AUGUSTINE
ON LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE
One
of the current struggles that is facing the world of the humanities in general
and philosophy and theology in particular is the crisis of epistemological
foundations. In a post-modern,
post-foundational, post-Christian, post-everything world, the quest for truth
and knowledge is facing a new critique.
This is new only in a very limited sense, because it is in many ways
very similar some very old critiques of the foundation of knowledge. The search for the basis of truth and
knowledge has fluctuated between the Platonic world of the Forms, the
Aristotelian emphasis on empirical observation and the Skeptics who essentially
gave up on the search of a basis for knowledge and truth. The history of philosophy records this
pendulum swing back and forth, sometimes pointing solidly toward one of the
views and sometimes in between which creates confusion in the world of
knowledge and truth.
The
current pendulum swing leaves us in just such a place, depending on who you
read and how you interpret what they are saying. Many who would call themselves postmodern are
in the skeptical camp with their rejection of an ultimate basis for truth. Such a foundation is a myth, part of a
narrative that has been constructed by various groups and social structures. But each of these groups or ideas for a
foundation has ultimately been rejected.
There is no God/gods on whom we can rest truth statements. The Church has long since been rejected as well
in an enlightened world of science. Now
in a post-modern world, reason as the unshakeable foundation for ultimate truth
(the sciences) has faced the same rejection.
There is no foundation, everyone is bound in a story that is bound in
language; language is bound by culture and culture is always changing. So, in our postmodern world of
non-foundationalism, language itself is an impediment to knowledge.
With
this epistemological morass as a backdrop, it was refreshing to read the 4th/5th
century Church father, Augustine, who addressed the issue of language and
knowledge, with particular emphasis on the knowledge of God in revelation and
reason. If language is only a socially
agreed upon construct, can we use it to gain any knowledge; especially
knowledge of God. Current Postmodern
thinkers would say no, but Augustine clearly says yes. In this essay, I would like to explore a
little of Augustine’s view of language and its relationship and use in knowing,
especially as he applies it to the knowledge of God. We will explore these areas in three of
Augustine’s works: On the Trinity (DT),
On Christian Teaching (DDC) and Against the Academicians (CA).
While
Augustine’s view of language is not a fully-developed, systemized study, we can
gain some understanding of his subject through his discussions of signs,
analogies, metaphors and predication. In
the greatest sense of communication, Augustine recognizes that humans can and
do use a multitude of different methods and means, besides what we would
typically think of as language. People
can communicate through what Augustine calls physical signs. These can be a nod, a look or a
hand-gesture. These are understood to be
signs when we do them to another person with the intent of making them aware of
our wishes (DDG; B2, Para 5).
However,
the great majority of communication is through words, both spoken and
written. Even with words, the majority
of the words that we use are in the written form, because of the limitations of
spoken words. Augustine says, “But
spoken words cease to exist as soon as they come into contact with the air, and
their existence is not more lasting than that of their sound; hence the
invention, in the form of letters, of signs of words” (DDG; B2, Para 8). He repeats this idea – adding the notion of
invention of letters - in On the Trinity,
“But where as we exhibit these and the like bodily signs either to ears or eyes
of persons present to whom we speak, letters have been invented that we might
be able to converse also with the absent…” (DT; B15,Chpt. 10. Para 19).
Language
(or at least letters), therefore, is in invention of man for the purpose of
communicating via signs of letters and construction of words. In a postmodern understanding of language,
this becomes very important. Since
language is an invention of humans, it has to be culturally conditioned,
because humans are intrinsically cultural beings. We live in it and it infuses us, and we often
are not even aware of it, much like a fish is not aware of the water that
encompasses its life. Our own cultural
constructions become more obvious to us when we are confronted by someone who
does not come from our culture. This can
be someone from our own country, such as a farm kid moving to the big city, or
someone from another country altogether.
This cultural conditioning or situatedness of language creates barriers
to understanding. How can I come to
understand truth through language if it not based on real objective
reality? This is the postmodern’s
dilemma.
This
problem is further complicated by the fact that our thinking itself is bound to
language. Augustine understands this
well, when he talks about thoughts as being “speeches of the heart.” “For although there were no words spoken, at
any rate, he who thinks speaks in his heart” (DT, B. XV. Chpt. 10, Para.
