[Aurelius]

I am too tired to think about your post as carefully as it might deserve. But I see a point which doesn't seem to be generally recognized. That is the profound difference in the perceived world of the believer in traditional Christianity and that of the atheist or agnostic. Just one, but by no means the only difference, regards language. Biblically, language is a commonality between God and man (John 1,1) thus,for the believer, truth which is expressible only in words, has sense. For the nonbeliever, language is a human creation, with no a priori special facility for accurately representing reality. Consequently, for that nonbeliever, it is not so easy to say what "truth" means, or it is simply meaningless.

[cornelis]

truth which is expressible only in words, has sense. For the nonbeliever, language is a human creation

Here we go again. Did you know that the doctrine of the trinity was hammered out and solidified (i.e. the truth of it was got) by the slick work of a saint called Gregory of Nyssa who, because of his efforts at the council of Nicea, ended up writing 5 books against Eunomius as a heretic? Gregory of Nyssa was the believer that held language is a human creation and derivative.

I know that truth is not dependent on language. We use language to communicate, and it carries a lot of freight, but it has been overloaded (not quite like overused). The overload is to demand that it alone is what it is (that connection). Okay, so God gave us the ability to use language, but why slip in "expressible only"? Why this dramatic action of the incarnation?