Studies in Christian Ethics 2015 Webster 35 48

Studies in Christian Ethics2015, Vol. 28(1) 35 48 The Author(s) 2015

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DOI: 10.1177/0953946814555323sce.sagepub.com

Sins of Speech

John WebsterUniversity of St Andrews, UK

AbstractKnowledge of sins of speech derives from knowledge of God and from knowledge of created nature as teleological, rational, social and communicative. Speech is directed to God and neighbours; it is causal and irrevocable; good speech demonstrates integrity, good intent, justice and moderation. Sinful speech arises from wicked intention and damages both speaker and hearer. Blasphemy opposes vocal confession of God with disparagement of his excellence. Defamation opposes justice by speaking against the neighbours good reputation. In the Christian community, the speech of regenerate creatures is under repair, as thanksgiving to God and edification of neighbours are established by the moving power of the Holy Spirit.

KeywordsBlasphemy, defamation, edification, justice, regeneration, religion, speech, thanksgiving

I

Knowledge of sin is doubly derived, from knowledge of God and knowledge of created nature.

Sin is known as God is known. Most proximately and impressively, this means that knowledge of sin derives from knowledge of the law of God. But the directive and criti-cal force of the divine precepts and statutes is itself drawn from the person and acts of the one from whom they issue. The law is Gods law; it is the imperative extension of Gods being and works. If, therefore, knowledge of sin is to be more than a half-understood emotion of shame or awareness of defect, it is to have its rise, first, in knowledge of those properties of God by which his inner and outer life is characterised most of all, his infinite righteousness, holiness and veracity, as well as his benevolence and beneficence towards creatures. Only against these perfections can sin be set in relief and acquire pro-file and definition. Second, knowledge of sin derives from contemplation of the works of God. These comprise Gods inner works of willing creaturely being and disposing its

Corresponding author:John Webster, St Marys College, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, UK.Email: [email protected]

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36 Studies in Christian Ethics 28(1)

nature and course, and Gods outer acts of creation, governance, reconciliation and per-fection through which that will is put into effect, and creatures are brought into and held in being. These acts, and the being of their agent, are the first principle of created being, and therefore the law of created being, by which its proper enactment is prescribed and appraised. Christian teaching about sin, in short, is a function or extension of the Christian doctrine of God.

Sin is known as created nature is known. This is because sin is a defect or failure of that nature. To say this is to make an epistemological and a metaphysical claim. The epistemological claim is that as defect or failure, sin can be apprehended and described only by reference to that of which it is a privation. The intelligibility of sin depends upon its being seen in relation to the good to which it is opposed; and so slander, gossip, lying and the rest remain inchoately understood without knowledge of the elements of just human communication. Behind this lies a metaphysical claim (one whose abandonment may generate much disorder in doctrinal and moral theology), namely, that sin is not another mode of creaturely being but an absence of creaturely being. In all its phenom-enal vividness and harmfulness, sin is not nature but anti-nature, and therefore to be understood as illegitimate, a trespass, wholly implausible.

The cognitive principles of sin are, therefore, first, the being and acts of God the creator, preserver and reconciler of creatures, and, second, created nature, its powers and its ends. This entails that a theological ethics of speech is inseparable from a dog-matics of creator and creature. The object of Christian theology is God and all things in relation to God. This matter may be arranged into two divisions: first, a treatment of the knowledge of God and creatures, their natures and their relations (this is the con-cern of dogmatics), and, second, a treatment of the service of God, that is of the enact-ment of created nature in relation to God its origin and end (this is the concern of moral-ascetical theology). The two divisions are not, of course, sealed against each other: much may be learned about the dogmatics of created nature by reflection upon the practices in which it is enacted, precisely because in an important sense to have a created nature is to answer a summons to perform it. Moreover, in the order of know-ing, and in activities such as instruction, exhortation and judgment, the first object of attention may often be the practical. Nevertheless, there is a proper material order by virtue of which dogmatics takes a certain precedence over morals and ascetics. This material order corresponds to two principles of created being. First, we are, indeed, creatures, and so our nature is finally intelligible only by reduction, that is, by the movement of intelligence in which the mind traces given realities to their source in divine goodness. Second, to realise oneself as a creature is actively to appropriate an antecedent nature with a given form of which we are not the authors, and whose ends we are not at liberty to invent, adapt or subvert. The material precedence of dogmatics is, however, not to be misunderstood as an attempt by one theological sub-discipline to assert its primacy over others: after all, theology is a single unified science, and sub-disciplines are a late and largely disruptive interpolation. Rather, the precedence of dogmatics is an affirmation that for example an ethics of sinful speech is an integral part of hamartiology, and that it is in hamartiology (in its full scope as a theology of the divine law, the integral state, the fall and divine redemption) that ethics will discover its moral metaphysics.