17). He understands this both from
personal experience with his own thinking as well as from Scripture. Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees’
hearts, even though they did not say anything out loud. He says the same idea in other place, “for
the thought that is founded by the thing which we know, is the word which we
speak in the heart…” (DT, B XV, Chpt. 10, Para. 19).
This
does not mean that language can mean anything that you want it to. It would be easy to fall into this trap, but
when Augustine is discussing the Trinity, he is very careful to avoid this
problem. In his discussion on the adding
a particular kind of negation to a particular statement (unbegotten vs.
nonbegotten) does not change the essence of what you are saying about the
substance of the thing that you are discussing.
“Wherefore, in speaking of this thing or that, we must not consider what
the usage of our language either allows or does not allow, but what clearly
appears to be the meaning of the things themselves” (DT, Bk V, Chpt 7, Para
8). The particulars of a given language
grammatical structure is not the issue as much as what are the real
implications of what is trying to be said.
Language,
constructed as it is (or may be), is the vehicle that we have at our disposal
to speak about God. It may seem that
this vehicle is insufficient for that purpose, and indeed many in the church
have stated as much, but it is in the connection between language as a
signifier of ideas that Augustine brings to his discussion on both the doctrine
of the Trinity and the understanding of Scripture. It is clear that Augustine makes a strong
connection between sign, signifier and language as a vehicle for the real
communication of truth. It is not
perfect, but it is effective because the only reason that you use words and
language is actually to communicate intended meaning (the great irony of the
hard postmodern thinkers is that they write books while denying connected
meaning to text). Augustine in his
treatise On Christian Teaching says,
“All teaching is teaching of either things or signs, but things are learnt
through signs.” (Bk 1, Para 4). This
becomes the main model that Augustine will use to teach in both On the Trinity and On Christian Teaching. He
says that whole reason that we use words is to signify something, “Words, for
example: nobody uses words except in order to signify something. From this it may be understood what I mean by
signs: those things which are employed to signify something” (DDC, Bk 1, Para
5). Let us consider briefly how
Augustine applies the concept of sign to both his study of the Trinity and his
study of Scripture.
In
his discussion of the Trinity, Augustine recognizes that there is a problem
with the use of words to describe the Trinity.
If language is part of our cultural heritage, and is even part of our
thought processes, how do we use language to speak of God? The problem is that God is above the mind in
the first place, how do we speak about that we which we cannot form a thought. Because we are bound to an extent to the
limitations of language, our culture and our minds, can we really form an idea
about God? Augustine discusses this as
the seeking of something which we can never gain. Will we only ever seek but never find truth
about God, and the Trinity? This is the struggle
of faith and understanding – “Faith seeks, understanding finds…” Augustine
says. While we will never completely
understand, that should not prevent the search, because we are told by Paul
that the “invisible things of Him…are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made.” This gives
Augustine (and all Christians) the opportunity seek knowledge in our world,
including the world of language, even while we recognize the limitations. Part of Augustine’s solution to this is to
make a distinction between knowledge and the thought of knowledge. The problem then lies in the use of language
about that knowledge, not in the knowledge itself. He illustrates this in the following way,
“For the same reason neither do we
say three greats (for each member of the Trinity), but one who is great; since
God is not great by partaking in greatness, but He is great by Himself being
great, because He Himself is His own greatness.
Let the same be said also of the goodness, and of the eternity, and of
the omnipotence of God, and in short, all of the predicaments which can be
predicated of God, as He spoke of in respect to Himself, not metaphorically and
by similitude, but properly, if indeed anything can be spoken of Him properly,
by the mouth of man” (DT, Bk V, Chapt 10.).
The problem is the limitation of
language, not in God or the potential knowledge of him. We might be tempted to think that the words
that we use are only metaphors, but Augustine wants to remind us that, though
limited, the language that we use of God is in some way a real descriptor of
God and his character. It does matter
what words we use to describe God. We
will always have problems with our language in describing God, think about how
we describe the eternal God acting in time, but that does not mean the task
should be abandoned.
This
also becomes a problem when we come to the Scriptures and how we should
understand them. Augustine reminds us in
On Christian Teaching that language
is not universally hegemoneous, so the signs of language cannot be shared among
people of different language groups until this barrier is overcome (DDG, Bk 2,
para 8). This applies to Scripture as
well, “…even divine scripture, by which assistance is provided for the many
serious disorders of the human will, after starting off in a single language,
in which it could have been conveniently spread throughout the world, was
circulated far and wide in the various languages of translators…” (DDG, Bk 2,
para.9). So the Scriptures were written
in one language and cultural setting, but we speak a different language and
live in a different cultural setting.
