What if…language had no meaning?

 Or perhaps I should modify my statement: What if language had little meaning?

In dealing with texts, we deal with words in a language, strung together in syntactical units to make meaning. I sense, in our postmodern mindset, that we both accept and reject functions of language. We use it to cast doubt on the very existence of the tool it is meant to be in order to convey convictions. Without language, we are – well, lost for words.

            The art of interpretation, hermeneutics, needs texts, whether they are written or spoken. If you interpret, you seek meaning. How will a text speak?

We all know the traditional approach, where the intentions of the author of the text in part of the interpretation, what he/she wanted to say, the time in which it was written, the local history – and we use the background material as an interpretative soundboard in order to read the text rightly. This model has been challenged time and again – and it may be useful to read the text as is, without the knowledge of the causes for its creation. The text may be interpreted either through the mind of the reader (reader response), or be dissected and analysed for its style, syntactic units, semantic register, etc., but still in order to distil some sort of meaning.

How, then, should I understand an undone text, one that has undergone the process of deconstruction? The structure is unreliable; the semantics unclear, and it is left ambiguous. Where does it take us?

Perhaps I am jumping too quickly to my conclusions – but I sense, yes, sense, an emerging confusion: any text, whether it has a clear and strong message, may be undone, may be deconstructed in such a way that it is left inconsequential.

There are many wonderful texts in the Bible. They are life and sustenance to me, but not only so in themselves. Are they being undone by deconstruction? In themselves they are subject to vagueness and ambiguity, but there is also another factor that no system of thought can deny: The Word is Living Word. God is in his Word; He is the Word. This brings the use of language up to a different level. God is creative, and he uses speech in his creative acts.  The power of God is in the words in the Bible.

It is a bleak comparison, but also human speech, human writ, is infused with the power and spirit of us as living creatures. We do not merely create a shape; we create worlds, fantasies, we go beyond the real in our creative efforts, using language. We write or speak forcefully. There is power in the word. No process of deconstruction can curtail the power of the human spirit.

So, to answer my initial question, language will never become meaningless. If anything, the challenge of deconstruction may sharpen the use of language. We may use it to clear the postmodern fog.