God Is Transcendent—But Is Language?

Let’s not dispense with logic.

In the Middle Ages philosophy and theology were happily wedded and seemed destined to a long and happy life together. With the dawn of the modern era, however, the marriage appeared to be in trouble. Philosophers began to see theologians as muddle-headed and superstitious. Theologians viewed philosophers as increasingly secular and short-sighted. The strained relationship managed to hold together through the seventeenth century, but in the eighteenth, philosopher David Hume’s suggestion that most theological writing should be thrown in the fire signaled the inevitable divorce. The two disciplines have gone their own ways since then. They speak to each other only on rare official occasions when it is awkward not to do so.

My purpose here is not so ambitious as to attempt a reconciliation. As a Christian philosopher, I wish to consider one small part of the broken relationship by examining the way in which some theologians have expressed a particular doctrine, that of the transcendence of God. Philosophy has always emphasized clarity of thought, and modern analytic philosophy especially is committed to the avoidance of linguistic ambiguity and confusion. Some theologians, especially those with an “existential” outlook, cause philosophers to stumble not over the doctrine of transcendence itself but over the language in which it is conveyed.

The doctrine of the transcendence of God is at the heart of Christianity. No one can deny it and be a Christian in any traditional sense. The God whom Christians worship transcends man and his world. He is, as the Apostles’ Creed proclaims, the maker of heaven and earth. So although the world may be viewed as his handiwork, he is always distinct from the world. And although man was created in God’s image, man is not God, nor is God man. The failure to make these distinctions has been regarded by Christian orthodoxy as heresy.

Theological discussions of the ways in which God is transcendent must run into thousands of pages. But most of these explanations fit into three broad categories. One is that God is transcendent in that he is not a part of the world of space and time. God will never be found as an object occupying a particular location, as, say, the President might be found at the White House. Another explanation is that God’s transcendence is seen in the fact that his qualities and activities surpass those of all the other beings we observe. God’s love is greater than that of any man and his creative activity more pervasive than any other’s. Neither of these two explanations poses a problem for the philosopher, though the question of how we are to conceive of an agent who has no physical body is of some interest.

The third position is often put forward by theologians with an existential bias. This one involves an attack on traditional rational categories, and it therefore falls squarely within the realm of the philosopher’s interest and judgment. These theologians claim or imply that because theology deals with God, its language is exempted from the usual linguistic and logical rules. God is so radically other than man that he is beyond the natural man’s thought. Theology, they say, is sui generis, it is unlike all other systems of thought, and therefore theological explanation is a unique type of explanation.

Their explanation of God’s transcendence runs as follows. God transcends the world in that he is inconceivable; that is, he surpasses our thought. Our frail minds with their finite rational abilities cannot conceive of God. In his Church Dogmatics (Volume II, Part 1) Karl Barth asserts that the sufficiency of our thought forms collapses altogether in relation to God. He says that we are not capable of conceiving God, that God is invisible not only to the physical eye of man but also to the spiritual eye. Barth then asserts, however, that God is visible as the invisible and expressible only as the inexpressible. Faith somehow involves seeing what cannot be seen, expressing what cannot be expressed. This is an attempt to bring into focus the radical difference between a holy God and sinful men. The Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance goes even further than Barth in this. Torrance claims that if we are to have a knowledge of God, we must not impose our own patterns of thought on him but must allow our minds to fall into subjection to what Torrance calls the “divine rationality.”

These thinkers, and others like them, imply that God is transcendent in a way that the natural man cannot logically understand or express. Thinking or speaking of God is impossible. Now this may sound pious or humble to some, and therein lies at least part of its appeal. I would like to suggest, however, that the piety here is somewhat confused. The virtues of piety and humility are not enhanced by intellectual and linguistic confusion.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of exactly what Barth is saying about our knowledge of God and his transcendence. Is he attempting to say that God is visible only to the eyes of faith or only through the revelation of his son Jesus Christ? That can be said clearly and directly. Is he saying that man is sinful and that God is holy? This too can be clearly expressed and responded to. It is not inexpressible. Barth appears to insist on forcing upon us all sorts of offensive contradictions, such as “visible as the invisible” and “expressible as the inexpressible.” Then when we finish making our way through this, we are told that God is not really expressible as the inexpressible but is expressed in Jesus Christ.

Now in order to make a significant assertion one must differentiate between what is so and what is not. If God is not expressible, then he is not expressible. Not in contradictions, not in paradoxes, not in poetry. If he is expressible and has been expressed clearly in the life and words of his son Jesus Christ, then this fact can be expressed to human beings in language. Christians can put forward the claims of the Gospel and call for a response. Barth needlessly offends the intellect with his contradictions. If the Gospel is expressible, then it can be expressed. If not, then all proclamation, all attempts to express the Gospel, ought to cease.

