Date of Award
7-1968
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Theology
First Advisor
Dennis McCarthy
Abstract
This dissertation takes for granted that a word like "theology," in as much as it is a word and only a word, can be used in such a way that it may have one or more points of objective reference. Or it may even have none at all. To search for the meaning of this word under the fore-gone conclusion that it has but one universally applicable meaning would be foolish. Of themselves words mean nothing. Their whole purpose is to be self-transcendent, to point to something beyond themselves. It is the reality to which a word points that is important, for meaning lies in the mind's apprehension of what is intelligible -- net in some arbitrary concatenation of vocalized sounds. And the reason why a word points to this rather than that object is simply that men have agreed that it shall point to this one rather than to some other. This consensus, however, wears very thin in respect to many words. "Theology" is one such; "Old Testament theology," which is even more to our purposes, another...