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19 December 2006
The Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. - John, the Apostle.
Logos. The Word. The funny thing about doing something for a very long time is that sometimes you forget that you are doing it. It becomes so natural and so transparent that you start taking it for granted. When you start to walk, walking takes a lot of effort and concentration. You are conscious of every step. Keep doing it a while, and it becomes second nature. You just decide to go somewhere and your legs take you. The mechanics of walking never come to mind, unless, of course, you run into something.
Talking is much the same. It requires a tremendous amount of conscious effort for a two year old to wrap the word ‘mama’ around the person who has been their constant companion for their last two years, and just as much effort to move their vocal cords in a certain way as to give that word to another in speech. The child must identify one mass of feelings and sensations, differentiate it from all other masses of feelings and sensations (including themselves,) and store that distinction for future recall. The child must learn to encapsulate meaning in a form that can be meaningfully used and conveyed. As time goes on, the child gets more words and more rules for combining words into bigger and bigger ideas. Eventually, the child becomes so comfortable with words that they automatically wrap ideas with words as they think. Like walking, the mechanics of wording only come to mind when they fail. ‘You know, what’s the word...’ We only think about words when we lack one for an idea.
A word encapsulates meaning. It is a package of truth that can be conveyed, a manageable chunk of reality that can be meaningfully shared. I look at a small plastic vessel for holding water, and I think ‘cup.’ I identify certain characteristics of the thing (the vessel-ness, the small-ness) and discard the characteristics not deemed critical (the plastic-ness,) and associate it with a reference idea from my thoughts and memories. The archetypal cup shows up in my consciousness, and my mind transfers that thought pattern to my vocal chords. Through muscle memory and phonemes, my vocal chords turn it into vibrations through the medium of air, which carries it to the ear of the listener, vibrating against tympanic membranes and anvil-shaped bones. The ear turns the vibration into electricity, which through pattern recognition is identified as a word. That word recalls that idea, and the cup has been transferred from my mind to the mind of the listener. (Note the fundamental paradox of postmodernism: Language implies coherence to truth, even if it denies it with its words. If there is no coherence, then there are no words, only sounds. Postmodernism will lead to the abolition of man (C.S.L.) as surely as modernity if allowed to run its course. But I digress.)
The word is a unique thing. It is not just a sign, yet it signifies; not simply a pointer, yet it points to something else. A sign tells us where to look to find a thing, but it is not the thing itself. A word directs us in a very real way, but it is the thing itself in a very real way. It is a sign and the thing itself both at once. The image of a cup is no less or more a cup than the word cup, as long as the cup is named. Yet, the word cup will point us toward the image of the cup. Moreover, when the word ‘cup’ is invoked, it recalls a very real idea of a cup in the mind of the hearer. (Reference Greek Form theory for the idea of perfect reference things.) The cup is not just the idea, nor just the image, nor just the word. It is all of them at once, yet the idea and the image and the word are all separate from each other. The image invokes the word, which invokes the idea, which invokes an image, and the cycle goes on. So the word is fully the thing that it signifies, yet it signifies that thing still.
Words do not exist in a vacuum, they are made to be shared. In order to share a word, meanings must be decided by a community. A people come together and decide that a given set of phonemes means a certain word which encapsulates a certain idea. The whole endeavor is foolishness if the set of sounds I use to describe ‘cup’ is the set of sounds the listener uses to describe ‘dog.’ The image I break down into sounds must be reconstituted into the same image in the mind of the hearer if we are to communicate at all. So things must have names, and those names must be the same names, even amongst different people. Accordingly, societies enforce compliance with linguistic standards. Those who diverge from these standards are subject to reproach. ‘Only rednecks say ain’t,’ and the like. So we now have standards, and hence the ability to share thoughts.
What happens, then, when there is a new thought? It must be named if it is to be shared. Who should do the naming? The one whose thought it is. The one who created the thought, the one who exercises authority over it should name it (all legitimate authority has to do with creation, hence ‘author‘ity.) After all, it is theirs. In naming it, they stake their claim, for in order to convey the thought from then on, people will use their word. There are many ways this plays out. Edison calls his invention the light bulb. ARPA, the Internet. Leif Erickson (I think) discovers land in the North Atlantic, and deceptively calls it Greenland. Economists discover theories and name them after themselves. The dictator Turkmenbashi proceeds to use his authority to rename most of the nouns in the country after himself (marklar marklar the marklar to the marklar. It's from South Park.) Regardless, things must be named, and to name something is to claim authority over it.
