"All human language draws its nature and value from the fact that it both comes from the Word of God and is chosen by God to manifest himself. But this relationship is secret and incomprehensible, beyond the bounds of reason and analysis"
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Ellul starts by yanking language out of the marketplace of human invention and returning it to the realm of revelation. The provocation is deliberate: if words are not ultimately ours, then the modern fantasy that we can master meaning through technique, theory, or “better messaging” is exposed as a kind of idolatry. He makes language valuable not because it helps us coordinate society or express private feelings, but because it is implicated in a theological drama: it “comes from the Word of God” and is also “chosen” as God’s instrument of self-disclosure. That double claim both elevates speech and destabilizes it. Language is sacred, yet not reliably controllable.
The pivot comes with his insistence that the relationship is “secret and incomprehensible.” Ellul isn’t dodging analysis out of laziness; he’s drawing a boundary around the sort of rational mastery the twentieth century loved, whether in technocracy, propaganda, or even certain strains of academic critique. As a Christian anarchist and fierce critic of “technique,” Ellul saw systems that flatten reality into what can be optimized. Here, he refuses that flattening. If God’s self-manifestation exceeds “reason and analysis,” then language always carries an excess: something more than semantics, rhetoric, or structural rules.
Subtext: humility as a political and spiritual stance. If language is not finally reducible, then persuasion can’t be treated as pure engineering. It also quietly warns theologians and philosophers against overconfident talk about God: speech can witness, but it can’t domesticate. Ellul’s line is an antidote to the modern compulsion to explain everything, especially the things we most want to own.
The pivot comes with his insistence that the relationship is “secret and incomprehensible.” Ellul isn’t dodging analysis out of laziness; he’s drawing a boundary around the sort of rational mastery the twentieth century loved, whether in technocracy, propaganda, or even certain strains of academic critique. As a Christian anarchist and fierce critic of “technique,” Ellul saw systems that flatten reality into what can be optimized. Here, he refuses that flattening. If God’s self-manifestation exceeds “reason and analysis,” then language always carries an excess: something more than semantics, rhetoric, or structural rules.
Subtext: humility as a political and spiritual stance. If language is not finally reducible, then persuasion can’t be treated as pure engineering. It also quietly warns theologians and philosophers against overconfident talk about God: speech can witness, but it can’t domesticate. Ellul’s line is an antidote to the modern compulsion to explain everything, especially the things we most want to own.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
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