Ludwig Wittgenstein came to the conclusion, after a life long search for meaningful uses of language, that our ordinary language was perfectly in order to speak meaningfully about whatever we wanted to. In this process he dismantled the foundations of not only his own "Tractatus" but also those of the "Principia Mathematica" of Bertrand Russell, his own professor and mentor of his Doctoral Dissertation at Cambridge University. Incidentally, "The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" was the Dissertation defended by Wittgenstein before Russell and G.E.Moore whose common sense philosophy was mercilessly taken to pieces by Wittgenstein's acute logic! Russell thought that his investigations into the foundations of Mathematics would stand as the solid ground for any genuine science worth its name and proceeded to construct a special language for the same. Wittgenstein's observations, however, that Mathematics has no other foundation than itself and that any special language constructed ultimately depends on the ordinary language for its verification completely unnerved Russell of his pet ideas.
Wittgenstein's method, therefore, of language analysis tended to the notion of the sanctity of the ordinary language we use everyday against which no violence by scientists, philosophers and theologians could be tolerated. Ordinary language means language we use, for example, when we say that we have two tables and four chairs in our room. It does not mean that we are able to use only basic language without ever progressing to higher levels of reality. It means that even when we use highly refined language to express scientific, philosophical or theological ideas, ultimately it should be able to be connected to our experiences of daily life as in the humble uses of words like 'table' and 'chair'. As long as 'atoms','electrons', 'neutrons', 'protons' etc., are not completely divorced from 'table', 'chair' etc., they are meaningfully used in language. Similar is the case with words like 'God', 'Spirit', 'Soul', 'Being' etc, where a use should be shown from our experiences for their meaningfulness in language. By 'use' is meant here the method of our employment of the word concerned so that a meaning can be assigned to it and that is the same as its verification.
It was not our intention to go in detail through the highly evolved method of Linguistic Analysis , which has many branches, but only to give a few hints to our readers so that they may grasp our use of language in dealing with the theme about the 'Christ of Faith'. In this connection, we would like to discuss the word 'God' as a way to go to the foundations of our problems with the notion of 'Christ of Faith' so that a clarification of the word 'God' should help in our understanding of 'Christ of Faith'. Those who made the distinction between the Jesus of history and Christ of faith were not completely innocent of their prejudices against anything beyond the natural order of the world. To be more specific, any supernatural order connected with God was suspect in their eyes in the name of scientific rigor required in all genuine investigations. While they could somehow tolerate the Jesus of history, Christ of faith was to be relegated to the realm of stories and mythologies. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with their fundamental assumption of the meaninglessness of God-talk if we want to bring out the issues involved in the notion of 'Christ of Faith'.
The meaning of a word is neither an idea in our mind nor a label attached to the object concerned , but arises from its use in language. A word has meaning only in a sentence (expressed or unexpressed) and a sentence has meaning only as part of a language-game formed from the forms of life of a particular community of language users. Thus even empirical scientists speak meaningfully of their discoveries as language users of the scientific community, where lack of intelligibility to others does not make their utterances meaningless. Similarly the word 'God' has meaning in the language-game of religion or of theology and its meaning depends on the use it is put into in the language If someone, therefore, were to ask us to point out God if He really exists, we do not have to answer such a person since he or she is laboring under a false notion of meaning like in a label attached to an object What he or she really needs is a course of philosophical therapy to wean him or her away from a distorted notion of meaning acquired through past experiences (See P. S. John, "The Language of Theology and Linguistic Analysis", in The Harp XVI, 2003, PP.327-335).
