(Now reading: Jean Grondin, The Philosophy of Gadamer)
Making
a statement is always a dangerous thing to do. Statements can be taken
out of context, distorting or obscuring the message one means to
communicate in a statement. We cannot say anything without putting it
into words, but it would be a mistake to confuse the words we say (that
is, the words we have said already, in the past) with what we are
saying. In other words, ongoing conversation is a much better way of
expressing and uncovering truth and meaning than a fixed doctrinal
statement. Which is one of the reasons I object to creeds and
confessions of faith in the Church, when we take them to be
authoritative statements that capture and contain the truth. Truth is
bigger than any finite box we can make to put it in.
Truth can
be put into words, but it cannot be put into any finished set of words,
only into an unfinished, ongoing conversation.
