Lord Rowan Williams of Oystermouth delivers the Gifford Lecture series

entitled "Making Representations: Religious Faith and the Habits of

Language".

Lecture 1: Representing Reality

When we speak

about the world we inhabit, we do so in terms that go well beyond simply

listing the elements of what we perceive; that is, we construct

schematic models, we extrapolate, we invent, and we use our imagination.

If

we think harder about what is involved in representing things (rather

than simply describing or replicating them), we may discern something

more. We may discover that the way believers talk about God is closely

linked to the ways in which what we call "ordinary" speech seeks a

truthfulness that is more than simply replication. Moreover, we may

understand how speech is regularly stimulated to do this in moments of

linguistic crisis or disruption.

Recorded on Monday 4 November at the University of Edinburgh's New College.