god has spoken: philosophical grounding for biblical interpretation

Faith Seeking Understanding

God Has Spoken:Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation

© Ken McDuff, 2008

"Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a bookall the words that I have spoken to you."—Jeremiah 30:2

"Let… wretched men cease to impute, with blasphemous perverseness,the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clearScriptures of God."—Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Since the Reformation, with the shift of theological authority from the church to sola scriptura (Scripture alone), Protestantism has affirmed through its confessions that God has spoken to man in a clear, understandable and meaningful way through the Bible. The Reformers’ doctrine of the perspicuity (or clarity) of Scripture1 rejected the dominant Roman Catholic idea that Scripture was obscure and difficult to understand, and that Biblical interpretation was limited to the Magisterium. Instead, interpretation was opened to all who could read.

Today, the clarity of Scripture is questioned not only by Roman Catholics, but also by a recent wave of evangelicals identified with the emergent (or emerging) church movement. The emergent “conversation” is driven by the premise that propositional truth statements are an outmoded feature of modernity that must be abandoned. In their view, the Scriptures are unclear because truth is forever “under construction” and out of reach. Emergent proponents reject foundationalist epistemology outright2 and assign Biblical interpretation to the realm of personal opinion3 and perpetual doubt.4

Stanley Grenz, Brian McLaren, and other participants in the emergent church movement reflect the larger trend labeled postmodernism. While it's impossible to pin down a precise definition, in the last half century postmodernism has become a broad-brush buzzword throughout western culture that refers generally to resistance against a worldview that offers a single, comprehensive explanation of the way things are, preferring a radical paradigm shift that embraces a plurality of ideas in a never-ending dialogue. With origins in the arts and architecture, postmodern concepts have brought about a reassessment of the foundations of western culture as a whole, expanding into the realm of politics, economics, philosophy, ethics, and religion.5 French poststructuralist Jacque Derrida introduced a closely related concept, deconstruction, in the 1960’s as a way of appraising modern theories of language and, ultimately, modern social constructs.6

Indeed, while the theme of ideas had dominated philosophical thought from the time of the Enlightenment, the twentieth century saw a “linguistic turn” as philosophical interest in issues related to language and meaning came to the forefront,


with Derrida representing only one stream of thought. Building on the work of Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, contemporary philosophers of varied stripes have sought to address deep philosophical questions regarding the nature of reality (metaphysics), the possibility of knowledge (epistemology), and the criteria for morality (ethics) from the perspective of linguistic theory. These developments are of concern to the Biblical interpreter as increasing cultural pressures to reject timeless universal truths are promoted by postmodernism generally and by so-called “post conservative evangelicals” (Grentz, McLaren, et al.) specifically.

Language involves extremely powerful and complex systems. The study of human language considers the structure of properly constructed expressions (syntax), the way expressions contribute to meaning (semantics), and how expressions are used to communicate (pragmatics). Linguistic philosophers have been concerned with the latter two in offering theories as to how any particular set of marks or noises has the meaning it does. In what follows, I will first consider theories of reference and meaning, addressing the question, “What is it to mean?” Next, the nature of speech acts will be examined, asking an even more basic question, “What is it to speak?” Finally, I will consider how issues in philosophy of language contribute to the idea that God has spoken and how linguistic theory relates to the hermeneutical task.

My purpose is not to elucidate a comprehensive rationale for the belief that

postmodern philosophical approaches to Biblical interpretation do not—indeed, cannot—succeed. Rather, I will offer a cursory examination of the various theories of language and meaning, indicating philosophical arguments to which I would appeal if a fuller treatment were being pursued. The overarching question to be addressed with such inquiries is, “Can interpreters make truth claims about the meaning of texts—particularly the Bible?” Kevin Vanhoozer suggests that the underlying attitude of postmodern linguistic philosophy is “incredulity toward meaning”7—that is, disbelief regarding truth. I agree with his conclusion that there is meaning in the text, it can be known, and it is worthwhile to do so.

What is it to Mean?

What is meaning? Where is meaning located? How is reference fixed? How is it that words “hook up” with reality? These, and similar, questions have been of interest to philosophers for centuries. In Cratylus, Plato explored whether local conventions or some metaphysical connection determined the “correctness of names,” with Plato insisting that names belong naturally to their specific objects. Augustine's view in The Confessions was essentially the same, but this view has been dismissed, replaced over the last hundred years or so by an array of competing theories of meaning and reference.