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Knowledge of God and of our created nature is a casualty of the fall. After our forfeit of the state of integrity, such knowledge has become immeasurably more difficult; we understand almost nothing of God and of ourselves, and that only with great labour. More closely: knowledge of our fallen nature is scarcely available to us, because sinners cannot understand sin. Christian theology is no exception to this cognitive condition, sharing the limitations of all post-lapsarian science. If theology is to proceed, it can only be by repeating in its intellectual operations the pattern of mortification and vivification which is to characterise all parts of Christian existence. Mortification and vivification are the primary characteristics of the form of human life which flows from the repair of our existence effected in Christ and made applicatively real by the work of the Holy Spirit in Christian baptism. Baptism bestows a new nature and prescribes the pattern for its enact-ment, including its intellectual enactment in the work of Christian theology. If that work is to become a matter of understanding, much needs to take place to cleanse, repair and renovate intelligence: the chastening of our pretended knowledge of ourselves, our nature and powers, and the setting and direction of their exercise; renewal of a sense that we are creatures, those who have being and knowledge solely by divine generosity; glad awareness of the divine gift of a new nature after the depredations of the fall; attentive-ness to divine instruction; illumination of the mind by the Holy Spirit; under the same Spirit, the renewal of will and affections, and of the moral, spiritual and intellectual vir-tues needed for steady intelligence. As these things take place, the mind is quickened, and Christian theology is possible.

II

What might theology say about the speech of creatures?1. Humans are creatures. This means, in rather formal terms, that we do not possess

the property of aseity, but owe our being and movement to a being and movement which, unlike ours, is unconditionally original and causal of all other being. To be a creature is to be a being which might not have been, but, by virtue of God, is. That the creature is and is not not is the work of Gods perfect goodness, because that goodness is of itself communicative, and so productive of other being. This productivity is not divine self-dispersal, but the introduction of other being ex nihilo, pure creativity crossing the absolute gulf between being and non-being, so that where once there was nothing, some-thing now is.

Among the creatures of God, human creatures are (a) teleological. That is, we have our given nature not in its completeness but as historical or discursive beings, whose nature is not yet fully achieved but is realised over time. We are, further, (b) rational creatures, though in a way that is inferior to God and the angels of God. We are capable of reflective though not total or intuitive apprehension of the world, and as a conse-quence we are capable of interiority, deliberation and the governance of instinct, desire and will. We are (c) social, that is, in part constituted by relations to other creatures. These relations are not simply those of adjacency, but rather of irreducibly common enactment of our nature in its tendency to certain ends. We are composite, and therefore co-operative, creatures. Finally, we are (d) communicative, in two senses. First, our nature occurs as we give and receive goods of various kinds; such goods are not only



1. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 72.1 corp.

external goods but those internal goods which pertain to our being and well-being. To be the creatures we are is to share in sets of exchanges through which our nature is extended towards perfection. Second, more specifically, we are verbal. The communication of goods by which we are sustained in life takes place either through linguistic signs or with the accompaniment of such signs. In nearly all cases, bodily, emotional and intellectual goods are acquired, enjoyed and dispersed through language.

2. Human speech is creaturely and so not a se. It has its origin in another speaker, God, who within himself speaks his own silent language and who also speaks into existence creatures who are thereby themselves established as speakers. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures (Jas 1:18). Moreover, Gods creative speech to creatures is complemented by his continuing address of them. The word is very near you (Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8), providing direc-tion and illumination (Ps. 119:105; Prov. 6:23). Because God speaks, creatures speak.

3. Human speech is directed to God and to neighbours. Human relation to God is realised and sustained in the intellect, the affections and the will, all of which take form and are active through verbal signs praise, lament, petition, confession, vow and so forth. In its address of God, human speech is governed by the requirements of religion, that is, of devotion to the one to whom we are bound absolutely by reason of our original and continuing derivation from him. Human speech to God will be righteous, that is, if it is observant of the first commandment. In its second domain, that of the address of neighbours, human speech is governed by the requirements of justice. It must arise from and further establish good order in human common life so that goods are properly shared and the community moved nearer to the perfection of its life.

