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.
Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. WJKP: Louisville, 1984.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1984.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage Books: New York, 1992.
Vanhoozer, Kevin J. The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology. WJKP: Louisville, 2005.

This post is simply the order of prayer that I tend to follow daily. For those who might be interested, here is my daily prayer. However, don't feel that it just a prayer to be prayed alone; this liturgy would work well for groups — just substitute “we” for “I” everywhere and be creative in praying things together, or taking turns or whatever.
This liturgy highlights certain passages and prayers from Scripture, but feel free to work other prayers in. Be creative. I regularly insert Ro 15.13, and bits of Eph 1 into this.
What is especially exciting to me in all this is that this liturgy just developed naturally from spending time daily in prayer, I didn't spend any time studying this topic. That also means that this is a work in progress and I'm excited to see how this it will continue to develop.
The Little Liturgy
1. Recite the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed:
“I believe in One God,
the Father Almighty,
Maker of Heaven and Earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
the Only-Begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages;
Light of Light;
True God of True God;
begotten, not made;
of one essence with the Father,
by Whom all things were made;
Who for us men and for our salvation
came down from Heaven,
and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered, and was buried.
And the third day He arose again,
according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into Heaven,
and sits at the right hand of the Father;
and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead;
Whose Kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life,
Who proceeds from the Father;
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;
Who spoke by the prophets.
And in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.”
[I choose to begin with this creed because it is the creed that is affirmed by all Christians, everywhere. It is good to begin prayer by grounding ourselves in the traditions of the Church and there is something wonderful about declaring what Christians have declared together for almost two thousand years. This “groundedness” is something that continues throughout the liturgy.]
2. Pray the Glory Be:
“Glory be to the Father.
Glory be to the Son.
Glory be to the Holy Spirit.”
[Thus we begin praying by engaging in worship. By beginning with the Glory Be we also ground ourselves in a trinitarian approach to God — remembering that the God of Christianity is like no other god in history. This truine God, and no other, is the God to whom we pray.]
3. Pray the Jesus Prayer:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
[I choose to start with this prayer because it means coming to prayer with an attitude of humility. However, I also start here because I don't want to end with this prayer. As we journey through our daily life we tend to forget how God defines us (i.e. as Spirit-filled members of Christ's body, and as beloved children) and so we often come to prayer feeling like “sinners”… but we don't stop there. Prayer reminds us of who we are so that, by the time we end our prayers we are no longer defining ourselves as “sinners” but are remembering that we are new creations in Christ.]
4. Pray the Lord's Prayer:
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
[We are still at the beginning of our prayer time and it is right to begin by praying the way that Jesus taught us to pray. I tend to pray this prayer slowly, meditating on the various words and thoughts within it as I go. So, for example, take the first two words of the prayer, “Our Father”. When I pray this I remember that I come to God as a part of a body, not just as an individual. God is not just my Father, he is our Father. Thus, I am reminded that I am a part of a community that belongs to Christ, I am reminded that all of creation is under the care of one Father, and I come to that Father as a member of, and a representative of that creation. So use your imagination and keep working your way through the prayer. As you do this day by day it is quite wonderful where the Spirit can lead you.]
4. Pray through the Beatitudes, applying each of them to yourself:
“Lord make me poor in Spirit that I may have the Kingdom of Heaven.
Lord make me mourn so that I may be comforted.
Lord make me meek so that I may inherit the earth.
Lord make me hunger and thirst after righteousness so that I may be satisfied.
Lord make me merciful so that I may be shown mercy.
Lord make me pure in heart so that I may see you.
Lord make me a peacemaker so that I may be called a child of God.
Lord make me persecuted for the sake of righteousness so that I may be like the prophets before me and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.”
[From the Lord's prayer, I like to move to the Beatitudes because praying through these reminds me of my Christian identity. They remind me of who I am in Christ, and how I should act. They also remind me of the promises of God that inspire hope and courage within us. Again it is good to go slowly through them, meditating upon what it means to be poor in Spirit, why we should mourn, and so on and so forth. Initially it may feel presumptuous to claim the promises of the Beatitudes in this manner, but push through that. This is no “name it and claim it” theology. After all, you are praying for suffering, grief, hunger, etc., to define who you are, and the promises must be read in light of those things.]
