Faith Seeking Understanding

God Has Spoken:

Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
© Ken McDuff, 2008

"Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a book

all the words that I have spoken to you."—Jeremiah 30:2
"Let… wretched men cease to impute, with blasphemous perverseness,
the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear
Scriptures of God."—Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will

Since the Reformation, with the shift of
theological authority from the church to sola
scriptura (Scripture alone), Protestantism has
affirmed through its confessions that God has
spoken to man in a clear, understandable and
meaningful way through the Bible. The
Reformers’ doctrine of the perspicuity (or
clarity) of Scripture 1 rejected the dominant
Roman Catholic idea that Scripture was
obscure and difficult to understand, and that
Biblical interpretation was limited to the
Magisterium. Instead, interpretation was
opened to all who could read.
Today, the clarity of Scripture is
questioned not only by Roman Catholics, but
also by a recent wave of evangelicals
identified with the emergent (or emerging)
church movement. The emergent
“conversation” is driven by the premise that
propositional truth statements are an
outmoded feature of modernity that must be
abandoned. In their view, the Scriptures are
unclear because truth is forever “under
construction” and out of reach. Emergent
proponents reject foundationalist
epistemology outright2 and assign Biblical
interpretation to the realm of personal
opinion 3 and perpetual doubt.4
Stanley Grenz, Brian McLaren, and other
participants in the emergent church
movement reflect the larger trend labeled
postmodernism. While it's impossible to pin
down a precise definition, in the last half
century postmodernism has become a broad-
brush buzzword throughout western culture
that refers generally to resistance against a
worldview that offers a single, comprehensive
explanation of the way things are, preferring a
radical paradigm shift that embraces a
plurality of ideas in a never-ending dialogue.
With origins in the arts and architecture,
postmodern concepts have brought about a
reassessment of the foundations of western
culture as a whole, expanding into the realm
of politics, economics, philosophy, ethics, and
religion. 5 French poststructuralist Jacque
Derrida introduced a closely related concept,
deconstruction, in the 1960’s as a way of
appraising modern theories of language and,
ultimately, modern social constructs.6
Indeed, while the theme of ideas had
dominated philosophical thought from the
time of the Enlightenment, the twentieth
century saw a “linguistic turn” as
philosophical interest in issues related to
language and meaning came to the forefront,

