Actuality of Atonement: Chapter Two

Gunton believes that metaphor pervades language thoroughly. To offer a strict definition, then, would likely exclude some fine uses of metaphor. However, the basic gist in which he operates is that a metaphor takes a term belonging in one context and applies it in another, specifically in speech and communication.

This, however, goes against the rationalistic idea that truth can only be "utterly clear and distinct." But metaphors muddy the waters (at first) and, therefore, could not achieve truth on rationalistic terms. Gunton, citing advances in physics, notes that metaphor played a significant role in advancing knowledge. He mentions Descartes' idea to treat nature as if it were a machine and the idea of the 'field.' This means that metaphors are not only permissible, but necessary to advance knowledge because it changes and creates new language.

Gunton then moves on to asking the difference between literal and metaphorical words. He does not believe in the idea that words mirror reality, and so asks how words can accurately communicate. The answer: indirectly. Words do not capture reality without remainder. However, because words do not perfectly capture reality, metaphor is even more appropriate, since its communication is always indirect. Therefore, metaphorical language can be quite accurate, measured by how well it helps humans to interact with the world. In other words, "Does language (or the metaphor) work?" is the question.

Metaphors work by their ability to join the disparate ideas. But words themselves, which metaphors require, shape, and change, are objects of interaction with the world. Because they help us relate with the world, they are relative. Because metaphors relate disparate notions, metaphors themselves are relative (meaning they make things relate), which brings us back to the start of the circle that metaphor is an instance of the harmony that exists between language and the world. This means that the line between objective and subjective is beginning to blur: the objective world is captured and communicated by subjective language, which itself is subjective, but because of this, captures what the world is to humans. Gunton believes that one need not choose between objectivity and subjectivity because there really is a world that really is related to with words.

For the theologian, this is useful, because metaphors admit both the reality of God and his distance from them. The first metaphors that Christians used captured this fact when they applied different metaphors to the cross, grounding their theology in history, but taking it beyond sheer historical fact to describe God's work to repair broken relationship. This, again, affirms the value of metaphor because if linguistic changes advance knowledge, so does the flip side apply: changes in reality result in change in language. Metaphor was necessary, then, to capture the change God accomplished in Jesus' life, death, resurrection, ascension. The three metaphors Gunton explores that describe the cross are victory, justice, and sacrifice.