Only those who follow the church have a sure guarantee for the fact that, in their obedience to Christ, they have not really followed just their own know-it-all wisdom.
~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, The von Balthasar Reader
Or, to put it in a more Protestant manner:
It is better to submit to an authority that is sometimes wrong, than it is to submit to no authority whatsoever.

The Spirit is given so that we ordinary mortals can become, in a measure, what Jesus himself was: part of God's future arriving in the present; a place where heaven and earth meet; the means of God's kingdom going ahead. The Spirit is given, in fact, so that the church can share in the life and continuing work of Jesus himself.
~ N.T. Wright, Simply Christian
When this is the nature of our faith and of our being in Christ how can we not be overwhelmed by both wonder and longing?

“It isn't so much that Jesus laughed at the world, or wept at the world. He was celebrating with the new world that was beginning to be born, the world in which all that was good and lovely would triumph over evil and misery. He was sorrowing with the world the way it was, the world of violence and injustice and tragedy which he and the people he met knew well.
From the very beginning, two thousand years ago, the followers of Jesus have always maintained that he took the tears of the world and made them his own, carrying them all the way to his cruel and unjust death to carry out God's rescue operation; and that he took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth as he rose from the dead and thereby launched God's new creation.”
~ N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
Jesus was, and is, “God with us”. This is not a God who comes down while still maintaining a form of detachment. This is not a God so removed from us that he is incapable of sharing our joys and sorrows. No, this is God with us. This is God weeping. This is God laughing. This is God bleeding. This is God dying. And this is God overcoming death and dying, in order to bring about new life and provide us with the assurance that one day all wounds will be healed and all tears will be dried.
And we too, the people of God, should be “God with others”. We have been baptised into the death and resurrection of Christ and, in Christ and with the Spirit of the new age within us, we are elevated beyond our own joys and sorrows and now carry the joys and sorrows of those around us in a new way. We have not been saved from the world, we have been saved for the world. We share the joy of the kingdom, but we also carry the sorrows of those who suffer violence, injustice, and tragedy.
In this regard it is worth noting how our baptism is similar to the baptism of Christ. Theologians and biblical scholars have often gone to great lengths to distinguish between these baptisms. Certainly there are differences. Christ's baptism was part of his salvific incarnation by which he identified with sinners in order to save them. Our baptism is an act of identification with Christ, by which we proclaim that sin no longer has a hold on us. Christ was baptised to take on sin, we are baptised to be saved from sin. Yet this must be made clear: we are not saved from sin so that we can then be elevated beyond sin. We are saved from sin so that we can, like Christ, begin to enter into the sins of others and carry the burdens of others' sins in a redemptive manner. Thus, we are baptised in order to be in Christ, but, once in Christ, we also go on to be with the world as Christ was with the world. Knowing the joys and sorrows of Christ, we also laugh and cry with those around us. We suffer and die with them while simultaneously proclaiming that the kingdom of God is among us and revealing the new creation as it bursts forth in the present.

On of the basic principles of Protestantism (over against Roman Catholicism) is the affirmation of the priesthood of all believers. The Reformers stressed this point especially in light of the sacrament of penance and absolution. They declared that all believers have the authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. One did not need to go to a priest to be absolved. One could go to a brother or sister in the body of Christ, confess that one had sinned, and receive forgiveness.
There are two reasons why I find it especially interesting that this doctrine was so emphatically upheld in relation to forgiveness. These reasons are rooted within an odd paradox that is present in contemporary North American Protestantism.
One the one hand, the proclamation of forgiveness is noticeably absent. Who among us has felt that they could go to anybody and say,”Your sins are forgiven”? Such a declaration seems either exceedingly presumptuous, or exceedingly ignorant, to our ears — after all, only God is the judge of human hearts, and who am I say proclaim forgiveness for sins not committed against me?
On the other hand, there is an overabundance of assumed forgiveness. That is to say, each individual believer has become an expert in forgiving himself or herself. I do not need to confess my sins to a priest, nor do I need to confess my sins to any other person. I can confess my sins to God in the privacy of my own heart, and claim his forgiveness as my own. So, although I cannot say to anybody else, “Your sins are forgiven,” I can, without hesitation, think to myself, “My sins are forgiven”.
