Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation (Routledge Radical Orthodoxy)

when we speak theologically of the divine Word, we do not and cannot speak simply of this eternal subject; we speak of what the divine Word has actually done in this world and of how we have learned to identify the divine Word in action within human history.

The power of gods is known principally through their utterances. The sicut dixit dominus (thus says the lord) is always a signal for ritual silence. The speech of a god can be so perfectly expressive of that god’s power that the god and its speech become identical: “In the beginning was the word. The word was with God, and the word was God.”

Language, writes Karen Armstrong, a religion scholar and former nun, “is not only a vital means of communication, but it helps us to articulate and clarify the incoherent turbulence of our inner world.”14 Even the most ineffable experiences are quickly translated into words by the mind. Moment by moment, we speak ourselves into being. And then, tur

God speaks through human words, and our best insights articulate the Divine;