I picked up on it again in the last session.
Barth speaks of the difference between scientia (knowledge of) and sapientia (knowing something intimately). Right before reading this piece, I had thought about Spanish and the difference between "saber" and "conocer." The former means "to know information", the latter means to be familiar with. They both translate into "to know" in the English language. Unfortunately, this may actually be a point that foreign languages are allowed to put on the scoreboard over English.
This, I believe, is the difference in Dr. Talmage's illustration. One person, the scientist/philosopher that looks strictly at the empirical evidence, uses personal knowledge to attempt understanding. Another person, the person of faith, sees the empirical evidence and is touched by God's knowledge.
Language is key in understanding Barth, science, philosophy, and even God, yet it does fall short quite often.
Ad augusta per angusta,
Will Drake
P.S. I commented on Samantha's "Titles Vex Me."
Funny that you should mention this, I was also thinking about how foreign languages have some advantages over English. This particular instance almost cost me several grades in Spanish, but more importantly forced me to think about how with one simple word Spanish can convey an idea which would take Englism many. Why is that we can over-complicate things by over-explaining? Language is an amazing tool that is amazingly hard to control effectively.
ReplyDeleteIt's true--spanish verbs are so much more intricate in meaning, I always think about that. There seems to be a theme lately on the failure of language. I think the Lord, the Word made flesh, the one who created language, is above language and can communicate profoundly without it.
ReplyDeleteIn class we talked about "I'm just a beggar telling another beggar where to find bread" and i thought it was funny how the only way for us to share where we got that "bread" is with our imperfect language skills. I thought about it as something we talked about in CIS class called user error. God's given us a gift and we have to share it with the world, but often the way we try to transmit it to the rest of the world misses the target. it's because we're imperfect humans. The only one who possesses the ability to reach all of us on exactly our level is the program writer himself, God.
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