and investigate as one does in a laboratory, as an archaeologist uncover-
ing artifacts. Instead, the event-ness of the word is preserved/perpetuated
through listening. One should, hence, listen to the word before dissect-
ing it. 53 “No scientifi c fact may be verifi ed before it has made an indelible
impression.” 54 If one wants to know (i.e., understand) what Paul said to
the Romans, for example, it is less benefi cial merely to diagram the sen-
tences to discern the meaning than to listen to what he is saying—and
one does this by hearing the word again in the livingness of speech. 55 The
techniques of higher literary criticism in their myriad manifestations (i.e.,
genre criticism, canonical criticism, etc.) are essential and highly recom-
mended as a means of assisting one in ascertaining textual meaning. One
must never neglect, however, the essential event-ness in/of/through the
word—written and spoken—obtaining in/through language as discourse,
dialogue, utterance, conversation. It is possible to study scripture as a lit-
erary scholar and never hear God’s voice reverberating in the text (cf.
John 5.37–39). Written words long to be spoken and heard again in lively
speech; spoken words long to reverberate ad infi nitum in listeners. Words
desire continuously to remain the source of the dialogical life of speaking
and listening, address and response. Thus, “the apparently unproblematic
encounter with ink on the page or sound waves in the air turns out to be
fraught with all of human being.” 56 And, inasmuch as words carry the infi -
nite within the fi nite, the (in)fi nite remainder is a manifestation of Being
and Being is conversation and conversation is Trinity—and this means that
encounters with ink on the page and spoken words in the air are fraught
also with all of Divine Being.
NOTES
- David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infi nite: The Aesthetics of Christian
Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 213. - Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method , 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel
Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1989),
383. Subsequent references appear parenthetically throughout using the
following format: ( TM , page #). - This is really the thrust of Gadamer’s magnum opus: “My real concern is...
what happens to us over and above our wanting and doing” ( TM , 18). - Gadamer’s earlier exposition of the concept of play provides the founda-
tion for understanding the character of conversation ( TM , 101–134, esp.
101–10). Play is “the occurrence of the movement [of a game] as such.”
There is no necessary goal that leads to a conclusion of the game; play
CONVERSATION, BEING, AND TRINITY: TOWARD A TRINITARIAN... 43