The main motive which I'll present for believers in God to prune the ways in which they speak of Him will be avoidance of idolatry. Because the charge of idolatry carries such heft, it has been constantly reappropriated and reapplied to condemn a wide variety of activities, from the worship of wooden statues to greed. There is a particular thread of meaning, however, which is more directly relevant to the use of religious language. A paradigmatic example is found in Exodus 32:
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."Notice that the festival is to the LORD, not to some other god or gods in competition with Him. The golden statue isn't a rival of the LORD: it is a misrepresentation. Misrepresenting the LORD is a very serious offence, as the sequel shows:
Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD." So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.It isn't just the golden calf that Moses objects to, but the practice of the people, which is misrepresenting the LORD before His enemies.
He said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?"
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Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.
Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' " The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."
So what kinds of representation are OK? Deuteronomy 4 is pretty clear:
You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.No representations of God are allowed. Why not? Because any representation is, and must be, a misrepresentation; a reduction of God to something common, to a part of His creation. This idea has been taken very seriously in some kinds of Judaism, so that even the name of the LORD is not spoken. It is also famously the source of the abstract constellations of pattern so prevalent in early Islamic art. It has been taken less seriously in Christianity, a point to which I shall return later.
Working out the full implications of this prohibition leads not just to a condemnation of some kinds of statuary. I'll argue that, taken seriously, its range is so wide that it undermines a great deal of religion, including its own frame of reference. This ironic reflexive undercutting begins to show in the instructions Moses gives the Israelites for when they enter the promised land, in Deuteronomy 27:
When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. Build there an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool upon them. Build the altar of the LORD your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God. Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God. And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up."There are two lots of stones to be set up. First there are the stones for the altar, in which great care is taken to avoid even attempting to represent God. These stones are used just as they are, and not marked in any way. But opposite these stones stand another group, which are thick with inscriptions. These inscriptions represent God, despite their formulation in language, and despite their protestations against any such representation. They stand as a testimony against themselves.
The marks on the stones cannot be God, despite their aroma of (Platonic) heaven. They can only represent Him. So they can only misrepresent Him. Language is no less an attempt to circumscribe God than pictures, and no less a blasphemous failure. The iterability on which language relies deprives it of the power to capture the unique; the transcendent is debased and rendered translatable for `all the nations under heaven'. The quotation from deuteronomy 4 above slyly undercuts its own exclusive rhetoric by witnessing the possibility of a comprehensible translation for us heathen English.
The idea that misrepresentation of God with language, even with the best of intentions, is seriously problematic is eloquently presented by Job. Faced with a mystery about God, Job's friends do their best, given their limited understanding, to present a picture of God which sets Him in a good light. Job's response is damning:
Will you speak wickedly on God's behalf?I'm often reminded of these lines when I encounter Young Earth Creationism; adherents of this movement have repeatedly spoken decietfully for God. That they are misrepresenting God is reasonably clear, given our current scientific understanding. But not all representations are so clearly misrepresentations at the time they are made. This is beautifully illustrated by a later passage from Job in which, apparently, God is speaking:
Will you speak deceitfully for him?
Will you show him partiality?
Will you argue the case for God?
Would it turn out well if he examined you?
Could you deceive him as you might deceive men?
He would surely rebuke you
if you secretly showed partiality.
Would not his splendor terrify you?
Would not the dread of him fall on you?
Have you entered the storehouses of the snowThis representation of how God acts to bring about the weather made perfect sense at the time. It was reasonable, for example, to suppose that hail was stored somewhere by God, rather than magically appearing in the sky when needed. But given our current understanding of the weather, this passage is clearly full of howlers, and these howlers lie at the level of the basic assumptions used to form the picture of God. Our own current state of knowledge is very likely to also contain such howlers, so relying on it to represent God puts us at a serious risk of idolatry. These mistakes were to do with scientific knowledge, which is (at any given time) relatively clear-cut. Most of the language used to picture God is not scientific but theological, and thus far more seriously disputed. Therefore it is impossible for more than just a small fraction of theological discussion to avoid the serious error of idolatry; indeed, it follows from the argument I am making that all theology that attempts to represent God, however reasonable it might seem at the time, falls into this trap.
