The Embedding or the Quest for “God” Beyond Language

L’enchâssement ou la quête de « Dieu » au-delà du langage

Christian Walter ()

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Abstract: In public discussions or in private conversations, one frequently hears the idea expressed that "God is beyond dogmas and religion." Those who say this imagine that a "God beyond language" would promote inter-religious dialogue, because going beyond statements of beliefs would enable differences to be overcome and religious conflicts to be eliminated by a process of spiritual convergence around a link shared by all religions. Now this is not the case. We observe that the potential for violence inherent to expressions of religion has not been neutralised by the idea of a God beyond language and the dialogue between religions seems to be awaiting a lasting settlement. There must therefore be something wrong with the idea that God is beyond language. This article proposes to investigate this inaccuracy by making a detour via Ian Watson's science-fiction novel, The Embedding, which we use here as a support for an epistemological reflection to reveal the impasse of the shared link and the scepticism to which it leads. Finally, to the question of knowing what to think of the idea of a God beyond language, we could reply, in the wake of The Embedding: this is an idea from science-fiction.

Keywords: science-fiction linguage Interreligious dialogue Quine Wittgenstein; science-fiction; linguage; Interreligious dialogue; Quine; Wittgenstein (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04503434
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Published in Socio - La nouvelle revue des sciences sociales, 2019, 13, pp.181-197. ⟨10.4000/socio.7987⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-04503434

DOI: 10.4000/socio.7987

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