Word and Language: The Heart of a Theology of Christian Writing - Part 1

Word and language are at the heart of a theology of Christian writing for the obvious reason it is the heart of writing itself. In my first article, I stressed that our theology of writing must be biblically based, and it may seem to make such a proposition like this misses that point. But we will see that word and language are divine traits serving as the paradigm for human language and as such have a very profound impact on a theology of Christian writing.

But first, in this article, I want to consider what word and language are. I have consulted dictionaries on my shelf as well as some online ones, and the best definition of what I mean by ‘word’ is “a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.”

Word as a principal carrier of meaning is the significant idea. A survey of the word meaning in online dictionaries and discussions (see, for example, Exploration Into the Meaning of the Word ‘Meaning’) explain meaning in terms of significance, value, and purpose, which are themselves interrelated. For something to have meaning, it must have significance, that is, it must point to something recognizable and discernable to our understanding. The value we discern of that which is pointed to is directly related to its significance; if it has a special or high value in our estimation, we may say it is very significant. Part of the value of anything is its purpose, especially as that purpose relates to me. Discovering the purpose of something is to discover something of its significance and value, and therefore of its meaning.

For the Christian, whose understanding of the nature of things is informed by the scriptures, these three - the significance, value, and purpose of something - do not come as an accident. As Cornelius Van Til proposed, there are no such things as brute facts, that is, there is no fact that comes of its own accord and exists in a vacuum. A fact is not simply just there without relation to other facts. If that were possible, it would not be a fact – it would have no meaning and incapable of interpretation. Every fact has a context in which it contributes to the meaning of everything it is related to in that context.

Now, here is the import of this: a theistic understanding of fact and its meaning is that God created both. Nothing has a meaning except that which God built into it according to his own good pleasure (cf Eph 1:5,9,11). Hence, the meaning of anything in terms of its significance, value, and purpose are by the design of the Creator.

This encourages the Christian writer because he knows that words and their interrelation to each other according to the rules of syntax and grammar have the capacity to say something meaningful. They can say something that has a significance, value, and purpose that has been built into it by a holy, sovereign, wise, and prudent God who has set his love on him or her.

We may draw from this a point for our theology of Christian writing: Words, in accordance with the syntax and grammar of the language that we write in, give us the capacity to glorify God by expositing truth and reality accurately – as it really is. Through words, the meaning of this world which points back to the Author of that meaning, may be unearthed.

What bearing this principle has for fiction and non-fiction requires separate treatment, but it implies that truth and meaning, or saying something about the ways things really are, or how things ought to be, can be mediated through both since the medium of both is human language.

The Pertinence of a Theology of Christian Writing

When as Christians we attempt to lay out the rules and guidelines that ought to be followed regarding any aspect of our faith and conduct, we often ascribe to it a theology of such and such. To put this in terms of ‘ought’ immediately places this under the rubric of ethics. If we ought to do something, it is because God has prescribed it and we ascertain the prescription of that either by overt biblical statement, or, as the Westminster divines phrased it, “by good and necessary consequence” (Westminster Confession of Faith 1, VI) drawn from a biblical study of the matter.

For example, we have a theology of salvation (soteriology), sin (hamartiology), Christ (Christology), last things (eschatology), and so on. These doctrines are fundamentally about faith, or what we ought to believe. Interestingly, there never has been a solid consensus on the doctrine of last things throughout church history as evidenced by the three familiar views of the millennium (amillennialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism). The oughtness of a theology of last things breaks down, and we believe that is acceptable because what we really mean by ‘ought’ when it comes to our faith is that it applies only to matters that are essential to Christianity. For example, there is no Christianity if there is no Christ or resurrection. Hence, to have a theology of salvation without a resurrected Christ is not a matter in which there is wiggle room. Either you hold to Christ’s resurrection or you are a heretic. Not so with one’s millennial view because whatever one holds to, he has not strayed from what is essential to Christianity.

A theology of a certain practice, that is, a biblical view of how we should behave as Christians likewise has areas which are quite clear and others which are not so obvious. I recall in the sixties how Beatlemania introduced the fad of long hair for men and changed the course of male hairstyle ever since. It was debated hotly at times as to whether or not it was a sin for a man to have long hair. Citing such verses as 1 Cor 11:14, Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?, at first seemed to settle the matter until the question was posed, how long is long? And whether the length of man’s hair was relative to the male hairstyles of the culture. Charges of relativism and situational ethics were made. Similar questions rose over the drinking of alcoholic beverages, smoking, dancing, going to the movies, and playing cards. In the church at Corinth, it was eating meat offered to idols (1 Cor 8; 10:25; cf Rom 14:21). How one behaves in such matters has to do with an opinion that is made in good conscience, and because they are not essential to Christianity itself (for example, whether one smoked or not had nothing to do with his authenticity as a Christian), there was room for difference and toleration.

