Floyd Knight in Logos Library Theology/Denomination Tags

9 years ago

This is trivial and minor, but still important for many clergy and pastors who may not have a background in linguistics, education, and first language acquisition. Chapter Two "Eugene Peterson writes in his marvelous book Answering God that just as we learn to speak by being spoken to, so we learn to pray by praying back to God the words He has spoken to us." My Comments: |-----Peterson's conceptualization of first language acquisition is actually scientifically incorrect. It is based on the classical Platonic notion of mimesis. Linguists and psychologists have shown that we are innately created to learn language and languages. We don't need to learn the structure of language. We are genetically hardwired to acquire language as an infant, and we have the innate cognitive software to learn any single language from birth. It has been show that language structures appear developmentally and that parental interaction has no instructional or pedagogical effect on the emergence of those structures and milestone. The familial and social-cultural environments are more deprivational than enriching factors; they limit the number of possible phonetic and syntactical choices and systems that the child will be able to learn. The more the child has access to different phonological and syntactical systems in his familial and social surroundings, the more language options (languages) the child retains and the less alternative language switches or parameters are lost through atrophy. |------- What we learn from interacting with our parents and family is the the social dimensions and pragmatic systems of our various languages. We don't learn by imitation the phonological and grammatical systems of a language; we acquire those through the process of first language acquisition. In a similar way, we don't need to learn the words of prayer--that is, particular phonemes and word processing sequences for prayer to create phrases and sentences; what we need to learn is the divine purpose, functions, and features of prayer, that is, the pragmatics of prayer. What's appropriate for a new believer and what is appropriate from a mature believer are based on their understanding of the nature and person of God and what God thinks about our nature and our virtue and personhood. The newbie doesn't understand or know God enough to reflect upon his or her own nature and will and to know and experience God's nature and will, and therefore, to differentiate his or her own fleshly nature and will from God's divine nature and will. The seasoned child of God knows more and is able to differentiate his own fallen nature and will from the divine and from the person that God is sanctifying and transforming him or her to be and become. While none of us will have in this life anything remotely resembling a mature knowledge and experience of God, the seasoned child of God is able through the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit to see God's divine glory and personhood as it has been revealed in the Scriptures and in the incarnation of Christ. As Glenn Packiam expresses, God tolerates our imprudence, brashness, and impenitence simply because God is a good Father and we are his floundering children. |------What Glenn Packiam says is explicable at the level of discourse and pragmatics. We must learn the social-linguistic forms and functions of prayer that God intended like we must learn the various social linguistics forms and functions of politeness and the various registers of language--formal, informal, academic, etc. The pragmatics of prayer, the forms and functions, are extra-linguistic and extra-mundane. God's direct self-revelation is required for the pragmatics of prayer (the when, where, what, in what way (how of intentions and behavior) and why) whereas one's natural language ability (the how of the mechanics of language) is God's universal gift to all of humanity through the creation. (See any introductory text book on first language acquisition or regarding linguistics, especially Chomsky's notion of generative linguistics or the cognitive linguists' concept of emergent nature of language.) See the following Packiam's quotes below. "How can we hope to speak with God until we learn His language [pragmatics]? Holly and I have four children, three of whom can talk. Our youngest can make only sounds. They are responsive sounds, interactive noises, but unintelligible nonetheless. She’s a baby, only six months old. We think her sounds are adorable. Throw in a few smiles and sudden hand movements, and we’re smitten. This is our beloved child with whom we are well pleased. But if she were still making only these noises a year or two from now, we’d have a problem. It was Lewis, again, who wrote that God is easy to please but difficult to satisfy. He is thrilled with our little signs of love, our cooing and oohing. But if we are serious about wanting a relationship with our Father in heaven, we’ll have to do better than that. We’ll have to learn His language. We’ll need to learn how to pray. . . . So if selfishness is, because of our sin-bent nature, our mother tongue [i.e., our inbred and natural pragmatic and social linguistic form and function], and if prayer really is a language [i.e., pragmatic and social linguistic forms and functions] that must be learned, and if learning happens best by imitation and repetition, then what are we to pray? The Psalms are language school; they train you in the language of prayer. It was Israel’s hymnal, but more than that: the Psalms were the [pragmatic] grammar school in the language of prayer for every Hebrew child." Glenn Packiam, Discover the Mystery of Faith: How Worship Shapes Believing (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2013).