If we have so many words now, than all of those things have been named. All the subdivisions of reality are staked out by linguistics, and the plots have been divided as long back as we can remember. Sometimes we move stones, as words and languages evolve over time. Sometimes one field is divided into two, when we create a new flavor or a new combination of things. Still, there must have been an original partition. Let’s look to origins. God makes things. He then names them. The Author exercises authority. He calls the light day (differentiated from the night by its lightness,) and the darkness night. Then He names Adam. He teaches words to Adam, and teaches Adam to name things. Adam then names with the authority of a viceroy. The first word leads to more words, for the naming of all things starts with the Word. All language came from the Mouth of God first. He taught us to speak.
Let’s take it back a step. There is a naming before all namings. We talk about God, so we must have a word for Him. Yet, how can we name God? We are the finite, and the finite cannot climb the mountain of eternity to affix a name to the infinite. Only one Being was there when the world was made. So if God is named, and He is, then He named Himself. (Reference Anselm about the inadequacy of all ‘sun god’ contingent names.) A Name is made to be shared. We cannot speak the language of the Most High, so the Most High must call Himself a Word that we can understand.
So the Word puts on flesh. We wrap a thing in words so that it can be understood, but what words do we have for Him? By what device can we wrap our words around Him? The only way a mind of flesh can wrap itself around God is for God to wrap himself in flesh. We cannot wrap our mind around the Father, so the Son wraps Himself around us. Through Him, we are given access to the Father and to the Godhead. So the Son is the Word. He is the package of Truth that can be conveyed. He signifies God and He is God. He is the Name by which all things are named.
Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. Hearing this growing up, I pictured two people walking in the garden with some God-like cloud nearby that spoke with a booming, thunderous voice. I think I imagined that cloud sort of following them around, hovering in its God-ness. Because, for some reason, God had to be some inaccessible Monty Python style guy in the clouds. But if the Word was in the beginning, then the Word was in the garden. Which person of the Trinity would be the most relevant to mankind? I think we make this too hard. If the Bible says that Adam and Eve were walking with God in the garden, then they were walking with Him. The Apostles walked with the Son by the shores of Galilee. I do not think it was so different in the garden. Three sets of footprints, man and God walking together with real feel. The Word gives them words to give back to Him.
There is, of course, another major linguistic-historical event in Genesis. The tower of Babel. Man was given words to exercise and share authority. When man abandons God, he retains his language faculty, and promptly sets it to work in his war against God. We never did the math. If we get what we want, we destroy ourselves. Succeeding in our rebellion, we would cut ourselves off from Him entirely. We would throw away our only chance of salvation. So He puts another set of child-locks on us. After the flood, God shortened the life span of man from a thousand to a hundred years. He limited our ability to destroy ourselves by limiting the time we had to do so. So Babel was another curse that was a blessing. Speaking the same language, we were able to coordinate logistics in our war against God. In fracturing the languages of man, God takes one extra step to limit the power of man and his concomitant ability to destroy himself.
Child-locks aren’t meant to last forever. God promises Adam and Eve that the fall will be reversed. He promises salvation, that all things torn asunder will be reunited in Him. The languages of man were torn asunder at Babel. Only in Him can they be reunited. So God gives us one true Language. One we cannot use for war against Him. He sends back to us the Word that redeems all other words.
We use the word ‘Christophony’ to describe any appearances of Jesus before His birth. Associated with that word is the concept of a ‘Pre-incarnate Christ.’ We forget that this fallen world is ‘Plan B.’ There was nothing written upon all of eternity that said we had to fall. The Word was the Word before the cross; the Son was the Son before the manger. There always was one Name by which men are reconciled to God. We just made the process bloodier. Jesus was still Jesus in the garden.
Christ. The Messiah. The One who comes to save us from our sins. The dragon-slayer of myth. But St. George was who he was before the dragon. The dragon just showed who that was. Jesus is not bound to the cross; the cross is subject to Jesus. The cross was a backdrop against which He revealed who He was, an easel, a canvas upon which He painted the picture of love. The Artist is not bound to the canvas. He is the artist before the canvas. He is simply who He is.
The Word gave us all of our words. We used those words against Him, so our words were broken. The Word came again, and gave us new words. He taught us Agape. It is a hard word to say in such a broken world. But none of us said our first words with ease, yet now we wrap ideas in words with ease. So sanctification is learning to walk. One day we will learn to wrap our thoughts with love as easily as we wrap our ideas in words. On that day, we will give all of our words back to the Word as crowns cast at His feet.
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