Language is on the mind. I have recently finished J.L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words - a short, dense and complicated book. In this work, Austin is concerned with what he calls "felicitous" statements. These are arguments that make sense on a number of levels: the locutionary (that the thing exists, the inflection of the speakers, etc...), the Illocutionary (that the speaker has a desire or intent, and the prolocutionary (that you can hear and respond to the speaker). Thus the phrase "Eat some cake" is felicitius if there is indeed cake, if I want the other people to have some cake, and if there is any left to eat.
With all of that said, how can we make a "felicitous" statement about ordination. Here is what I am going to try for now.
An ordained minister recognizes a call from God which is also recognized by the community.
In this statement we have the existence of a call, we have the recognition of that call on behalf of the individual (the internal call) and we have the acceptance of that call on behalf of the community (the external call).
Now I just need to find this statements (or variations of it) in the local church community.
2 comments:
Hi! Um, I hate to interrupt your blog, but I'm a high school student exploring colleges, and I was wondering. I'm of the Southern Baptist faith, but I'm very interested in attending the University of Dayton. My question is this: as a Baptist, do you ever feel overly surrounded by Catholicism? I'd love to attend UD, but I wouldn't want to be pressured to convert during my stay. Is it possible for a student of another denomination to find her place there?
Thank you!
Banerkblue,
Good question. I found UD to be very open to those of us of the non-Catholic bent. Obviously the majority of the students are Catholic, and the majority of the religion classes will have a Catholic bias, but the professors are very respectful of folks from other denominational backgrounds. You should not worry.
On the other hand, it will be a great environment for you to carve out your understanding of your faith in a Catholic context. As long as you are not hyper-critical of the Catholic position, you sould be able to find some great conversations that will strengthen your understanding of scripture, baptsim, ecclesiology, etc. I enjoyed my time conversing with my Catholic brothers and sisters - no doubt you will as will.
Thanks for the question!
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