Abstract
Savina Raynaud’s essay describes the path from a philosophy of language (from the consideration of ‘god’ as a common noun) to a philosophy of religion, and of Christian religion (to a consideration of the proper noun of the Christian God, the triune God of Jesus Christ). Professor Raynaud develops a semantics of common nouns in order to describe what it is to refer to ‘god’ as a common noun. In such a semantics, we are inclined to think that there is somebody or something which deserves to be named ‘god’, somebody or something which would be picked out by the intension of the noun ‘god’, but we do not yet know of any such candidate. On this semantics, the intension of the noun ‘god’ is not that which is intended, but that by which an unknown is intended. But this semantic structure implies the structure of a religious quest, or even of salvation history: the existential situation of an inquiry into what one can ask about but does not yet know, or a process of getting to know intimately what one has been referring to from the beginning. Referring to God by name marks a shift to a radically different semantics: direct address. In this sort of language use, a name refers because it is surrounded by meaningful states of affairs and praxes. Here, the relevant ‘surroundings’ of the name of God are God’s presence, acts, and utterances in salvation history. The primary resources in Professor Raynaud’s account are Thomas Aquinas, theoretician of language Karl Bühler, and an analysis of Biblical instances of direct address. Finally, Professor Raynaud locates her semantic and illocutionary analysis of naming God within developments in the last fifty years of Italian philosophy of religion.
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- 1.
I interpret this plural in our present context especially to mean ‘the philosophies developed by Christians and/or acknowledged by them as suitable to their framework’.
- 2.
In the expression ‘the love of the patriot’, the genitive can be of the object of love (objective genitive, love is directed to the patriot, which is its goal) or alternatively the genitive can be of the subject (subjective genitive, the patriot is the subject or the agent of the action of love).
- 3.
Marco Damonte, ‘Mezzo secolo di filosofia del linguaggio religioso in Italia’, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio 9, no. 1 (2015): pp. 59–72, DOI https://doi.org/10.4396/201506ITA05
- 4.
‘Videtur quod Deus non sit. Quia si unum contrariorum fuerit infinitum, totaliter destruetur aliud. Sed hoc intelligitur in hoc nomine Deus, scilicet quod sit quoddam bonum infinitum. Si ergo Deus esset, nullum malum inveniretur. Invenitur autem malum in mundo. Ergo Deus non est. Praeterea, quod potest compleri per pauciora principia, non fit per plura. Sed videtur quod omnia quae apparent in mundo, possunt compleri per alia principia, supposito quod Deus non sit, quia ea. quae sunt naturalia, reducuntur in principium quod est natura; ea. vero quae sunt a proposito, reducuntur in principium quod est ratio humana vel voluntas. Nulla igitur necessitas est ponere Deum esse. Sed contra est quod dicitur Exodi III, ex persona Dei, ego sum qui sum. Respondeo dicendum quod Deum esse quinque viis probari potest’ (emphasis added) (‘It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word “God” means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence. On the contrary, it is said in the person of God: “I am Who am” [Exodus 3:14]. I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways.’). Cf. Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, in The Summa Theologiæ of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. The Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benzinger: 1947), http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/
- 5.
Eric S. Swanson, Science and Society: Understanding Scientific Methodology, Energy, Climate, and Sustainability (New York: Springer, 2016), p. 12 footnote 9.
- 6.
See Leonardo Lugaresi, ‘Politeismo, monoteismo, relazione trinitaria. Appunti su linguaggio religioso e natura divina in Giustino, Origene e Gregorio Nazianzeno’, Annali di scienze religiose 8 (2003): pp. 153–178.
- 7.
Aldo Frigerio, Il riferimento singolare. Strumentazioni linguistiche (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2003); id., Quantificazione e riferimento plurale. La semantica dei sintagmi nominali (Roma: Carocci, 2008); Filosofia del linguaggio (Milano: Apogeo, 2011).
- 8.
In Hebrew we read ᾽ayyêkâ ‘where you’ (tacit ‘are’) and ‘I heard your voice/your noise [qolekâ] in the garden’. The Septuaginta adds ‘while you were walking in the garden’, ἤκουσα περιπατοῦντος ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ. I thank Anna Passoni Dell’Acqua for this information and explanation.
- 9.
New International Version: ‘He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”’New Living Translation: ‘He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”’English Standard Version: ‘And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”’
New American Standard Bible: ‘He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”’
King James Bible: ‘And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’
- 10.
Karl Bühler, Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language, trans. Donald Fraser Goodwin in collaboration with Achim Eschbach, John Benjamins (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011 [1990]), p. 179.
- 11.
Even without forgetting the wonderful Augustinian theme (Confessiones X, 38): ‘Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! Et ecce intus eras et ego foris et ibi te quaerebam et in ista formosa quae fecisti, deformis irruebam. Mecum eras, et tecum non eram. Ea me tenebant longe a te, quae si in te non essent, non essent. Vocasti et clamasti et rupisti sorditatem meam, coruscasti splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam, fragrasti, et duxi spiritum et anhelo tibi, gustavi et esurio et sitio, tetegisti me, et exarsi in pacem tuam.’
- 12.
‘“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”’ (Matthew 16:15–16).
- 13.
Marco Damonte, ‘Mezzo secolo di filosofia del linguaggio religioso in Italia’, cited above.
Bibliography
Thomas Aquinas. The Summa Theologiæ of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Second and Revised Edition [1920]. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright 2017 by Kevin Knight at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html. Accessed 09/02/2018.
Bühler, Karl. 2011 [1990]. Theory of Language: The Representational Function of Language. Trans. Donald Fraser Goodwin, Achim Eschbach, and John Benjamins. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Damonte, Marco. 2015. Mezzo secolo di filosofia del linguaggio religioso in Italia. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio 1: 59–72.
Frigerio, Aldo. 2003. Il riferimento singolare. Strumentazioni linguistiche. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.
———. 2008. Quantificazione e riferimento plurale. La semantica dei sintagmi nominali. Roma: Carocci.
———. 2011. Filosofia del linguaggio. Milano: Apogeo.
Lugaresi, Leonardo. 2003. Politeismo, monoteismo, relazione trinitaria. Appunti su linguaggio religioso e natura divina in Giustino, Origene e Gregorio Nazianzeno. Annali di scienze religiose 8: 153–178.
Swanson, Eric S. 2016. Science and Society: Understanding Scientific Methodology, Energy, Climate, and Sustainability. New York: Springer.
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Raynaud, S. (2019). From Philosophical Theology to Philosophy of Religion: An Illocutionary Turning Point. In: Mezei, B., Vale, M. (eds) Philosophies of Christianity. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22632-9_4
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