Faith Seeking Understanding
with Derrida representing only one stream of
thought. Building on the work of Bertrand
Russell, Gottlob Frege, and Ludwig
Wittgenstein, contemporary philosophers of
varied stripes have sought to address deep
philosophical questions regarding the nature
of reality (metaphysics), the possibility of
knowledge (epistemology), and the criteria for
morality (ethics) from the perspective of
linguistic theory. These developments are of
concern to the Biblical interpreter as
increasing cultural pressures to reject timeless
universal truths are promoted by
postmodernism generally and by so-called
“post conservative evangelicals” (Grentz,
McLaren, et al.) specifically.
Language involves extremely powerful
and complex systems. The study of human
language considers the structure of properly
constructed expressions (syntax), the way
expressions contribute to meaning
(semantics), and how expressions are used to
communicate (pragmatics). Linguistic
philosophers have been concerned with the
latter two in offering theories as to how any
particular set of marks or noises has the
meaning it does. In what follows, I will first
consider theories of reference and meaning,
addressing the question, “What is it to mean?”
Next, the nature of speech acts will be
examined, asking an even more basic
question, “What is it to speak?” Finally, I will
consider how issues in philosophy of
language contribute to the idea that God has
spoken and how linguistic theory relates to
the hermeneutical task.
My purpose is not to elucidate a
comprehensive rationale for the belief that
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
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postmodern philosophical approaches to
Biblical interpretation do not—indeed, cannot
—succeed. Rather, I will offer a cursory
examination of the various theories of
language and meaning, indicating
philosophical arguments to which I would
appeal if a fuller treatment were being
pursued. The overarching question to be
addressed with such inquiries is, “Can
interpreters make truth claims about the
meaning of texts—particularly the Bible?”
Kevin Vanhoozer suggests that the underlying
attitude of postmodern linguistic philosophy
is “incredulity toward meaning”7—that is,
disbelief regarding truth. I agree with his
conclusion that there is meaning in the text, it
can be known, and it is worthwhile to do so.
What is it to Mean?
What is meaning? Where is meaning
located? How is reference fixed? How is it that
words “hook up” with reality? These, and
similar, questions have been of interest to
philosophers for centuries. In Cratylus, Plato
explored whether local conventions or some
metaphysical connection determined the
“correctness of names,” with Plato insisting
that names belong naturally to their specific
objects. Augustine's view in The Confessions
was essentially the same, but this view has
been dismissed, replaced over the last
hundred years or so by an array of competing
theories of meaning and reference.
Some have argued that meaning is
naming. Early attempts to address the
meaning of meaning came in theories of
reference, which relate an expression and the
Faith Seeking Understanding
specific object to which the expression refers:
the meaning of a definite description is simply its
reference. The dominant theory has been the
description theory of reference advanced by
Bertrand Russell in his 1905 essay, “On
Denoting.”8 Like Gottlob Frege9 before him,
Russell suggested that ordinary proper names
abbreviate definite descriptions; that is, for
every proper name P, there is some collection
of descriptions D associated with P that
constitute the meaning of P. Responding to
four linguistic problems,10 Russell claimed
that sentences containing definite descriptions
are properly analyzed as containing two
claims inherent in the definite description—a
claim of existence (“there is an F”) and a claim
of uniqueness (“at most one thing is F”)—and
a third claim of universality that is contained
in the predication (“something that is F is
G”). 11
The description theory came under fire in
the 1960's from P.F. Strawson, Keith
Donnellan, Saul Kripke, and Hilary Putnam.
By distinguishing between an expression, the
use of an expression, and the utterance of an
expression, Strawson argued that an
expression cannot be thought of as being true
or false, but only as being used to make a true
or false assertion. Likewise, an expression
cannot be said to refer to anything; people refer
by making use of expressions. 12 Donnellan
took a mediating position between Russell
and Strawson, suggesting that Russell’s
concept of definite descriptions works for
“attributive” uses but not for “referential”
uses.13 More recently, Kripke advanced a
causal-historical theory of reference to explain the
means by which reference is acquired.
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
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Rejecting the Frege-Russell perspective on
proper names, Kripke argued that the
reference of a proper name is fixed by means
of an initial act of naming at which the name
becomes a rigid designator of that object. The
name is passed on by means of a “causal
chain” that passes from the original observers
of the “initial baptism” to everyone else who
uses the name, even if the speaker is not fully
aware of the chain of transmission. 14 Putnam
further delineated the causal theory by
offering the idea of a linguistic “division of
labor” in which natural kind terms have their
references fixed by experts in the particular
field of science to which the terms belong. 15 As
a result of his well-known Twin Earth thought
experiment,16 Putnam concludes that
traditional theories of meaning fail to
acknowledge that a speaker may not be fully
aware of the “actual nature” of a term; both
society and real-world contexts contribute to
defining the extension of a given expression.
These recent theories of reference are
better developed than earlier theories and
provide a basis for believing that competent
language-speakers can successfully refer to
the world, but they must be understood to
adequately explain language in regards to
only certain kinds of words. No theory of
reference can stand as a comprehensive theory
of meaning.
Others insist that meaning involves
entities (images and ideas or, conversely,
propositions). Among the oldest modern
theories of meaning, John Locke proposed an
ideational theory of meaning, arguing that ideas
in the mind mediate between our words and
the world. Viewing ideas as mental images or
Faith Seeking Understanding

