Karen Kovaka

Philosophy of World Religions

Professor Peter Kreeft

15 December 2008

Words are to thoughts what clothing is to the Invisible Man. They give invisible concepts shape and texture so that people can catch glimpses of ideas and ponder them. When clothed in words, thoughts become communicable. In one way or another, words seem to be responsible for the way humans understand every question of any importance at all. The assumption, then, is that words (or language) and truth are tied to one another. But are they really? Can words tell the truth about things? What about invisible things? What about God? Of what value is language to religious thought and experience?

All religions, as they use words to communicate, provide some way to understand the connection between language and truth. The question of language may be one of the most important questions a religion answers, possibly because religions themselves are Invisible Men which require words to make sense of them. Or perhaps the essence of religion lies in what cannot be verbalized.

In this essay, I will try (by making use of language, of course) to compare the Zen Buddhist and Christian positions on the relationship between words and truth. Are their views compatible? Are their understandings roughly the same or irreconcilably different? After describing the Zen and Christian understandings of this question, I will argue that despite extensive similarities, Zen and Christianity differ on essential points.

When Buddha’s disciples called him Sakyamuni, or “Silent Sage,” they also captured much of his attitude toward words. He maintained that no one could possibly use words to convey the experience of nirvana. When asked to describe it, his response was that nirvana is “incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable, unutterable” (Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, pg 113). Rather than speaking, Buddha preferred to teach as he did in the Flower Sermon, simply holding a lotus in the air before his listeners.

Of course, in order to teach others about enlightenment, Buddha had to speak, but he did so out of necessity, and he viewed words as valuable only insofar as they served some practical function. “Right Speech” is one step on the Eightfold Path, not because words are sufficient to draw us toward a higher spiritual state, but because careful attention to the things we say can help us internalize the Four Noble Truths. If words ceased to have this kind of practical value, Buddha ceased to use them, as his Arrow Sermon makes clear. The Arrow Sermon began with Buddha refusing to engage in a metaphysical discussion. He said that doing so would be like explaining to a man wounded by a poisonous arrow what kind of bow had been used to shoot him before actually pulling the arrow out of his body. The man would die because of an unnecessary explanation (Smith, pp. 95-96).

Zen Buddhist practice with regard to words is very similar in essence to Buddha’s Flower Sermon. “A master, Gutei, when whenever he was asked the meaning of Zen, lifted his index finger. That was all. Another kicked a ball. Still another slapped the inquirer” (Smith, pg. 129). Zen also emphasizes paradoxical word puzzles called koans. The purpose of a koan is to help students understand a truth that mere words can never convey. Only by transcending the limits imposed by the words can a student solve a koan.

Why this distrust of words? There are several reasons. In addition to their inadequacy when it comes to communicating about nirvana or, really, any mystical experience, Huston Smith in The World’s Religions provides two more reasons: first, words can create a world of deception, enticing people to live in false realities. Second, words, at their best, are only descriptions. They are not the same as actuality, and thus, they must be inferior to whatever they represent (pg.130).

Zen also has more metaphysical reasons for its skeptical relationship with language. According to Tucker Callaway, in Zen Way, Jesus Way, Zen’s central premise is that all things are one, which means “there is absolutely no distinction between anything and anything else” (Callaway, Zen Way, Jesus Way, pg. 35). If this is so, the implications for a Buddhist’s understanding of language are radical: “The subject is the object; the object is the subject” (pg. 35) and “[t]he very concepts ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ are meaningless from the standpoint of Zen” (Pg. 32). Words, by their nature, serve to distinguish one thing from another. We use them to designate objects and ideas as A and not B. For a Buddhist, such distinction-making hinders spiritual progress. Words can be helpful, but only insofar as they help us transcend themselves.

This, briefly, is the Zen view of words and language. What is the Christian view?

Huston Smith identifies two characteristics of the way Jesus spoke that frame the Christian understanding of words. First, in Jesus’ teachings, “the language is part of the message itself,” meaning it is not possible to separate Jesus’ content from his words and the imagery. Second, Smith describes Jesus’ style as “invitational.” His method and purpose “called for working with people’s imaginations more than with their reason or their will” (Smith, pg. 325). These two characteristics begin that the Christian understanding of the relationship between words and truth is a deeply integrated one.

Jesus very explicitly connected words and truth on many occasions. In the Gospel of Matthew, he quotes this passage from Deuteronomy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (4:4). His prayer in John 17 is similar. He says, “For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you…your word is truth” (8, 17). From these passages an understanding of words as strongly linked to truth begins to emerge.

Christianity teaches that words are not only man’s feeble attempt at expressing truth. They are, most fundamentally, a method of communication chosen by God. God endows words with creative power and with the ability to relay, with accuracy, abstract truths, factual content, and moral commands. God speaks, and the world comes into existence. Christian Scriptures claim to be able to truthfully communicate many kinds of truth – philosophical, factual, moral, historical, etc. Before man uses words to talk about or to God, God uses words to talk to man.

Another key to understanding the Christian position is the Incarnation. John’s Gospel speaks of Christ as the Logos, or “Word.” By referring to Christ in this way, John connects Jesus both to an abstract idea of truth and to verbal communication. Words and truth find their fullest expression in the nature of Christ, which is simultaneously human and divine. He is ultimate Truth, complete humanity, and the Word – all in one. This explanation of the nature of Christ argues powerfully for a connection between truth, personality, and language on the deepest of levels.