Some have argued that meaning is naming. Early attempts to address the meaning of meaning came in theories of reference, which relate an expression and the

God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation 2


specific object to which the expression refers: the meaning of a definite description is simply its reference. The dominant theory has been the description theory of reference advanced by Bertrand Russell in his 1905 essay, “On Denoting.”8 Like Gottlob Frege9 before him, Russell suggested that ordinary proper names abbreviate definite descriptions; that is, for every proper name P, there is some collection of descriptions D associated with P that constitute the meaning of P. Responding to four linguistic problems,10 Russell claimed that sentences containing definite descriptions are properly analyzed as containing two claims inherent in the definite description—a claim of existence (“there is an F”) and a claim of uniqueness (“at most one thing is F”)—and a third claim of universality that is contained in the predication (“something that is F is G”).11

The description theory came under fire in the 1960's from P.F. Strawson, Keith Donnellan, Saul Kripke, and Hilary Putnam. By distinguishing between an expression, the use of an expression, and the utterance of an expression, Strawson argued that an expression cannot be thought of as being true or false, but only as being used to make a true or false assertion. Likewise, an expression cannot be said to refer to anything; people refer by making use of expressions.12 Donnellan took a mediating position between Russell and Strawson, suggesting that Russell’s concept of definite descriptions works for “attributive” uses but not for “referential” uses.13 More recently, Kripke advanced a causal-historical theory of reference to explain the means by which reference is acquired.

Rejecting the Frege-Russell perspective on proper names, Kripke argued that the reference of a proper name is fixed by means of an initial act of naming at which the name becomes a rigid designator of that object. The name is passed on by means of a “causal chain” that passes from the original observers of the “initial baptism” to everyone else who uses the name, even if the speaker is not fully aware of the chain of transmission.14 Putnam further delineated the causal theory by offering the idea of a linguistic “division of labor” in which natural kind terms have their references fixed by experts in the particular field of science to which the terms belong.15 As a result of his well-known Twin Earth thought experiment,16 Putnam concludes that traditional theories of meaning fail to acknowledge that a speaker may not be fully aware of the “actual nature” of a term; both society and real-world contexts contribute to defining the extension of a given expression.

These recent theories of reference are better developed than earlier theories and provide a basis for believing that competent language-speakers can successfully refer to the world, but they must be understood to adequately explain language in regards to only certain kinds of words. No theory of reference can stand as a comprehensive theory of meaning.

Others insist that meaning involves entities (images and ideas or, conversely, propositions). Among the oldest modern theories of meaning, John Locke proposed an ideational theory of meaning, arguing that ideas in the mind mediate between our words and the world. Viewing ideas as mental images or



representations of external objects, Locke contended that our words simply stood for such ideas. Language could be considered as a kind of tool that we use to convey ideas to each other. In this view, the meaning of words resides in speakers’ heads and truth may be understood in terms of correspondence (i.e., ideas are considered true if they accurately represent objects in the external world). Ideational theories suffer from the same kinds of difficulties as referential theories: images are too specific and detailed to serve as the meaning of most expressions; ideas are subjective, while discourse is public; the notion of “idea” is difficult to precisely define, and it is not clear how to extend the image theory to the meaning of sentences.

The propositional theory of meaning perceives meaning not in terms of mental images, but in terms of abstract entities that exist outside of the mind and, indeed, outside of a particular language. But like ideational theories, the relation between words and things comes to pass via an intermediary entity—in this case, propositions (rather than ideas). This theory is limited in that language does not consist of propositions only.

Still others suggest that meaning is found in the conditions that either verify an expression or prove it to be true. Verification theories take meaning to be found in the conditions under which an expression may be verified, or certified as acceptable. Similarly, truth-conditional theories take meaning to be found in the conditions under which an expression may be said to be true. There are, however, valid expressions that cannot be

verified, and there are expressions that do not conform to a truth/falsity test.

One proposal centers on speaker-meaning as the key to unlock meaning. H.P. Grice's account of sentence meaning asserts that a sentence E of a natural language L means that P if and only if, when speakers of L utter E, they normally intend an audience A to form a belief that P.17 Against descriptivism’s assumption that meaning exists in a referent regardless of time, place, or speaker, Grice’s theory takes context into account, showing that sentence-meaning is, in fact, speaker-meaning. Objections to this theory concern the audience: what if no audience is present? What if the speaker does not intend the audience to acquire a belief?

