The Castration of Signs: Conversing with Augustine on Creation, Language and Truth

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Castration of Signs: Conversing with Augustine on Creation, Language and Truth

AU - Ticciati, Susannah

PY - 2007

Y1 - 2007

N2 - This article takes as its starting point Nicholas Lash’s use of the Buberian distinction between the basic words ‘I-It’ and ‘I-You’ to address the question of how the difference between God and creation is ‘displayed’ within the world. Drawing on a rather different discourse – the semiotics developed by Augustine in the distinctions he makes between sign and thing, use and enjoyment – it seeks to explore the concrete shape that might be taken by practices that foster the speaking of the basic word ‘I-You’, and which thereby manifest God’s redemptive activity within the world, focusing specifically on practices of debate and argument. What might a redeemed practice of debate look like?

AB - This article takes as its starting point Nicholas Lash’s use of the Buberian distinction between the basic words ‘I-It’ and ‘I-You’ to address the question of how the difference between God and creation is ‘displayed’ within the world. Drawing on a rather different discourse – the semiotics developed by Augustine in the distinctions he makes between sign and thing, use and enjoyment – it seeks to explore the concrete shape that might be taken by practices that foster the speaking of the basic word ‘I-You’, and which thereby manifest God’s redemptive activity within the world, focusing specifically on practices of debate and argument. What might a redeemed practice of debate look like?

U2 - 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2007.00368.x

DO - 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2007.00368.x

M3 - Article

VL - 23

SP - 161

EP - 179

JO - Modern Theology

JF - Modern Theology

IS - 2

ER -