representations of external objects, Locke verified, and there are expressions that do not
contended that our words simply stood for conform to a truth/falsity test.
such ideas. Language could be considered as a
One proposal centers on speaker-meaning
kind of tool that we use to convey ideas to
as the key to unlock meaning. H.P. Grice's
each other. In this view, the meaning of words
account of sentence meaning asserts that a
resides in speakers’ heads and truth may be
sentence E of a natural language L means that
understood in terms of correspondence (i.e.,
P if and only if, when speakers of L utter E,
ideas are considered true if they accurately
they normally intend an audience A to form a
represent objects in the external world).
belief that P.17 Against descriptivism’s
Ideational theories suffer from the same kinds
assumption that meaning exists in a referent
of difficulties as referential theories: images
regardless of time, place, or speaker, Grice’s
are too specific and detailed to serve as the
theory takes context into account, showing
meaning of most expressions; ideas are
that sentence-meaning is, in fact, speaker-
subjective, while discourse is public; the
meaning. Objections to this theory concern the
notion of “idea” is difficult to precisely define,
audience: what if no audience is present?
and it is not clear how to extend the image
What if the speaker does not intend the
theory to the meaning of sentences.
audience to acquire a belief?
The propositional theory of meaning
perceives meaning not in terms of mental Many have come to view meaning in
images, but in terms of abstract entities that terms of use. A shift in literary theory from
exist outside of the mind and, indeed, outside viewing meaning as representation to looking
of a particular language. But like ideational at an expression's function in human social
theories, the relation between words and behavior as the key to discover meaning came
things comes to pass via an intermediary with the later work of Austrian philosopher
entity—in this case, propositions (rather than Ludwig Wittgenstein. He defended a
ideas). This theory is limited in that language representational theory of meaning in his
does not consist of propositions only. early work, but later altered his view,
recognizing that the meaning of a word or
Still others suggest that meaning is found
sentence is determined by its use within a
in the conditions that either verify an
given context. “For a large class of cases—
expression or prove it to be true. Verification
though not for all—in which we employ the
theories take meaning to be found in the
word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the
conditions under which an expression may be
meaning of a word is its use in the
verified, or certified as acceptable. Similarly,
language.”18 Throughout his Philosophical
truth-conditional theories take meaning to be
Investigations, Wittgenstein appropriates the
found in the conditions under which an
term “language games,” referring to language
expression may be said to be true. There are,
as a collection of activities that function like
however, valid expressions that cannot be
games. To determine meaning, Wittgenstein

