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Inheriting Wittgenstein's Augustine: A Grammatical Investigation of the Incarnation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Philip G. Porter Open the ORCID record for Philip G. Porter [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

Through an examination of Augustine's understanding of language and an exegesis of key passages in De trinitate, this article exposits and critiques Augustine's theology of the Incarnation. It attends to the distinctions Augustine draws between the two verba—the verbum mentis and the verbum vocis—and asks if conceiving of language differently might better account for the Incarnation of the Word in terms of De trinitate’s focus on substantial and relational predication. The author maintains that Augustine's impulse to interpret the Incarnation linguistically is the right one, but argues that drawing upon the resources of a Wittgensteinian approach to language sits more soundly with the rest of the grammar of Christian theology. Deploying the work of Wittgenstein's inheritors, especially Stanley Cavell and Stephen Mulhall, this article shows that while critique is in order, the final result is something broadly in line with Augustine's own best impulses concerning language as found in De dialectica and De doctrina christiana.

Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 100 , Issue 1088 , July 2019 , pp. 452 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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