I just received a comment on my last post that was offering critique of my apparently oft grammatical inconsistencies in many of my posts (that thread has now vanished). What my interlocutor intended on saying, really, was that I use jargon and theological turns of phrases that he doesn’t understand. Thus, his conclusion was that I was the one in error, and not him (in his understanding). It is true that particularly in the world of theology writers of theology often do use neologisms, and modes of thought that are idiosyncratic to said theologians. I’ve learned this over the years as a reader of theologies; as a reader of this or that theologian it takes time to learn their various dialects, and become ingratiated into their respective style of communication. Two of my teachers, TF Torrance and Karl Barth, are known for their idiosyncratic ways of communicating their respective theological inklings (Torrance for his highly jargony style, and Barth for his lengthy sentences and paragraphs; and both for lots and lots of repetition). But that is simply how it goes in this world. If a reader is only used to reading scholastic or analytic writers, and then get exposed to Barth’s and Torrance’s style of writing, for example, then indeed, it will seem like the reader has entered a whole other universe.

Torrance himself is not unaware of these matters. Indeed, he addresses it in his discussion on the Greek terminology of an/ -enhypostasis. He identifies what I think we must all identify, and get past. That is, understand that the theologian must often use technical/precision/neologistic language in an attempt to intelligibly communicate various aspects about the ineffable God the Christian theologian is directly concerned with. Let’s read along with TFT as he unpacks the why and the how of technical theological language, and how he thinks it ought to be used in a very instrumental and even “sacramental” way.

A note on the use of theological terms such as ‘anhypostasia’ and ‘enhypostasia’

All technical theological terms such as these are to be used like ‘disclosure models’, as cognitive instruments, helping us to allow the reality of Christ to show through to us more clearly. As in natural science we must often cast our thought about certain connections into mathematical and algebraic form in order to see how those connections work out in the most consistent and rigorous way, so here we may well think of ‘anhypostasia and enhypostasia’ as a sort of ‘theological algebra’ to help us work out the ‘inner logic’ in christology more consistently and purely. But once we see the connections more clearly in this way, they have to be translated back into ‘the flesh and blood’ of reality, translated back into terms of the person and work of Christ himself. Just as in natural science, we may have to resort to algebra to work out the connections using algebra like a computer as it were, to compute for us what our brains are incapable of doing by themselves, but must then translate the algebra back into ‘physical statements’ in order to discern the real relations in empirical reality, so we must do much the same here. Anhypostasia and enhypostasia together do not themselves contain the ‘stuff’ of christology, but they may discern more deeply and clearly the ontological structures of the incarnation.[1]

Without digging in further into the material points to be made in regard to an/ -enhypostasia, since we did that recently, the significance of what TF is getting at is substantial. As readers of theology, particularly when confronted with a new dialect or style of a particular theologian’s, the reader shouldn’t presume that said theologian operates from some sort of literary lacuna simply because the theologian uses terminology that might sound strange or wooly to said reader. This is how theology has always developed, as TFT helps us understand better. The terminology of an/ -enhypostasia, at first, might have been considered strange, particularly with reference to attempting to speak of the Lord. But on further reflection what comes to the fore is that such technical language becomes necessary insofar that the reality it is attempting to signify is so far beyond ‘normal’ or profane things, that it becomes an option of desperation in an attempt for our puny minds to have some semblance of articulate thought when it comes to the deeper implications of something like the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.

For me, I have somewhat absorbed the jargony language of someone like a TFT or a KB, and others, and then meshed that into my own style of fleshing out my particular theological thoughts. My guess is that if you have spent some time reading TFT or KB, that when you then read me, the words and thought patterns I am using make more sense to you than those who haven’t been exposed to TFT or KB. I am, of course!, not claiming to be at the level of TFT or KB, all I am suggesting is that my writing style, inclusive of my theological lexicon, has to date, been heavily influenced by both TFT and KB, respectively. I am also not claiming to not have (see double negative) awkward phraseology and sloppy diction at points, but I am not going to own the notion that this characterizes my writing; even here in the blog format. We can all be better writers and readers, and I don’t pretend to have arrived anywhere yet. And it is true that this is a blog, so I don’t spend lots of time polishing or editing my posts (but that should be an understood). But I do enjoy writing, and have developed my own style; particularly over these last seventeen years as a blogger.

Thanks for being a reader.

[1] T. F. Torrance, ed. Robert T. Walker, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 233.