The Coherence of Contradiction: Towards an Ontology of Meaning

This article proposes an ontology of meaning grounded in the impossibility of full coincidence between the Real and the symbolic, with paradox functioning as its index. This non-coincidence is the very condition of meaning: being comes to word only through this fissure, never as full presence. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis (the Real as impossibility of symbolisation) and Kierkegaard’s philosophy (the absolute paradox), it argues that meaning emerges precisely where symbolisation fails in the face of the excess of the Real that resists it. The article maintains that “God” designates a linguistic operator of the impossible: a limit-signifier that names theologically the demand for meaning imposed by the Real upon language. Paradox is not treated as a hermeneutic error to be resolved, but as the mode through which meaning is constituted at the limit of language. Texts such as Job and the Prologue to John exemplify this structure: God's response that refuses an answer to Job, and the ungraspable logos of John 1. Reading these texts thus requires inhabiting paradox rather than resolving it.