In advance of the liveware report and some side-pieces from the excellent student presentations today, I offer a jeu d'esprit of my own from ten years ago. At a time when I was reading Wittgenstein with fascination, I undertook the thought experiment of writing a sort of tractatus theologico-exegeticus, trying to say in W.'s tractatus form what it was A. and his fellow travelers in Latin Christendom (I had in mind the authors I know well, from Aug. to Greg. the Great) were saying about scripture. There are a variety of gaudy anachronisms about this exercise, but it has proved useful in the past. I commend it to the liveware, esp. to Rob Barrett, who has to worry at least peripherally about some of these issues for next week's presentation, and to the list at large. Wittgenstein and Augustine would not agree on many things, but they would both wholeheartedly agree that neither one of them could possibly have written this! jo'd Propositiones Quodlibetales 1. "And therefore its name is called Babel, because there the speech of the earth was thrown into confusion." (Gen. 11.9) Human language as we know it is radically defective. 1.1 The defect severs the links between signifier and signified. 1.2 Though conventions of usage render some communication possible, the system as a whole is too weak to bear close scrutiny. 1.21 Thus when philosophers speak in matters of logic, ethics, or metaphysics, they are incapable making statements that describe reality accurately and command general assent. 1.22 Those who would speak the truth must often resort to paradox, when two statements that cannot be simultaneously true according to the rules of human discourse both attract assent for their prima facie likelihood. 1.221 The structure of knowlede itself is beset by these apparent contradictions, e.g., mind/body, spirit/letter, appearance/reality, action/contemplation. 1.3 The defects of human language are the result of sin. 2. "In the beginning was the Word." (John 1.1) Divine language is indefectible. 2.1 It creates by speaking: the link between signifier and signified is precise, necessary, and infallible. 2.2 It does not represent Truth by a 1-to-1 relation (as human language attempts to do): it is Truth. 2.3 "For the invisible things of God are seen, made known since the creation of the world through the things that are made, even his never-ending power and divinity, so that those [who fail to see] are without excuse." (rom. 1.20) 2.31 Unaided human reason should suffice to interpret the "books in running brooks, sermons in stones." (Shakespeare) 2.32 But unaided human reason does not in fact suffice. 3. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us." (John 1.14) 3.1 This incarnation manifests itself, in a world that falsely distinguishes knowledge from action, in two corresponding ways. 3.11 Ministerium praedicationis: the public ministry of Jesus presents the Word speaking language sinners can understand, to appeal to the intellect. 3.12 Ministerium crucis: the sacrifice of the cross atones for the failings of human actions and is the channel of grace to redeem the acting (and sinning) person. 3.2 The incarnation continues, 3.21 in eucharist (cf. 2.11 above), 3.211 When Christ says, "This is my Body," that statement, from that source, immediately and necessarily alters the essential nature, the substance, of the sacramental elements; their persistently deceptive appearances are unchanged and irrelevant. Essence is determined by relation to the creating Logos, not by relation to the appearances we collect and misinterpret. 3.22 in the Christian community (corpus mysticum), 3.221 This community is that which is formed by sharing in the eucharist and thus recreates, by apostolic succession, the community of Pentecost. 3.23 in the repository of revelation, scripture. 3.231 The authority of scripture is guaranteed by the community of believers, at the time of canon formation and in constant testimony since. 3.3 The Word is pre-existent, existent in Palestine c. A.D. 30, present in the eucharist, present in the community that accepts the eucharist, present in the words of scripture which that community authorizes, and--finally--present in every person who hears the Word in any of its forms. It is absnet only to those who do not wish to hear. 4. "All that is written is written for our instruction, that we might have hope through patience and the consolation of the scriptures." (Rom. 15.4) 4.1 The power of the Word to reform human language is present in the scriptural text and in the authoritative teaching of the ecclesial community. 4.11 The written text is a link between generations. The oral message was committed to writing by the first generations, then revived as oral message by those who read it in later generations and by those who hear the message and expound its sense with episcopal authority. 4.111 This authority descends from Pentecost. 4.12 Exegesis is the discourse, Logos-drenched, of those with authority who hear the word. 4.121 Hence the silent meditation of Ambrose in Conf. 6. 4.122 Hence the summary of episcopal functions there and again in Conf. 11.2.2. 4.2 The scriptural text as interpreted becomes the norm by which all other discourse is evaluated. 4.21 All speaking-of-God (theology) is exegesis. 