[6]

Because he has a self which he can encounter, which he can transcend, and the world which he can encounter and which he can transcend. Now if we speak of freedom ^ain this way, which can be verified by the very act in which we speak about it--using words, using universals^b--then we must conclude: culture ^cis the creative act of that being who is free from himself and free for himself, free from his world and free for his world--"freedom" meaning the power of transcending the given situation, the power of going beyond the here and now, the immediate sense impression, the immediate emotion, the immediate idea which comes to our mind, stopping, asking, and getting answers. Don’t be afraid--this is very difficult, we will return to it again and again, because it is the presupposition of every philosophy of culture, and as we shall see, it is the basic possibility of religion also. Now I want to give you an outline of the different functions of man's creative encounter^d with reality--or, as we call it, his culture^e. I already referred to the fundamental [example] of these functions: language^f--the first, fundamental, and all-pervasive expression of man's freedom from himself and from his world, and for himself and for his world, is the power of universals, in other words, THE WORD, and the combination of words: language. Language, therefore, must be considered as the basic cultural function. And it is not by chance that the nation that is more responsible for Western culture than any other one, and on which we all are dependent, whether or not we know it--the Greeks--centered their philosophy around the concept of the ΛΟΓΟΣ [LOGOS], meaning "word," but meaning much more than "word", meaning the power of man to grasp reality in a meaningful, understandable (or rational) way. The Greeks were right in putting the LOGOS, or "word," into the center of their thinking about the relation of man to reality, wherever culture is taking place. Language is the basic cultural function, and it is the most flexible of all of them. It is present even if it is silent, without voice. All cultural functions are accompanied by words. Even if we look at a picture, silently, words are continuously present, namely the universals which we use in looking at a picture, or at a piece of nature. Language is present in all cultural functions, in the concepts of science, in poetry, in the law, in the ethical commands, in the symbolic expres- sions--poetry and religion. Language is all-permeating, and therefore the first discussion we have to make after I have given you concepts of culture... and religion and their relation generally, and in our present situation, is to deal with religion and language.