Theologians like D. M. MacKinnon identify two perils accompanying any language about God: anthropomorphism and agnosticism (Borderlands of Theology, p. 210). Either we violate the freedom of God with our human concepts, the only concepts we have, in order to think about God. Or, we get so hung up on the fact that all our language falls short of capturing the mystery that is God and end up not saying anything at all.
C.S. Lewis has a wonderful poem called “Footnote to All Prayers” that approaches this two-fold dilemna. Lewis’ poem captures the way a thorough-going via negativa reduces the blasphemy of our confidence language to its dissolution which, in turn, renders us humbly before our God whom we hope will gracefully transfigure out stammering words into a fragrant linguistic offering. Lewis shows how our very prayers are proclamations of hope—utterances that wait for overflow of the Logos into our words.
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
(for more thoughts, see this post)
2 responses so far ↓
1 isaac // Jul 6, 2005 at 10:00 pm
I stumbled upon this quote from great poet and musician Leonard Cohen in Ben Patterson’s NIV Prayer Bible (Zondervan). It sounds like it fits well with Lewis’ poem. Cohen: “Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.”
2 sam // Feb 20, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Yeah, i have experienced the same i have foolishly uttered certain words. Telling God to be foolish, for he has choosen me to be his child, a foolish of all, and he had some best ones in the world. when he chose this foolish for himself…
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