How do we speak the unspeakable?

I had the oddest memory today - and, as usual, it jarred rather unrelated reflections. It has been thirty years since I received my Master's in musicology, but, naturally, this means I once understood various modern languages. (I love languages - it saddens me that any fluency tends to disappear without regular usage. I cannot converse in any foreign languages any longer.) About ten years ago, I was on a flight from London to Rome, during which I had a brief conversation with an English speaking seat mate. Shortly afterwards, a German lady, who saw I was in the aisle seat and could access the overhead lockers, asked me if I could get her bag, which I was happy to do. (My lack of ability to converse in German any longer did not mean I did not understand.) The seat mate to whom I referred began to expound a theory that humans mainly communicate by telepathy... which I hardly think is proven by that one whose first language is English happens to understand German.

I often have considered how religious concepts can be confusing because of the limitations of language - and here I do not refer only to the limitations of our knowledge. In my recent Old Testament studies, and my continuing pursuit of philosophy, I have become aware of what I've always known but never considered. One who is a Christian, very Catholic in theology, has a faith based in Palestine (with much development of revelation before Jesus' time), philosophy rooted in Greece (and brilliantly used by great Christian theologians, though the ancient Greeks believed in no Creator God), a filter of everything through Latin (I understand no Hebrew, and my New Testament Greek is barely adequate - but the theological and historical works started out in Latin.... except for today, when everything challenging seems to start in German...).

I am far from expert in the philosophies of Eastern Asia (I don't know why, but in recent years it has become taboo to say "Orient," and, as with everyone who has been a theology student, when I say "Asian" the Far East is not what comes to mind.) I shall admit here that, when my philosophical studies take me into the realm of Buddhism, Hinduism, or Confucianism (and what a variety of those there are!), I am completely puzzled. I was reading a collection of Buddhist scriptures this week, and could not understand three pages. (I can read the works of 'mystics in love' of any tradition and feel a kinship - just as I can invoke the Trinity in every one of my prayers without being able to define what it means.)

I was thinking of what the Christian missionaries to China or Japan must have faced. (Even in our own day, acculturation at the time of Vatican II presented special problems. When Latin was no longer used in the parish Eucharist, there were often no equivalent, understandable terms for translation into Japanese.) The entire philosophical system of the East is another world from western philosophy - and, where priests may not be philosophers, let us say that they've had at least a smattering of Aquinas, Augustine et al through the years. I tend to apophatic theology in my own life, yet call my God by many names: Creator, Redeemer, Saviour, Holy Spirit, Trinity, Father, Spouse. For Christians and Jews, certainly the divine essence can never fully be known, but our God is personal, is Creator, is one with whom we seek eternal intimacy. I cannot understand the 'nothingness' of the East, but can sense that this and various other terms in Eastern philosophy probably have a vastly different meaning than they would for the western mind.

I remember hearing that, when Saint Francis Xavier was a missionary, he adapted the Latin term Deus to Deusu amongst the Japanese. It sadly bore a very close resemblance to a Japanese term for 'great lie.' Of course, Jesuits often confuse the best of us, and I can only imagine the difficulties my own Franciscans encountered! It's quite bad enough to have a great saint give the rule of the Order as "live the gospel," thinking everyone would know just what that meant (it is no accident that the Franciscans have by far the largest number of canonised and beatified saints and the most outrageous heretics.) Then again, and here it is only an educated guess, I could easily see Franciscans using some version of any term that appealed to the masses.

There are many lifelong Christians (from backgrounds in Europe and what I call Asia) who would be hard put to even explain what the Eucharist is. (I don't mean the 'how' - I mean even the 'what,' which should have been imparted to them by age 6.) I can only imagine how utterly confusing the new terms, foreign approaches in proofs and arguments (which the East eschews), and catechesis derived from scholasticism must have been for those previously stepped in Confucius.

Of course, my own studies of Buddhism, Hinduism and the like are for a breadth of philosophical knowledge - purely academic, and not intended as a source of religious practise or faith. (My social conscience also reminds me, when I read some moving writing of a Hindu mystic, that I should hardly like to be in a position where caste was determined by past lives, and one could therefore treat the poor like ... in Italian we call it "pig's food." Not that many Christians do not do the same, but at least there's a vague sense that grace can reside in Galilean carpenters, tent makers and fishermen.) My Old Testament studies are fascinating, the more in that I often have been required to 'shelve' millennia of Christian thought and read the rabbinical commentaries, redactions, etc., to capture a glimpse of what these texts meant, and still mean, for those who did not, for example, see the Suffering Servant as Jesus. But that is quite another matter, for all the new territory I had to explore, because my own faith had its roots in Judaism.

I defy any Christian or Jew, unless his familiarity with Eastern philosophies is lengthy and broad, to not be humbled by his lack of understanding when first encountering the East. Humility, nonetheless, is a concept valuable for all and particularly needed by man of us with a passion for theology, so I see an immediate benefit. It is the 'other direction' that fills me with awareness of how concepts and language can limit us. I respect all faiths - but cannot help but wonder if we Christians forgot the limitations of language, did not sufficiently develop how to present the gospel in a manner understandable to those from drastically different traditions, and therefore left the East with a very small Christian population. (Rice runs out... one has to speak to the heart.) I would be less saddened if it were merely a case of honourable men (who more so, for example, than the Dalai Lama?) remaining faithful to ancient traditions and worshipping in a fashion I do not understand in depth. What pains me is that, in recent decades, China was largely left to Mao and atheism.

Footnote: This is no denial of the constant and heroic efforts, and enormous self sacrifice, of the many missionaries to China and Japan! I am just wondering if the limitations their cautious superiors imposed (however good the reason in theory) were excessive. In Christianity, those who believe God's essence cannot be known do not mean that he is 'nothing' - but that He is "My God and my All." Buddhism is not credal but philosophical - they will put no name to God, but I don't know that 'nothing' means for the Buddhist what it does in the west. Christians may have needed the ability to adapt beyond how they were able to speak to the hearts of some who later ended up with a real "nothing," atheism.

I've been too sombre today, so I shall add an anecdote. One of my friends, Anne, taught English language and literature to pupils who were about 12-13 years old. A daily feature of their class was to have a brief, 'fill in the blanks,' test of vocabulary. On one very rainy Tuesday, it happened that one question was "what a (blank) to sleep on a rainy Tuesday morning." Anne was concerned because most of the kids, rather than picking 'luxury' from the list, had chosen 'fallacy.' As you may have guessed, it indicated no deficiency in her pedagogy. As several explained, they indeed knew the meaning of fallacy - and chose this because "you never can!"