In Praise of Concepts: Part I

Interrogating the Alleged "Irreducibility" of Metaphor

If there is a consensus which holds with virtual unanimity in contemporary philosophical theology, it is that concepts - and the conceptual order - must be held at arm’s length.

In phenomenological circles, among those influenced by Jean-Luc Marion, concepts are viewed as intrinsically objectifying, and God is not an object. Thus experience of God must be located in a saturation of intuition beyond the conceptual order.

Among the radically orthodox, our access to God lies in a certain “occult sympathy,” a combination of supra-conceptual intuition and sub-conceptual metaphor, image, and poesis.

This is to say nothing about more overtly postmodern theologies (Caputo etc.), which are if anything even more hostile to the conceptual.

To make matters worse, the loudest (and at times, seemingly the only) defenders of the conceptual belong to the analytic world. And if anything, the shape reason takes there seems to confirm all these fears…

This consensus, such as it is, finds expression in a few common catchphrases.

• God cannot be reduced to a concept.

• God cannot be conceptually contained or defined.

• In theology, metaphor, analogy, and the image are irreducible.

I will attempt to draw out and challenge some of the assumptions built into these statements. Eventually, in a future post, I hope to defend the necessity of conceptuality, without which theological judgments - and knowledge of God - are simply impossible. But this will first require a revision of what we take “concepts” to designate. 

Let us take the first statement: God cannot be reduced to a concept.

Here the problem does not yet seem to the application of concepts to God, but rather the identification of God with a concept. The idea here seems to be that God is something living, concrete, and full of content, whereas concepts - perhaps one has in mind attributions like “being itself” or “first cause” - are lifeless, abstract, and empty.

Thus:

Assumption #1: Concepts are lifeless, abstract, and empty.

I will merely note for the moment that concepts are taken here to be lacking in being and determinacy; their cold insubstantiality is compared with God as a teeming ocean of plenitude.

Moving on to the second statement: God cannot be conceptually contained or defined.

Now we are dealing the application of concepts to God. Here the idea seems to be that a concept is something restrictive, a sort of straitjacket which attempts to delimit and exhaust something. And God, as infinite, intrinsically transcends such efforts. Frequently these is expressed in the form of a critique of “objectification.” A concept turns God into an object or thing. It is not always clear what is implied by this critique, but the idea seems to be that God is treated a) as if God were a insect-like specimen who could be set before one’s gaze and b) a circumscribable specimen at that. God, we think, escapes all attempts to be pinned down or kept within bounds.

So:

Assumption #2: Concepts subject to a restrictive gaze.

Here I will note several somewhat odd things that become apparent at this stage.

First, concepts seemed to be treated in the first statement as if they were not determinate and real enough, but now they are being treated as too determinate and thing-like. Concepts were first as insubstantial ideas or names, but here they seem to be treated as precise definitions or outlines which constitute an object. We begin to suspect a kind of inconsistency or fuzziness in the critique of concepts.

Second, concepts are here being understood through pictures or metaphors - in terms of a gaze (the regard one has towards a material specimen) or physical containment or circumscription. The rejection of concepts, somewhat fittingly, does not actually operate at a fully conceptual level, but relies on a form of “picture-thinking” or “representation.” Let’s just note this for the moment.

We can now proceed to the final formulation: In theology, metaphor, analogy, and the image are irreducible.

To some degree, this statement is taken to follow from the previous critiques. Since treating God on the level of conceptuality runs into problems, we are stuck with metaphor, analogy, and the image. We cannot get beyond them; they are here to stay.

This statement, simple as it is, turns out to be the most laden with unexamined assumptions.

It all starts with the ambiguity of saying metaphor is irreducible. Irreducibility hovers between the notions of exclusivity and retention. Does this mean that concepts are not allowed in theology at all? So that all we have are - exclusively - metaphor, analogy, and poetic image? Or is one simply implying that some sort of full-throated endorsement of concepts would result in the abandonment and redundancy of metaphor or image? Perhaps concepts can be allowed as long as they don’t “reduce” - that is they retain - metaphor and image. But at the same time, the implication seems to be that when concepts function normally or maximally as concepts, they do leave metaphor and image behind. So concepts are ok as long as they don’t perform any function higher than metaphor and analogy perform? In that case, what is their use?

In any case:

Assumption #3: If metaphor/image/intuition are conceptually surpassed in theology, if a cognitive function is admitted which goes beyond them in some way, metaphor or image are necessarily left behind and discarded.

This leads to a further implication. Metaphor/image and conceptuality are being treated as separable, but hierarchically ordered functions. One proceeds from sensation, to image formation (the realm, speaking loosely of metaphor and poesis), and finally to conceptuality. Concepts are in principle (or at least pretend to be) higher, even if their use is to be forbidden (or at least qualified) in certain cases: God and/or human persons. (Again, an ambiguity: are concepts inherently objectifying and bad, or are they simply prone to an objectifying use? Are they ok in some ordinary contexts, and only bad in theology, or bad in every case?)

Assumption #4: Mental life should be modeled as a linear ascent from one function to another, according to a faculty psychology.

I simply note that there are alternatives: perhaps knowing is a circle or return-to-self, which troubles both linearity and the idea of separable faculties.

Moving on, the idea is that one can, when doing theology, stop at a certain point in this hierarchical ascent. That is, one can stop short of concepts, and metaphor and image will still function, if not normally, at least in a way adequate to the theological task.

Assumption #5: Despite (or because of) this linear image, one can separate or stop short of the conceptual stage and the “lower” stages can still function.

Due to this functioning of metaphor and image independent of (full) conceptuality,

Assumption #6: “Knowledge” of God, or at least the sort of access or orientation necessary for a spiritual life here below, does not require the function we associate with conceptuality’s characteristic remit.

The metaphorical or poetic sense is enough for us.

More on these questions in posts to come. I simply note the multitude of unquestioned, and often contradictory, assumptions contained in the statements which express theology’s current consensus.