The Problem
Western thought often frames meaning as participation in a logos — a rational order structuring reality. Even when stripped of overt divinity, this order persists: the universe is intelligible because it is inherently rational, and meaning flows from alignment with this hidden logic.
The Distortion
This secularised logos is theology in rationalist clothing. It assumes that intelligibility is not relationally produced but already inscribed into reality, waiting for discovery. Meaning becomes obedience to order: to understand is to conform to a pre-ordained structure. Rationalism inherits theology’s metaphysical guarantee, promising that reason has a cosmic foundation.
The Relational Alternative
From a relational ontology, there is no eternal logos underwriting meaning. Intelligibility emerges through patterned construals of relation. Rational systems — languages, mathematics, logic — are not mirrors of a cosmic blueprint but evolving practices of coordination. Meaning is not fidelity to an underlying order, but perspectival alignment of potential and actual through symbolic mediation.
Takeaway
“Logos without God” still carries God’s shadow. By reframing reason as relational coordination rather than cosmic decree, we see that meaning does not descend from order but arises from the ongoing play of relation itself.
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