The semester's over, grades are in, and it's time to get back to Scott-Coe's perceptive comparison of Burke to Augustine. Surely, the manner in which they both conflated, her term, theology and rhetoric vouchsafes the validity of her analogy. Augustine's trinitarian use of the three traditional offices of rhetoric (persuasion, pleasure, and provision of instruction) and modes of proof (logos, pathos, and ethos) dovetails nicely with Burke's logological focus on religion's profound use of the hortatory negative, strictly enforced thou-shalt-nots, motive of perfection, compulsive thrust upward toward an overarching god-term (always perfected by way of a God-term, upper case), and disorder-guilt-redemption cycle of social interactions that serve, for good and/or ill, as life's Iron Law of History. The difference, it seems to me, is that Augustine, by and large, comes at theology from the perspective of rhetoric, whereas Burke tends more to come at rhetoric from the angle or view of theology. (Not that these overall trajectories aren't clear enough in Scott-Coe's piece.) One way or the other, as Scott-Coe says, An ultimate reciprocity between theological convention and linguistic terms obtains in the work of both thinkers.

The question for us is, what was Burke really up to in his melding of theology and the structures and inherent impulses of language-use? Or, if that query gets us too far into the veritable black box of a human mind, then what are the implications of Burke's apparently theological philosophy? We know for sure what Augustine had in mind, among possibly other things: the exploitation of pagan or secular terms, concepts, and associations to further a Christian rhetorical appeal, as our commentator puts it. Burke claimed no such Transcendental Purpose (put in the upper case), in fact denied that logology had anything directly to do with religion, theistic belief, or pious living in the ordinary sense of that ubiquitous Burkean term. Burke said he was an agnostic, more than one of his acquaintances has reported. Logology's bottom line, if there is one, comes in the last codicil of Burke's Definition of Man [sic]: The symbol-using [and] -misusing animal is rotten with perfection, the theological motive of perfection being the very driving force at the core of language-charged human life. The motive that forces to the surface thoughts of the ultimately perfect Being of negative theology---Infinite, Eternal, Almighty, Omniscient, Omnipresent, etc.---is, at base, the same drive that is threatening the ecosystems of planet Earth, Burke's bete noir as early as CS and P&C.

What gives, then, with Burke's theological obsessions, his relentless need for God talk way above and beyond the explanatory requirements of a pure logologer? More than one Burkean exegete has taken notice of these obsessions, as well as Burke's recurrent tendency to take the side of religion in discussions of its conflicts with secularism and science. Scott-Coe cites, in particular, Wayne Booth's take on the matter. Booth called Burke a theologian and prophet, based on his vast correspondence with our sage and leader.

What should we make of all this? What does Scott-Coe make of it?

She offers no easy, shall we say Ramistic or categorical, answers. She notes the apparently paradoxical motives of logology. But she is certainly right on when she says that there are no easy ways to separate the theological from the linguistic implications of these interests, despite what we might identify as Burke's persistent 'disclaimers.'

More on the subtle, well-phrased, and well-taken argument in Scott-Coe's article anon.