we have a living, breathing speaking God who is with us always and to the ends of the earth.

We are called not to be purveyors of the word, but to be His witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Well the people think we aren't witness because we didn't see the living Christ in our day, but we are witness because each of us carries His Seal and the proof of Him is in our own bodies.

We were blind and naked and pitiable, wretched and poor and God lifted us out of death and gave us Life everlasting in Christ (who lives forevermore Amen).

We KNOW what we worship and we have His proof inside and out, His perfect love permeating every pore, keeping each beat of our hearts in time until the last.

We know to the limit of our knowledge in this moment and at this time and perhaps can communicate, if God gives us the commission, that understanding to others.

I am no longer as the Samaritan woman who knew not what she worshipped but I'm worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth and because of this God says to us we are His Witnesses, we don't have to see with natural eyes but with our Spiritual eyes we can see the Angel of the Lord in the midst of the fire, with us, and keeping us safe.

God says to us:

"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

This is we, we are we. This is not vain babbling, it's Life itself and it is given to us to communicate Life to others.

God has given this to His people, a Word which is sure, and Shepard's after His own heart to guide us, and a body to feel whole m all our needs are met, and it's a disservice to God to say that we don't have but vain speech.

We have God's own words, and through the Spirit they are communicated IN Christ - who gave His Life for the sheep.

There are still sheep not yet in the fold. God is with us always, even to the end of the age.

@John Bauer says it better, but I wanted to say we understand in part, and that part is only vain babbling if Christ be not in it. But if Christ be in it, it is the power of God unto salvation.

Amen all that! And thank God it is so. In fact, those of us who have been overwhelmed by our Savior can barely help but to talk about him. We are driven to do so. I try to hold it in, but I cannot! The lion has roared —who will not be afraid? The Sovereign Lord has spoken —who can keep quiet? (Jeremiah 20:9; Amos 3:8 (roughly paraphrased by me—not quoted))

Nevertheless, there is this I have seen: God uses each of us to communicate imperfectly to imperfect hearers.

CS Lewis is wrong.

To be fair to CS Lewis, I should mention that I quoted him out of context. He was speaking of the questions we ask of Divinity, as if we knew how to ask valid questions—not presumptive questions. (Maybe I should say, "...honest questions—not self-deceived questions.") If we could do away with presumption, our questions would answer themselves, basically, I think is what he was saying. Nevertheless, I think we are still very presumptive with our mental constructions, and particularly with our confidence in OUR verbal constructions. Obviously I think they are useful and necessary, but it is like a stick in my throat when I hear the pride of man who is like a worm compared to God. It is one thing to think one is right, his experiences valid as his POV sees them, and his knowledge of God knowledge of The Truth, but it is a kind of madness for one to think that his assessments are valid because he has assessed them. (Yes, I said that badly—don't ask GPT, because it will get it wrong.)

Last night I was reading Francis Schaeffer. While he was right about the two main problems the atheist has to deal with, if the atheist is honest —the fact of existence itself, and the fact of man's singularity in creation (i.e. humans being different from the rest of creation)— I think 'man's singularity' is a bit out of proportion in mankind's own esteem. We are so self-interested (which is natural and not of itself bad—it is how creatures are built) that we are self-important to the point that we have ridiculously attributed ourselves with causal knowledge, while, were we to be confronted with the accusation, we would deny it.

And that shows sometimes, hilariously, in our language. I recall reading a headline once, something like, "Due To Recent Advances In Science, Lightning Can Now Have Up To 1 Million Volts Of Electricity". Obviously, it is not what the writer meant, and he would immediately see the problem if someone were to confront him with it, but the fact that it came 'out of his mouth' the way it did is telling. I remember hearing a reporter complaining about not being on the front lines of battle, "How can that be true, if nobody is there to report it!" I'm beginning to think we are constructing a whole set of physics on whether WE know something or not. Who do we think we are???

Thomas Aquinas' "The 5 Ways" has 2 or 3 of its proofs wrong, as I see it. He has not proven God exists with those 2 or 3 'ways', but proven that since WE say this or that, that WE should believe that God exists. But the fact that Christendom has accepted them as proofs that God exists, tells me something about us thinking more of ourselves than we ought.

 

[Hazelelponi]

it is a kind of madness for one to think that his assessments are valid because he has assessed them. (Yes, I said that badly—don't ask GPT, because it will get it wrong.)

Our assessments are valid because HE has revealed Himself to us.

To you, to @John Bauer , to @Carbon to @Arial to @ReverendRV and to a great many more, even on this forum unnamed but known. We understand what we understand because God has revealed Himself, not because man "got it", none of us "got it"... It was revealed knowledge.

Don't confuse the Bride with unregenerate man, and honestly it sounds like you're conflating.

 

[makesends]

Our assessments are valid because HE has revealed Himself to us.

To you, to @John Bauer , to @Carbon to @Arial to @ReverendRV and to a great many more, even on this forum unnamed but known. We understand what we understand because God has revealed Himself, not because man "got it", none of us "got it"... It was revealed knowledge.

Don't confuse the Bride with unregenerate man, and honestly it sounds like you're conflating.

Lol, it's clear that I was not clear.

There was no intention on diminishing God's self-revelation to us. I do not mean that we can't know the truth, and that, knowing him in person.

Let me come at it from a different tack. Several things besides our natural still-here-on-this-earth humanity-not-divinity ignorance and stupidity are in play. And huge, in that, the "old man" is still at work in us. We need continually sanctified, cleaned —whittled away at, even— purged, healed of our blindness and deafness. We can't measure what we don't know about. We don't know how presumptuous we are.

I agree the Bride is not like unregenerate man —it's obvious. And we do know God. In fact, we know him personally. And he has made us pure already, but not yet. Our eyes are still on ourselves. Our questions to him are not only ignorant, but presumptuous. What I think to be praying for —to love him with all my heart— I think in terms of purity and obedience, which is indeed noble and good, because not only does scripture say that those demonstrate my love for him, but also I know it in my heart; but I don't know what I am asking. I pray with agony to be pure and obedient, but what he does is bring me to know HIM better. All the while the corruption in me is killing me. And HE is my life.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Lol, it's clear that I was not clear.

There was no intention on diminishing God's self-revelation to us. I do not mean that we can't know the truth, and that, knowing him in person.

Let me come at it from a different tack. Several things besides our natural still-here-on-this-earth humanity-not-divinity ignorance and stupidity are in play. And huge, in that, the "old man" is still at work in us. We need continually sanctified, cleaned —whittled away at, even— purged, healed of our blindness and deafness. We can't measure what we don't know about. We don't know how presumptuous we are.

I agree the Bride is not like unregenerate man —it's obvious. And we do know God. In fact, we know him personally. And he has made us pure already, but not yet. Our eyes are still on ourselves. Our questions to him are not only ignorant, but presumptuous. What I think to be praying for —to love him with all my heart— I think in terms of purity and obedience, which is indeed noble and good, because not only does scripture say that those demonstrate my love for him, but also I know it in my heart; but I don't know what I am asking. I pray with agony to be pure and obedient, but what he does is bring me to know HIM better. All the while the corruption in me is killing me. And HE is my life.