Here’s Cataclysmic’s own Chad Chambers presenting his paper “Before I was Born: Paul’s Calling and the Question of Time in Galatians” at Houston Baptist University’s ‘Paul and Judaism’ conference going on today and tomorrow.
Chad did a great job and his paper was really interesting, taking a look at how Paul views time in the book of Galatians. Definitely piqued my interest! Well done, brother!!
For me, the doctrine of Scripture (what one believes about the nature of scripture) is the most fascinating topic in Christian theology. I enjoy reading contemporary works on the subject but I find that I most identify with ‘older’ works where the debate does not center on defining, qualifying, accepting, rejecting inerrancy and/or infallibility. Therefore, over a series of posts I am going to examine doctrines of Scripture found in various ‘older’ writings.
Up first: Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (Book 1, Question 1, Articles 1-10). The first post (here) looked at his view of the divine nature of Scripture and the connection of reason and faith. This post considers Aquinas’ thoughts on metaphors and the next one will look at his view on plurality in Scripture.
A second aspect of Aquinas’ methodology influenced by his doctrine of Scripture is his interpretation of scriptural metaphors as God’s deliberate means to communicate truth. Scripture is God’s self-revelation and Aquinas states, “Sacred science is established on principles revealed by God” (1.1.2). He is alluding to the fact that Scripture is based on premises self-evident only to God and the blessed[1] (1.1.2). Nevertheless, God designed Scripture to reveal himself to humanity. In other words, the very purpose of Scripture is to teach the truths necessary for salvation to humanity so it must be understandable to mankind if it is to be effective; it must act in accord with God’s designed purpose.
In order for Scripture to accomplish its central purpose, Aquinas believes God must accommodate himself in Scripture to humanity’s level of understanding, or as Aquinas writes, “according to the capacity of our nature” (1.1.9). Therefore, since humankind naturally learns through external senses (1.1.9) Aquinas determines “it is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things” (1.1.9). Thus, Scripture’s use of metaphors is not unbecoming of its intent rather it is fitting with its purpose of revealing God. Aquinas asserts, however, metaphorical readings must be governed so that one can judge between acceptable and unacceptable meanings. In this regard, he says that everything Scripture teaches metaphorically is elsewhere in Scripture taught more openly (1.1.9).[2] Here again, Aquinas’ doctrine of Scripture, as divinely authored with a purpose, influences his methods of interpreting Scripture and accordingly, he treats metaphors not as barriers to truth but as a fitting channel through which God communicates His truth to mankind.
[1] “The blessed” are those who have seen God face to face. Thus, knowledge of God is no longer veiled but fully discovered.
[2] This alludes to another aspect of Thomas’ methodology for interpreting Scripture, namely that Scripture interprets Scripture. Even though he does not stress this in certain terms within his Summa Theologica it becomes self evident when one studies his exegetical works.
In February, I wrote a series on the Western Theory of Metaphor and included this on Aquinas…
One final thing to discuss before leaving Thomas, is his understanding of metaphors in scripture. While it seems he would have preferred that God left metaphors out of scripture, he recognizes that since they are present they must be useful. As Thomas interprets them in scripture, he operates basically within an Aristotelian model of metaphor – he discusses metaphors at the level of words, he recognizes that some kind of similarity exists between the words, and he believes it takes insight, effort (Aristotle’s genius) to interpret the meaning of their connection. Thomas, however, goes further than Aristotle to tie the meaning to the historical or literal sense. In what in many ways was a response to the tortured use of the Four-Fold Sense of Scripture, Thomas insists that the literal sense have primacy over all other senses. Thus, as stated above, Thomas saw metaphor as useful for interpretation, but only in a limited or subordinate role.
As I revisited Aquinas, I have expanded on this statement and wanted to add it to the blog:
Aquinas interpreted scriptural metaphors as God’s deliberate means to communicate truth. Scripture is God’s self-revelation and Aquinas states, “Sacred science is established on principles revealed by God” (1.1.2). He is alluding to the fact that scripture is based on premises self-evident only to God and the blessed[1] (1.1.2). Nevertheless, God designed scripture to reveal himself to humanity. In other words, the very purpose of scripture is to teach the truths necessary for salvation to humanity so it must be understandable to mankind if it is to be effective; it must act in accord with God’s designed purpose.
In order for scripture to accomplish its central purpose, Aquinas believes God must accommodate himself in scripture to humanity’s level of understanding, or as Aquinas writes, “according to the capacity of our nature” (1.1.9). Therefore, since humankind naturally learns through external senses (1.1.9) Aquinas determines “it is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things” (1.1.9). Thus, scripture’s use of metaphors is not unbecoming of its intent rather it is fitting for the purpose of revealing God. Aquinas asserts, however, metaphorical readings must be governed so that one can judge between acceptable and unacceptable meanings. In this regard, he says that everything scripture teaches metaphorically is elsewhere in scripture taught more openly (1.1.9).[2] Here again, Aquinas’ doctrine of scripture, as divinely authored with a purpose, influences his methods of interpreting scripture and accordingly, he treats metaphors not as barriers to truth but as a fitting channel through which God communicates His truth to mankind.
