back to words

I didn't get any bites on my questions about what our church is up to, so I thought I would continue to meander along in my exploration of words and the communication of reality. I have had to step back this week and reflect on how this is affecting me personally, as I have noticed just how much we are reliant on words for our understanding of reality. To tell the story:

Adrianna and I are looking to buy a house, and this is a big commitment as many would know. Houses are very overpriced and unaffordable at the moment and have been for some time now, but we really want to get out and have a place of our own.

As we are in this space, we find that we are particularly attentive to news articles about what is happening in the housing market and interest rates and the economy in general, because these things affect affordability. Do we jump in as soon as we can because prices are going up, or do we wait because prices are coming down and will continue to do so.

I have found that the media is just as unreliable in reporting on housing as they are on any other topic. On the same day, one article will say house prices have come down 2% in the last month, another will say they are likely to come down 10% in the next year, another will say 'but wait, the reserve bank is going to cut interest rates so that will change', and then another will say, 'but maybe they aren't going to cut interest rates because employment figures show a growth in employment. All of these articles paint pictures of reality, but are not necessarily accurate or true, even though they are based on facts. They have the power to influence decisions, perhaps we should wait and see if prices settle and/or come down, and in the meanwhile build our capital so as to pay off less interest when we do buy. And perhaps this will lead to more houses coming onto the market, and thus more choice, as it starts to become a buyers market. But then, there are the reports that housing prices will continue to rise because of population growth and immigration which keeps the demand high.

And so, day by day, the facts we are given to make our decisions on are fed to us electronically with words and statistics, which paint pictures, which limit the options and set our focus and bias.

Alternatively, we could monitor the prices ourselves and look at trends, but we don't have access to what houses are actually selling for (just what they are listed for) unless we pay money for reports. So reality is mediated to us by various conflicting sources, and we have to make significant decisions from that information. This shows the power of the media to shape reality as they influence decisions of many people and shape the market. This is even more pronounced int he share markets, where people use mediated information to buy and sell, and rash decisions can be made, and crowd mentalities can be witnessed. The person who can 'mediate' reality and shape decisions has a lot of power indeed.

How do we assess what is 'true', how can we determine which article is 'reliable'? We have established that words have power to shape and influence our understanding of reality, and thus our decisions to interact with and change reality. We also know that if words conflict with other words about what that reality is then we need to decide what is true and reliable over what is false and misleading.

This problem brings us back to the garden of Eden once more, where Adam and Eve made a significant decision based on the words of a talking snake (yeh, nothing suspect there), which interpreted the reality before their eyes and 'deceived' them. As opposed to the true and trustworthy words of the God who created them, they chose to believe the creature instead.

On what basis can we trust the claims of one person over another? Or should we treat all such words with caution and seek to learn everything the hard way, through experience? In the case of the real estate issue, I do acknowledge that it is largely an area of speculation and trends, nothing is certain and it is all dependent on market forces, which are highly unpredictable. If this is the case, then is the speculations no better than the fortune tellers? Is it like the Oracle in the the film The Matrix, who asked Neo if he still would have knocked over the vase if she hadn't warned him about it?

I think we should wait until we find something we like for a price we are willing to pay, and just keep an eye on if prices are starting to come up again.

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More on the realities of words

I have been thinking more about words and reality; both the objective reality that we accept by faith is concretely outside of ourselves, and also the subjective reality that appears to be located inside our awareness and 'occurs' as we subjects interface to and interact with that objective reality. And I have been thinking about how the objective reality seems so often to be mediated to us via words, and some would say even when we 'experience' that reality first hand, we still interpret and remember the experience through words. If this is true, then words constitute our interpreted reality.

The extent to which or words are accurate symbols of a common or shared experience of reality is the extent to which they can be used to communicate (and to 'share') that same reality to others. But let a Protestant try to talk to a Jehovah's Witness about the idea of the 'soul' for instance, and the meaning of the word is so different between the two that communication cannot happen, and the two cannot meaningfully share their experience and understanding of reality. I would say there are a lot of words, phrases and concepts that have entirely different meanings to many people, making communication of the deeper things quite difficult. And, thinking back to Nowen's epilogue, if someone has not encountered/experienced the reality behind our words then they will not have any meaning to them at all.