Many have come to view meaning in terms of use. A shift in literary theory from viewing meaning as representation to looking at an expression's function in human social behavior as the key to discover meaning came with the later work of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He defended a representational theory of meaning in his early work, but later altered his view, recognizing that the meaning of a word or sentence is determined by its use within a given context. “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”18 Throughout his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein appropriates the term “language games,” referring to language as a collection of activities that function like games. To determine meaning, Wittgenstein



advocated observing the behavior that accompanied language games, then developing a formalized set of rules behind the games.

While meaning is not reducible to use, at the center of use theories of meaning is the observation that language does things, an idea that will be explored more fully in the next section.

Counterexamples and complexities undermine every theory of reference and meaning. Syntax and semantics often underdetermine meaning, as with metaphors and other figurative language. The context of an utterance often generates implications that are not the logical consequence of the sentence. There is no nice, neat, comprehensive theory of meaning. And yet some of the more recent theories of reference (Kripke, Putnam) and meaning (speaker-meaning, use) do offer insights that may be useful for Biblical interpretation. This is particularly true as we turn our attention to one area of use theory—speech act theory—and the question of what it is to speak.

What is it to Speak?

Philosophers have recently become persuaded that pragmatic concerns—how ordinary, natural language is used to do something—are crucial in addressing questions of meaning. Philosophers have considered how people do things with words in light of the complexities of linguistic meaning. J.L. Austin introduced what is often called “speech act theory”19 in his 1955 William James lectures at Harvard and in his

subsequent book, appropriately entitled How to Do Things with Words.20 Speech act theory emphasizes the performative nature of language: that the utterance of a sentence does not merely convey information; it performs an action that has effects.

In the 1950's, Austin argued against what had been the predominate linguistic view that sentences simply state facts and can therefore be evaluated as either true or false. He introduced several types of sentences that cannot be evaluated in respect to their truth or falsity, focusing on one kind of sentence, which he called “performative utterances.”21 But after offering four reasons why his distinction needed to be reconsidered, he embarked on a “fresh start,” further developing the idea that “to say something may be to do something.”22 Austin offered a distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. To perform a locutionary act is to say something (with successful sense and reference), while illocutionary acts use locution with some force—making an assertion, asking a question, giving an order, making a promise. Perlocution refers to the result of the illocutionary act—eliciting the answer to a question, for instance.23

Austin's student, John Searle, further developed Austin's account of illocutionary acts (which he labeled “speech acts”). He insisted that “the production of the token in the performance of the speech act [rather than the symbol, word or sentence]… constitutes the basic unit of linguistic communication.” For a token to be understood, the audience must take it to be an act that intends to



communicate. The real work of Searle’s paper was to identify the conditions and semantical rules that are foundational to a specific illocutionary act, the act of promising. He first identified a set of conditions that are “necessary and sufficient” for the successful performance of an act of promising, then concluded by extracting from the conditions a set of rules for the use of the “function indicating device.” Believing that this work should carry over to other types of speech act, he proposed further work be pursued. But in spite of this suggestion, his theory has not proven to be able to supply a comprehensive philosophy of language.

Grice took another direction with an approach emphasizing intention rather than convention (as in Austin and Searle).24 Grice argues that the meaning of a word is a derivative function of what speakers mean by that word in individual instances of uttering it. Conversation generally follows the “cooperative principle” and its four maxims, but a speaker may mean more than what he is merely saying when he violates one of these maxims. Conveying an unstated but intended meaning is what Grice calls “conversational implicature”—speakers succeed by “implicating” more than what they say.

Searle affirms the close relationship in Grice’s theory between meaning and the speaker’s intention, but also notes his failure “to account for the extent to which meaning is a matter of rules or conventions” as well as the failure to distinguish between perlocutionary and illocutionary effects. Searle maintains that meaning is a matter both of intention and conventions, and that the speech act is

understood in relation to the combination of these two elements. He distinguishes between something having meaning and someone meaning something by what one says.