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
to water a land where no man lives,
a desert with no one in it,
to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
However, there is an even deeper problem here. The very use of language itself implicitly provides a picture of that which is spoken about. For example, the use of a noun suggests that there is a particular thing which can be referred to by means of that noun, and which behaves in a regular manner reflected by the grammar of nouns as we use them in our language. I've commented on how this picture is reflected in the way we use words like `exists', for example, here. Some of the key blunders in the history of science involved the use of nouns where they would turn out to be inappropriate, and the implicit pictures of the world that go along with that use; think of the ether or phlogiston, for example. Something similar may be happening with current discussions of dark matter and dark energy.
Of course, our own ways of thinking are so closely tied in to our language that it is difficult to see how the implicit pictures which the grammar of that language presents could fail. However, as I've suggested here, there are good reasons to think that they do break down even when we seek to speak of perfectly ordinary matter on a very small scale. These pictures serve us well when we want to talk about things on our own scale, but there is no reason to suppose that they will work equally well for addressing all domains where we wish to have knowledge. In particular, to return to the main theme of this post, there is no reason to suppose that God will fit our grammatical boxes. To use the word God simply as a noun is to implicitly represent, and so misrepresent, Him. This, too, is insidious idolatry.
How, then, is this idolatry to be avoided? I mentioned earlier one attempt - namely the avoidance of the name of God in some flavours of Judaism. However, this practice can only stand as a reminder of, rather than an escape from, the blasphemy of language, for some equally arbitrary string of symbols (Adonai, G-d) can always be hauled in to continue the desecration. Alternatively, we could attempt to cut out all God-talk completely. I've argued against this practice elsewhere. For now, it suffices to note that God-talk began to be used in some particular contexts and that at present it seems to be the only language we have for addressing those contexts. The importance of maintaining the space into which this language began to point was argued in a recent address at the unitarian church here in Cambridge.
Indeed, thinking (at least for ourselves) about those contexts in which God-talk seems most appropriate suggests a possible way to use this language without falling into the traps outlined above. To take a simplified case, recall a time when you were struck dumb by the expanse of the stars on a cloudless night. This experience of awe includes a sense of something encountered beyond ourselves, even beyond the physical world. In such a case it is natural to say you have encountered God: to use the word `God' as a placeholder indicating the direction in which this sense points. But it is important at this point not to be drawn into the supposition that this word, `God', can now be treated as any other noun; that we may, for example, sensibly ask whether two distinct Gods were encountered on two different such occasions or whether it was the same God both times.
Indeed, if what I have said above is right, we should not even suppose that to ask at this point a question like `Does God exist?' is a sensible use of language. Since it may have weight for some theists, I should flag up that I think this illustrates a proper response to strong atheism. It would be tempting to say that, prior to all their arguments, strong atheists have made a mistake in supposing that the question `Does God exist?' may sensibly be asked. But in fact, of course, they have made no such mistake. For the question was already appropriated and answered in the affirmative by theists, and the standard arguments of strong atheists are quite properly directed against this idolatry.
Now that I have laid out how the use of religious language in a nonmetaphysical manner may be approached from the side of more traditional theism, it is worth taking a little time to consider some objections to this approach.
The first kind of objection is the suggestion that the approach I have sketched must simply be switching one idol for another. For example, since the characteristic example I mentioned above involves the internal experience of a single person, perhaps all I am doing is substituting the self and personal experience as a new idol in place of God. But this can't be right; like the simplified models in physics textbooks, I chose the example above for its simplicity and clarity, but not for its typicality. Typically, religious use of language will emerge from the practice of a community, not just a single person.
Is it the community which is being substituted for God, then? This doesn't seem right either. After all, it is not the community which is being discussed when religious language is used. That language is directed away from ourselves, and towards the divine (indeed, it is in order to gesture in this direction that we are most in need of religious language). Faced with the infirmity of our langauge in the face of God, there is indeed a danger that we will seek firmness elsewhere, but it is not inevitable: in any case there is no excuse for seeking that firmness in misrepresentative pictures.
The next kind of objection runs a little deeper. In order to lay out my initial account of idolatry, I had to speak of God using religious language in a traditional manner. But this is exactly the use of language which I later condemned as blasphemous. So, just as I earlier suggested that the book of Deuteronomy undermines itself, so does my own argument. In order to make the argument, I must stand on the very foundations I am undercutting.