[1] “The blessed” are those who have seen God face to face. Thus, knowledge of God is no longer veiled but fully discovered.
[2] This alludes to another aspect of Thomas’ methodology for interpreting Scripture, namely that scripture interprets scripture. Even though he does not stress this in certain terms within his Summa Theologica it becomes self evident when one studies his exegetical works.
Part 6: Metaphor and Interpretation – Intro, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Enlightment
(This post adapted from doctoral seminar I led discussing two books – Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson; The Way We Think, Fauconnier and Turner. There are no footnotes or references, but majority of the material is drawn from these works.)
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) questions the dominant Western Theory of Metaphor (WTM) at the most basic level – the nature of metaphor. Is metaphor a matter of words (its nature to describe one thing in relation to another) or is metaphor a matter of thoughts and actions (its nature to understand and experience one thing in the terms of another)?
To recap, WTM says a metaphor is a linguistic devise useful for explaining something abstract by referring to something more concrete. Thus, a metaphor is a matter of language and in reality just a rhetorical flourish. On the other hand, CMT assumes a metaphor is conceptual or cognitive. Thus, a metaphor is able to produce thoughts and transform actions not just describe them.
To oversimplify, we act based upon our conceptual system, according to the way we conceive of things. This conceptual system is constructed upon cognitive concepts (will leave the science for another post) that govern how we think by structuring how we understand and relate to situations. CMT proposes metaphors are the basic cognitive concepts upon which our conceptual system is built. CMT advances the case that an elaborate system of conceptual metaphors lies at the core of our human mind providing an underpinning for our imagining, knowing, acting, communicating, and creating. This system of conceptual metaphors, grounded in physical and social experiences, is a means by which we use our experiencing of one thing to not only explain something else, but to actually experience something else. In this way, metaphors shape our experiences and in so doing generate meaning through providing coherence and structure to our thought. A metaphorical structure of human thought suggests that metaphors are capable of providing new meaning to the past, to daily activity, and to what is hoped for in the future; metaphors have the ability to generate new realities. Lakoff and Johnson labelled this phenomenon embodied metaphor because they influence the way we think and act.
Consider these examples: (how they are reflected in our language)
Time is Money
Love is a Journey
Love is War
WTM states these examples are descriptions only whose sole purpose is to clarify ambiguous meanings. Time is not really money, nor do we actually treat it like money, we only use the common concept of money to help us understand time. CMT, however, proposes metaphors work at a deeper level. To think of love as a journey or war means it structures the way we envision being in love and go about trying to find love.
Imagine two people meeting and forming a relationship. One comes with the idea love is a journey and the other love is war. Does this only matter for how they describe their relationship or will it actually inform the manner in which they engage their relationship? This is the fundamental difference between WTM and CMT, WTM says a metaphor describes and CMT says a metaphor acts.
The next two posts will dig deeper in CMT by examining how different metaphors blend and how to map a metaphor.
The modern theory of metaphor is colored with Aristotelian ideas but filtered through the Enlightenment lens. The first four installments of this series on metaphor (1, 2, 3, 4) focused on Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquianas. Today’s offers a brief view of three figures (Hobbes, Nietzsche, Kant) from the Enlightenment to provide a snapshot of Enlightenment’s view of metaphor. In effect, Hobbes and Nietzsche represent the opposite ends of the spectrum while Kant gives a moderate perspective.
Thomas Hobbes – ‘Scientific’ thinkers of the Enlightenment struggled to see any use for metaphor. As Hobbes states, “Metaphors, and senslesse and amibguous words, are like ignes fatui…and their end, contention and sedition, or contempt” (Leviathan 1.5.22). According to his “literal-truth paradigm” (Mark Johnson), metaphor only confuses rational argument because it cannot add any meaning to what is already fully explained literally. Thus, metaphors are not simply rhetorical flourishes as other supposed they are actually harmful. While Hobbes view comes to different conclusions, it is still built upon Aristotelian foundation. The biggest difference is he does not agree with Aristotle’s view of metaphors as fitting or as useful for explaining the abstract.
Friedrich Nietzsche – Nietzsche represents the opposite end of the Enlightenment’s view of metaphor. Nietzsche questioned the existence of ‘literal-truth’ leading him to reassess the use of metaphors. He recognized metaphors as a cognitive process (meaning building) where meaning is socially constructed (not based on literal association). Metaphor, according to Nietzsche, has a ubiquitous quality and must not be examined as if tied to an external structure of truth, especially not a divine being. The differences between Nietzsche and Hobbes are obvious.
Immanuel Kant – Kant is a bridge between the two extreme views of Hobbes (solely tied to literal truth) and Nietzsche (entirely socially constructed). Kant recognized metaphor as a crucial piece of the human capacity for creativity. As a figurative expression, metaphor could help express and generate conceptual work thus serving as critical means for human reasoning. Metaphor, therefore, served as a way to apply the pure moral law (literal) in actual situations (social). Kant saw both the limits of metaphor and the usefulness of metaphor.
This post ends the historical review of the western theory of metaphor. The next installment will begin to unpack the modern theory of conceptual metaphor.
Cruciform Theology 