In the midst of continuing refinement and expansion of speech act theory, the contributions of Austin and Searle remain foundational and have proven useful as an important conceptual framework and a tool for interpretation. The relation of speech act theory to Biblical interpretation has received some attention, beginning with a study produced by one of Austin's students, Don Evans,25 but not ending there.26

Speech act theorists are right in proposing that we do certain things as speakers, and the concept of performative language addresses, in part, the “hermeneutical problem”—that is, the problem that arises when the interpreter and the text are separated by time, language, and culture. Speech act theory does not account for all types of language. It must be utilized critically, but it can be effective in equipping the interpreter with specific tools for analyzing illocutionary acts occurring in the text, for understanding communicative action, thereby refining the interpretive process. Speech act theory “has suffered underserved neglect in Biblical interpretation, in systematic theology, and in discussions of ‘religious language’ in textbooks on the philosophy of religion.”27

The Question of Divine Discourse

When it comes to a particular text, the Bible, there is much at stake in considering how to rightly interpret its message. Addressing the question of Biblical



interpretation (as opposed to the broader category of textual interpretation) brings us face to face with the issue of dual authorship. Without the voice of God addressing us through Scripture, the intent of the human authors becomes empty rhetoric with no real foundation. Hermeneutics requires that we pay attention to the illocutionary and perlocutionary intent of both the human writers and the divine Author.

Nicholas Wolterstorff defends the idea that God speaks.28 He argues that God spoke in antiquity through the writings of the Biblical authors, and that he speaks today by now presenting the text to us. When he talks about “divine discourse,” he makes clear that he has in mind what Austin called illocutionary actions. Wolterstorff argues that Scripture is not just a disclosure of information about God (revelation), but a collection of diverse kinds of texts with an on-going function as divine communicative action. His argument includes these points:

1. that God has the rights and duties required to be part of the discoursing community,

2. that a divine speech act would require God's intervention in human affairs, but that there are no valid scientific objections which prohibit this,

3. that interpretation of some act of discourse requires more than determining sentence meaning coupled with the linguistic context; authorial intent also necessary, and

4. that “there is no such thing as the sense of a text.”29

When Wolterstorff uses terms like “double agency discourse” and “deputized discourse,” he clarifies that God’s speech act has been delivered through the pens of the Biblical writers. “[I]nterpretation has to be conducted with two sets of convictions in hand: in one hand, convictions as to the sentential meanings of the text and the illocutionary stance and content of the human authorial discourse, and in the other hand, convictions as to what God would and would not have intended to say by appropriating these particular locutions and discourse.”30

Similarly, Vanhoozer views the Bible not simply as “metanarrative” (a grand story), but as a “theo-drama” in which God’s speech and actions enables hearers of the word to perform corresponding words and actions. “Evangelical theology deals not with disparate bits of ideas and information but with divine doings—with the all-embracing cosmic drama that displays the entrances and exoduses of God.”31 The Bible is God’s speech act in regards to God’s redemptive act; speaking is one of God's mighty acts (Heb. 1:1-2).

To say that God speaks, we must flatly reject the view that the (Divine) author is absent from the text. The location of the Spirit's locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary speech acts are resident in Scripture itself, and viewing Scripture as Wolterstorff and Vanhoozer suggest open doors to a deeper understanding of the Biblical text.



Philosophy of Language and the Hermeneutical Task

The philosophy of language is an important component of Biblical interpretation for this reason: the science of interpretation raises questions about the nature of knowledge, which give rise to additional questions about the nature and use of language. To speak responsibly about understanding an ancient text cannot be accomplished apart from a consideration of literary theory. The following observations will serve as my conclusions regarding the role of philosophy of language in hermeneutics (the first two of which have been previously stated):

1. While there is no nice, neat, comprehensive theory of meaning, some of the more recent theories of reference (Kripke, Putnam) and meaning (speaker-meaning, use) do offer insights that may be useful for Biblical interpretation.

2. Speech act theory must be utilized critically, but it can be effective in equipping the interpreter with specific tools for analyzing illocutionary acts occurring in the text, for understanding communicative action, thereby refining the interpretive process. Evans and Briggs have suggested that speech act theory can be helpful, particularly where the texts include a self-involving nature of speech (confession of faith, forgiveness of sins, teaching, etc.). A speech act view of these biblical concepts allows for a more precise account of what these concepts mean.

3. The problems of textual interpretation are not trivial, but neither are they insurmountable; therefore, authorial intent is within grasp. Poststructuralists

and deconstructionists assert that our access to ‘objective’ reality is limited by our own linguistic and conceptual constructions. Denying structuralist premises of an underlying system and logocentrist premises that it is possible to speak truth, they must also deny the author as a metaphysical reality. Language, they conclude, is inadequate to express the author’s original intention. As Derrida has famously said, “There is nothing outside the text.”32

Having surveyed the postmodern view of the relationship between language and the world, Scott Smith summarizes this postmodern position:

We simply cannot get outside language and know foundational (read: universal, transcendent, objective) truths, and thus we are always working from within language, even when we do theology, despite the conservative Christian theological claim that Scripture provides that inerrant foundation for the edifice of theological knowledge.33

We must recognize that tools are available—now more than ever—to discover and comprehend authorial intent.