Returning to the Reformers understanding of the priesthood of all believers helps us to find our way out of this problematic situation. On the one hand we gain the boldness and the folly to proclaim forgiveness to others. On the other hand, we learn the humility that requires us to go to others and confess our sins to them. These things (confession, and proclaiming forgiveness) are at the heart of Christian living, and what it means to exist as the Church in, and for, the world. We must, once again, recover their significance.

“Paul's 'we do not know how to pray as we ought' has probably never been as relevant as it is today… The images of the world which in former times spoke of God have become obscure ciphers and riddles, the words of scripture have been whittled away by rationalistic skeptics, human hearts have been so crushed and trampled on in this age of the robot that they are no longer sure that contemplation is possible. Prayer finds them basically full of doubt, insecurity and despair; they creep along close to the ground and dare not stand upright. They feel drawn to every negative act; ready not only to doubt God but also to resist him, perhaps even to hate him for letting the world carry on as it does, for being so high and aloof, above the need to intervene. For he is so sure of himself that he can expose his children to fear and darkness in this vast, unbounded universe, giving them no hope but nothingness, no consolation but the certainty of death… Nowadays the temptation to say No, to yield to weariness, is very strong.”
~ Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer
“Thus, while for the short time we wander away from God, Christ stands in our midst to lead us little by little to a firm union with God.”
~ John Calvin, Institutes
Yes, the temptation to grow weary and say No is very strong. I suppose I have been drawn to 'every negative act', but, in my own defense, I was drawn there because of my love for the people surrounded by those actions. When one journeys with those on the margins of society such acts are inescapable. And, being surrounded by such things day after day — such things as rape, torture, murder, suicide, oppression, and sickness — I have doubted God, I have resisted God, and, although I have never hated God, I have often raged against him. I have crept along close to the ground, not daring to stand upright, for I have tried that once before, and was only beaten back down again. Sometimes it has been all I could do to just creep forward; it was all I could do to not stand still, to not turn around, to not collapse under it all.
And yet…
And yet Balthasar tells us that, somehow, God is so sure of himself that he can expose his beloved ones to fear and darkness, nothingness and death. I cannot help but pause at the thought of something so terrible and yet so comforting. Perhaps we need to learn to stand knowing that our beloved will not escape the darkness. Perhaps we need to learn to surrender our beloved ones to nothingness and death. Instead of constantly trying to draw others back from suffering, from sorrow, and from sickness, maybe we need to learn to confidently walk with them into suffering, into sorrow, and into sickness. We must learn to be sure of God in the same way that God is sure of himself. I wonder how that would change things. Perhaps then we would not bring a message that proclaims, “Hold on, God will come to save you” but rather will proclaim, “God is already here with you. In this hell Christ is beside you and he has already saved you.” I don't know. What I do know is that, when we are sure of God as he is sure of himself, we will then know how to intercede for those who are scattered, and slaughtered, like sheep without a shepherd.

“It is both terrible and comforting to dwell in the inconceivable nearness of God, and so to be loved by God Himself that the first and last gift is infinity and inconceivability itself. But we have no choice. God is with us.”
~ Karl Rahner

Yet there is, as the eminent pagan [Cicero] says, no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God.
~ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
Hmmm, so does our contemporary situation prove Calvin (and others) wrong? Can we say that there are now nations full of people who possess a deep-seated conviction that there is not God? Perhaps not. For as Calvin also says:
Indeed, even idolatry is ample proof of this conception. We know how man does not willingly humble himself so as to place other creatures over himself. Since, then, he prefers to worship wood and stone rather than to be thought of as having no God, clearly this is a most vivid impression of a divine being.
A person's dedication to a cause, an object, an Other, all these things can be taken as a reflection of a conviction that there is a God. Here even selfishness is shown in dedication to something else — money, pleasure, power, etc.
It is an interesting idea. Does our contemporary situation contradict Calvin, or does Calvin help us to realise that our contemporary situation is not so godless as we may have supposed?

For, to begin with, the pious mind does not dream up for itself any god it pleases, but contemplates the one and only true God. And it does not attach to him whatever it pleases, but is content to hold him to be as he manifests himself.
~ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
The dilemma of postmodernity is exactly that we have given up on the notion of being able to contemplate the one and only true God. We are certainly faced with many different gods, or one god with many different faces, but we no longer know how to determine which of those gods, or faces, is true. And so we play language games. We posit various pictures of god, back and forth against each other in order to deconstruct hegemony and structures of oppressive power. Against the god of America, the god of the liberation theologians is raised; against the god of patriarchy, the sophia of woman-church is raised. And so it goes. We dream up gods in our own images, and have little time for contemplating a god that is other than us — as the one and only true God must be.
Of course, part of the reason why we are in this dilemma is because we have lost all confidence in our ability to discern how God manifests himself. He can say what is a revelation of God's character and what is not? We are exceedingly suspicious of all those who claim authority, and we are especially suspicious of authorities in the realm of religion/spirituality. Beyond that, we're just plain confused. Who knows if anybody has it figured out, but I sure as hell don't. Who can say which reading of the Bible is correct? Who can say which Christian tradition is most accurate? Who can say which person in my life is the best grasp on God's will for any given situation? And so we fly by the seat of our pants, basing most decisions on what feels right, although we can rarely explain why something feels that way, or why it might feel that way at one time but not at another.
Thus, if we are to truly contemplate the one and only true God, we must regain an interest in, and a commitment to, the ways in which that God manifests himself. This means at least a fourfold movement:
(1) A renewed interest in, and commitment to, the canon of Christian Scriptures.
(2) A renewed interest in, and commitment to, the Church.
(3) A renewed interest in, and commitment to, the poor.
(4) A renewed interest in, and commitment to, solitude.
As far as I can tell these are the four primary loci of God's manifestation.

1. Introduction: the tip of a very large iceberg
Studies in linguistics and semiotics have become increasingly prominent within contemporary philosophical circles. Modern technological advances, particularly in the realm of communications, have profoundly impacted the nature and power of knowledge. As communication has gained increasing prominence in Western societies, language has assumed an increasing importance. Yet the explosion of information that has accompanied this has also contributed to a contemporary crisis in relation to questions of meaning, truth, and significance. Consequently, postmodernity is defined by a “nihilism of meaning” and “the anxiety of truthlessness”. We are increasingly able to communicate for pragmatic purposes, but increasingly unsure if the content conveyed has any truth-value.
However, the study of these topics is not new. Greek philosophers like Hippocrates, Aristotle, and the Stoics were studying the nature of words, signs, communication, truth, and meaning, long before scholars like Wittgenstein, Derrida, Chomsky, Peirce, Saussure, Todorov, Levi-Strauss, or Greimas. Similarly, Christian theology has always had a vested interest in these topics, as evidenced by such theologians as Augustine, Aquinas, Barth, de Lubac, and, more recently, James K.A. Smith. It quickly becomes evident to anybody exploring this topic that there is a vast amount of literature to be explored. Therefore, given spatial limitations, this paper will simply explore how three recent scholars have addressed these topics (Section 2) before comparing these approaches and drawing some tentative conclusions (Section 3).
2. George Lindbeck, Martin Heidegger, and Umberto Eco
Because linguistics, meaning, and communication are urgent and essential topics for so many different contemporary scholars this paper will survey the views of a theologian, a philosopher, and a literary theorist. This section will survey The Nature of Doctrine by G. Lindbeck, The Way to Language by M. Heidegger, and Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language by U. Eco.
In The Nature of Doctrine, Lindbeck introduces a “postliberal” theology, which views religion from a cultural-linguistic perspective. Over against the cognitive-propositional approach of traditional orthodoxy (which understands doctrines as truth claims about objective realities), and the dominant experiential-expressive approach of liberalism (which understands doctrines as expressive symbols of subjective feelings, orientations and practices), Lindbeck argues that doctrines function as authoritative rules of discourse within a faith community. Thus religion is a cultural-linguistic framework that shapes the entirety of one's life and thought — like a culture it is a communal phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of individuals, and like a language it evokes the actions it recommends. Thus, doctrine is a grammar that posits intrasystematic truths, not ontological truths; it is the lens through which a faith community views the world. According to this view meaning is constituted by the uses of a specific language and it is immanent to religious texts, which evoke a paradigmatic domain of meaning that shapes the world of the reader, in the context of their faith community. Communication happens through skilful performance; faith is not translated but its language and practices are taught to others.