4. In considering a little more closely the governance of human speech by the demands of justice, we may begin by noting two related elements of human speech: its causal power and its irrevocability.

Human causality is not simply efficient, as when the archer sets the arrow in flight; it may also be articulate causality, movement of oneself and another by speech. This may take place in at least three ways. First, speech is causal in that it sets the speaker in a particular frame by shaping or giving form to inner affections, desires and intentions, so making them available to others. Words are effective, and so potentially harmful, Aquinas notes, not because they are sounds but because they are carriers of meaning, and such meaning depends upon an interior attitude.1 Speech is performative, settling and propos-ing a view of the world. Second, accordingly, speech represents the world to others and invites them to appropriate that representation and to conduct themselves in its light. This, for example, is why defamation inflicts damage: false representation is effective. Third, therefore, speech establishes (and may adversely affect or even destroy) relations between persons. Speech establishes a real relation between the speaker and the one addressed, a relating, that is, which is a determinative property of each. This last feature of verbal causality is closely connected to the irrevocability of speech. What is said may not be unsaid; speech sets up a representation of the world which may not be retracted. It may be recanted, withdrawn or renounced, and its generative power in some measure


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2. Augustine, To Consentius: Against Lying 17. 3. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 109.2 corp.

diminished; but it may not be unsaid, because that which has been said is irreversible. If I am called a fool by someone, I am one who has once been called a fool, that person is one who once called me a fool, and the world is a place in which I was so addressed.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Prov. 18:21). This being so, how is speech to be ordered so that created goods are fittingly communicated and common life caused to flourish?

First, good human speech is characterised by its integrity, by the transparency with which it manifests the good intentions of the speaker. Good speech is ex animo, doneafter the purpose of the mind;2 good speech is the utterance of the well-framed heart and intention. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of God is in his heart (Prov. 37:30-31). Because it possesses this integrity, good speech is a dispensation of knowledge (Prov. 15:2, 7).

Second, in good human speech there is a right relation of sign to thing signified which sets up truth in human communication. There is a specific aspect of order in keeping our spoken words or observable actions in their proper reference as signs to the thing they signify, Aquinas writes, and thereby a person is perfected by the virtue of truth.3 Good human speech is trustworthy, non-manipulative communication of truth.

Third, therefore, good human speech arises from, contributes to and so confirms due order in the relation of the speaker to other persons. It is an act of justice, which recog-nises its hearers as neighbours, which honours them as such, which does not deal with them simply in terms of the speakers own desires, but intends simply that these neigh-bours should come to enjoy the goods that the speaker has to share.

Fourth, good human speech is moderated, in accordance with the place and vocation of the speaker and the needs and capacities of the hearers. It involves prudent attention to circumstance and occasion. Moderation is the governance of the expressive impulse so that the speakers pleasure in speaking is not allowed to become inordinate, and goods are not dispensed wastefully and indiscriminately, without loving attention to their recip-ients, but shared in such a way as to be of benefit to them.

Fifth, in good human speech, justice to others is animated by religion. Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31; cf. Col. 3:17). Good human speech glorifies God by an inner conviction that God is the God of truth (Isa. 65:16) who looks for truth (Jer. 5:3), and by indicating and conforming to Gods perfect wisdom and rule in the order of human signs.

III

Sin lays siege to this right ordering of human speech; in fallen creatures, the little member of the tongue (Jas 3:5) effects damage of remarkably disproportionate severity and scope:

So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every



4. Aquinas arranges the material in this way in Summa theologiae IIaIIae 67-76; a similar arrangement may be found in post-Reformation exercises in ascetical theology such as W. Brakels exposition of the ninth commandment in The Christians Reasonable Service, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1994 [1700]), pp. 227-35.

kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so (Jas 3:5-11).