This objection does not remove the force of my argument, but it does show that it can only serve as an internal critique of a special kind: as a kind of deconstruction. For I have sought to show that traditional religious accounts conceal within themselves the seeds of their own condemnation. Once this is made explicit, I claim, the structure implodes, taking the argument with it. However, this very movement serves to gesture in the direction of the holy, and of a more tentative way of addressing God.
A third objection is that what I have said is an overblown attack on sincerely held beliefs, which will serve only as an excuse for violence and condemnation. Because of the extreme force of the language of idolatry, the objection runs, it should be used with more caution. It has been used to excuse murder in the past. First of all, it is worth noting that even if this objection were accurate it would not be a reason to reject my argument. That a claim has been used in the name of violence does not make it false. We can't deny the truth of nuclear physics just because of the horrific weapons it underpins.
However, in fact this objection is not even accurate; all its force is drawn away by the second objection. After all, in the moment in which we are drawn to condemn traditional religious language as idolatrous, even before we are able to strap on our swords in the name of divine retribution, that condemnation undercuts itself, together with the language, and falls away, having removed only our own inclination to speak of God in a certain way, and left us with no resources to condemn others.
We might try to save the objection by pointing out that even if the argument is internal it opens a possible charge of hypocrisy. This, too, is a serious enough charge that it should be used with caution. But even this revised objection will not stick. For we can not say, as an outer criticism, that those using religious language are commiting idolatry even on their own terms. For this would involve accepting those terms as sensible, if false. But such an acceptance would be a misuse of religious language of precisely the kind I have been arguing against. Even this attempt at violence undercuts itself. The only objection to be made from the outside is that we cannot make full sense of the traditional religious language without condemning ourselves. This is hardly a vicious allegation.
There is a final objection, which I suspect is likely to be confined to a Christian approach to theism. The objection is that, just as God somehow, mysteriously, became a man (who could, no doubt, be modelled in bronze), so too He is able to lift our language to the level of picturing Him, thus humbling Himself to the point of being captured in human speech. On this account, when theists talk about God, they are saved from the dangers I have outlined above by His own divine action. It is, I think, thoughts of this kind which have made Christians less coy about representing God than Jews and Muslims.
This objection relies on perpetual miracles to correct the potential idolatry of theists all over the world. These miracles are of a rather odd character; they cannot be simple corrections which smooth over inaccuracies in the meaning of speech which is approximately right. The very idea of approximation is tied to our ways of picturing things with words, and so any approximation to what we say would still be blasphemy if attributed to God. Instead, God must be making a radical break in meaning at each point, and causing theists' statments to mean something wholely other than their usual meaning and inexpressible in language.
There is a certain arbitrariness here. Why does God fix up images of Himself made in language, but not graven in metal? Or why not mysteriously cause discussion of the weather to secretly mean wonderful things about Him, whilst reducing the meanings of potentially blasphemous statements to pleasantries about the weather? Of course, part of the problem here is that the language of meaning is overstretched, and that to follow the pictures it presents us with can be problematic in the same ways as doing the same with religious language. This idolatry of meaning is a displacement of the original idolatry and does not resolve it.
Nevertheless, let us suppose for the sake of argument that there is some sense to this superstitious hope that God will sanctify certain kinds of speech - He is supposed to move in mysterious ways, after all. It would follow that the usual conventions we follow based on our normal understanding of meaning would not apply in such cases. For example, we normally try not to affirm both a sentence and its negation together. But there is no reason for this convention if the meaning of the sentence is not tied to the form of words used. In particular, it is inappropriate for theists to deny the claims of others (such as `God has no Son') on the grounds that they contradict other claims which they affirm (such as `God has a Son').
In a similar way, we usually count utterances as knowledge when they are connected to their content through an appropriate causal chain including the mind of the utterer; it is not at all clear that religious utterances could count as knowledge under the `perpetual miracles' account. In short, even if there is no way to rule out this objection, its consequences for the treatment of religious language fall far short of what would be needed to support the usual practice.
It is this standard practice, which unthinkingly supposes that the implicit linguistic pictures evolved to capture the material word can be directly transplanted onto descriptions of God, which I have been objecting to. I suggest that instead it would be proper to limit our talk about God to the point where we find ourselves unable to express the superstitions which are such a common accompaniment to engagement with Him.