In The Way to Language, Heidegger focuses specifically upon a philosophy of language, noting that this is not a detached exercise, but one that takes place within an hermeneutical circle. To study language is “bringing language as language to language”. Heidegger asserts that language is a showing, it “brings something to appear, lets what appears be apprehended, and enables what is apprehended to be thoroughly discussed”. This showing is a mutual presencing — the topic of speech is made present, and the speaker is also presenced to the wherewithal of their speech. Therefore, what essentially unfolds in language is saying as pointing, but this pointing is itself preceded by the object allowing itself to be shown. Thus, speech requires a hearing in advance (we must have first seen that to which we point) as the Object first allows itself to be told (i.e. shown) to us, before we reiterate this to others. Therefore, in order to speak, our essence must be granted entry into the saying. Language can therefore be understood as owning, or as a mutual propriating, as humans propriate the saying, and are also propriated by the saying. Therefore, all saying is relational.
Eco is concerned with linguistic semiotics. Within Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, he argues that the two objects generally posited by scholars to be the central object of semiotics (the sign/sign-function and semiosis) are not, as commonly supposed, mutually incompatible because the semiosic process of interpretation is also at the core of the concept of sign. He notes that contemporary theories of interpretation can be mapped on a continuum where those on one extreme (traditionalists) see only one possible way of interpreting a text, and those on the other extreme (deconstructionists) see an infinite number of meanings in a text; Eco is interested in finding a valid continuum of intermediate positions between these two points. In order to do this, he notes how the deconstructionists have not actually caused a crisis for the notion of the sign per se, but only for the sign understood as a model of equivalency which posits meaning as synonymy. He proposes an instructional model of sign that operates through an inferential process, within which the sign only exists as it is constructed by a culturally determined code. According to this approach definition/meaning is not explicated by a dictionary model but by an encyclopedic model. The supposed finitude and objectivity of the dictionary, which posits predicables and clusters of essential attributes following the model of the Porphyrian tree, is problematic because such clusters are arbitrary divisions of differentiae, and the tree can, therefore, be reelaborated and rearranged indefinitely. Thus, a dictionary is merely a disguised encyclopedia, containing the (ever expanding) sum of a culture's world knowledge, and meaning is found when something is inserted in the proper series of contexts within that encyclopedia. The encyclopedia has no hierarchy of knowledge, but resembles a web-like labyrinth in which all points can be connected infinitely to all other points. Codes are the open rules that function as a cultural way of modeling the world, thereby guiding how a culture accesses its encyclopedia. Therefore, the encyclopedia is the semantic concept, and the dictionary functions as an ad hoc pragmatic tool that relies on co-texts and isotopy in order to convey a particular meaning. Thus, communication is for pragmatic purposes, and there is no discernible universal truth-value to any statement outside of a particular cultural setting.
3. Reflection
There are some significant similarities between these three approaches. Lindbeck's notion of intrasystematic truth, correlates well with Eco's model of encyclopedic definition. This position is further supported by Heidegger's notion of propriation, which asserts that one must have a genuine relationship with the Object of which one speaks if one is to be able to then say, or rather, presence, that Object. In this regard, we must be clear that Heidegger does not make the mistake of following the equivalency model of semiotics that Eco so soundly refutes. For Heidegger, the signifier is not equivalent to that which is signified, rather the signifier (i.e. the words/language) are that which point to that which is signified, which, in turn, has already permitted itself to be shown. Thus, an inferential semiosic process is still being enacted. Therefore, all three of these positions make it clear that communication is possible within a particular faith-community, or culture. When this is accepted, we can also conclude that only Christians can do Christian theology. One must be propriated by the living Word of God, be a part of a living community of faith, and allow the encyclopedia of that community to dictate meaning, in order to speak the language of Christianity.
However, this conclusion leads to a dilemma of communication. If all truths are contextually understood, how can any communication occur between communities? It seems as though we are forced to accept the postmodern conclusion, so strongly supported by the likes of Eco, that communication is limited to pragmatic purposes and no real or universal truth-value can be expressed across community boundaries.