An immediate qualification is necessary, however, if a theological account of sins of speech is not to miss the mark. Disordered speech does not cannot wholly overwhelm and replace right communicative order. This is because sin cannot uncreate the creature; neither the substance nor the form of creaturely existence are ours to eliminate. We may occlude them by failure to realise them or to give them practical effect; but, in the midst of such privation, the speaking subject and the subjects vocation remain, inert but not obliterated. Moreover, against the attack which sin launches on our verbal nature and vocation stands the unhindered work of the divine Word and Spirit through which cre-ated nature is subject renovation and so re-established and confirmed. These dogmatic principles about the super-eminence of creation and reconciliation over depravity need to be operative in any moral anatomy of sins of speech. However penetrating and vivid its account of the ways in which sin ravages practices of human communication, such an anatomy must not fail to make clear that sin is only an absurd extended episode, one that may claim no validity or permanence, which is already exposed and overpowered and has its terminus set.

Sinful speech, like speech in its natural ordering, may be divided into those commu-nications whose object is God and those whose object is our neighbour. Against God are such sins as blasphemy and cursing of God, as well as those sins of defect in which we do not heed the command to confess, praise and invoke God but remain locked in silence. Against our neighbour, sins of speech may conveniently be classified according to set-ting, as those which occur in a court of law (in iudicio) and those which occur in the course of ordinary conversation (in communi locutione), whether in speech to others or about others. The former include such sins as making false accusations, bearing false witness or pronouncing an unjust judgment. In the latter category are those ways of speaking that seek to damage or destroy the neighbours reputation: defamation, detrac-tion, gossip, ridicule; those which undermine common life by deceit: lying, hypocrisy, boasting and flattery; and those which are quarrelsome and sow discord.4

Further, sins of speech may be considered in terms of their origin and their effect.Words are signs, and when they function well they signify not only that to which they

refer and to which they direct the hearer, but also the speakers inner life or intention from which they flow. Sins of speech originate in an evil heart: the mouths of fools pour out folly (Prov. 15:2); What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughtsfalse witness, slander (Mt.


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5. Augustine, On Lying, 3. 6. Augustine, To Consentius: Against Lying, 26; see also Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 110

corp. 7. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 72.2 corp; see also 73.2 corp; 75.1 corp.

15:18). Evil speech expresses and serves the realisation of evil intention. In his treatment of lying in the early treatise de mendacio (c. 395), Augustine notes that the heart of him who lies is said to be double: the one, of that thing which he either knows or thinks to be true and does not produce; the other, of that thing which he produces instead thereof, knowing or thinking it to be false.5 Lying is not error but deception as he puts it in the later Contra mendacium, A lieis a false signification with a will of deceiving.6 The principle here is that appraisal of acts of verbal communication must include inquiry into and assessment of the speakers intention. Words harm not in so far as they are sounds but in so far as they are carriers of meaning. Now such meaning depends on an interior attitude, so that what we have to look at above all in sins of word is the attitude behind them.7 Speech is not instinctual or involuntary but deliberate, the expression of con-scious design. In understanding sins of speech, therefore, we are to unearth the inner purposes disclosed. Coming to understand such sins requires skill in the discovery and exposure of what the speaker hides: He who hates, dissembles with his lips and harbours deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abom-inations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with guile, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly (Prov. 26:24-26).

Similarly, sins of speech are to be weighed according to the damage which they inflict. The damage is various: that caused to those about whom sinful words are spoken, that caused to those to whom sinful words are spoken, and that caused to the speaker. The injury inflicted on those about whom sinful words are spoken is the loss of social goods (such as reputation) and possibly of material goods. By way of example: flattery evil intent masquerading as affability deprives the hearer of opportunities for fraternal cor-rection (the flatterer will not displease the hearer, even when such displeasure would be an act of charity seeking to help the hearer set aside some evil); flattery also invites the hearer to relax proper self-command and so lays the hearer open to exploitation by the speaker who may be intent on personal gain. Again, the damage inflicted on all to whom sinful words are spoken is the unleashing of malevolent forces which disfigure life in common: With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbour (Prov. 11:9). Most specially, sins of speech furnish occasion for whatever powers oppose human flourishing to provoke disorder and conflict, as in Pauls catena of quotations in Romans 3: Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they do not know (Rom. 3:13-17). Finally, sins of speech inflict damage on the one by whom they are spo-ken, by prompting the largely indiscernible but steady acquisition and reinforcement of unrighteous intentions and vicious habits of communication. Augustine says,

If we once allow it may be right to tell a lie then little by little and by minute degrees, the evil so grows upon us, and by slight accesses to such a heap of wicked lies does it, in its almost



8. Augustine, To Consentius: Against Lying, 37; see also Ambroses acute observation of the way in which evil words wound their speakers: On the Duties of the Clergy I.iv.15-16.

9. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 91.1 corp.10. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 13.1 obj. 1.

imperceptible encroachments, at last come about that no place can ever be found where this huge mischief, by smallest additions rising into boundless strength, might be resisted.8

With these general observations in mind, we may turn to some remarks on two exam-ples of sins of speech: blasphemy against God and defamation of neighbour.

1. The creature is unconditionally obligated to speak Gods praise and to render thanks to God. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all thy wonder-ful deeds; I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations; It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to thy name, O Most High (Pss. 9:1, 89:1, 92:1). This first duty of religion is not external and statutory, but internal and natural. The obligation, that is, arises from our given creaturely nature: praise and thanksgiving are the first realisations or principal performances of our nature as those who have and are sustained in life and movement by limitless divine goodness. In praise and in the rendering of thanks, we do not satisfy an irksome extrinsic requirement laid upon us, so much as give glad assent to our particular mode of being and deliberately and articulately direct it towards its perfection. Because praise and thanksgiving are modes of speech which correspond to our situation as crea-tures of divine beneficence, we may engage in them without resentment, with unfeigned delight and singularity of purpose, so moving to complete on our side the fellowship with our creator in which we are fully alive. Praise and thanksgiving are necessarily verbal, moreover, because it is our nature to move and express the mind and the affections by external signs. Vocal praise of God is necessary, Aquinas notes, not for his sake but for our own, since by praising him our devotion is aroused.9

Blasphemy stands in opposition to this work of latria, the vocal confession of divine goodness. To blaspheme is to utter an affront or insult against the creator.10 To blas-pheme is not simply to lament or even to rail against God in misery; blasphemy does not express sorrow at the apparent absence of divine consolation. Rather, blasphemy is deter-mined disparagement of God, sometimes in the form of denying his excellences, at other times in the form of attributing to God what does not befit his perfection. Its root is not spiritual struggle but detestation of or disgust at God. Spiritual sorrow arises because of a seemingly irresolvable contest between two realities by both of which the sorrowful person is commanded: the infinite goodness of God announced in the Gospel, and the misery of life in the world. Lament in the midst of sadness does not entail repudiation of the bond to God which is fundamental to creatureliness; indeed, it is only because that bond stands that sadness is acute and drives the believer to cry out in lament. Even in wretchedness, lament honours and confesses God, whereas blasphemy scorns and reviles him, and so gives voice to detestation of the religious relation of creature to creator.

It is the impious person who reviles the divine name (Ps. 74:18). Blasphemous speech arises from irreverence towards or derogation of the creator, preserver and redeemer of creatures. Such irreverence will not allow that it is not only the duty but also the delight


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and dignity of creatures to give honour to God in words, and so it directs its communica-tive energies into malediction. By such words indignant, contemptuous, unrestrained the impious person seeks to injure the divine reputation or name. No such injury may be inflicted, of course, because Gods worth is infinite and eternal, complete in itself apart from any creaturely attitude or expression of reverence, and no word from the crea-ture can add to or detract from its majesty and fullness. What blasphemy does effect is deep disruption of the ordered relation of creature to creator, replacing confession of Gods excellence by contumely. This is why blasphemy is a mortal sin: by it, the speaker is severed from the first principle of spiritual life.11

2. Charity among creatures is realised in part in justice, in which the will is inclined to maintain the goods of common life by firm and constant respect for our neighbours right, and so to render to each person what belongs to them. Among the goods which justice maintains is reputation. Reputation is the honour or credit which attaches to a person by virtue of the truthful estimation and recognition accorded to them by others. Reputation is important because it is a condition for social dignity. Those who possess a good name are able to bear themselves in society in such a way as to enjoy access to goods such as respect or trust, goods which are very great: a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches (Prov. 22:1); a good name is better than precious ointment (Eccl. 7:1).

Justice requires that we so act and speak as to give honour to the good name of others, that is, to recognise and, as occasion demands, to give a good report of that name in con-versation, so bearing witness to our neighbours fame. Sin contends against this. Its opposition to the goods of society includes the use of words to try to damage and lay waste the neighbours good name, and in so doing to inhibit the neighbours ability to move in society easily and in a dignified way by commanding respect. Among the forms of this sin are defamation, detraction or back-biting, and gossip. All stem from the fallen creatures rejection of the co-constitution of our nature in neighbourliness and from the consequent governance of society by competition, suspicion, jealousy, vengefulness, spite, dissimulation, contention and the rest.

