Grammatical thomism and how (not) to speak about God

ABSTRACT

I argue that grammatical thomism helps to clarify certain problems in philosophical theology by focusing attention on the parameters of coherent God-talk. By drawing on figures like David Burrell, Brian Davies, Kathryn Tanner, and Denys Turner, I show that the first rule of theological grammar is to avoid talking about God as if God were some sort of thing existing alongside the world. In fact, Aquinas concedes that we cannot really know what God is at all. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s later emphasis on meaning as use helps us to see why we can still talk intelligibly about God by focusing on the use of the word more than its referent. I connect this with the work of Stephen Mulhall and Cora Diamond on the nature of riddles, and suggest that this genre is one way of illuminating the peculiar grammar of certain Christian doctrines: in particular, the doctrine of the incarnation and of creation out of nothing. Finally, I look outside Christian contexts to the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedānta, and argue that the language and imageries of non-dualism can provoke us into reconsidering the essence of Christian grammar and alert us to some of the therapeutic possibilities of grammatical thomism.

KEYWORDS:

• Aquinas
• Wittgenstein
• grammar
• riddles
• language
• Advaita Vedānta

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I am grateful to the London Jesuit Centre for giving me the opportunity to deliver a draft version of this paper in a seminar. I am especially thankful to those who attended and for the rich discussion which ensued.

2. McCabe, ‘A Sermon for St Thomas’ in God Matters, 235.

3. Summa Theologiae (ST) I.3.4. Praeterea, de Deo scire possumus an sit, ut supra dictum est. Non autem possumus scire quid sit. See also Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei (De Pot.) VII.2 where Aquinas quotes John Damascene: ‘That God is, is evident to us; but what he is in substance and nature is utterly incomprehensible and unknown.’

4. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §373: ‘Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar)’.

5. In addition to the particular figures I discuss in this article, see also J. Stout and R. MacSwain, Grammar and Grace.

6. Wittgenstein attributed his parenthetical description of theology ‘as grammar’ to Luther. See PI, p.256, endnote to §373.

7. McCabe was actually somewhat ambivalent about being called a thomist lest he be associated with neo-thomism, but I think that the usage is appropriate, as long as we are mindful of this distinction. For a concise overview of McCabe’s approach, see his chapter on ‘Creation’ in God Matters, 2–9. For Kerr, see especially Theology After Wittgenstein.

8. This section draws on some ideas which I develop in more detail in my article ‘From David Burrell to Sara Grant’ in Scottish Journal of Theology 74.

9. ST I.3.

10. Brian Davies, ‘Classical Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity’ in Brian Davies O.P. (ed.) Language, Meaning and God, 51–74 (here, 59).

11. David B. Burrell, ‘Distinguishing God from the World’ in Davies, Language, Meaning and God, 75–91.

12. Tanner, God and Creation. The two contemporary theologians to whom Burrell adverts most frequently in his work on the distinction between the world and God are Tanner and Robert Sokolowski.

13. Ibid., 46.

14. Ibid., 45.

15. See Burrell, ‘Maimonides, Aquinas and Ghazali’, 281–4.

16. Turner, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God, 149 (original emphasis).

17. Ibid., 161–2.

18. ST I.6.2. See also ST I.3 on the simplicity of God, esp. art. 5. ‘Whether God is composed of genus and difference?’.

19. ST I.6.2.

20. There is not even a common category of ‘being’ to which both God and creatures belong. For Aquinas, God is Being (esse) itself (or even, as he suggests in other places, such as his commentary on the Neoplatonic Liber de Causis, ‘beyond Being’ as the Cause of Being), whereas a particular being (ens) has being (from God).

21. The Mystical Theology 1048B.

22. Ibid.

23. Turner, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God, 157.

24. Divine Names 817D.

25. See, for example, Burrell, ‘The Christian Distinction Celebrated and Expanded,’ in Drummond and Hart, The Truthful and the Good, 191–206.

26. Burrell, ‘Act of Creation with its Theological Consequences,’ in Weinandy et al, Aquinas on Doctrine, 27–44 (here, 27).

27. Burrell, Knowing the Unknowable God, 2.

28. Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 34.

29. Burrell, Faith and Freedom, 243.

30. Cf. Burrell, Faith and Freedom: ‘When one of those “things” is the creator of all the others … then everything else is what it is in relation to that One. (As Aquinas puts it so succinctly and subtly: creation consists in a relation of the creature to the creator – that is, the very being of the creature is to-be-related.)’, 237 (original emphasis), quoting Aquinas, ST I.45.3.