4. Use theories must be regarded with some caution; contra Fish, interpretive communities must not be allowed to create their own truths. God does speak today through His written Word, and the hermeneutical task is to avoid simply hearing back our own attitudes, beliefs, and judgments. Rather, we must hear the Bible speak in its own right and with its due authority.

The “cultural-linguistic turn” in theology appeared in George Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine,34 a defense of theological non-



realism. Accepting Wittgenstein's proposal that meaning is a function of use, Lindbeck concluded that it is the tradition of language use that shapes the experience and reasoning of the individual. With Lindbeck, many postconservative evangelicals make clear that they do not go to the extreme of insisting on the absolute subjectivity of personal feelings and attitudes (what Lindbeck refers to as the “experiential-expressive” approach to doctrine), nor the absolute objectivity of first-order truth-claims (the “cognitive-propositionalist approach”). They offer an alternative: the authority of tradition within the interpretive community of faith.35 Stanley Fish has commented: “The function of church doctrines that becomes most prominent in this perspective is their use, not as expressive symbols or as truth claims, but as communally authoritative rules of discourse, attitude, and action.”36

Reader-response hermeneutics, which first emerged in the context of literary theory and has entered the realm of New Testament studies,37 is a radical approach to interpretation, with an emphasis in moving hermeneutical emphasis away from the author of texts to the readers. No meaning exists in the text; “the reader response is not to the meaning; it is the meaning.”38 This trend within the emergent church must be avoided and, if possible, reversed.

5. Scripture serves a first-order, authoritative language; contra Derrida, texts do have a fixed, objective meaning. Poststructuralists and deconstructionists insist that everything is part of a signifying system—signs refer only to other signs, there is no determinant reality outside of signs, there is no objective truth. While the gospel is performative,

bringing about saving events, transforming believers, and inaugurating God's kingdom, it accomplishes its work because it is also propositional: it contains statements of accessible, objective truth. Epistemic access to reality is available. We must heed the words of Doug Groothius:

Christians, of all people, must swear allegiance to the notion that truth is what corresponds to reality—and we must do so unswervingly whatever the postmodern winds of doctrine may be blowing in our faces. Whenever postconservative evangelicals depart from the correspondence view of truth—which is both biblical and logical—and thus sink into the postmodernist swamps of subjectivism, pragmatism, or constructivism, they should be lovingly but firmly resisted.”39

6. The philosophy of language highlights the richness of human interactions and communication. The nature of language is that it is multi-layered, multi-functional, and difficult to analyze or assign to simplistic categories. Linguistic theories help us to understand the complexity of language and communication, and prompt us to renewed vigor in hermeneutics so that we can see the richness of God’s communicative action more clearly.

Returning to the idea of the clarity of Scripture, perhaps the notion needs to be qualified. The Westminister Confession acknowledges that “all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all.” As it turns out, natural man does not easily apprehend some facets of the Bible’s message. Luther, in fact, referred to the



Scriptures as adversarius noster, “our adversary.” But linguistic theory may indeed provide assistance in the hermeneutic task, along with other helpful interpretive tools. These, in combination with the illumination of the Spirit and a commitment to the divine authority of the text, allow us not only to recognize that God has spoken, but to find meaning in what He says._____________________


1 The doctrine of the perspicuity (or clarity) of Scripture is that the central message of the Bible is clear, and that the meaning of the text can be understandable to the ordinary reader: “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, I. vii.)

2 Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), pp. 23-24.

3 “…if, for you, orthodoxy isn’t a list of correct doctrines, but rather the doxa in orthodoxy means ‘thinking’ or ‘opinion,’ then the lifelong pursuit of expanding thinking and deepening, broadening opinions about God sounds like a delight, a joy.” Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2004), p. 261.

4 “Certainty can be dangerous. What we need is a proper confidence that's always seeking the truth and that’s seeking to live in the way God wants us to live, but that also has the proper degree of self-critical and selfquestioning passion.” “Interview: Brian McLaren,” in Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, July 15, 2005, www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week846/interview.html

5 Charles Jencks, “The Post-modern Agenda” in The Post-Modern Reader (New York: St Martin's Press, 1992), pp. 10-39.

6 Jacque Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1974).

7 Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1998), p . 16.

8 Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting” in Mind, 14, 479-493. Repr. in Essays in Analysis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), pp. 103-119.