Defamation is public slander of another, whether in the form of angry reviling or of smooth and clever calumny. It effects its malice by denying the excellences of character on which the neighbours good reputation rests, or by drawing attention to and magnify-ing faults real or invented which detract from that reputation. Defamation uses verbal signs to represent the neighbour in an evil light, in order to persuade others that the neighbours fame is false and that the neighbour lacks entitlement to occupy a position of respect in common life.

The power of defamatory words lies in their abuse of the fact that reputation is a pub-lic reality. Excellence of character is objective; it precedes its recognition by others and remains even when unrecognised. Indeed, we may ascribe special dignity to one who possesses excellence of character but has not been duly recognised. Reputation is public esteem or acknowledgement of excellence. Though such esteem is not essential, it adds to the splendour of a persons excellence, exhibiting and confirming merit. Well-ordered



12. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 74.1 corp.13. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 74.4 corp.

speech in relation to our neighbours includes the declaration and praise of worth in order to establish fame. Disordered speech distorts this process of public regard into one which seeks to disgrace the neighbour by false accusation and report: wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tonguethey beset me with words of hate, and attack me without causeso they reward me evil for good (Ps. 109:2-4).

Back-biting and gossip are less open but no less malign. Unlike defamation, they work indirectly and covertly, not by open attack but by seeking to cause others to enter-tain a bad opinion about the neighbour. They share some features in common. They are, for example, usually accompanied by inward delight in possessing and distributing apparently damaging information about a neighbour the words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels, Proverbs tells us (26:22). Back-biters and gossips take relish in lifting the veil of secrecy, and enjoy the ensuing humiliation of the neighbour. They lack respect for truth, exaggerating matters or claiming as certain things which are uncertain or merely suspected to be the case. They are cunning in the use of suggestion, flirting with their hearers to incite curiosity and captivate them. All this may be accompanied by a demeanour or verbal tone which promotes the impression that the back-biter or gossip is reluctant to detract from others, and is acting out of concern for common welfare.

Defamation, detraction and gossip are socially ruinous in two ways. First, these sins of speech require that the category of neighbour be inoperative, because that category represents the claims of justice, facing social agents with an irreducible verbal responsi-bility and restriction. If the category of neighbour has any force, there are things that must be said and things that must not. Verbal injustice wants to split friends12 Aquinass remark comes in the course of his observations on whispering against others, but it has wide application. Defamatory sins of speech take away the reputation which is the precondition for being counted worthy of friendship, and so robs us of having friends, the most precious external good we can have.13 This is why revilers and, by synecdoche, all who speak against their neighbours good name have no inheritance in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10). Second, in depriving others of a neighbours good name, defamation and the like deprive the entire community of a common good. Public recognition of a neighbours excellence communicates a good from which all profit, both by exhibiting eminence of character for emulation by others, and by reinforcing whole-some patterns of public speech. Defamation is, therefore, injustice not only against its object but also against its hearers.

IV

The domain of sin and its irreligious and unjust habits of speech is opposed by regenerate life, that lovely and wholesome form of creatureliness in which vocal society with God and neighbours begins once again to flourish. The opposition of these two realms is not one of competitive co-existence of like realities, because they are incommensurable. The


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domain of sin has already been judged, that is, exposed, condemned and overcome (dis-armed, Col. 2:15); it is now manifest as an interloper, without authority and without future. The domain of regeneration has already been established by the sovereignty of divine goodness, effective in Christs work of reconciliation, manifest in his resurrection from the dead and now through the Holy Spirit amplifying itself as the future of creation. Sin and regeneration exist on no common scale; the contrast between them is that between old and new (2 Cor. 5:17) or between death and life (Eph. 2:5).

The domain of regeneration owes itself to the limitlessness of God. In it, the surpass-ing grace of God (2 Cor. 9:14) is to be found; here the abundance of divine grace, its all the more character, is operative. It is a wholly legitimate domain, established by the eternal purpose of God the Father (Eph. 1:4-5, 9-11) and ruled by God the Son who sits at the Fathers right hand far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and under whose feet are all things (Eph. 1:20-22). Believers have been placed in this sphere of rule: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the king-dom of his beloved Son (Col. 1:13). Further, this domain has a social co-ordinate or extension, which is the church. As the one who is before all things, the Son is not iso-lated but appointed by the Father to be the head of the body, the church and the first-born (Col. 1:17-18), and so at his side there is the company of the elect: You, who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled (Col. 1:21-22).

