Saturday, April 27, 2013

Putting truth into words, but not into statements

(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.