As Christian writers, in some fashion or other, we have a theology of Christian writing. Some of us may have spent considerable time over that, others may have given it little thought; regardless, if the writer is truly Christian, his Christianity affects his writing, not only in the content, but also in the practice. The theology of Christian writing that I hold to is very likely different from yours, and may very well be at odds with it. I have expressed my views in several posts, and it has elicited responses both pro and con.

Whatever our theology of Christian writing is, it ought to be biblically based. We should give serious thought to what writing is in general, and what Christian writing is in particular. When we have done that, we can measure our obedience to the one who has called us to be writers. It really is a matter of obedience in the sense that God calls us to devote ourselves seriously to whatever he has called us to do. Part of that devotion is to be sure that we are doing it to the best of our ability, in a manner that reflects the nobility of our work, and as consciously as possible to the glory of God. How we do that goes into our theology, and if we are not faithful to it, we are failing in our calling – we are disobedient servants.

Author and Story

Christopher Miller, a Speculative Faith contributor, wrote an intriguing blog entitled, We Are Not Storyless!  He began with the unthinkable (for a writer at least) of what it would be like if there were no such thing as story. He did not phrase the question completely in terms of stories, that is he did not just ask, What if there were no stories, but, What if there were no such thing as Story. The difference is quite palpable if one dwells on it. Stories are the concrete, sweat and tears labor of an author that could not at all be a possibility if there were no such thing as the ideal or concept of Story. When an author cobbles together characters and narrative in a plot that unfolds with a beginning, middle, and an end, which has a progression that is logical, coherent, and meaningful, he can only do so because there is Story.

The difference might be illustrated with miracles. Redemptive history as it is recorded in the Bible was relatively devoid of miracles; they came few and far between. Only during specific redemptive events, such as the Exodus, did miracles teem. They appear sporadically elsewhere in Old Testament history. But when Jesus appears, the New Testament record bubbles over with miracles. John deliberated over the seven he included in his gospel because he writes: And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20:30, 31. John chose the seven miracles he records for a specific reason - to persuade the reader to believe in the Son of God. We may say that Jesus performed a miracle to authenticate his claim as the God-man and to validate his message - the gospel. Or, we may say that Jesus proved himself and his message to be true by way of miracle. In the first instance, we have a specific event in mind; in the second, we have an idea of what characterizes the event. We may simply point to the act of Jesus turning water into wine on the one hand, or we may think more deeply, on the other, and ponder the supernatural character of that act and see that it typifies what is true about all such acts, that they are indicative of a person in which everything about him is supernatural.

In the same way are stories related to Story. We talk about Story in the abstract because that is where it belongs. But without the abstract, the concrete would be impossible. Without the idea of Story, there could be no such things as stories. There must be the metaphysical for there to be the physical. There must be the idea before there is a materialization of that idea in the physical world in which we live. Plato labored over the problem of form and matter, and in a way, that is what we are doing here.

Consider the question, Where did Story come from? How is it that there is Story in the first place that makes stories a possibility? The answer lies in the Triune God. Before creation ever was, there was God in three Persons. He was Story and he was the story. He was Story because everything necessary for a story resided in him - Characters, interrelation, communion. God was his own story because he was Story.

In the internal counsel of the Triune God, there was the purpose to create. With the creation, God brought story into being in a different realm. A part of that story is the creation of one who bears the image of God, and as image bearer, he has the capacity to reflect God as story-maker. It may be that story-making reflects God more fully than any other creative attribute man has. In story-making, the author is creating an imaginative world in which he purposes his characters to behave in a certain manner and for particular ends - ends that please him as the author. Christopher Miller struck at the heart of this as he, in effect, compares our authorship with the authorship of God:

As an author, I don’t ask my characters for permission to let them suffer or face evil. I know the troubles they face will ultimately be for their good. I don’t revel in the difficulty, but without trials their overcoming would not nearly be as good. We do not know what is good for us. Our perspective is two dimensional, the Author alone has the full picture.