Despite the emphasis Christianity places on words, it does not hesitate to acknowledge the limitations of language, as well as to embrace paradoxes, which are, as the saying says, “Truth standing on her head to get attention.” Christians are quick to admit that words, though helpful, can never fully or perfectly express the nature of God. This is why Jesus Christ is a fuller revelation than either the Scriptures or the Law.

What Christianity does maintain is that words are of intrinsic value. God chose to endow language with beauty and effectiveness, to link it to truth and personhood in a mystical, inexplicable way. This is not to say the fullness of God does not transcend words, but that he has made words capable of expressing true, if limited, things about him and that he meant humans to respect language as a valuable gift. As novelist, essayist and poet Wendell Berry writes,

“In affirming that there is a necessary and indispensable connection between language and truth, and therefore between language and deeds, I have certain precedents in mind. I begin with the Christian idea of the Incarnate Word, the Word entering the world as flesh, and inevitably therefore as action – which leads logically enough to the insistence in the epistle of James that faith without works is dead” (Wendell Berry, Standing by Words, pg. 30).

Now, if we take these basic descriptions of Zen and Christianity in relation to words, how do they compare with one another? On the nature of words, Zen maintains that they are inherently divisive. They reinforce the human tendency to accept the illusion of differentiation. For example:

“Callaway: If I hold this teacup, it is my Western temptation to think that I am here and the teacup is over here.

“Suzuki: The Zen attitude is before I hold this teacup, who is that who says, ‘I hold’? When you say ‘I’ and the ‘teacup,’ they are already separated. The Eastern mind wants to know what is that ‘I’ when you say ‘I hold teacup.’ Who makes you say “I”? (Callaway, 135)”

Christianity does not view the nature of words in this way. When God speaks to his people, he intends for his words to be taken seriously. Words are symbols that refer to meaningful distinctions between things. If, because of its verbal expression, the Law of God is meaningless, then the central miracles of Christianity – the Incarnation and the resurrection – would be purposeless gestures, mere dramatic acts, but not actually necessary for the redemption of mankind. The Law, as expressed in words, must be real enough, or Christ is superfluous.

Zen and Christianity also see words as having very different purposes. Koans are the best example of the purposeful use of words in Zen. Through the use of words, koans help the student free himself of the very state of consciousness which words tend to reinforce. While Christianity revels in paradox in a way that is at times similar to Zen, it is not true that words are only useful insofar as they can be made to transcend themselves. Words are an entirely legitimate vehicle for communication and truth-telling. Though Christians may be caught up in experiences which defy words, this does not in any way diminish the effectiveness or necessity of using words to express that which can be communicated. This motivates Christians to become increasingly creative and innovative in their communication styles, as the book of Revelation, a personal account of the Apostle John’s mystical vision, demonstrates.

This different understanding of the purpose of words leads very naturally to Zen and Christianity placing disparate values on words, as well. As we have seen, in Zen the value of words is purely functional. Often, language does more harm than good. In contrast, Christianity actually makes a compelling case for the inherent beauty, worth, and power of words. Verbal communication figures prominently in every great communication between God and man – the Creation, the giving of the Law, the Incarnation, the writing of Scripture. One way of thinking about this difference is to say that Zen distrusts the normal use of words (distinguishing between things), but allows for the effectiveness of the abnormal use of words (koans). Christianity celebrates what it sees as the normal use of words and explains the negative aspects of language (deception, manipulation, obscuring the truth) in terms of a perversion, or twisting, of the original purpose of words.

Though these differences seem clear and significant, many thinkers argue that Zen and Christianity are compatible in every significant way, including on the question of language. In his article “Christianity and Zen Buddhism,” Nat Whilk writes:

“Jesus acted very much like a Zen master on various occasions: e.g., in his mondo-like replies not to the Parisees’ questions but to the Pharisees (Kierkegaard’s “indirect communication”), and in His (not-) answering Pilate’s “What is truth?” with silence. There is a kind – the most important kind – of truth not to be caught in the web of words; and both “eternal life” and satori are such. Both Zen and Christianity insist on “being the truth” (Kierkegaard’s “truth is subjectivity”). Christianity is actualized only when the Christian goes beyond the truth as idea, precept, or liturgy (creed, code, or cult) and realizes the presence in all things of the divine as Christ” (Coursepak, pg. 126).

Whilk makes some excellent points. Jesus did use words to craft paradoxes that point beyond themselves to a higher truth. The parallels between Buddha’s Flower Sermon and Christ’s response to Pilate are obvious, and it is the case that both Zen and Christianity scorn words when they are not followed by practice. However, these similarities mask fundamental differences. Zen’s emphasis on practice insists that practice involves becoming alive to the ultimate meaninglessness of words, while Christianity argues that the fullest, most devout practice is one in which the connection between word, thought, and deed is affirmed. Jesus may use paradox, but he never suggests that words are illusions (symbols, yes, but not illusions), or that they make distinctions that are, in the end, unreal. Neither Buddha nor his successors would accept an organic and intentional link between words and the deepest of truths such as exists in Christianity.

This comparison of Zen and Christianity and their understanding of language shows that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to fully reconcile the two religions on this question. The question of what, precisely, it is that clothes the Invisible Man is an important one, but the answers that Zen and Christianity have found are representative of their greater philosophical differences and not at all the same.

Works Cited

Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions. New York. Harper Collins Publishers, 1991.

Callaway, Tucker. Zen Way, Jesus Way. Tokyo, Japan. Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.,

1976.

Whilk, Nat. Zen Buddhism and Christianity: An Experiment in Comparative Religion. Philosophy of World Religions Coursepak, 120-144.

Berry, Wendell. Standing by Words. Berkeley, CA. Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Wheaton, Illinois. Good News Publishers, 2001.