Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Saying the Creed together is an act of Christian witness. It is addressed to all, both Christians and strangers. To witness is not just to say something or show something. It is to become a sign. Christian witness means becoming a sign of Christ, who shows the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses by becoming man, dying, being raised, ascending to heaven, and coming again with glory.Signs are not isolated things. A sign in a language one does not understand does not function as a sign, but as a puzzle. Signs need to be intelligible, so there need to be rules for interpreting them, and people who are skilled in using these rules. The world is full of signs of God, but they cannot function as signs unless people can read them. Like-wise, Christians cannot be signs of Christ unless strangers can interpret them. To be a Christian is to be schooled in an apprenticeship of signs; it is to learn how to read the signs of God in the world. It is also to be a teacher so that others may become apprentices in turn.The common shorthand for using rules is “reasoning.” Reasoning is a powerful concept, with many siblings and cousins: Reason (with a capital R), rationality, Raison, Vernunft, Rationalität. Many of these have a common heritage in the Latin ratio, a word with a wide range of meanings to do with thinking and understanding. At their heart, however, is the idea of making connections between ... log in or subscribe to read full text