Genesis

Traditional evangelical theology is rather selective in ending the primaeval story at the fall. Mankind is lost, fallen from an original state of perfection, we are told, the next best thing for us being the advent of the Messiah. One could be ultra pernickety and suggest that by keeping us in a depraved and fallen state, we are more easily controlled since we have to do what we are told in order to receive salvation. Church doctrine is then about power and salvation is administered by those in power. It is in the church’s interest therefore to end the primaeval story at the fall.

What Do Names Do? Do They Reflect or Do They Evoke?

The opening words of Martin Buber’s magnum opus, I and Thou, begin: “Basic words do not state something that might exist outside them; by being spoken they establish a mode of existence.”

When Buber says that “Basic words do not state something that might exist outside them,” he is gesturing toward a fundamental divide between two very different ways of understanding the status of language. For purposes of this essay, I’ll say that that distinction rests somewhere between “reflection” and “evocation.” And by that I mean that some hold that their words accurately reflect what is outside them and others hold that their words evoke meaningful perspectives that enable the contours of human life to be defined in particular ways. Let’s look at this distinction a bit more closely.