It is true that words sometimes take on certain characteristics of us humans, especially when they are out of control and go overboard creating confusion and chaos destroying all meaning. It happens because they are not properly employed, just like in the case of workers in a project, when both underemployment and overwork create hurdles in the smooth running of the project. A greater danger in both these cases is the presence of the word or worker concerned lazing around without doing the assigned duty and yet giving the impression of a part of language or a member of the team respectively. It is like taking an unauthorized holiday throwing the whole system into disarray. We must, therefore, be constantly on our guard to see that the words we use do their work properly and the word 'God' too is not exempt from this rule on pain of losing meaning in our use of language about God. Many practitioners of Metaphysics, Philosophy and Theology in the past were doubtless guilty of this sin of talking meaninglessly in their exuberance in using language without checking to see whether they had given meaning to what they were saying.
Wittgenstein's method, therefore, of language analysis tended to the notion of the sanctity of the ordinary language we use everyday against which no violence by scientists, philosophers and theologians could be tolerated. Ordinary language means language we use, for example, when we say that we have two tables and four chairs in our room. It does not mean that we are able to use only basic language without ever progressing to higher levels of reality. It means that even when we use highly refined language to express scientific, philosophical or theological ideas, ultimately it should be able to be connected to our experiences of daily life as in the humble uses of words like 'table' and 'chair'. As long as 'atoms','electrons', 'neutrons', 'protons' etc., are not completely divorced from 'table', 'chair' etc., they are meaningfully used in language. Similar is the case with words like 'God', 'Spirit', 'Soul', 'Being' etc, where a use should be shown from our experiences for their meaningfulness in language. By 'use' is meant here the method of our employment of the word concerned so that a meaning can be assigned to it and that is the same as its verification.
It was not our intention to go in detail through the highly evolved method of Linguistic Analysis , which has many branches, but only to give a few hints to our readers so that they may grasp our use of language in dealing with the theme about the 'Christ of Faith'. In this connection, we would like to discuss the word 'God' as a way to go to the foundations of our problems with the notion of 'Christ of Faith' so that a clarification of the word 'God' should help in our understanding of 'Christ of Faith'. Those who made the distinction between the Jesus of history and Christ of faith were not completely innocent of their prejudices against anything beyond the natural order of the world. To be more specific, any supernatural order connected with God was suspect in their eyes in the name of scientific rigor required in all genuine investigations. While they could somehow tolerate the Jesus of history, Christ of faith was to be relegated to the realm of stories and mythologies. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with their fundamental assumption of the meaninglessness of God-talk if we want to bring out the issues involved in the notion of 'Christ of Faith'.
The meaning of a word is neither an idea in our mind nor a label attached to the object concerned , but arises from its use in language. A word has meaning only in a sentence (expressed or unexpressed) and a sentence has meaning only as part of a language-game formed from the forms of life of a particular community of language users. Thus even empirical scientists speak meaningfully of their discoveries as language users of the scientific community, where lack of intelligibility to others does not make their utterances meaningless. Similarly the word 'God' has meaning in the language-game of religion or of theology and its meaning depends on the use it is put into in the language If someone, therefore, were to ask us to point out God if He really exists, we do not have to answer such a person since he or she is laboring under a false notion of meaning like in a label attached to an object What he or she really needs is a course of philosophical therapy to wean him or her away from a distorted notion of meaning acquired through past experiences (See P. S. John, "The Language of Theology and Linguistic Analysis", in The Harp XVI, 2003, PP.327-335).
It is true that words sometimes take on certain characteristics of us humans, especially when they are out of control and go overboard creating confusion and chaos destroying all meaning. It happens because they are not properly employed, just like in the case of workers in a project, when both underemployment and overwork create hurdles in the smooth running of the project. A greater danger in both these cases is the presence of the word or worker concerned lazing around without doing the assigned duty and yet giving the impression of a part of language or a member of the team respectively. It is like taking an unauthorized holiday throwing the whole system into disarray. We must, therefore, be constantly on our guard to see that the words we use do their work properly and the word 'God' too is not exempt from this rule on pain of losing meaning in our use of language about God. Many practitioners of Metaphysics, Philosophy and Theology in the past were doubtless guilty of this sin of talking meaninglessly in their exuberance in using language without checking to see whether they had given meaning to what they were saying.
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