A relative of mine recently asked for my thoughts on a video that Catholic Scripture scholar Mary Healy released on the charismatic gift of speaking in tongues. It definitely generated some thoughts, and I figured it would be fitting to share them here.
Healy asks, “What exactly is the gift of tongues?”—and kudos to her for highlighting the key question. The gift of tongues is real, as the Catechism teaches in paragraph 2003. But what is the nature of the gift?
Healy takes the position dominant within the charismatic movement: that it involves unintelligible speech-like sounds, influenced by the Holy Spirit, that don’t constitute a real human language.
[The gift of tongues] refers to a gift praying and praising God in a way that goes beyond human words, that goes beyond what can be articulated in one’s own language. It’s praying under the influence of the Holy Spirit, speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit in a language you don’t understand.
For biblical support, Healy appeals to 1 Corinthians 14:2, where Paul writes, “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.”
Healy doesn’t give any further indication as to which parts of Paul’ s statement she thinks supports her view of the gift of tongues. But it can be only one, or a combination, of the three parts that make up Paul’s statement: that 1) the inspired tongue is spoken “not to men but to God,” that 2) “no one understands him,” and/or that 3) “he utters mysteries in the Spirit.”
Healy also explains that sometimes the gift goes beyond private prayer and is intended as a message for another or for the assembly of God’s people, in which case it becomes a prophecy and gives rise to the need for an interpreter. Again, she appeals to Paul’s teaching on this issue found in 1 Corinthians 14, particularly verses 6-19.
Finally, Healy points out that the gift sometimes involves a miraculous element, where one person speaks in “tongues,” and another hears the utterances in his own language. She appeals to Acts 2 and to the Christian experience at Pentecost as biblical evidence for this form of the gift.
What should we make of these biblical arguments? Well, first of all, I don’t think they force us to conclude that the gift of tongues is about a private, unintelligible prayer language.
Consider the three parts of 1 Corinthians 14:2. The first part says that the prayer of tongues is offered to God, not men. Yet nowhere does the Bible say that when God is the sole person to whom we’re speaking in prayer, we will speak with unintelligible utterances that go beyond human words. The “speaking to God alone” in a “tongue” could still be in a real human language.
But what about Paul’s statement, “For no one understands him”? Doesn’t that support the charismatic interpretation? Not necessarily.
It’s true that no one would understand a special unintelligible prayer language. If, however, the gifted tongue were a real human language, but there were no one present with the relevant knowledge to translate the tongue (which is the context of Paul’s discussion in verses 13-17), then the statement “no one understands him” would still apply.
Perhaps Paul’s comment about speaking “mysteries in the Spirit” justifies Healy’s understanding of the gift? It’s true that mysteries, by definition, are ultimately unfathomable by reason alone. But what justification do we have to think that speech about “mysteries” must be in an unintelligible language? We don’t conclude, for example, that Paul was speaking beyond human words when he said to the Corinthians, “Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51). Surely, his message about the mystery of the bodily resurrection at the end of time was something that Paul uttered in a real human language—Greek, to be precise.
There are other examples of mysteries of faith that Paul communicates:
- the hardening that has come upon the part of Israel (Rom. 11:25)
- the wisdom of God for Christian glorification decreed before the ages (1 Cor. 2:7)
- revealed truths that Paul and the apostles are stewards of (1 Cor. 4:1)
- God’s will made manifest in Christ (Eph. 1:9)
- God’s revelation made manifest in the New Covenant (Col. 1:26)
In none of these cases do we think that the announcement of a mystery is tied to a gift of tongues as unintelligible speech-like sounds that go beyond human words. You can communicate mysteries in a human language.
So it seems that charismatics who appeal to 1 Corinthians 14:2 as proof of their assertion about the gift of tongues are reading into Paul’s teaching a preconceived notion rather than drawing out what is in the text. More evidence would be needed to justify their claim that what Paul means by the gift of “tongues” is what they mean by it.
These critiques would likewise apply to an appeal to 1 Corinthians 14:6-19 and the form of “tongues” as being a prophecy for others to hear. This manifestation of the gift could just as easily be true if by “tongue” Paul meant a real human language that someone was inspired to speak without prior education, and that others could translate.
What about Healy’s appeal to the day of Pentecost? Well, her interpretation of “tongues” in 1 Corinthians 14:2 governs her view of “tongues” in Acts 2. There is no independent evidence in this chapter for understanding “tongues” as unintelligible speech-like sounds.
There is one thing, however, in her reference to Acts 2 that is worth noting. She appeals to the event in Acts 2 as evidence for the gift sometimes manifesting itself in a miraculous way, wherein someone speaks in unintelligible “tongues,” but others hear the speech-like sounds as their own language.
I see no problem with such a miracle occurring with a real human language. Surely, God can empower someone to listen to the words I speak in my language and hear them in his own language.
The problem, however, is that this doesn’t seem to be what is happening in Acts 2. Luke tells us that the disciples “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues [Gk., glōssais], as the Spirit gave them utterance” (v. 4) and the people present there for the feast “heard them speaking in his own language” (v. 6). And it’s true that if by “tongues” Luke meant that the apostles were uttering unintelligible speech-like sounds that the crowds heard in their own language, then the miracle would indeed be as charismatics interpret it.
But, on the view that “tongues” here refers a real human language, there is another possible interpretation of the miracle: the Galilean disciples were inspired by the Spirit to speak the different real human languages of the people present, and that is why the people present heard them in their own language.
To my charismatic friends: know that my comments here are by no means intended as an attack on the charismatic movement. Some of my most profound religious experiences have been, and still are, within charismatic settings.
Rather, I’m simply asking the honest question of whether Healy’s arguments, or at least her biblical arguments, offered in support of the prevailing charismatic view of the nature of the gift of tongues succeed. I have a great deal of respect for Healy, and she does great work. But I must say that I’m not convinced.
Her video does target a popular audience, so perhaps she would provide more robust scriptural arguments in other settings, which I would be happy to consider. And in her video, she does offer other lines of argumentation, beyond Scripture, for her view of the nature of the gift—arguments from Fathers and Doctors of the Church and from anecdotal testimonies. But we’ll have to save those for another time.