I am trying to think of the implications of this. Here are a few I can think of (just throwing thoughts out there, rather than stating categorically as a mature view):

1. If words are symbols that can themselves have different meanings to different people, we cannot assume that people will understand even if we formulate our sentences very well
2. We need to listen very carefully to people.
   
3. We need to listen respectfully and if something does not make sense we ought not to assume the person is wrong, but we should try to arrive at a full understanding of just what they are saying first.
   
4. When speaking ourselves, particularly of serious things, or things that go beyond the surface, we should probably try to speak in images that paint pictures for people to see what we are talking about.
5. If the images themselves are ineffective to communicate, we may need to 'show' the person experientially
6. If images are mere symbols (or metaphors) that point beyond themselves to a reality (or evoke that reality in the mind of another), then the words are not the reality itself. Therefore a statement is not true in and of itself, but only as it points someone truly to reality. To elaborate, just as a photo cannot capture the entirety of that which it portrays (without remainder), our words will never capture and fully embody the reality to which they point.
   
7. If 6. is true, then statements that seem to be in conflict can both be true, even if they oppose each other, because they are not designed to be absolutely true but to subjectively point to something (or an aspect of something) in reality.
8. A statement can only be said to be true when communicated in a way where the recipient understands the same meaning of the words as the speaker, and the speaker's meaning reflects the reality to which the statement points.
9. Theologies, dogmas, traditions, philosophies are all models; word-constructs of reality, and thus point to the reality but do not 'own' it as such. One way of putting this is that statements are images, or 'idols'. They are not the thing itself. Therefore, statements can have the risk of being treated as idols.
10. If 9. is true, then we need to be careful about our relationship to statements, and ensure that we love/worship that which is behind them rather than the correct word formulation.
11. Having said 10., words and statements are necessary to share.
12. By evoking an image from words we are actually creating a reality for a person to experience in their imagination, to 'see in their mind's eye' which will, hopefully,  provide the encounter necessary to fill the words with meaning.
    

I think back to the parables of scripture. Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God in parables. He spoke to a people who had already defined the meaning of the kingdom of God according to shared (though varied) expectations and hopes. Given this, and given that Jesus came to (re)define what the Kingdom of God was, he was unable to use those words (or the word Messiah) to convey the meaning and reality he came to teach and proclaim. So he used parables to 'throw beside' images of the reality he had come to reveal to the world.

In this sense, the words did not create the reality of the kingdom, but they communicated the concept of that reality to the hearers, and did so ONLY for those who could receive the words (See Matthew 13). And yet, by communicating the concept of that reality, did the words not invite the hearers to come and participate in that reality? Did they not create a 'land' for people to enter?

Going further in thinking about the power, and especially the creative power, of words I remember reading Walter Brueggermann's commentary on Genesis, where he explores the idea of God 'speaking' the world into being. God calls things into being, and the things 'listen' and respond in obedience. His theological exploration of this is quite good. He notes that, while God's call is sovereign it is "not coercive but evocative. It invites but it does not compel... thus, it may be resisted and unheeded." (p.18). I find it interesting that if the objective reality itself was called into being by words, and if all calling and vocation from God comes from words, and if even our wandering from God's reality can be described as an 'unheeding' of God's words (and a listening to the words of the serpent instead and receiving his mediated reality), then the creative (and destructive) power of words is far greater than I have previously understood. God speaks reality into being, and as we listen and receive his word by faith, we participate in God's reality. and yet, we have the ability to ignore his reality and understand the world in words of our own, in words and images provided by the media and a barrage of songs and sounds and ads and TV shows and movies and posters. An SMS can break a heart.

In this way, the word of God is very powerful, and very important to our life and peace, but I think in many ways the words of the scripture have become foreign to us and hard to relate to (I hear this from so many people who try to read the Bible but really struggle to understand it). The words themselves have been redefined, and the images have been lost (we have come a long way from understanding the significance of nailing one's ear to a door, for example). It is the preacher's (and teacher's) job to find good words to invite people into God's reality and help them to share in it. But I do think the crucial thing is for God himself to be revealed and encountered as the reality behind the words.

This thought evokes very strange ideas in my mind. Words could very well become doorways to God's presence (the 'sacrament of words'). the words which point to God are the words through which God reveals himself, and thus the words are a doorway to communion with God. How many of us can speak of encountering God himself when reading his word?