How then can the Scriptures speak to us?
An obvious answer would be translation, but that is not sufficient. Augustine reminds his readers that there were
a wide-variety and quality of translations of the Bible into Latin, so he
encourages them consult many of the available translations to get a proper
understanding of the text. It is also
important to Augustine that the reader spend time learning some of the meanings
of the signs of Scripture that might be lost due to difference of culture. He gives the example of this with the word bovum or ox. We have an idea of what this word
signifies. However, Scripture also uses
this sign in another way, as a worker of the Gospel (Deut 25:4, I Cor 9:9, 1
Tim 5:8). We can work at overcoming this
language barrier with study of the original languages and culture.
Augustine
talks about the fact that there is an understanding of Scripture that at first
appears “hidden” to a normal reading of language. Again, this might seem a barrier to
knowledge, but it falls to us as readers of Scripture to understand these
analogies, by seeking the meaning of the sign as it was originally
intended. Animals, plants, stones,
numbers, and other things can all have a second significance that needs to be
understood and explored if the reader is to understand the language of
Scripture. These are all potential
language barriers to knowledge, but they are only potential, not final
barriers. The reader must begin not
with language understanding, but proper heart/soul orientation. “It is therefore necessary above all else to
be moved by the fear of God towards learning his will: what is that he instructs us to seek or
avoid” (DDG, Bk 2, Para. 16). So the
language of Scripture can and does give us knowledge, through the writers
having an idea, communicating that through the signifiers of their language and
culture and then we – through some work at times – see the beyond the signifier
to the thing that is signified. In this
way, we know what the will of God is through Scripture.
Finally,
the question needs to be addressed to knowledge outside of revelation. Augustine has been exploring the knowledge
that we gain through revelation about the Trinity and how we can understand the
revelation itself. But perhaps, that is
only because of the subject matter, or the person behind the revelation. Perhaps we can overcome the situatedness of
language in these areas because we have something extra. Maybe outside of revelation, language
prohibits us from knowing anything.
Augustine’s treatise Against the
Academicians deals with the issue of skepticism and knowledge of the truth. In it he deals with the issue of whether
there is truth, and whether truth can be truly known. He is arguing against the “Academicians” of
the Third Academy who have taken the position of hard skepticism, much like
postmodernity today.
While
it is beyond the scope of our present essay to discuss Augustine’s argument, it
is helpful to remember that for Augustine, language is the vehicle for knowing
truth. Does this apply to the discussion
about skepticism? The connection is not
explicit in this treatise, but it is certainly the backdrop behind his
argument. He spends time in both Books 1
and 2 defining and reaching conclusions about understanding of words. This
makes sense in an environment where knowledge comes through agreed upon
understanding. To have knowledge in
language, there must be similar images or signs that the words point to (Cf,
the bovum illustration). He says, “Someone who gazes upon an exemplar
does, indeed, rightly approve an image of it.
How then does the wise man give his approval to nothing, or follow the
truthlike, if he doesn’t know what the truth itself is?” (CA, 3.18.40.7). This is more clearly seen in the use of words
in dialectical reasoning, “Dialectic has also taught me that there shouldn’t be
any dispute over words when there is agreement on the matter for the sake of
which the words are spoken” (CA 3.13.29.23).
The Academicians were using language to constantly change the agreed
upon understanding of words, which Augustine calls “making a fuss about a
name.” The end of the argument for
Augustine is that you cannot say that you cannot have the truth unless you know
the truth. If you know the truth, you
have defeated your own argument. The
language games that the Academicians were playing (eg., seems vs. is) were just
that, games.
For Augustine,
truth is known through language, even truth outside of revelation. Language is not a constructed barrier, but
rather it is a vehicle to getting at the truth.
It is humanly constructed, and culturally situated, but adequate nonetheless.
Biblography
Saint
Augustine. On Christian Teaching.
Translated by RPH Green. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 1997.
_______. Against
the Academicians. Translated by Peter Kind. Indianapolis, IN: Hacket
Publishing Company, 1995.
_______. On the
Trinity. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
First Series, Vol. 3. Edited by Philip
Schaff. Translated by Arthur West Hadden. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature
Publishing Co., 1887. Revised and Edited
for the New Advent by Kevin Knight.
<http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130105.htm>
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