Words, Words, Words

Dear Anne G G,

Take up as much of my cyberspace as possible! I will answer in this new post because the other post that I'm currently working on is taking too long to develop. It's kind of about being a Northerner living in the South. (Touchy stuff.) Here is my response to your response.

1) Your father quotes Meatloaf saying, "We can talk all night but it ain't gettin' us nowhere." I say that a diminished 5th chord may, in fact, communicate a precise "something" more universally than a word. But for ideas of a certain sort, we are left with only words to build concepts and, no matter how flawed, they are the tools of humanity. But, does that mean, that God can foist something upon these puny tools that we cannot? If He/She can, then I would say with Max of the Princess Bride, "It would take a miracle," at every single reading, which is possible given that we are talking about God. But, if that is so, why don't we all receive these words in identical ways. We surely do not.

The miracle may be that we seem to be able to sustain some remnant of the original concept, a common range of meaning. I refer to my survey on goodness. I find it revealing that people find common themes of understanding and that those understandings are persistent. Nonetheless, I would maintain that slippage occurs.

Oh dear, I'm out of writing time and I only covered one of your three questions. Well, to misquote the original ground round musical composition, "One out of three ain't bad."

I will return to the question of Christian Exclusivism in my next post, because it is indeed, and should be I think, a hot button or at least hot fodder for thinking.

I love talking and thinking with you, in spite of the inadequacy of language.

XOX
MOM