me·ton·y·my
n. pl. me·ton·y·mies
- A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.
In reading some of the Reformation historians, I get the sense that they are engulfed in a necessity to define everything. Everything must be explained, even if (especially if?) it is not directly addressed in Scripture. (Remind you of anyone? HINT: modern-day...starts with an 'e'...ends with a 'vangelicals'.)
I dare not suggest that I am directly representative of my culture, but I certainly have an easier time with mystery than some of the Reformers (and their contemporaries) did. In some cases, I find myself a bit puzzled by this need to systematically explain that which neither has nor demands a direct explanation.
This is not to sound unscholarly or anti-intellectual. Hopefully, it only expresses the acceptance of the limits of scholarship and intellect (ooo...how very postmodern of me!). Especially in grappling with theological matters, we may well need to employ the concepts of inference, non-propositional truth, poetic illustration, and yes, metonymy (dang, it's a hard word to type!). E.g., while I don't know if the disciples understood Jesus' words of institution at the first Eucharist, there may be a way that they understood it...and something tells me it had inherently more meaning than the words, themselves.
Then again, what are words? ...but that's for another post!
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4 comments:
It is interesting that modern Christians have an addiction to clarifying and defining. Most linguists (generaly a post-modern science) say words only have value precisely because they carry an indefinate range of meaning. I once had a proffessor who sugested that "modernity" began with the first encyopedia (published 1790's) because it sought to collect, classify and bind all knowlege. I had a different professor suggest that the reformation was "the beggining triumph of modernism". Does this mean that protestant theology should go the way of Newtonian physics and Lewis Dot structures?
Sorry, two posts is over doing it here, I really meant to avoid going into my science babel. I only got drawn in to it in an attempt to compesate for feelings of inadiquacy in the face of a word like "metonymy". I had to sound somewhat intelegent in the face of Metonymy!
Here was my original thought:
If everything in the Bible needs an explanation, maybe we are approching the Bible wrong. Maybe the Bible isn't our answer/explanation book. Maybe it is more the "better questions for humanity book". Rather than anwering things wich seem most important to us, maybe the Bible poses questions for us to live by. I like this partialy becuase answers are an ending point of a quest, almost a death of sorts. Questions however, can become a launching point of an endless journey. In this case, a journey that we may find does not end until God brings it to a close.
You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets - East Coker
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