God in Language (God, the Contemporary Discussion Series)

This interreligious, philosophical, and theological collection of essays by international scholars considers the hermeneutical concept of language as a medium. The concept, advanced in the studies of Hans-Georg Gadamer, means language considered "between" meanings and things. What distinguishes words from sounds or scribbles is that words are signs with a sense. What bearing does this understanding have on our knowledge of God and on distinguishing the names of God from the God they name? What and how we think is determined in part by the language in which we think. What things are or appear to be is conditioned by the language with which things are named and described. Does this mean that language limits reality, or that language creates reality? How do these considerations bear upon the language which speaks to God? How do the various forms of language- written, spoken, and unspoken - come into play? In God in Language, in the acclaimed series God; The Contemporary Discussion internationally known academics address these and other important issues. Chapters include discussions of deconstruction and onto-theological discourse, the language of instantiation in Buber's I and Thou , anthropomorphism, and utopianism of language. It is a major contribution on a subject that has been too-long ignored.