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A word about our focus and the locus of reality

As I continue to reflect on the concept of 'words' and of 'presence' I have read an interesting post on Open Source Theology that asks an interesting question: do our words reflect or point to that which exists outside and beyond them, or do they, by being spoken, evoke a reality? I suppose from a Biblical perspective this question goes back to Genesis and Adam's naming of the animals. The question is whether Adam studied the behaviour of the animals and named them in accordance with their behaviour and function, or whether he actually prescribed their function and purpose in the act of naming them.

I understand this is actually a topic of debate in the philosophy of language, and it fascinates me. Our words communicate the shared reality in which we live, but to some extent they shape that reality. Our words 'create' and 'evoke' images in people's minds, and thus guide their focus. Qui-Gon Jinn speaks these words to the young Anakin Skywalker: "Your focus determines your reality." To what extent is our reality determined by the external world around us, and to what extent is it determined by our mind's reflections on that external world, and its foci?

As we communicate a picture of reality to others, and as they accept that picture, it becomes reality in all actuality for them. The extent to which that picture is an accurate portrayal of the external world can sometimes be irrelevant - the words alone are powerful enough to influence important decisions, to bring to tears, to bring joy, and sometimes even to kill. In fact, people have killed themselves over mere electrons on a computer screen because those electrons represented words, which in turn painted a picture in the mind of the reader, which in turn manufactured a 'reality' that was unbearable to them, that in turn tipped them over the edge.

Thus, even if words are merely representative of reality, and even if they are completely false representations of 'reality' they can have the power of life and death. Even in this way words actually create reality inside the one who receives them. And along this line of thinking it seems that the locus of reality is actually inside the mind rather than in the world outside us.

Could this very post alter someone's perception of reality? And in doing so could it alter their attitude and behaviour? And if it changed their behaviour would it have, in fact, altered reality?

If people were aware of the power of their words would they choose them more carefully? Would they use them for good? Would they use them to assist people to focus on what is good for them and good for others? Would they use their words to build people up, to transport them out of their depression, to take them to a place of beauty?

What is the limit of the power of words?

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Nouwen's epilogue

We have finished Henri Nouwen's Life of the beloved and it had a kind of sad ending (not that I want to ruin it for anyone but... moohoohaha). The book was written as a personal book for his secular Jewish friend to explain clearly the things of the spiritual life, which he explains in his prologue. The epilpogue reflects on how, after the book was finished and he sent it to his friend, Henri went to visit him and received his feedback, and found that it hadn't hit the mark.

As I read the book I myself had wondered if the words he used were too alien, even though they were not strictly 'Christianese' (for his main words were 'beloved, taken, blessed, broken, given', and he spent about a chapter explaining each word), at the end of the day his friend could not move beyond the words to the reality behind them. They were indeed alien to him.

Henri lamented that after years of sharing together he still could not find the right words to convey life in Christ. I suppose if words are mere symbols that represent a reality (and I am aware that this is something much debated in current philosophy of language), and if that reality is at the most basic level an 'experienced' reality, then those who have not yet experienced it will not be able to fully appreciate the meaning behind the words. I think this is the thesis that Hans Urs Von Bathasaar was presenting in his Love alone is credible (a very hard read!), and perhaps also what Karl Barth was getting at in his theology of revelation. Only as we personally encounter God as he reveals himself to us can we grasp the reality to fill the words with true meaning. Outside of God's self-revelation words are empty symbols. Revelation is thus not so much a cognitive process as a whole-of-person experience. It is an encounter with the true 'presence' of God (there's that word again). Ironic, then, that God reveals himself in his 'word' (John 1). But perhaps it is not so ironic if that 'word' is actually a person that we encounter personally.

If this is true, then perhaps presence is more important than words. But, by the same logic, the comments of anonymous against my previous post may suggest that as the words of the Gospel are presented, the listener encounters the real presence of God himself, coming to fill the words with meaning, since the words are 'true' and thus have a reality 'underwritten' by God's own presence, so to speak. It is as if the words of the gospel are the locus where his presence dwells and is manifest to people.

But at the same time, the Bible stresses that Christians are the special locus of God's presence on earth, his 'temple' so to speak. It is this idea that I would like to explore much further.

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