The Heavenly Analogy of the Connection of Speech with Reason
Dean Goulburn. John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.… Man's reason was formed in the image of God, and our Lord is called the Word; these are the two Scriptural intimations which guide us into part of the truth respecting the Divine nature. 1. Reason involves a thing distinct from itself, namely, speech, or the power of communicating the processes of reason, so that whosoever has the faculty of reason has in that faculty the faculty of speech or the Word. 2. Though reason wraps up speech in itself, yet we can conceive of reason as energizing latently, and of the faculty of speech as having no exercise. 3. Neither reason nor speech can make any claim to priority of existence; they are twin faculties, born at the same instant. Now listen to what the Catholic Church has gathered from the Scripture respecting the nature of God. I. There is a TRINITY IN UNITY, that is, more than one Person in the Divine nature. Man's spirit, the Bible says, was made in the image of that nature. In man's spirit there are two faculties, reason and speech. The second Person in the Divine nature goes by the name of the Word, that is, He stands to the first in the same relation as that in which utterance stands to understanding. II. St. John intimates that THERE WAS A PERIOD WHEN, although both blessed Persons existed, yet THE SON WAS IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER; when, though the Word was, yet the Word came not forth. That is like reason, with the faculty of speech latent in it, not put forth. III. THE MAJESTY OF THESE PERSONS IS CO-ETERNAL. The administration of this in the human spirit is the twin birth of reason and speech. Speech, then, in the nature of man, represents Christ in the nature of God. What a value and a dignity does this impress on human speech! When you reason and communicate to others the result you adumbrate in the limits of a finite nature, the nature of the Infinite One. Shall any child of man, then, degrade this faculty of speech to vain and profane and unclean communications? (Dean Goulburn.) Parallel Verses KJV: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. WEB: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.