Language event (German: ''Sprachereignis'') is an act or instance of written or spoken

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

. In the 1920s earliest use of the word was found in ''Journal of Philosophy''. In

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

this word was used by Ernest Fuchs, relating to New Hermeneutic. Fuchs' doctrine of language helped to inspire a "new quest" for the historical

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

because it could now be said that Jesus' words and deeds constituted that "language event" in which faith first entered into language, thereby becoming available as an existential possibility within language, the "house of being" (

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

). Conversely, the reality of God's love is verbalized in Jesus' words and deeds recorded in the Gospels and is thus preserved as language gain (German: ''Sprachgewinn''). In the freedom of proclamation God's presence in the gospel as the "Yes of love" happens again-that is, comes to be as language, opening up the future to authentic existence (faith, hope, and love)

Paul

According to the Epistles of Paul, the proclaimed Word of God effects and creates faith. Faith is thus the creature of the word ("creatura verbi"). So it says in Paul's letter to the Romans (Rom 10,17 EU): "Faith thus comes from preaching, but preaching by the word of Christ." Thus, for Paul, faith arises from hearing the apostolic message of faith. Yet this "fides ex auditu" is a gift from God.

Martin Luther

Martin Luther defines the believing people as "homo audiens". According to him, listening to the Word requires faith in man. This "verbality" of faith is central to his theology. Again and again, this emphasizes the vocabulary of faith and that the word should be praised as a means of grace. Faith embraces the word that is offered to it. So it is z. E.g. in his second Psalm lecture (1519/20) on Ps 18.45 VUL: "Actum igitur credendi (ut vocant) nescio quibus verbis possis aptius eloqui quam ista periphrasi divina:" auditu auris audivit mihi ", hoc est, stultus sibi fuit populus gentium, ut mihi crederet in his, quae non videret nec caperet." - Martin Luther: WA 5, 537, 3 "Therefore, I do not know with which words you could pronounce the event of faith (as they call it) more fittingly than by this divine description:" It

he people He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

hears me with obedient ears ", that is to say, simple is for themselves the people of People so that it believed me in things that neither saw nor grasped. " By referring to the passage as a "transcription", Luther means the "inner" and "spiritual" hearing through which the act of believing (actum credendi) is characterized. In accordance with such a Lutheran understanding of the word, Fuchs will later develop his theory of the language event.

Ernst Fuchs

Ernest Fuchs insisted that speeches from the language event is in the Pauline-Lutheran tradition. For Fuchs, word and faith essentially belong together: faith has its essence from its relationship to the word. Faith is the listening to the word that meets it, by which he means the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

concretely. For this reason, Fuchs sees the speech event as the unfolding of faith: it causes the listener to change the situation from "not-being" to being in the existence of God. This understanding of speech thus represents a fundamental category of his

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...

. Fuchs is keen to emphasize the passivity of man. For this he uses the term of silence. Man does not move in her, but is moved by the speech event. Language live on the silence. In the language event, the language itself leads to that silence of which it lives. In addition, Fuchs sees his statements of eloquent and significant language parallel to the distinction between being and being{{clarify, date=December 2017 (see also Heidegger). While merely indicative language offers only an expression of beings, a speech event justifies being and allows it to be present. Fuchs applies his doctrine of the linguistic event to various theological disciplines, namely, the preaching of Jesus, the theology of Paul and the Easter event.Ernst Fuchs, ''Gesammelte Aufsätze I'' (1959), S, 281

Gerhard Ebeling

Gerhard Ebeling Gerhard Ebeling (1912–2001) was a German Lutheran theologian and with Ernst Fuchs a leading proponent of new hermeneutic theology in the 20th century. Life Ebeling was born on 6 July 1912 in Steglitz, Berlin, where he attended the gymnasium ...

continues to use the concept of the language event as a demarcation to dogmatic doctrine. Ebeling understands the sacrament as "language event".

Eberhard Jüngel

Eberhard Jüngel Eberhard Jüngel (5 December 1934 – 28 September 2021) was a German Lutheran theologian. He was Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology and the Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Tübingen. Lif ...

, theologically influenced by Ernest Fuchs, proved to be a proponent of the language event. He took it over in his book "Paul and Jesus" as a demarcation to

Rudolf Bultmann Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic ...

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