God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation 4

Faith Seeking Understanding
advocated observing the behavior that
accompanied language games, then
developing a formalized set of rules behind
the games.
While meaning is not reducible to use, at
the center of use theories of meaning is the
observation that language does things, an idea
that will be explored more fully in the next
section.
Counterexamples and complexities
undermine every theory of reference and
meaning. Syntax and semantics often
underdetermine meaning, as with metaphors
and other figurative language. The context of
an utterance often generates implications that
are not the logical consequence of the
sentence. There is no nice, neat,
comprehensive theory of meaning. And yet
some of the more recent theories of reference
(Kripke, Putnam) and meaning (speaker-
meaning, use) do offer insights that may be
useful for Biblical interpretation. This is
particularly true as we turn our attention to
one area of use theory—speech act theory—
and the question of what it is to speak.
What is it to Speak?
Philosophers have recently become
persuaded that pragmatic concerns—how
ordinary, natural language is used to do
something—are crucial in addressing
questions of meaning. Philosophers have
considered how people do things with words
in light of the complexities of linguistic
meaning. J.L. Austin introduced what is often
called “speech act theory”19 in his 1955
William James lectures at Harvard and in his
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
5
subsequent book, appropriately entitled How
to Do Things with Words. 20 Speech act theory
emphasizes the performative nature of
language: that the utterance of a sentence does
not merely convey information; it performs an
action that has effects.
In the 1950's, Austin argued against what
had been the predominate linguistic view that
sentences simply state facts and can therefore
be evaluated as either true or false. He
introduced several types of sentences that
cannot be evaluated in respect to their truth or
falsity, focusing on one kind of sentence,
which he called “performative utterances.”21
But after offering four reasons why his
distinction needed to be reconsidered, he
embarked on a “fresh start,” further
developing the idea that “to say something
may be to do something.”22 Austin offered a
distinction between locutionary, illocutionary,
and perlocutionary acts. To perform a
locutionary act is to say something (with
successful sense and reference), while
illocutionary acts use locution with some force
—making an assertion, asking a question,
giving an order, making a promise.
Perlocution refers to the result of the
illocutionary act—eliciting the answer to a
question, for instance. 23
Austin's student, John Searle, further
developed Austin's account of illocutionary
acts (which he labeled “speech acts”). He
insisted that “the production of the token in the
performance of the speech act [rather than the
symbol, word or sentence]… constitutes the
basic unit of linguistic communication.” For a
token to be understood, the audience must
take it to be an act that intends to
Faith Seeking Understanding
communicate. The real work of Searle’s paper
was to identify the conditions and semantical
rules that are foundational to a specific
illocutionary act, the act of promising. He first
identified a set of conditions that are
“necessary and sufficient” for the successful
performance of an act of promising, then
concluded by extracting from the conditions a
set of rules for the use of the “function
indicating device.” Believing that this work
should carry over to other types of speech act,
he proposed further work be pursued. But in
spite of this suggestion, his theory has not
proven to be able to supply a comprehensive
philosophy of language.
Grice took another direction with an
approach emphasizing intention rather than
convention (as in Austin and Searle). 24 Grice
argues that the meaning of a word is a
derivative function of what speakers mean by
that word in individual instances of uttering
it. Conversation generally follows the
“cooperative principle” and its four maxims,
but a speaker may mean more than what he is
merely saying when he violates one of these
maxims. Conveying an unstated but intended
meaning is what Grice calls “conversational
implicature”—speakers succeed by
“implicating” more than what they say.
Searle affirms the close relationship in
Grice’s theory between meaning and the
speaker’s intention, but also notes his failure
“to account for the extent to which meaning is
a matter of rules or conventions” as well as the
failure to distinguish between perlocutionary
and illocutionary effects. Searle maintains that
meaning is a matter both of intention and
conventions, and that the speech act is
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
6
understood in relation to the combination of
these two elements. He distinguishes between
something having meaning and someone
meaning something by what one says.
In the midst of continuing refinement and
expansion of speech act theory, the
contributions of Austin and Searle remain
foundational and have proven useful as an
important conceptual framework and a tool
for interpretation. The relation of speech act
theory to Biblical interpretation has received
some attention, beginning with a study
produced by one of Austin's students, Don
Evans, 25 but not ending there. 26
Speech act theorists are right in proposing
that we do certain things as speakers, and the
concept of performative language addresses,
in part, the “hermeneutical problem”—that is,
the problem that arises when the interpreter
and the text are separated by time, language,
and culture. Speech act theory does not
account for all types of language. It must be
utilized critically, but it can be effective in
equipping the interpreter with specific tools
for analyzing illocutionary acts occurring in
the text, for understanding communicative
action, thereby refining the interpretive
process. Speech act theory “has suffered
underserved neglect in Biblical interpretation,
in systematic theology, and in discussions of
‘religious language’ in textbooks on the
philosophy of religion.” 27
The Question of Divine Discourse
When it comes to a particular text, the
