Law, Love and Language

This work represents Herbert McCabe's systematic exploration of theological language and ethics through the lens of Thomistic philosophy. McCabe examines how human beings speak meaningfully about God, arguing that theological discourse operates through analogy rather than univocal predication. He contends that language about God emerges from the intersection of metaphysical reflection and lived experience, particularly the experience of love and moral obligation.

The monograph develops a sophisticated account of how natural law theory relates to divine command and human love. McCabe argues against both voluntarist accounts that reduce ethics to arbitrary divine commands and naturalist approaches that attempt to derive morality from biological or sociological facts alone. Instead, he presents ethics as grounded in the rational structure of human nature as created by God, while maintaining that this structure becomes fully intelligible only through the revelation of divine love. The work engages critically with contemporary analytical philosophy of language, particularly the logical positivist claim that religious statements lack cognitive content.

McCabe's central thesis holds that God-talk functions meaningfully within a broader linguistic community shaped by religious practice and moral commitment. He argues that understanding religious language requires attending to its use within forms of life rather than analyzing propositions in isolation. The work challenges both traditional natural theology, which seeks to prove God's existence through pure reason, and fideistic approaches that divorce faith from rational discourse. McCabe maintains that while God's existence cannot be demonstrated through scientific methodology, theological claims possess genuine truth conditions accessible through philosophical analysis combined with religious practice.

The monograph makes significant contributions to debates about religious language in the wake of linguistic philosophy's critique of metaphysics. McCabe demonstrates how Aquinas's doctrine of analogy remains philosophically viable when properly understood through contemporary philosophy of language. His integration of Wittgensteinian insights with Thomistic metaphysics offers a distinctive approach to perennial questions about how finite beings can speak meaningfully about the infinite. The work proves particularly valuable for its nuanced treatment of the relationship between ethical discourse and theological claims, showing how moral experience provides crucial data for understanding religious language while avoiding crude attempts to derive ought from is.