9 Frege differed from Russell in noting that we sometimes use two words with differing meanings to refer to the same object, such as Hesperus (“evening star”) and Phosphorus (“morning star”) used in reference to Venus. His solution was to distinguish sense from reference in determining the significance of an expression. Gottlob Frege, “Uber Sinn und Bedeutung (On Sense and Reference)” reprinted in A.W. Moore (ed.), Meaning and Reference (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

10 The problem of reference to non-existents (if meaning = reference, then a definite description can only have meaning if it has a reference); the problem of negative existentials (if meaning = reference, then a negative existential is self-contradictory); Frege's puzzle about identity statements (if Hesperus = Phosphorus is equivalent to Venus = Venus, then the expression is trivial), and the problem of substitutivity (substitution of one definite description for another coreferential definite description should, but does always, preserve truth).

11 So the logical form of “The present king of France is bald” can be understood to be “there is an x such that x is the present king of France, nothing other than x is the present king of France, and x is bald."

12 P.F. Strawson, “On Referring” in Mind, New Series, Vol. 59, No. 235 (July, 1950), pp. 320-344.

13 In attributive use, the definite description picks out an object because of the content of the description; referential use picks out an object because the definite description is used as a reference. Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” in Philosophical Review 75 (1966), pp. 281-304.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week846






14 Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).

15 Hilary Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” in Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2: Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975/1985); "Meaning and Reference," Journal o/Philosophy 70, pp. 699-71l.

16 16 Putnam's arguments are introduced by a thought experiment, which posits another planet, Twin Earth, on which everything is identical to Earth except that it's lakes, rivers, and oceans contain a liquid indistinguishable from water (H20) but with a different chemical formula (abbreviated XYZ). Although the supposition of a casual observer may be that the meaning of “water” is the same on Earth and Twin Earth, compositional analysis shows that the word has two meanings. By suggesting that two identical counterparts on Earth and Twin Earth would understand “water” differently even at a time when scientific analysis was not possible (because the extensions in the two worlds are necessarily different even if not understood by the observer to be so), Putnam argues that the extension of the term “water” is not simply a function of the psychological state (beliefs, memory, etc.) of the speaker.

17 H.P. Grice, “Meaning,” in The Philosophical Review 66: 377-88,1957.

18 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23127-7).

19 Speech act theory is appropriate for any type of communication, written or verbal.

20 J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd edition, edited by J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).

21 Austin contrasts performative utterances, which perform a certain kind of action, and constantive utterances, which simply describe, record, or impart information.

22 Austin, p. 12

23 William Alston suggests similar categories. Alston speaks of a sentential act (“uttering a sentence”), an illocutionary act (“uttering a sentence with a certain content”), and perlocutionary act (“producing an effect on some audience by an utterance”). William P. Alston, Ilocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 2.

24 H.P. Grice, “Logic and conversation,” in Cole, P. and Morgan, J. (eds.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 3 (New York: Academic Press, 1975).

25 Donald D. Evans, The Logic of Self-Involvement: A Philosophical Study of Everyday Language with Special Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as Creator (London: SCM Press, 1963).

26 Richard Briggs, Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2001); Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998; Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1980; Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992.

27 Anthony C. Thiselton, “Speech Act Theory and the Claim that God Speaks: Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse,” Scottish Journal of Theology 50, 199), p. 97.

28 Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

29 Wolterstorff, p. 171, italics his.

30 Wolterstorff, p. 218

31 Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), p . 39.

32 Derrida, On Grammatology, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974).



33 R. Scott Smith, “Language, Theological Knowledge, and the Postmodern Paradism,” in Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accomodation in Postmodern Times, eds. Millard J. Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth and Justin Long (Wheaton, Crossway Books, 2004), pp. 119-120.

34 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984).

35 “[T]he literal meaning of the text is precisely that meaning which finds the greatest degree of agreement in the use of the text in the religious community. If there is agreement in that use, then take that to be the literal sense.” Hans Frei, Types of Christian Theology (New Haven: Tale University Press, 1992), p. 15. This line of thinking coincides with Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).

36 Lindbeck, p. 18.

37 For instance, James L. Resseguie presented a survey of reader-response approaches to material found the Synoptic Gospels (“Reader Response Criticism and the Synoptic Gospels,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 52 [1984], pp. 307-324).

38 Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?, p. 3.

39 Douglas Groothius, Reclaiming the Center, p. 79

god has spoken: philosophical grounding for biblical interpretation

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