Meaning and Metaphor in Theology

Abstract

The title of this paper would appear to suggest that it belongs to a fairly familiar area of discussion in the philosophy of religion – the discussion of ‘religious language’ – to which the late Bishop of Durham, Dr Ramsey, made many notable contributions. The appearance is somewhat misleading. Of come the present paper must clearly be concerned with religious language; but the centre of its concern is not religious language in general but in particular the language which it is the business of the Christian theologian to interpret, in the first place Biblical language, and in the second place the language of interpretation itself, theological language. Even this formulation – religious language in general, bibliqal and theological language in particular – might be misleading if it were taken to imply simple inclusion. It may turn out that the apparently broader, more fundamental discussion of religious language relies in fact on assumptions which are open to criticism deriving from the apparently narrower and secondary discussion of biblical and theological language.