Warnings About Words

Calvin and Hobbes on Writing

Today is my Dad's birthday, so I am dedicating this post to him. Dad, if you're reading this, Happy birthday, and thanks for being such a great dad, and teaching me to love God, and treasure truth about Him!

This comic strip is both funny and clever because of its witty insight into one of the most extravagant travesties of modern day academia.

The point is this, people, especially those of the scientific, teaching, or preaching realm are all too often speaking and writing, not to bring clarity, understanding, and truth but to obscure it in darkness by the means of a grandiose misuse of words and language.

I am a believer in big words - believe me, I believe in using them, and I do use them as much as I can. Especially when discoursing about our sovereign God. However, what I am convinced is important, is that we should (as much as is humanly possible) use words fitting for our great God. An infinite God should not be marginalized in our talking and writing by using small words. This is something worth fighting for, because it's about God's glory, and because people's understanding of it in our speaking and writing is at stake.

So in this post I want to take another look at words and language. The last time I took a stab at it [Words of Life], I focused on the current language of theology and our need to reestablish and recover theological language that has been carelessly dropped out of the church's every day vocabulary.

One of our endeavors is to work towards bringing back to light, propositional truth about God (and knowledge of ourselves) so that it (the truth) does not lie scattered on the floor of the theological wasteland that is the 21st century; and all preceding centuries to various degrees for that matter.

So in order to ramp this topic up to the next level, I am going to reflect on words themselves, particularly how they are used and misused. I am also going to use to our advantage, a few helpful thoughts penned by Isaac Watts, a Christian preacher, and writer from the 18th century who had an acute understanding of words and language, and the dangers attached.

Isaac Watts: The Father of English Hymnody, Pastor and Logician

"Do not always imagine that there are ideas wheresoever there are names. . . too often we use some words in mere waste, and have no ideas for them; or at least, our ideas are so exceedingly scattered and confused, broken and blended, various and unsettled, that they can signify nothing toward the improvement of the understanding" Watt's Logic pg 82

"Never rest satisfied, therefore, with mere words which have not ideas belonging to them, or at least no settled and determinate ideas. Deal not in such empty ware, whether you are a learner or a teacher; for hereby some persons have made themselves rich in words and learned in their own esteem, whereas in reality their understandings have been poor, and they knew nothing." Watt's Logic pg 82

Watt's goes on and explains that there are those who use great words such as Gospel, God, Redemption, Atonement, etc. but have no concrete idea as to the propositional truth that those words signify.

". . . neither they themselves nor their hearers have any settled meaning under those words: and thus they build up their reasonings, and infer what they please, with an ambition of the name of learning, or of sublime elevations in religion; whereas in truth they do but amuse themselves and their admirers with swelling words of vanity, understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. Watt's Logic pg 82,83,

Commemorative Statue of Watts, Abney Park, London

That is sobering, and I can see much truth in his assertions. It seems to me that words such as the word Gospel are used by people everywhere in Evangelical circles, but often without any proper knowledge as to what it signifies. (i.e. Gospel means good news, not good advice. The Gospel is primarily about God, and the great things He has done for us in the birth, life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and exaltation of His Son, Jesus Christ, all according to a determined plan and purpose.)

Conversely there are also those who do know the historic, orthodox Gospel, but they are seeking to bury it in a cloud of obscurity. But perhaps most often we see words like Gospel, redemption, etc. used flippantly by Christian preachers and teachers who used them to add force to their messages without having a clear grasp of the words themselves.

So I, or anyone could quite convincingly say "The gospel is glorious. It is wonderfully fantastic. The gospel is the best hope that God ever gave us." without ever meaning a thing about Christ's finished work. Or the power of God to forgive sin because of Christ's historic suffering and death. In fact, I could mean something entirely different, and I could be using the word Gospel, which is a word most Evangelicals treasure, to hide a fallacy that I could be slyly trying to feed you. That's pretty scary.

In other words, it is quite possible to use the word 'Gospel' without even talking about the Gospel. Crazy huh?

We should use big words, and we should know what they mean, and those who listen to us should especially know what they mean, and how we are using them. To do otherwise amounts to nothing less than chaos, confusion and ignorance, and does not glorify God.

"Have a care of making use of mere words instead of ideas. . ." Watt's Logic pg 82

What do you think?

Soli Deo Gloria,

Josh

Reform your life and doctrine, meet with God in the text