31. This is why Martin Poulsom insists on precision and consistency in the directionality of our statements and prepositions when trying to speak of creature and Creator, for while there is indeed a distinction and a relation between the world and God, it is more difficult to speak of a distinction or a relation between God and the world. See Poulsom, The Dialectics of Creation, 56–60.

32. ST I.2.3 resp.

33. I am grateful to my current B block pupils at Eton for stimulating discussions about this topic.

34. ST I.2 ad2.

35. As McCabe puts it: ‘It is our knowledge of these effects and not any knowledge of God’s nature that gives us our rules for the use of the word “God”.’ McCabe, ‘The Logic of Mysticism’ in God Still Matters, 16.

36. Davies, Language, Meaning, and God, 69.

37. Cf. M. Dummett, ‘What is a theory of meaning?’ in Guttenplan, Mind and Language, 97–138 and P.M.S. Hacker, ‘Meaning and Use’ in Whiting, The Later Wittgenstein, 26–44.

38. Hewitt, ‘Grammatical Thomism’, 34–5.

39. This seems to be the essence of Murphy’s critique of grammatical thomism in God is Not a Story.

40. PI §371 and 373.

41. Mulhall, The Great Riddle, 46.

42. De Pot. VII.2.

43. Mulhall, The Great Riddle, 47. Mulhall takes McCabe and Turner as his test cases here. Cf. also Wittgenstein in Philosophical Grammar §377: ‘Where you can ask, you can look for an answer, and where you cannot look for an answer, you cannot ask either. Nor can you find an answer.’

44. Cf. Phillips, Faith after Foundationalism, 278–9.

45. Cf. Nielson, ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’.

46. Wittgenstein, Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, 84.

47. Diamond and White, ‘Riddles and Anselm’s Riddle’.

48. Cf. ST 1a.1.3. ad 1; Rev. 22:13.

49. Mulhall, The Great Riddle, 53.

50. Turner (2004), 217.

51. For more on the issues at stake at the Council of Chalcedon, see Daley, ‘Unpacking the Chalcedonian Formula’.

52. Cf. May, Creation Ex Nihilo.

53. Cf. Hyman, ‘Augustine on the ‘nihil’, 41: ‘ … the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo depends on the “nihil” being conceived literally as nothing, as no form of substance or quasi-substance, and as having no ontological referent whatsoever.’

54. I touch on some ideas here which I develop in more detail in ‘Creation in Aquinas: ex nihilo or ex deo?’ in New Blackfriars.

55. Vivekacūḍāmaṇi 237.

56. Ibid., 253.

57. Śaṁkara, Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (BSBh) II.i.13.

58. Cf. Grimes, Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, 31: ‘In Advaita Vedanta, it is crucial that one comprehend the distinction made between the absolute (paramarthika) and the relative (vyavaharika) points of view. This distinction pervades the entire system and what is true from one point of view is not so from another.’ See also, Grimes, An Advaita Vedanta Perspective.

59. Burrell and Malits, Original Peace, 74, and Burrell in Drummond and Hart, The Truthful and the Good, 206.

60. Grant, Towards an Alternative Theology.

61. Cf. BSBh. II.ii.38.

62. I am grateful for feedback and conversations with Ankur Barua, Michael Barnes SJ, Eddie Howells, Stuart Jesson, and John Moffat SJ. Their questions and ideas helped me in writing this conclusion.

63. Hewitt, ‘Grammatical Thomism’, 40.

64. McCabe, God Matters, 6.

65. Cf. Hewitt, ‘Grammatical Thomism’, 43.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this paper for making me think more carefully about the notion of ‘rules’, and take the point about the flexibility of riddling language from their comments.

69. Burrell touches on these ideas in his Chapter ‘Religious Life and Understanding’ in Stout and MacSwain, Grammar and Grace, with particular attention to the work of Catherine Pickstock on liturgy (see her After Writing).

70. I was in contact with David Burrell while writing this article, and was saddened to learn of his sudden passing on 1 October 2023, before I was able to finish it. I have been stimulated and inspired by his work ever since first reading Knowing the Unknowable God as an undergraduate, and his voice can be heard in the background of much of what I write. Over the last few years, I have come to appreciate that his generosity and kindness were as unbounded as his erudition. Though we never met, I am grateful for his regular emails which always offered encouragement and food for thought, and dedicate whatever small merit there may be in this article to his memory.

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Daniel Soars

Daniel Soars teaches in the Divinity department at Eton College. He is a guest lecturer in Hindu-Christian spirituality at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, and book reviews editor of the Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies. He co-edited Hindu-Christian Dual Belonging (Routledge, 2022) and wrote The World and God Are Not-Two: A Hindu-Christian Conversation (Fordham, 2023).