Bible, there is much at stake in considering
how to rightly interpret its message.
Addressing the question of Biblical
Faith Seeking Understanding
interpretation (as opposed to the broader
category of textual interpretation) brings us
face to face with the issue of dual authorship.
Without the voice of God addressing us
through Scripture, the intent of the human
authors becomes empty rhetoric with no real
foundation. Hermeneutics requires that we
pay attention to the illocutionary and
perlocutionary intent of both the human
writers and the divine Author.
Nicholas Wolterstorff defends the idea
that God speaks.28 He argues that God spoke
in antiquity through the writings of the
Biblical authors, and that he speaks today by
now presenting the text to us. When he talks
about “divine discourse,” he makes clear that
he has in mind what Austin called
illocutionary actions. Wolterstorff argues that
Scripture is not just a disclosure of
information about God (revelation), but a
collection of diverse kinds of texts with an on-
going function as divine communicative
action. His argument includes these points:
1. that God has the rights and duties
required to be part of the discoursing
community,
2. that a divine speech act would require
God's intervention in human affairs, but
that there are no valid scientific objections
which prohibit this,
3. that interpretation of some act of
discourse requires more than determining
sentence meaning coupled with the
linguistic context; authorial intent also
necessary, and
4. that “there is no such thing as the sense of a
text.”29
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
7
When Wolterstorff uses terms like “double
agency discourse” and “deputized discourse,”
he clarifies that God’s speech act has been
delivered through the pens of the Biblical
writers. “[I]nterpretation has to be conducted
with two sets of convictions in hand: in one
hand, convictions as to the sentential
meanings of the text and the illocutionary
stance and content of the human authorial
discourse, and in the other hand, convictions
as to what God would and would not have
intended to say by appropriating these
particular locutions and discourse.”30
Similarly, Vanhoozer views the Bible not
simply as “metanarrative” (a grand story), but
as a “theo-drama” in which God’s speech and
actions enables hearers of the word to perform
corresponding words and actions.
“Evangelical theology deals not with
disparate bits of ideas and information but
with divine doings—with the all-embracing
cosmic drama that displays the entrances and
exoduses of God.”31 The Bible is God’s speech
act in regards to God’s redemptive act;
speaking is one of God's mighty acts (Heb.
1:1-2).
To say that God speaks, we must flatly
reject the view that the (Divine) author is
absent from the text. The location of the
Spirit's locutionary, illocutionary, and
perlocutionary speech acts are resident in
Scripture itself, and viewing Scripture as
Wolterstorff and Vanhoozer suggest open
doors to a deeper understanding of the
Biblical text.
Faith Seeking Understanding
Philosophy of Language and the
Hermeneutical Task
The philosophy of language is an
important component of Biblical
interpretation for this reason: the science of
interpretation raises questions about the
nature of knowledge, which give rise to
additional questions about the nature and use
of language. To speak responsibly about
understanding an ancient text cannot be
accomplished apart from a consideration of
literary theory. The following observations
will serve as my conclusions regarding the
role of philosophy of language in
hermeneutics (the first two of which have
been previously stated):
1. While there is no nice, neat,
comprehensive theory of meaning, some of
the more recent theories of reference
(Kripke, Putnam) and meaning (speaker-
meaning, use) do offer insights that may
be useful for Biblical interpretation.
2. Speech act theory must be utilized
critically, but it can be effective in
equipping the interpreter with specific
tools for analyzing illocutionary acts
occurring in the text, for understanding
communicative action, thereby refining
the interpretive process. Evans and Briggs
have suggested that speech act theory can
be helpful, particularly where the texts
include a self-involving nature of speech
(confession of faith, forgiveness of sins,
teaching, etc.). A speech act view of these
biblical concepts allows for a more precise
account of what these concepts mean.
3. The problems of textual interpretation are
not trivial, but neither are they
insurmountable; therefore, authorial
intent is within grasp. Poststructuralists
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
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and deconstructionists assert that our
access to ‘objective’ reality is limited by
our own linguistic and conceptual
constructions. Denying structuralist
premises of an underlying system and
logocentrist premises that it is possible to
speak truth, they must also deny the
author as a metaphysical reality.
Language, they conclude, is inadequate to
express the author’s original intention. As
Derrida has famously said, “There is
nothing outside the text.”32
Having surveyed the postmodern view of
the relationship between language and the
world, Scott Smith summarizes this
postmodern position:
We simply cannot get outside
language and know foundational
(read: universal, transcendent,
objective) truths, and thus we are
always working from within
language, even when we do theology,
despite the conservative Christian
theological claim that Scripture
provides that inerrant foundation for
the edifice of theological knowledge. 33
We must recognize that tools are available
—now more than ever—to discover and
comprehend authorial intent.
4. Use theories must be regarded with some
caution; contra Fish, interpretive
communities must not be allowed to
create their own truths. God does speak
today through His written Word, and the
hermeneutical task is to avoid simply
hearing back our own attitudes, beliefs,
and judgments. Rather, we must hear the
Bible speak in its own right and with its
due authority.
The “cultural-linguistic turn” in theology
appeared in George Lindbeck's The Nature
of Doctrine,34 a defense of theological non-
Faith Seeking Understanding