However, such a conclusion does not sit comfortably with the traditions of the Christian Church or with the character of the Christian God, as that God is revealed in the Christian Scriptures. This is why Lindbeck's emphasis upon Christian living and the skilful performances of the Christian language are so significant. Although Christian language may be completely foreign to members of other communities apart from the Church, that language must not be translated in order to be made intelligible. Indeed, such language cannot be translated and still mean the same thing. As Lindbeck says, “[t]o the degree that religions are like languages and cultures, they can no more be taught by means of translation than can Chinese or French”. If we follow the framework established by Eco, translation would mean abandoning the Christian encyclopedia in order to fit the object of Christian communication into another encyclopedia. But, when this occurs, what is communicated ceases to be Christian, and cannot mean the same thing that it means within the Christian community. Christian language causes something radically new to be presenced, it points to something that does not fit within the bounds of any other encylopedia, and when theologians resort to translations they reduce the living Word to lifeless information. If the Word is to be communicated it must not be distorted. This is why skilful performance is essential. Performance becomes the means by which the audience can complete the inferential process required for understanding. The faith-community embodies the message it proclaims and thereby quite literally presences the gospel proclamation in an intelligible (and perhaps even attractive) manner. Following Heidegger, it could be said that Christians, having been granted entry into the Word, ensure that that entryway stays open to others by living in a manner that reveals how they have been propriated by that Word. As Jacques Ellul notes, significance and meaning are lost, when the word is dissociated from the person, when “[the word] is no longer the person in action… no longer a commitment and a disclosure of oneself”. Such words are pure sound, useful perhaps for pragmatic purposes (and even for deception), but not for conveying meaning.
However, skilful performance is only one half of the Christian resolution to the contemporary crisis involving the communication of meaning. The other half of the Christian response is found in Jesus' assertion that he is the truth. Jesus is the Word. This brings a new significance to the relationality that Heidegger argues is at the root of all language. Christian language is premised upon a relationship with Jesus. It is possible because Jesus chooses to make himself present, Jesus propriates believers (they are in Christ) and is propriated by believers (Christ is in them). However, Jesus chooses to reveal himself not only to those who are already members of his Church but also to those who are members of other communities. Indeed, the whole story of Christianity is premised upon the notion that God continually breaks into the world in radically new ways. Therefore, even apart from the living embodiment of the word in the faith community, Christian truth can be conveyed because Jesus himself is the Word. Certainly God works primarily through his Church, but God is not limited to his Church. Of course, as writers like Eco make clear, this assertion cannot be declared in any convincing (or even sensible) manner to those who have not yet encountered the Word made flesh. Yet the inability of all communities to agree upon a universal truth does not mean there is no universal truth, and, as God has made clear over and over again, the inability of communities to agree upon a universal truth does not mean that truth cannot be communicated (through language) across community lines. The word does not gain power through translation, the word already has power through Jesus Christ, and the Church must resist the temptation to do what only God can do — create understanding, transform hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, propriate and be propriated. As it was at Pentecost, so it is now; the Spirit makes the Church's proclamation intelligible to members of all the communities of the world.
4. Conclusion: language, power, and salvation
The postmodern crisis is not just a crisis of communication, and linguistics. The postmodern crisis is fundamentally soteriological. Contemporary “language games” are not abstract aesthetical exercises limited to the academy. Language games are played for the sake of power, and when meaning and truth are expelled from the discussion, so is the possibility of salvation. Humanity remains enslaved to violence, solitude, and meaninglessness. Thus, as Jacques Ellul argues, “Anyone wishing to save humanity must first of all save the word”. Of course, as this paper has argued, to save the word, one must first be saved by the Word that is Jesus Christ. By proclaiming, and living within, the Word, Christians offer a truth to the world that transcends all community boundaries. Like those who use sign language and dance to describe music to the deaf, the Christian communities signs and dances, resting in the assurance that the Christian God is a God of miracles — a God who opens deaf ears, gives sight to the blind, and brings freedom to the captives.
Bibliography
Eco, Umberto. Seimiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1984.
Ellul, Jacques. The Subversion of Christianity. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1986.
Ellul, Jacques. The Humiliation of the Word. Trans. Joyce Main Hanks. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1985.
Ellul, Jacques. Hope in Time of Abandonment. Trans. C. Edward Hopkin. Seabury Press: New York, 1977.
Heidegger, Martin. “The Way to Language” in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings. Ed. David Farrell Krell. HarpersCollins: New York, 1977.
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