6. Pray through the fruit of the Spirit:
“Lord, fill me with the fruit of love.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of joy.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of peace.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of patience.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of goodness.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of kindness.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of faithfulness.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of gentleness.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of self-control.
Lord, fill me with the fruit of hope.
[You will notice that this is primarily drawn from the passage in Galatians where the fruit of the Spirit is listed. However, that place is not the only place where Paul lists fruit that should define those who are Spirit-filled. For example, in 1 Cor 13, he talks about the supremacy of faith, hope, and love. Thus, I have added hope to the list of the fruit. I think hope is one of the most essential attributes of Christians. It's hard to miss that when you journey with those on the margins of society. Hope grounds us in God's eschatological time-frame, it places us within God's story allowing us to remember where we have come from and live in anticipation of where we are going. Anyway, feel free to add other attributes to this list that you find in the New Testament, or, think about how those other traits may already be incorporated into the fruit listed here. Indeed, as you pray through the fruit of the Spirit, meditate upon each one and think about how they may be different from each other. What is the difference between goodness and kindness? Between kindness and love? And so on.]
7. Intercessory Prayer:
Intercession for family/housemates/partner.
Intercession for my school.
Intercession for my work, and for the non-profit I'm working on.
Intercession for the Church.
Intercession for the nation-state.
Intercession for the suffering/oppressed/abandoned.
Intercession for our enemies/the enemies of the oppressed.
After each section pray, “Lord, in your mercy, hear these prayers.”
[This is just how this list looks for me. It will be a little different for each person. However, each session of intercession should include (a) your loved ones; (b) people in each of the environments in which you move (i.e. school, work, other projects); (c) the Church; (d) the state; (e) the suffering; (f) enemies. One brief comment on praying for “enemies”. When we pray for our “enemies” and the “enemies of the oppressed” we remember the humanity of those we dislike. It is through prayer that enemies are made into friends. This is so because we cannot spend a sustained amount of time praying for people without also learning to love those people. Also note that there will be some overlap between these categories (for example, given the right set of circumstances “drug dealers” could fit into each category). Noting how the categories relate to one another can be fruitful in prayer]
8. Recite Romans 8.37-39:
“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
[This section concludes the main body of this liturgy, which has focused a lot on Christian identity. We have thus moved from knowing ourselves as sinners in section 2, to knowing ourselves as God's beloved. Here we are grounding ourselves in the certainty that nothing will be able to separate us from that love relationship. It is important to pray this after intercession (just as it is important to pray the Beatitudes before intercession) because it reminds us that — even though we pray and are a part of God's chosen people — suffering, weakness, and loss will be a part of our experiences. This prayer reminds us that those sufferings, in the long run, are inconsequential. Nothing is truly lost, for nothing can divide us from God's love.]
9. Sing the doxology:
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
[We are now moving into the concluding section of our prayer, and this song should be coming pretty naturally at this point. Prayer should cause us to burst forth into praise and I find that, by this time, I'm usually pretty eager to worship and adore God (of course, that eagerness may not come right away, but it's pretty amazing how, through praying this liturgy regularly, that eagerness does become part of the daily experience). We are also further grounding ourselves in the body of Christ by singing this doxology.]
10. Pray for the consummation of the kingdom:
“Father, come and make all things new.
Jesus, come and consummate your kingdom.
Spirit, come and be poured out on all flesh.
The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!'
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
[Once again we are placing ourselves within God's history, remembering that we are still only living in the now-and-not-yet of the kingdom of God. This prayer comes from Revelation and we are reminded of our longing for the day when God will heal all wounds, dry all tears, and put an end to all violence, and brokenness. What we are expressing here is our longing for Jesus' speedy return. This longing is evident all over the New Testament, and it should also define us as the people of God in the 21st-century. That may seem like an odd notion to many of us (or at least it seemed odd to me when I first started thinking about it) but that only reveals how removed we are from the suffering and from those who are truly desperate for new life.]
11. Pray Revelation 22.21:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
Amen.”
[Thus, we conclude with the final words of the Biblical canon. We end where the authors of Scripture ended, longing for God's grace to be poured out on all.]