IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
Language is so familiar that we rarely stop to notice how strange it is. We speak as easily as we breathe, yet speech itself is one of the deepest mysteries of human existence. Words are not objects. They have no weight, no color, no measurable substance. And yet they carry meaning—real meaning—capable of shaping thought, forming identity, and binding persons together across time.
No one has ever spoken without first being spoken to. This is not a poetic observation; it is a biological and philosophical fact. A child raised in isolation does not invent language. Sounds may be made, but meaning never appears. Vocabulary must be received. Grammar must be taught. Understanding comes only through prior communication. Language is inherited before it is expressed.
This presents a serious problem for atheism. Matter can vibrate. Air can move. Vocal cords can produce sound. But sound is not language. Language requires meaning, and meaning requires mind. Physical processes can explain how sounds are formed, but they cannot explain why sounds signify anything at all. No arrangement of atoms contains the instruction, “This noise means that object.” Meaning is not a property of matter; it is imposed by intelligence.
Every language presupposes a community of minds who already understand. Words only work because they point beyond themselves. They are signs, not substances. And signs only function where intention exists. A symbol without a mind is nothing more than a shape.
Scripture begins precisely where reason eventually arrives. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The universe does not begin with silence or randomness, but with communication. Not noise, but Word—reasoned, intentional, meaningful speech. The world is intelligible because it was spoken into being.
This is why human language works at all. We do not create meaning; we participate in it. We do not invent reason; we respond to it. Our words reflect a deeper Word. Our capacity to speak is a reflection, not an origin. “God…has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Before we ever spoke, we were addressed.
Atheism can describe the mechanics of speech, but it cannot account for meaning itself. It can trace sounds through airwaves and neurons, but it cannot explain why those sounds mean anything. Meaning is not survival-driven. Truth is not necessary for reproduction. And yet we seek truth relentlessly, driven by a hunger that transcends utility.
Language reveals that reality is not mute. It speaks. And because it speaks, we can listen. The human voice is not an accident of evolution; it is a signpost pointing beyond itself—to a world grounded in reason, to minds shaped for understanding, and ultimately, to a God who speaks.
BDD
