My friend Bill has an infuriating habit. I love Bill (not his real name). He is a recovering addict that I have just recently been getting to know. He is genuinely kind and often very funny, but he has a habit of saying a simple but annoying phrase: it doesn’t really matter. Regardless of the topic when it comes right down to it Bill’s standard answer is “it doesn’t really matter.” This statement of his is part of a larger belief that all meaning is really relative. Things mean only what you want them to mean. He speaks this way of words too, not just experiences. So if I say “God” then it doesn’t really matter if I mean the God of the Bible or some other god; I could just as easily have said Allah, or Zeus, or the force. We all believe in “god” he would say, even if the word means something different to each of us. But Bill has led me to think intently again about the subject of meaning. As we interact with the linguistic tensions in Scripture we need to start with a proper understanding of “meaning.” God, as the establisher of meaning, shapes how we view the discipline of linguistics.
God is the creator of language, as we saw last week. This reality has many profound implications for us, not the least of which is that God also establishes the reality of meaning. It was God who was the first to “name” something. So, we read, “God called the light day and the darkness he called light” (Gen. 1:5). God establishes the meaning for these words. Of course we understand that the Bible is a translation of Hebrew, but the English translation seeks to parallel the “meaning” found in the original autographs. So we may still rightly say that God established this meaning. This is important to consider because it grounds “meaning” in use.
The meaning of a word is found in its use. This is what linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had taught: the meaning of a particular piece of language is found by understanding the function of that piece of language. The difficulty, of course, comes in trying to determine what the normative “use” is. People use words often differently, so whose “usage” is the standard? For us as Christians it is God’s usage that is normative. So John Frame writes:
From a Christian perspective, norms are applications of God’s word. Unless God has spoken, there can be no norms. Thus we must say that the meaning of an expression is its God-ordained use. Of course God does not give us a dictionary that teaches us how to use words! Rather, the meaning of an expression is the meaning it has when used with understanding and responsibility. (The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 97)
This foundation allows us to explore two very important components of meaning, especially as it is established by God himself.
The aforementioned grounding gives us both a concreteness and flexibility in our understanding of “meaning.” Because of God’s character – his existence, his reliability, his self-revelation – we know that words can have real meaning. God is not a God of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33). When he communicates it is with intent to actually say something and for us to actually understand it. But this same reality also reminds us that language has a depth of richness that we dare not reduce. Use reminds us that even while language does not have “infinite meaning,” it does have variety of use and therefore has a depth of meaning. Language does exist and is used within contexts. So you can’t merely determine a flat meaning for the word “bore.” We understand that used in context it can “mean” many different things. You could mean to create a hole in something through drilling. Or you could mean that you are not entertained (which may describe your reaction to this article). If we were to say “board” that now complicates things because it’s pronunciation is similar by has totally different meanings. So we could speak of “room and board” or “boarding a boat” or of a piece of wood. We can speak of concrete meaning, but we can’t be reductionist in our approach to language, it is a complex phenomenon and requires us to consider issues like contrast, variation, and distribution.
Fundamentally the concreteness and flexibility that exists within language reflects the character of its creator. Language does not have infinite meaning; it does communicate real things because God is a real concrete being. He does exist and he does communicate objective truth. But God is a unity in diversity. The triune nature of God informs his character. There is concreteness and flexibility within the character of God. Likewise language reflects its creator. Vern Poythress keenly writes:
We see in God himself the logical origin for the words in language. Words do not come out of nowhere. Out of his bounty, his goodness, God has supplied human beings with all the words in each particular language. He has not given words in isolation, but words that are tied to and relate to one another in their meanings, their sounds, and their ability to form constructions that communicate rich truths. And it is not a gift that is unrelated to the Giver. The gift reflects the Giver in mysterious ways. Words, with their ability to describe, reflect God who describes himself, as is hinted at in his self-description, “I am who I am.” God describes himself to himself in communication and communion of the persons of the Trinity, in unity and diversity. And then that unity in diversity is reflected in the unity , diversity, and interconnectedness that exist in any one single word. (In the Beginning was the Word, 279)
Meaning is grounded in God. As such it has both concreteness to it and flexibility. We can’t reduce language to merely a set of principles, yet we can truly communicate and receive real truth via language. Next week we will see how this reality, applied to Scripture, helps inform our interpretive process.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 
Good thoughts here.