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The Ark of Speech
"The Ark of Speech" investigates the interplay of speech and silence in the dialogue between God and human beings, one human being and another, and human beings and the world.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1998
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July 25, 2012
Jean-Louis Chrétien does not have a wikipedia page in English, so the French will have to do. I heard of him in passing a while ago, but I recently decided to check him out because he was recommended by a teacher of mine who had some influence on how I think, so I thought I would give it a go.
English has this unfortunate habit of denying words multiple meanings. Some words enter our language and keep that intitial meaning of entry and so lose the richness of meaning which it held in previous languages. One of those words is 'ark' which in English merely means the boat Noah built or what held the Mosaic Law. The form it is in now also comes from the Greek arche which means leader or first or many things similar to that. Chrétien's The Ark of Speech keeps those meanings and adds some, both to ark and speech. It is a wonderfully rich and evocative work of philosophical theology which expands (at least my) thinking on language and gift. What is interesting about such a topic is that the analytic/continental divide is basically a divide over what should be primarily discussed, language or gift? Chrétien leaps through that divide and provides a work of astounding clarity and incite. Here are some choice quotations:
The only know-how or knowledge of which it can be a question in this domain is that there should be a question, that I should allow myself to be dispossessed of what I thought I knew by the words of the other, which are thus the occasion of a reciprocal openness. In other terms, what is at stake is what the Socratic tradition calls learned ignorance—the act of knowing what I do not know. Knowing that you do not know means knowing how to learn, knowing each time how to learn. And knowing each time how to learn means encountering the other and allowing the other to encounter you and speak to you. Each time—these words are important. (12)
The radical difference between the act of speech and the deciphering of a message or the reception of a piece of information is thereby made manifest. Listening is not the same as decoding, for words do not constitute a code. A machine can decode by bringing its programmes into play. But it will never be able to listen. Listening is a truly palpitating activity, it can happen only with this heart that beats, this air breathed in and breathed out, this patient activity of the entire body. It is with all one's body that one listens, as the act of speech is never separable from an act of the body. The always unfinished truth of listening is a heartfelt truth. (15)
To be sure, superficially, it might be felt to be over-bold to turn oneself into the author, so to speak, of words that one considers to be divinely inspired. But it is not pride, for belief in inspiration involves precisely this dimension of a perpetual newness and contemporaneity. To pray the psalms is not to add one theoretical interpretation to another, it is to allow oneself to be interpreted by them, to offer one's own life, to which they give a much deeper expression in the words of God, as a space in which they can echo and their promise be heard. (36)
All these possibilities were to be sharpened to the point of vertigo—vertigo in the face of the impossible that requires these very possibilities—by the man who was doubtless the greatest 'deconstructor' in the history of philosophy, St John of Damascus. That whole strenuous effort of speech, that whole struggle for knowledge that constituted Greek thought, finds its consummation—and this is something worth dwelling on—in the adoration of silence and unknowing. (68)
That Christ's beauty is a message, that it summons us and passes on, lighting up every face with a new light at once furtive and definitive, that it gives to the body and its dignity a status unheard of amongst the Gentiles—this what iconoclasm forgets. (108)
Naturally, the speech of praise can be such only when it is a speech of truth. But here we need to turn the Platonic idea round: when it comes to the works of God, the speech of truth can only be such when it is a speech of gratitude. The gaze must be clear-eyed, and the eucharist does not constitute an intermission of enthusiasm slipping in between our other tasks, but this clarity is joy and praise, for otherwise a shadow would dwell within its heart. (122-3)
English has this unfortunate habit of denying words multiple meanings. Some words enter our language and keep that intitial meaning of entry and so lose the richness of meaning which it held in previous languages. One of those words is 'ark' which in English merely means the boat Noah built or what held the Mosaic Law. The form it is in now also comes from the Greek arche which means leader or first or many things similar to that. Chrétien's The Ark of Speech keeps those meanings and adds some, both to ark and speech. It is a wonderfully rich and evocative work of philosophical theology which expands (at least my) thinking on language and gift. What is interesting about such a topic is that the analytic/continental divide is basically a divide over what should be primarily discussed, language or gift? Chrétien leaps through that divide and provides a work of astounding clarity and incite. Here are some choice quotations:
The only know-how or knowledge of which it can be a question in this domain is that there should be a question, that I should allow myself to be dispossessed of what I thought I knew by the words of the other, which are thus the occasion of a reciprocal openness. In other terms, what is at stake is what the Socratic tradition calls learned ignorance—the act of knowing what I do not know. Knowing that you do not know means knowing how to learn, knowing each time how to learn. And knowing each time how to learn means encountering the other and allowing the other to encounter you and speak to you. Each time—these words are important. (12)
The radical difference between the act of speech and the deciphering of a message or the reception of a piece of information is thereby made manifest. Listening is not the same as decoding, for words do not constitute a code. A machine can decode by bringing its programmes into play. But it will never be able to listen. Listening is a truly palpitating activity, it can happen only with this heart that beats, this air breathed in and breathed out, this patient activity of the entire body. It is with all one's body that one listens, as the act of speech is never separable from an act of the body. The always unfinished truth of listening is a heartfelt truth. (15)
To be sure, superficially, it might be felt to be over-bold to turn oneself into the author, so to speak, of words that one considers to be divinely inspired. But it is not pride, for belief in inspiration involves precisely this dimension of a perpetual newness and contemporaneity. To pray the psalms is not to add one theoretical interpretation to another, it is to allow oneself to be interpreted by them, to offer one's own life, to which they give a much deeper expression in the words of God, as a space in which they can echo and their promise be heard. (36)
All these possibilities were to be sharpened to the point of vertigo—vertigo in the face of the impossible that requires these very possibilities—by the man who was doubtless the greatest 'deconstructor' in the history of philosophy, St John of Damascus. That whole strenuous effort of speech, that whole struggle for knowledge that constituted Greek thought, finds its consummation—and this is something worth dwelling on—in the adoration of silence and unknowing. (68)
That Christ's beauty is a message, that it summons us and passes on, lighting up every face with a new light at once furtive and definitive, that it gives to the body and its dignity a status unheard of amongst the Gentiles—this what iconoclasm forgets. (108)
Naturally, the speech of praise can be such only when it is a speech of truth. But here we need to turn the Platonic idea round: when it comes to the works of God, the speech of truth can only be such when it is a speech of gratitude. The gaze must be clear-eyed, and the eucharist does not constitute an intermission of enthusiasm slipping in between our other tasks, but this clarity is joy and praise, for otherwise a shadow would dwell within its heart. (122-3)
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