Because the domain of regeneration is one in which human nature is restored and the human vocation reinstituted, it is a moral domain, a field of the service of God by good works. Regenerative grace vivifies creaturely action. The first cause of good works is God the Holy Spirit, in whom they are begun, continued and brought to completion. Good works are creaturely; they are neither self-original nor self-moving, but wholly reliant upon God. The anthropological principle of good works, that is, is faith. But the Spirits lordly action does not take the form of a wholly extrinsic force; the Spirit works by bestowing powers upon creatures and by moving and governing their use of these gifts. By the Spirit, the creature is stirred into moral history. And because this history is genuinely moral, it is not arbitrary: its form is determined by the divine law, so that cre-ated works are good insofar as they are congruent with divine instruction about our nature and its ends, and with the divine precepts in which that instruction has imperative and regulatory effect.

Service of God in the condition of regeneration sets creatures against themselves; moral history involves conflict. This is because the new condition, though established by a divine decision and act which cannot be annulled or repealed, is not yet filled out on the creaturely side or brought to its human perfection. It is inaugurated and directed to a term which it has not yet attained. Remission of fault and bestowal of the new nature are com-plete; recovery and renovation of life-course are progressive and prospective. The move-ment of creaturely life towards perfection contends with vestigial corruption, and though the outcome of the contest is already secured by the regenerate creatures entirely changed relation to its fallen nature, movement to that outcome is agonistic.

The speech of regenerate creatures is caught up in the prolonged struggle which arises from our present mixed condition. In speech, too, there takes place the repudiation of the old and the active appropriation of the new condition, made possible by the Spirit.



14. Aquinas, Summa theologiae IIaIIae 177.1 s.c.

Like all forms of human goodness, good speech is ex gratia.14 Divine grace enables abandonment of the old and putting on of the vocal new nature in relation to God and neighbours.

1. In relation to God, the mortification and vivification of speech is exemplified in the renewal of thanksgiving. Consider the apostolic injunction: Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving (Eph. 5:4). Why counter obscenity of act and gesture, frivolity, clever raillery and banter with thanksgiving? Because such behaviour and modes of speech are excluded in the condi-tion of regeneration; they fail to correspond to it, and to engage in them is to attempt to suspend the order of reality in which the regenerate stand and to which their communica-tive acts are to be conformed. In this new order of reality, the giving of thanks is supremely fitting or seemly for the saints (Eph. 5:3), that is, for those who have been separated from immorality and all impurity, and summoned to active, vocal holiness. Verbal grat-itude is, therefore, part of the creaturely realisation of the relation to God into which believers have been introduced by the grace of Christ, one of whose primary acts is always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father (Eph. 4:20; cf. Col. 3:17; 1 Thess. 5:18).

2. In relation to neighbours, speech is to accord with the pattern of life in which cor-ruption is being set aside in the wake of the new nature. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col. 3:5-10). The new nature brings with it a set of new social relations, determined by a state of affairs which is at once metaphysical and moral: Christ isin all (Eph. 3:11). By setting us in this state, regeneration pro-motes a new attitude to others that is, recognition of their placement and status as neighbours and fellow members (Eph. 4:25) in the social sphere of regeneration and a new intention to act in accordance with that recognition. Or again, in slightly different terms: by divine election and establishment there is a social reality, the brotherhood (1 Pet. 2:17) whose internal relations are to exhibit unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind (1 Pet. 3:8). These relations in turn, are dis-played in and carried by new speech practices by which spiritual and social goods are shared: Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing (1 Pet. 3:9).

Neighbourliness, membership of one another, the common life of the brotherhood, are communicated in speech; our spoken dealings with one another both express and effect life in common, and are basic to its enactment in due order and justice. We may notice in this connection that James exposes injustice between believers by exposing to view examples of wicked speech by which the injustice is realised. [I]f a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also


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comes in, and you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, Have a seat here, please, while you say to the poor man, Stand there, or, Sit at my feet, have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? (Jas 2:2-4); If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? (Jas 2:15-16). In the assembly (the gathering of the regenerate), others are not those whom we are entitled to place by pronouncing sen-tence and assigning rank; they are brothers and sisters, to be spoken of and to as such.

