This is a book of philosophy; its development follows the lines of the philosophical methods known in linguistic analysis and phenomenology. However these philosophical methods are employed here in consideration of a theological problem: the meaningfulness and reasonability of that which Christians say about God.

Obviously, such a philosophical undertaking is fraught with problems. Does philosophy have the capacity to comprehend theological matters, matters which rely on divine revelation? What authority does philosophy have on questions of the significance and the reasonability of faith and of theological argumentation? Apparently none!

However, since we human beings are capable of understanding what God has revealed, even if not with complete, interior comprehension, divine revelation must occur in human language and must thus be accessible to the general tools of linguistic analysis and logic, as well as to those of a phenomenology of the contents of human consciousness. Moreover, the material object of philosophy is unlimited: all of actual and possible reality – "being qua being". Logic too can and must occupy itself with every argumentation. Certainly there are precedents for a philosophical treatment of theological issues; it suffices to recall not only Augustine and Aquinas, but also Maimonides, and the Arab theologians of the Middle Ages; in modern times Hegel, and in our own century Ricoeur, Levinas, and Rosenzweig.

However, philosophy can consider a theological issue only if it is permitted to approach the issue as it would approach any other issue; philosophy cannot presuppose truth on account of divine revelation. At the same time, philosophy must respect the specificity of the theological terrain — as we shall see.

We intend to discuss the significance and reasonability of that which Christians say about God in general, in a broad sense. We need however to distinguish two levels of Christian discourse about God. On the one hand, a part of what Christians say about God is common , in some form, to other religions as well and as such has been considered philosophically from the time of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and others. However, another part of Christian discourse is born exclusively of revelation, as when we speak of the Trinity or the Incarnation. Clearly these two ‘parts’ cannot be legitimately separated; revelation as such has always been ingredient in the philosophical reflections of Christians, and the way in which a Christian speaks of God is, in the concrete instance, always seamless. Precisely for this second reason the object of our philosophical endeavor here is Christian discourse in the broadest, ‘global’ sense – a ‘given’ which is specific, historical, religious, Christian, and in some fashion already theologically elaborated.

This book is articulated in three parts, for which I have chosen three articulations of philosophical reflection upon wittgenstein.

The first part, chapters 1 to 3, is a semantics of religious language.

The second, chapters 4 to 6, considers a logic of Christian discourse on God.

The third and final part attempts a pragmatics of the faith.

The philosophical methods employed in our analysis of Christian discourse are: first, that of logical-linguistic analysis, referring back to Ludwig Wittgenstein and predominating in the first five chapters; and second, that of phenomenological reduction, adopted in the sixth and seventh chapters and deriving from Edward Husserl.

But before we introduce the methods of our analysis we need to speak further of the object of the analysis — the philosophical facticity of Christian discourse about God.