What is the difference between everyday abstractions, propositions, and definitions and then the same things in the hands of the philosophers? The answer is that philosophers tend to fall, somehow, someway, into the error of reification. That is, they try to answer the question of whether “thus and such” exists through some kind of metaphysical grounding. Existence is their holy grail, and in pursuit of it, their countless St. Georges have gone off in the ontological quest. What does it mean to “exist”? Enter existentialism (and postmodernism) where all these things are all thought to be “constructs” of human devising which we then impose on an essentially unknowable universe.
But in the realm of the junior high English teacher, if she is presented with the question of whether abstract nouns “exist” (by some impudent 8th grader), she would seek to answer the question without dragging in the questions that tangle up the philosophers. “Do abstract nouns exist?” “Sure, we have been using them all class period.” “Do definitions exist?” “Certainly. I just defined abstract nouns for you a moment ago. And if ‘making coffee’ exists, and it does, because I also made coffee this morning, then defining also exists.” “Do propositions exist?” “Of course. Don’t you remember the lessons in chapter four?”
To this it will be replied that we are not taking seriously the questions raised by the philosophers. Well, I would hope not. The only time I think pastors and theologians should pay attention to the philosophers is when the said brain-meisters are successfully leading the sheep astray. This happens quite a bit, and so part of a minister’s training should consist in learning how to say things like, “My, what big ears you have!” “The better to hear you raise the right epistemological questions, my dear.”
The central unbelieving assumption in this is functional atheism. But if I believe in Adam and Eve in the garden, then I also believe that human language is not the epiphenomenal overflow of many centuries of grunting and pointing. Man was created (6,000 years ago) and he was created as a speaking being. His ability to speak does not separate him from the world God placed him in, his speaking is one of the things that unites him to it. When we walk by faith, there is no reason we should locate variations of Lessing’s ugly ditch anywhere. We are Christians, not dualists. All things are united in Christ.
In Christ, all things are ours. Oranges, pomegranates, abstract nouns (like pomegranate), golden retrievers, really abstract nouns (like beauty), this particular pomegranate, marriage, honey, Bibles, mowing the lawn, mashed potatoes, grammar lessons, violin lessons, the Anglo/Saxon word for bees swarming which really delights me for some reason (beogang), hardwood floors, hot showers, and thoughtful discussions of the mind/body problem. Christ is the arche, and in Him all things hold together. If all things hold together in Him, then the admission of any epistemological dualisms is the one thing we must not do. It is not dualism to make distinctions (between, say, a porcupine and an English muffin, or between an abstract noun and a concrete noun), but it is dualism to postulate two separated realms for knowing in. We have many ways to slipping back into this dualism, and we have to be far more on guard than we are.