5. "And if I have prophecy, and if I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, such that I move mountains, but if I have not charity, I am nothing." (1 Cor. 13.2) Exegesis is not an end, but the means to an end. 5.1 Exegetical writing is unliterary, unlovely, utilitarian. 5.2 Exegesis expounds first the plain surface of the text (literal sense). 5.21 Many biblical texts employ rhetorical devices that give even the literal text-as-transmitted a figurative quality. 5.3 Exegesis then expounds the spirit of the text understood in Christ (allegorical sense) 5.31 "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." (2 Cor. 3.6) 5.4 then connects that spirit to the redeeming transformation of the reader as individual (moral sense), 5.5 then anticipates the reunion of all believers with God in the perfection of history (anagogical sense). 5.51 All history is salvation history. 5.511 All life is sanctification--or emptiness. 5.52 The fourfold analysis that develops along these lines in the middle ages is not an arbitrary system imposed on the text from the outside, but an expression of the inner logic of the church's response over time to the Word of God. 6. "And I heard a voice like that of a great crowd, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of great thunders, saying, 'Alleluia, for the Lord our God almighty has reigned.'" (Apoc. 19.6) The fulness of human life is, in the order of knowledge, the beatific vision; in the order of action, ceaseless praise of God. 6.1 In the light of this union all false distinctions between mind and body, thought and action, faith and works, action and contemplation, are seen to have been externalizations of the inner schism of the heart in re- bellion against God, not real conflicts or contradictions. 6.2 The foreshadowing of that fulness is all that will ordinarily be known in human life "through a glass darkly." 6.21 The rare exception of "mystical experience" defeats all human description. 6.3 The nexus between hearing and doing in this life is speech that repels past error, affirms what we have heard, and accepts the duty of praise. 6.4 That vocal response of repentance and praise may variously be described as prayer and as confession. 6.41 It is not the autonomous, spontaneous act of a free will, but the act of a newly freed will, freed by God's gift of confession itself. 6.411 Thus Augustine opens his great work with a prayer for the gift of speech itself: "Have mercy on me, that I might speak." (Conf. 1.5.5). 6.5 The function of prayer is not to bring God's will into line with our own, but to bring our will into line with God's. 6.51 The normal mood of prayer is subjunctive, but in an odd tone. 6.511 The emphasis is not on the content of the petition (God's will, after all, will be done, his name be hallowed, etc., whether we pray for it or not), but on the assent of the petitioner to the petition. 6.52 Prayer surrenders self-will to God's will by surrendering control of language itself to God. 6.521 Hence the place of the Lord's prayer in all Christian use. 6.522 Hence the tendency to expound scriptural texts in terms of other scriptural texts. 6.523 Hence the monastic habit of psalmody. 7. "But his will is fixed on the law of God, and on his law he will meditate day and night." (Psalm 1.2) All language, insofar as it is authentic, is divine language. 7.1 All language that is not divine is inauthentic and leads ineluctably away from truth into gibberish. 7.2 The reformation of human language according to the standards of divine language is what is going on in this life in prayer, a process to be completed in the next life. 7.3 The only reasonable discourse in which human beings can place their trust in this life is discourse that is prayer. 7.31 Discourse that is not expressly prayer may be of use to many, but can only be rendered harmless if it is rooted in prayer and refers all its claims to the anterior authority of prayer as acceptance of the gift of divine language. 7.311 Classical philosophy and modern science do not seem to stand in this relation to the Logos. 7.312 Unless these quodlibetal propositions stand in this relation to the Logos for the writer, they are full of error and should not have been written. 7.313 Unless these propositions are read in the light of prayer, they will propagate error and are better left unread. 8. "Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7.1) 8.1 Perfect hearing, perfect praise, are impossible so long as we live. 8.2 It is irrelevant to ask whether we, or anyone else, are "saved," that is, whether we have crossed a line separating "not enough" from "enough." 8.21 We all need more, always. 8.22 We will be judged in light of our gifts. Some to whom little is given (the simple, the wretched, the failed) will have seats of honor, while some to whom much is given (popes and kings, theologians and scholars) will deny the giver and find the void. 8.3 An expansive ecumenical love of, and prayerful dialogue with, all mankind is in no way in contradiction to fierce adherence to a strict Romanist creed (cf. 6.1 above). 9. "So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself." (James 2.17) It is self-evident that this is no quietist doctrine. 9.1 Deeds as well as words are signs. 9.2 Deeds that are signs must say what our words say, else all is gibberish. 9.3 "Good deeds" that are not signs are no good at all.