The following is a quote from Leon Kass. It shows in short order how the language employed by mankind concerning parents and child has changed over the centuries. As the language has changed so has the worldview. It is instructive for us in our current discussion in that it helpfully lead us to take stock of what language we employ and see if that is the language that God's Word employs.
Consider the views of life and the world reflected in the following different expressions to describe the process of generating new life. Ancient Israel, impressed with the phenomenon of stransmission of life from father to son, used a word we translate as "begetting" or "siring." The Greeks, impressed with the springing forth of new life in the cyclical processes of generation and decay, called it genesis, from a root meaning "to come into being." ... The premodern Christian English-speaking world, impressed with the world as given by a Creator, used the term "pro-creation." We, impressed with the machine and the gross national product (our own work of creation), employ a metaphor of the factory, "re-production."
Leon R. Kass, M.D., Toward a More Natural Science (New York: The Free Press, 1985), p. 48.
Posts
7 comments:
That is an extremely important point, Pr. Rufner. Today at Confessions study we were talking about this very thing. Our postmodern language has changed our worldview. It is terribly difficult for us to escape the semantics of postmodernism, but do so we must if we are to discern the meaning of God's Word.
Language is so cultural, or so I learned in my senior level linguistics course in college 23 years ago. Language is spoken and heard according to the worldview of each perspective. Words carry a lot of baggage.
Thank you for emphasizing this point.
Caspar
That was a wonderful quote. I'll be chewing on that for days.
I'm fact I think that I'm going to steal it and post it at Love and Blunder.
I haven't heard "getting fixed" used except for pets.
Eric, do you live in a cave?
Nope, I live on Capitol Hill. It's hard to get less cavey, I think.
I understand the problem now. People there are too highbrow to use a term like "getting fixed."
They'd probably call it "engaging in a permanent reproductive filibuster."
Capitol Hill may not be cavey, but you can't get more isolated.
Caspar
Heheh.
Post a Comment