After Pentecost Language and Biblical Interpretation

From Speech Acts to Scripture ActsThe Covenant of Discourse and the Discourse of the Covenant Kevin J. VanhoozerIntroduction: Language in Jerusalem and AthensA word is deadWhen it is saidSome say.I say it justBegins to liveThat day.Emily Dickinson''Know thyself ''. Socrates'' demand that philosophers reflect on what it is to be human has been taken up by many in other disciplines as well. It is possible to study the functions of humans considered as biological organisms (physiology) as well as human emotional and mental dysfunctions (psychology); the actions of individuals in the past (history) as well as the behavior of various human groups (sociology). The study of human language is similarly interdisciplinary. It can be studied by linguists, cognitive psychologists, historians, logicians, philosophers - and, yes, theologians. If the third-century theologian Tertullian was correct in defining a ''person'' as a being who speaks and acts (which is not so very far from what a philosopher, Peter Strawson, would say about individuals some seventeen hundred years later), then it may well be that we have to treat both topics - language and humanity - together. To study language, then, is to touch on issues involving a whole world and life view. Some approaches to the study of language''s origin and purpose, for example, presuppose that human existence and behavior is best explained in terms of Darwinian evolution. In their highly regarded work on linguistic relevance, for instance, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson suggest that human cognition is a biological function whose mechanisms result from a process of natural selection: ''Human beings are efficient information-processing devices''.For Sperber and Wilson, language is essentially a cognitive rather than communicative tool that enables an organism (or device) with memory to process information.On the other hand, George Steiner claims, on the basis of his experience of transcendence in literature, that ''God underwrites language''.Such disparate analyses should give philosophers pause. They also raise the question as to whether Christians should not approach the study of language from an explicitly Christian point of view. Such, however, is the intent of the present article: to reflect on language from out of the convictions of Christian faith.Craig Bartholomew has recently called for those interested in the theological interpretation of Scripture to clarify just how the relation of philosophy to theology bears on biblical study.Here we probably do not want to follow Tertullian''s suggestion, stated in the form of a rhetorical question, that Jerusalem (theology) has nothing to do with Athens (philosophy). We would do better to follow Alvin Plantinga''s advice to Christian philosophers not to let others - people with non-Christian world-views - set the agenda, but to pursue their own research programs. What is needed, he says, is ''less accommodation to current fashion and more Christian self-confidence''.Indeed.Why should Christian faith be excluded from the search for understanding when other faiths - including modernity''s faith in instrumental reason, empiricism and naturalism - are not?Christian theology takes faith in the revelation of Jesus Christ, attested in the Scriptures, as its ultimate criterion for judging what is true, good and beautiful. While not at all turning our back on the results, assured or not, of modern learning, it is important to acknowledge that all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, come to the data with interpretive frameworks already in place. The present essay approaches the ''data'' concerning language and interpretation with an interpretive framework largely structured by theological concepts. Instead of excluding considerations of Christian doctrine from my inquiry, I intend to make explicit use of them. This is not to turn one''s back on philosophy, but to let human reason be guided and corrected by Christian doctrine, and by the language and literature oMoller, Karl is the author of 'After Pentecost Language and Biblical Interpretation' with ISBN 9780310234128 and ISBN 0310234123.