This being so, mortification and vivification are therefore necessary in verbal com-munication in Christian society. In our imperfect status, remnants of the old nature cling to our speech, and we make many mistakes in what we say (Jas 3:2). Our speaking to others is not yet instinctual or wholly natural; it must therefore be enjoined by precept. Two such precepts may be mentioned by way of example: those that pertain to edifica-tion and to moderation.

(a) Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29). The conver-sation of the regenerate is to be so ruled that it builds up common life. This requires, negatively, the setting aside of evil speech (Ephesians gives the examples of clamour and slander, 4:31), and, positively, its replacement by improving and apt speech through which our hearers partake of grace. Edifying speech confirms the reality of regeneration by, for example, moving the affections to love of divine truth, or by exemplifying and commending modes of relation between persons which perfect society, such as affability or truthfulness. Most particularly, speech edifies by instruction. Words of teaching and exhortation communicate knowledge of the communitys condition and help make that condition fruitful. The communitys speech and so its teaching are principally deter-mined by the fact that it is indwelt by the word of Christ (Col. 3:16), that is, by the actively communicative presence of Christ the prophet through the proclamation of the apostolic gospel. This word is not barren; its productivity is not, however, immediate but effective through the speech of human teachers, by which the grace of divine instruction is distributed and spiritual life caused to flourish.

The gratuitous graces are given for the profit of others Now the knowledge a person receives from God cannot be turned to anothers profit except by means of speech. And since the Holy Spirit does not fail in anything that pertains to the profit of the church, he provides also the members of the church with speech, to the effect that a person not only speaks so as to be understood by different people, which pertains to the gift of tongues, but also speaks with effect, and this pertains to the grace of the word.15

(b) Speech imparts grace when it is moderated: measured and adapted as condition and occasion demands, not precipitate or heedless or distorted by excess or defect. Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak (Jas 1:19); If anyone thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, that mans religion is vain (Jas 1:26; cf. 3:2). Restraint (bridling) is not simple suppression so much as command,



16. Gregory, Pastoral Rule III.14.17. J. Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845),

pp. 332-33.

formation and direction of speech. It involves both an understanding of the proper voca-tion and use of words in common exchanges, and a disposition of the self which is free from the anxious need to assert ourselves over others by words. One whose speech is moderated seeks so to speak as to secure goods in common, and is patient, waiting with confidence on Gods providence and judgment. There is, therefore, a proper Christian taciturnity, cautious lest speech should offend, and more ready to listen than to speak. Moderation differs from culpable silence, however, because it knows that some occa-sions demand speech. In the Pastoral Rule, Gregory gives the instance of the way in which immoderate silence can aggravate or prolong discord after disagreement when what is required is reconciling speech in the form of reproof:

if [those who have suffered wrong at the hands of others] love their neighbours as themselves, they should by no means keep from them the grounds on which they justly blame them. For from the medicine of the voice there is a concurrent effect for the health of both parties, while on the side of him who inflicts the injury his bad conduct is checked, and on the side of him who sustains it the violent heat of pain is alloyed by opening out the sore The tongue, therefore, should be discreetly curbed, not tied up fast.16

Moderation is an element of well-directed, just and charitable communication, seeking to share goods by using the best words in the best way to best effect.

V

Believers and their words are no longer in servitude to the present evil age (Gal. 1:4) from which they have surely been delivered; but they await full realisation of that liberty. The sanctification of our speech in this not-yet-perfect condition remains a matter of continual invocation of God: Let the words of my mouthbe acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer (Ps. 19:14). Calvin comments:

David asks still more expressly to be fortified by the grace of God, and thus enabled to live an upright and holy life. The substance of the verse is this: I beseech thee, O God, not only to keep me from breaking forth into the external acts of transgression, but also to frame my tongue and my heart to the obedience of thy law. We know how difficult it is, even for the most perfect, so to bridle their words and thoughts, as that nothing may pass through their heart or mouth which is contrary to the will of God; and yet this inward purity is what the law chiefly requires of us. Now, the rarer this virtue the rarer this strict control of the heart and of the tongue is, let us learn so much the more the necessity of our being governed by the Holy Spirit, in order to regulate our life uprightly and honestly. By the word acceptable, the Psalmist shows that the only rule of living well is for men to endeavor to please God, and to be approved of him. The concluding words, in which he calls God his strength and his redeemer, he employs to confirm himself in the assured confidence of obtaining his requests.17


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