realism. Accepting Wittgenstein's proposal bringing about saving events,

that meaning is a function of use, transforming believers, and inaugurating
Lindbeck concluded that it is the tradition God's kingdom, it accomplishes its work
of language use that shapes the experience because it is also propositional: it contains
and reasoning of the individual. With statements of accessible, objective truth.
Lindbeck, many postconservative Epistemic access to reality is available. We
evangelicals make clear that they do not must heed the words of Doug Groothius:
go to the extreme of insisting on the
Christians, of all people, must swear
absolute subjectivity of personal feelings
allegiance to the notion that truth is
and attitudes (what Lindbeck refers to as
what corresponds to reality—and we
the “experiential-expressive” approach to
must do so unswervingly whatever
doctrine), nor the absolute objectivity of
the postmodern winds of doctrine
first-order truth-claims (the “cognitive-
may be blowing in our faces.
propositionalist approach”). They offer an
Whenever postconservative
alternative: the authority of tradition
evangelicals depart from the
within the interpretive community of
correspondence view of truth—which
faith.35 Stanley Fish has commented: “The
is both biblical and logical—and thus
function of church doctrines that becomes
sink into the postmodernist swamps
most prominent in this perspective is their
of subjectivism, pragmatism, or
use, not as expressive symbols or as truth
constructivism, they should be
claims, but as communally authoritative
lovingly but firmly resisted.”39
rules of discourse, attitude, and action.”36
6. The philosophy of language highlights the
Reader-response hermeneutics, which first
richness of human interactions and
emerged in the context of literary theory
communication. The nature of language is
and has entered the realm of New
that it is multi-layered, multi-functional,
Testament studies,37 is a radical approach
and difficult to analyze or assign to
to interpretation, with an emphasis in
simplistic categories. Linguistic theories
moving hermeneutical emphasis away
help us to understand the complexity of
from the author of texts to the readers. No
language and communication, and
meaning exists in the text; “the reader
prompt us to renewed vigor in
response is not to the meaning; it is the
hermeneutics so that we can see the
meaning.”38 This trend within the
richness of God’s communicative action
emergent church must be avoided and, if
more clearly.
possible, reversed.
5. Scripture serves a first-order, Returning to the idea of the clarity of
authoritative language; contra Derrida, Scripture, perhaps the notion needs to be
texts do have a fixed, objective meaning. qualified. The Westminister Confession
Poststructuralists and deconstructionists acknowledges that “all things in Scripture are
insist that everything is part of a
not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear
signifying system—signs refer only to
other signs, there is no determinant reality unto all.” As it turns out, natural man does not
outside of signs, there is no objective easily apprehend some facets of the Bible’s
truth. While the gospel is performative, message. Luther, in fact, referred to the

