ABSTRACT
The second part of the book explores what exactly a symbol is and how it works. The first chapter attempts to clear away a number of misunderstandings that have inhibited appreciation of the full richness of the notion. In the next chapter consideration is then given to how one primary symbol might be seen to function in those controversial sacramental areas. Through most of the history of the Church it has been taken as self-evident that the primary allusion for water in this context must be to its capacity to cleanse or purify. The final chapter turns to another basic religious symbol, that of light, this time to note not only its own multivalency but also the way in which it can so easily transmogrify into its opposite, with darkness and not light now the principal symbol for the divine.
