Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

A Trinitarian speech act account of revelation

Vanhoozer argues for a Trinitarian speech act account of revelation[99]in which “the Father’s activity is locution”[100]. “The Logos corresponds to the speaker’s act or illocution, to what one does in saying”[101], the content and intent of the revelation. The perlocution is the effect on recipients of the revelation.

Or again:

… the Father initiates communication; the Son is the content of the communication; the Spirit is the efficacy of the communication. [Footnote 29:] In what we may call “the analogy of speech-acts,” the Father (“who spoke [est locutus ] by the prophets”) locutes; the Son is the illocution, the promise of God; the Spirit is the “perlocution,” the effect achieved through (per ) the speech-act.[102]

Vanhoozer argues that:

The great benefit of this analysis is that it enables us clearly to relate the Spirit’s relation to the Word of God. First, the Spirit illumines the reader and so enables the reader to grasp the illocutionary point, to recognise what the Scriptures may be doing. Second, the Spirit convicts the reader that the illocutionary point of the biblical text deserves the appropriate response.[103]

The Spirit’s work of illumination may helpfully be described in speech act terms. The Spirit does not alter the words but: “The Spirit is nothing less than the effective presence of the illocutionary force.”[104]

Thus:

When the Spirit speaks in Scripture today he is not speaking another word but ministering the written words: “[The Spirit] will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears” (John 16:13). The Spirit is active not in producing new illocutions but rather in ministering the illocutions that are already in the test, making them efficacious.[105]

Austin’s model of speech acts is obviously triadic[106]but it is debatable how useful a Trinitarian version of it applied to revelation in general and / or scripture in particular is. Speaking of the nature of language and communication, Vanhoozer says that:

While I certainly do not think that everything in our world is a “vestige of the Trinity,” I do think that in this case there is more than an interesting analogy. The doctrine of the Trinity… stands not as an analogy but as a paradigm for human communication.[107]

  The limitations of Vanhoozer’s account must also be recognised. Whilst the Father may be said to locute Scripture, it should not be maintained that the words of the Bible are not also the words of the Son and the Spirit. The point of Scripture (its illocutionary force) is certainly to render Christ as the object of saving faith, but Scripture also reveals the triune God (admittedly principally through Christ) and may be said to perform many allied purposes.

Though it is not captured by the speech act model he states, Vanhoozer himself speaks of the Spirit’s work of inspiration as well as illumination[108].  The Spirit is active in the locution of Scripture as well as in its subsequent perlocution (its interpretation, application and affective power). Indeed, the illocutions of Scripture are the illocutions of the Spirit.

Conclusions

This chapter has further shown that far from necessarily undermining the Reformed Evangelical doctrine of Scripture, speech act theory can enrich the Reformed Evangelical doctrine of scripture. Though speech act theory might not say anything that Reformed Evangelicals ought not already to have known from reflection on God and the bible, it provides conceptual frameworks, analytical tools and technical vocabularies that can be fruitfully and judiciously employed by biblical scholars and systematic theologians, with no loss and with a number of potential gains.

This chapter also provides some of the necessary groundwork for considering the Lord’s Supper, which is a visible word, from a speech act perspective.

Endnotes