Note, this was the final paper assignment for my introductory communications class for the Master’s Degree I am working on through Gonzaga University. Apologies if the language is boring — it has to sound academic.
Personal Communication Philosophy: Creational and Relational
Jonathan R. Lightfoot
Gonzaga University
COML 508: Theorizing Communication
Personal Communication Philosophy: Creational and Relational
The following paper will discuss my personal philosophy of communication. It is a theory deeply based in traditional Christian Orthodoxy. It takes terms from theology and philosophy, pairs of terms, and explores the dynamic tension between them. Most people see these terms as opposites. I see them as an integrated whole. The terms to be explored are:
- Creational/Relational
- Poetical/Logical
- Objective/Subjective
- Thought/Emotion
I will start with the primary pair — creational/relational — and then amplify with the other three sets of terms.
Creational/Relational
The first pair I want to cover – creational/relational — is different from the other pairs, and lends order to them all. It isn’t a polarity like the others. Rather this is an interpretation of Genesis 1:27
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (KJV)
There has been a lot of discussion and debate about what it means to be made “in God’s image.” I find myself in agreement with Dorothy L. Sayers, in The Mind of the Maker where she posits that one of the chief ways we are like God is that we like to create. Communication is about creating.
But it is also about relating. God is relational. As G.K. Chesterton says in Orthodoxy “to us Trinitarians God Himself is a society” (p 113) If we share His image we will seek to relate with both Him and our fellows.
This is the foundation upon which my theory rests. The other points are the flying buttresses.
Poetical/Logical
The first buttress for the edifice is the pair of poetical/logical. As a teen I was a very reasoned, very logical individual, and thus I learned the limits of logic. While I didn’t know the quote at the time, I took the line from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” very seriously, until I reached the point where I could hardly move. It was there my good sense saved me. Years later, when I actually ran across the Socrates quote, I realized what it meant, and created what I called the Lightfoot Corollary: “The totally examined life is unlivable.”
On the other side is the poetic, the artistic side – my music and writing. The use of images and metaphors is a different way of communicating and knowing from the logical.
G. K. Chesterton, whom I quote frequently, said:
Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite… To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.” (Orthodoxy, p 9).
I see that I use a very logical structure to explain my theory – logic, after all, has its uses – but I tend to place logic subordinate to the poetic.
So the foundation is laid, and one pair of buttressing terms applied. The next buttressing pair is probably the most discussed of the three.
Objective/Subjective
Buttress number two is the age-old question: do we see the world objectively or subjectively? Griffin spends a whole chapter and then some of A First Look at Communication Theory contrasting the two perspectives. I think it will be a persistent theme. Do we take the objective view, to be able to describe and define, or do we take the subjective view, how this relates to me personally?
I ran across this idea in a book by Christopher West explaining Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body to lay people. I am not sure if it is in there exactly this way, but what I came away with was:
- Classical Theology comes from a God as the Divine Object perspective. It talks about Him by attributes.
- Theology of the Body tends toward a God as the Divine Subject perspective. It talks about Him relationally to us.
People try to make this an either-or, when it should be both. The objective reality of the Divine Object is there, but it can only be experienced, and made real to us, through experiencing the Divine Subject. Experiencing the Divine Object through the Divine Subject doesn’t change its reality, but it is the only way to truly know Him.
Deep thoughts, huh? Perhaps a simpler explanation will clarify the communication principle. Adam could probably tell you a lot about Eve: height, weight, eye color, hair color, etc., but when the Bible said, “And Adam knew his wife Eve” (Gen 4:1) is when it became relational, and very creational. So communication should help us study objects, and make them subjects.
From this point we will go to my final buttress pair – thought vs. emotion.
Thought/Emotion
I will introduce the final buttress pair with Rene Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am,” line. In so speaking, he promoted solid knowledge and definition. Opposed to that is the “touchy feely” world, one without defined substance. Or is it? By nature I am an artist — an artist with words, an artist with music. No emotion makes no art. But no thought makes no art either. It is powerful, concrete thoughts, concrete images, that make the strongest metaphors, the strongest images.
Conclusion
In this paper I have constructed the edifice of my personal philosophy of communication. Dorothy L. Sayers has a famous saying “The dogma is the drama.” My theory takes that thought and applies it through a paraphrase, “the dogma is the theory.”
My philosophy starts with the dogma of being made in the image of God: Creational and Relational. It explores how that works itself out in the attributes of being poetical and logical; objective and subjective; with both thought and emotion. The edifice may expand over time with other buttressing pairs – the foundation can certainly carry and support them – but these three will do the job nicely on their own.
For whether we have these three pairs, or more pairs, the dynamic tension between each works out the communication process, through creation and relation, to become story, to become drama, to become life.
References
Chesterton, G.K (2012), Orthodoxy
Griffin, E (2009) A First Look at Communication Theory (7th Ed)
The Holy Bible, King James Version
Plato, Dialogues of Plato
Sayers, D. (2004) The Dogma in the Drama, Letters to a Diminished Church
Sayers, D. (1987), The Mind of the Maker
West, C (2014) Theology of the Body Explained
At The Rainbow 