[falconplayer11]

Can anything I say really represent reality? How can I talk about God in mere English terms and do his character justice? Do our words only scratch the surface of what we really mean?

These questions are a huge struggle for me when it comes to both my faith and relationships with friends and family.

[Chrysostom]

Originally Posted by falconplayer11

Can anything I say really represent reality? How can I talk about God in mere English terms and do his character justice? Do our words only scratch the surface of what we really mean?

Yes, your words are always partial. Your perceptions are always partial. Your knowledge and experience are always partial. That means that you're not God, but it doesn't mean you're meaningless. In Jesus, by the Spirit, the whole world, in all its finitude, is united to God. In Jesus, by the Spirit, we participate in God, in God's life and in God's knowledge and in God's world. We are not God but we are made in the image of God, and we are brought into fellowship with him in Christ by the Spirit.

So the point is, were you to ask, can you in all your finitude know or do or say or feel anything of any real value, the answer would be no. But that is not your situation.

[sfripp]

Originally Posted by falconplayer11

Can anything I say really represent reality? How can I talk about God in mere English terms and do his character justice? Do our words only scratch the surface of what we really mean?

These questions are a huge struggle for me when it comes to both my faith and relationships with friends and family.

What you say does 'represent' reality, more or less...but only represents! (However, there is no gaurantee that what you say will be received in the spirit in which it was given) Personally I would liken what is 'said' to the second person of experience, if experience is what it was used to convey. If what is said is used to convey opinion then it is closer to its cause and may more accurately represent the reality of the actual opinion as opinion (not that the opinion is necceserely grounded in reality as reality!)

I find it very hard to find terms that do Gods' character justice, if God is infinite, as some may say then he is indefinable by definition of his infinitude.....But if I were trying to represent God in terms I would use 'The Truth'...in the light of which all phenomena are shown for what they are.
...Kind of glad the 'love thing' is involved too...but as James says.. "I will show you my faith by what I do" is a neat form of expression, close to actions speak louder than words...

Yes, words are pretty much the map of the territory (accuracy subject to variation) however,
metaphor is useful for conveying extra dimensional properties to language that may translate to the arrousal of experience in a recipient, but there still need to be ears to hear!

I like words and most things related to conceptualization but at the end of the day they seem only to be guides (at best) to the destination of reality experienced as it is.

"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known" 1 cor 13:12