The problem with Torrance appears to be even more serious. He appears to claim that God’s transcendence means we cannot conceive of him. And yet we have a “knowledge” of God. The point is not that we realize there are things that we do not yet know but may someday discover or have revealed to us. The claim here is stronger than that. It is the contradiction that one can now know something that one cannot now know.

This sort of claim offends the philosopher. It is tantamount to saying that it is possible to conceive of that which lies unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere. What would we think of a geometer who claimed that the circle is really square and even insisted that this concept is central to geometry? We would not take him seriously, no matter how impressive his credentials. But Torrance appears to make an assertion that is at least roughly like this. And then we are told that the philosopher must suspend his disapproval of contradictions at this point because God is God. God is above or beyond logic, and we can therefore make significant self-contradictory assertions when speaking of him.

Philosophers reject this. Not because they are proud or impious, though doubtless some are. They reject it because they are committed to clarity of thought and language. And theologians need to realize that this kind of attack on logic can be very destructive to theology itself. If theologians wish to debate with one another (to say nothing of debating with philosophers), they must adhere to certain minimal logical rules. To allow contradictions is to allow such statements as “God both is and is not x,” “God can make an x that both is and is not y.” All debate about the Resurrection can be resolved by the now meaningful assertion, “Jesus did and did not rise from the dead” and out the window along with the debate goes the distinction of truth from heresy.

As I said earlier, it is simply a fact about human language that in order to make a significant assertion we must distinguish between what is the case and what is not. Statements that are self-contradictory are compatible with anything at all being the case; hence they cannot be assertions.

They cannot be judged true or false in that they assert nothing about which this judgment can be made. Theologians are concerned about distinguishing truth from falsehood. It follows that theology needs to avoid contradiction, even when speaking of a transcendent God.

Theologians who insist on removing the criteria of meaningful assertion demean their own enterprise. They force themselves into a position of accepting all sorts of strange and fanciful claims about God and religious experience. The contemporary scene abounds with false prophets who appeal to the irrational. I would like to suggest that only by applying basic logical principles can serious theologians close the door against the endless absurdities of free thinkers who claim to be Christians.

Reason should not be viewed as the dry and dusty tool of the secular philosophers. It is an indispensable tool for all of us who labor with our intellects. This leaves the theist with two alternatives as he tries to explain the transcendence of God. If he continues to insist that self-contradictory talk is a necessary constituent of theism, then theological distinctions are left to personal preference, temperament, or caprice. He may, on the other hand, hold that all that is really important to Christian theism can be stated clearly and without contradiction, that the claims of Christ can be proclaimed clearly and human beings can be asked to make a decision in terms of those claims. To say this is both logically and theologically sound. It makes logical sense to assert that God is more merciful and kind than any human being while at the same time insisting that his mercy and kindness are not conceptually different from human mercy and kindness. The wish to make these attributes different in kind is tantamount to doing away with these words. However great God’s mercy and kindness are, to convey any truth about them requires that they remain mercy and kindness. One may wish to go on and assert that God’s mercy and kindness amount to much more than we could ever explain, that, in the song writer’s words, “the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” This is a perfectly acceptable logical and theological point. If we assert this “unexplainable remainder,” however, we must be consistent and leave it unexplained if we wish to retain the rational integrity of our theology. To attempt to explain it as a matter of a “divine logic,” or as an expressing of the inexpressible, is to suspend the basic principles of sound discourse. It is to make theology a kind of intellectual no man’s land. Kindness and mercy can be only kindness and mercy. A word cannot transcend its own conceptual content.

Theologians who wish to emphasize that Christian truth calls for a response, or that the knowledge of God is a personal knowledge, should say so. But they must remember that they are talking about truth and knowledge. Talk of an “existential” or “heart” knowledge of God is clearly understandable. When, however, the theologian demands that we suspend ordinary logical principles, he demands too much. He removes theology from the realm of meaningful philosophical, theological, or common-sense analysis. But if we cannot understand or analyze a claim we cannot act upon it; we can neither accept nor reject it. Even evangelism requires rationally coherent claims that people can act upon. “Come, let us reason together,” said the ancient prophet.

A Survivor Of Babel

He flexes his lips,

tenses his jaw,

clenches his tongue & uvula

but makes only silence–

silence & the rasp

of tissue, pop of spittle

Somewhere his voice

is filling a stranger’s throat

& mouth

words he should speak

are clearing a stranger’s lips–

& only its distant whisper

tickles his ear

EUGENE WARREN

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

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