God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation 9

Faith Seeking Understanding
Scriptures as adversarius noster, “our
adversary.” But linguistic theory may indeed
provide assistance in the hermeneutic task,
along with other helpful interpretive tools.
These, in combination with the illumination of
the Spirit and a commitment to the divine
authority of the text, allow us not only to
recognize that God has spoken, but to find
meaning in what He says.
_____________________
1 The doctrine of the perspicuity (or clarity) of
Scripture is that the central message of the Bible is
clear, and that the meaning of the text can be
understandable to the ordinary reader: “All things
in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor
alike clear unto all; yet those things which are
necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for
salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in
some place of Scripture or other, that not only the
learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the
ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient
understanding of them.” (Westminster Confession of
Faith, I. vii.)
2Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond
Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern
Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001),
pp. 23-24.
3 “…if, for you, orthodoxy isn’t a list of correct
doctrines, but rather the doxa in orthodoxy means
‘thinking’ or ‘opinion,’ then the lifelong pursuit of
expanding thinking and deepening, broadening
opinions about God sounds like a delight, a joy.”
Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 2004), p. 261.
4“Certainty can be dangerous. What we need is a
proper confidence that's always seeking the truth
and that’s seeking to live in the way God wants us
to live, but that also has the proper degree of self-
critical and selfquestioning passion.” “Interview:
Brian McLaren,” in Religion & Ethics Newsweekly,
July 15, 2005, www.pbs.org/wnet/
religionandethics/week846/interview.html
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
10
5Charles Jencks, “The Post-modern Agenda” in The
Post-Modern Reader (New York: St Martin's Press,
1992), pp. 10-39.
6Jacque Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The
John Hopkins University Press, 1974).
7Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?
(Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1998), p . 16.
8Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting” in Mind, 14,
479-493. Repr. in Essays in Analysis (London: Allen
and Unwin, 1973), pp. 103-119.
9 Frege differed from Russell in noting that we
sometimes use two words with differing meanings
to refer to the same object, such as Hesperus
(“evening star”) and Phosphorus (“morning star”)
used in reference to Venus. His solution was to
distinguish sense from reference in determining the
significance of an expression. Gottlob Frege, “Uber
Sinn und Bedeutung (On Sense and Reference)”
reprinted in A.W. Moore (ed.), Meaning and
Reference (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
10The problem of reference to non-existents (if
meaning = reference, then a definite description can
only have meaning if it has a reference); the
problem of negative existentials (if meaning =
reference, then a negative existential is self-
contradictory); Frege's puzzle about identity
statements (if Hesperus = Phosphorus is equivalent
to Venus = Venus, then the expression is trivial),
and the problem of substitutivity (substitution of
one definite description for another coreferential
definite description should, but does always,
preserve truth).
11 So the logical form of “The present king of France
is bald” can be understood to be “there is an x such
that x is the present king of France, nothing other
than x is the present king of France, and x is bald."
12P.F. Strawson, “On Referring” in Mind, New
Series, Vol. 59, No. 235 (July, 1950), pp. 320-344.
13In attributive use, the definite description picks
out an object because of the content of the
description; referential use picks out an object
because the definite description is used as a
reference. Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite
Descriptions,” in Philosophical Review 75 (1966), pp.
281-304.
Faith Seeking Understanding
Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge,
14
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).
15Hilary Putnam, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” in
Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2: Mind, Language and
Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975/1985);
"Meaning and Reference," Journal o/Philosophy 70,
pp. 699-71l.
1616 Putnam's arguments are introduced by a
thought experiment, which posits another planet,
Twin Earth, on which everything is identical to
Earth except that it's lakes, rivers, and oceans
contain a liquid indistinguishable from water (H20)
but with a different chemical formula (abbreviated
XYZ). Although the supposition of a casual
observer may be that the meaning of “water” is the
same on Earth and Twin Earth, compositional
analysis shows that the word has two meanings. By
suggesting that two identical counterparts on Earth
and Twin Earth would understand “water”
differently even at a time when scientific analysis
was not possible (because the extensions in the two
worlds are necessarily different even if not
understood by the observer to be so), Putnam
argues that the extension of the term “water” is not
simply a function of the psychological state (beliefs,
memory, etc.) of the speaker.
17H.P. Grice, “Meaning,” in The Philosophical Review
66: 377-88,1957.
18
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
(Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23127-7).
19Speech act theory is appropriate for any type of
communication, written or verbal.
20
J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd
edition, edited by J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975).
21Austin contrasts performative utterances, which
perform a certain kind of action, and constantive
utterances, which simply describe, record, or impart
information.
22 Austin, p. 12
God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation
11
23 William Alston suggests similar categories.
Alston speaks of a sentential act (“uttering a
sentence”), an illocutionary act (“uttering a
sentence with a certain content”), and
perlocutionary act (“producing an effect on some
audience by an utterance”). William P. Alston,
Ilocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 2.
24H.P. Grice, “Logic and conversation,” in Cole, P.
and Morgan, J. (eds.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 3
(New York: Academic Press, 1975).
25Donald D. Evans, The Logic of Self-Involvement: A
Philosophical Study of Everyday Language with Special
Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as
Creator (London: SCM Press, 1963).
26Richard Briggs, Words in Action: Speech Act Theory
and Biblical Interpretation (New York: T. & T. Clark,
2001); Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There Meaning in This
Text? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998;
Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons (Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Co.,
1980; Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992.
27Anthony C. Thiselton, “Speech Act Theory and
the Claim that God Speaks: Nicholas Wolterstorff's
Divine Discourse,” Scottish Journal of Theology 50,
199), p. 97.
28Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse:
Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
29 Wolterstorff, p. 171, italics his.
30 Wolterstorff, p. 218
31Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A
Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), p .
39.
32Derrida, On Grammatology, translated by Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak (The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1974).
Faith Seeking Understanding

33R. Scott Smith, “Language, Theological

Knowledge, and the Postmodern Paradism,” in
Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical
Accomodation in Postmodern Times, eds. Millard J.
Erickson, Paul Kjoss Helseth and Justin Long
(Wheaton, Crossway Books, 2004), pp. 119-120.

34George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine:

Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984).

35“[T]he literal meaning of the text is precisely that

meaning which finds the greatest degree of
agreement in the use of the text in the religious
community. If there is agreement in that use, then
take that to be the literal sense.” Hans Frei, Types of
Christian Theology (New Haven: Tale University
Press, 1992), p. 15. This line of thinking coincides
with Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?: The
Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1980).

36 Lindbeck, p. 18.

37For instance, James L. Resseguie presented a

survey of reader-response approaches to material
found the Synoptic Gospels (“Reader Response
Criticism and the Synoptic Gospels,” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion 52 [1984], pp. 307-324).

38 Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?, p. 3.

39 Douglas Groothius, Reclaiming the Center, p. 79

God Has Spoken: Philosophical Grounding for Biblical Interpretation 12