Metaphors: or why we should avoid being too clear

Metaphor is often seen as an inferior means of communication, used by poets and others (= theologians?) who are hesitant about being 'precise', and in need of a more 'literal' or 'direct' paraphrase. But to think so is to misunderstand how language works. There is no 'pure' metaphor-free language behind the images of the poets (and theologians). We don't need to get behind or beyond metaphor (an aim at once impoverishing and impossible), but to enter into them more imaginatively, more carefully, more attentively. Very often, what passes for 'clear' communication is simply a collection of the dried carcasses of old metaphors. An obsessive desire for clarity can sometimes arise from an unwillingness to hear anything new, a desire to be told only what I already know, a fear of opening my eyes.

"[W]hen the New Testament speaks of the life, and particularly the cross, of Jesus as a sacrifice, a victory and the justification of the sinner, may it not be that we encounter no ‘mere’ metaphors but linguistic usages which demand a new way of thinking about and living in the world? Here is real sacrifice, victory and justice, so that what we thought the words meant is shown to be inadequate and in need of reshaping by that to which the language refers.”

– Colin Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement, 51-52.