Gottlob Frege made the distinction between “sentences” and “propositions”. For Gottlob, a sentence is what is said, and a proposition is what the sentence means. Explaining Frege’s 1892 essay “On Sense and Reference” Colin McGinn suggests that “[s]entences can differ in their constituent words and be synonymous, having the same meaning, and thus express the same proposition” (2). Perhaps… but then again, that sounds too easy. What about examples? McGinn gives us one:
1. John is a bachelor.
2. John is an unmarried male.
Does this work? I don’t think so.
“Bachelor” implies the presence of a society in which bachelor occupies a social position. It is a peculiar thing that an unmarried man can be. There is a space made for it in the dictionary. Moreover bachelors typically have not been married. The noun is far more limited in its scope.
“Unmarried male” is the language of modern science applied to human persons. It tells us a lot in what it refuses –any degree of humanizing personalism. It is a designation made to be calculated and counted. It is also a larger category, “unmarried male” could include widowers and monks.
These different constituent words communicate different things.
And yet, for all of my protestations, Frege is not wholly wrong. There is a degree of unity in the meanings of each sentence. An author writing a novel in which this “John” guy is a character might use either sentence, and we, the reader, would generally follow the meaning.
So, what does that mean?
There has to be a place, it seems, for two sentences with differing constituent words to have a similar meaning, or to designate a similar subject truthfully, without using exactly the same words. But there also has to be a way to acknowledge those very meaningful differences.
For instance, we need to have the room to say that, on one level, “taking without asking” is the same as “stealing” while also having the room to acknowledge that these two actions do have differences.
When Christ says that anyone who rages in his heart against his brother commits murder against him (Matt. 5:21-22), he is drawing an equation: thinking “I wish they were dead” = murder. On one level Jesus is drawing our attention to the way in which these are “the same.” At the same time there is a meaningful Biblical distance between wishing someone was dead and actually killing them. The two acts are different.
This is a paradox.
How can two things be “the same” and yet “different”? What allows for this tension? Now that answer is simple: the Trinity.
If the whole world, if language itself, finds its origin in the Triune life of God, then there is room for things to be simultaneously “the same” and “different".” The Persons of the Trinity are simultaneously different and yet remain al fully one God. The logic of the Trinity sustains the logic of language.
Liturgical worship is one such example: our liturgy doesn’t change. It is true for a parishioner to say “This worship is the same every week.” And yet, each week is different also. We come with different sorrows and joys. The intonations are slightly altered. The number of those gathered varies. Sometimes we wrestle through it, sometimes we experience great renewal. The liturgy doesn’t change, but the collect alters, the music rotates, and the sermon varies. Distribution of Holy Communion always feels “the same” and yet “different” each week.
Frege was a man of genius, that much is clear. I am only here suggesting that perhaps that genius be leavened with some Trinitarian yeast.