Grounding God? Embodying Theological Meaning

Abstract

The conceptualisation hypothesis of embodied cognition (Chapter 3) proposes that human concepts are grounded in sensorimotor states. That theory is applied to theological concepts. If abstract concepts pose a challenge for a theory of concepts grounded in sensorimotor states, theological concepts create particular difficulties. The God-concept provides a test case: God is definitively unavailable to perception since God is not an object in the universe, but attempts to associate God with sensorimotor content risk theological charges of idolatry. Hence grounding concepts in sensorimotor states and idolatry-avoidance seem difficult to reconcile. Three strategies are canvased. First, Schleiermacher and Rahner’s religious experience accounts guard against idolatry by distinguishing these experiences from experiences of things in the world. I argue that these experiences fail to ground the concept of God since it isn’t clear how proposed ‘meta-experiences’ relate to sensorimotor experience. Second, metaphors which employ concrete imagery may serve to ground the God-concept. While such metaphors fulfil the grounding criterion in concert with conceptual metaphor theory, it is not clear that they avoid idolatry since they risk likening God with finite objects. Third, the incarnation is proposed as the ultimate solution. As ‘anthropomorphism without the idolatry’, it serves to ground the God-concept in a theologically licit fashion. I explore how the incarnation provides concrete content for the God-concept by supplying direct sensorimotor access to the divine through Christ and - its extensions in narrative, sacrament, and other material vehicles. The incarnation thus accommodates the embodied nature of human concepts.