Reality and Scripture: Part II
If you think reality is defined by one's perceptions and filtered through one's context-shaped lenses, then your thinking is right in line with Augustine (of Hippo) and the postmodernists too. If you think reality is the sum of facts and concrete objects or occurrences happening in the world, then your thinking is in line with such people as Wittgenstein ("reality is what is the case") and with some Christians nowadays as well. But what if reality comprises both conditions? What if facts which exist, and things which are, and events which transpire, are real, and yet the perception of such realities are shaped by our context-based lenses (to borrow the modern metaphor)?
At what point does reality quit and perception take over? --at the point in which the concrete reality is transferred into word or image. Wittgenstein also thought that words and images cannot completely reflect what is "the case" though they can come close. And he thought that words/images could actually shape the reality of human thought and action (though perhaps not of a concrete object--calling a "chair" a "table" does not change its shape but only its signification).
In the Bible, we read words which describe concrete events (such as the Flood) , actions (Jesus' life and death), and real objects (the Euphrates River). Many, in fact most, of these concrete phenomena are known to be real because, for example, we can visit the Euphrates River now, we can read about Jesus' life in the writings of Josephus and other historical sources outside of the Bible, and we can find archeological evidence for events such as the Flood. In conclusion, we can rely on a certain historical accuracy in the Bible. Often, the words do not err.
We also read words describing what people said, and in some cases the descriptions of what one person said differ from one part of the Bible to another. At this point, a skeptic might question the reliability of the Bible; or, if a believer reads, they might wonder: which words did Jesus really say? And we have no answer, now. At this point, believers rely on faith, trusting that despite a human error which obviously crept in during centuries of transcription, the sense of the scripture remains, and truth awaits us through prayerful reading and thinking about the scripture in question.
We also read words said by God, or Paul, or someone else, in the Bible, and we wonder how literally a current believer needs to take them. A famous example is the line in Leviticus forbidding God's people to touch anything made with the skin of a pig, but many scriptural passages confront us with questions about how they apply to us as believers today. Are bigamy and slavery ok for believers because Biblical believers had multiple spouses and owned slaves? Jesus even mentioned slavery and never condemned it. On that basis, nineteenth-century Christians argued about whether or not slavery was immoral.
What remains real in the Bible? To me, the spiritual weight and sense of its precepts remain real; God remains real; the principles articulated from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation remain in force. I can go take a look at the Dead Sea too, but through reading or talking with various experts I can discover that physical aspects of it have changed since Biblical times. So there is a midpoint, a grey area, lurking in any modern individual's view of the Bible. To me, it's obvious that the Bible is not meant to serve as a guide to modern life in the concrete sense. I don't expect the Dead Sea, or the Mount of Olives, or the Euphrates to look exactly as it did when Biblical writers wrote about these concrete realities. Reality has changed. Similarly, believers today don't own slaves, we don't (most of us) practice bigamy, and all football-playing people touch pigskin regularly.
There's a slippery slope, definitely, in this thinking. And I would urge us not to strain out the slippery slope and swallow a camel. Instead of arguing for scriptural inerrancy, we could be sharpening our discernment. Between the lines of Paul's writing, I see a constant focus on discernment: he urges believers to become the kind of people who can know the difference between good and evil, between truth and lies. Discernment is never easy. The lesson of the scriptures, for me, is that I need to work on my discernment. What's at stake is not who wins an argument about scripture, but whether I can learn to discern what I need to understand in order to meet God's grace half way.
If you think reality is defined by one's perceptions and filtered through one's context-shaped lenses, then your thinking is right in line with Augustine (of Hippo) and the postmodernists too. If you think reality is the sum of facts and concrete objects or occurrences happening in the world, then your thinking is in line with such people as Wittgenstein ("reality is what is the case") and with some Christians nowadays as well. But what if reality comprises both conditions? What if facts which exist, and things which are, and events which transpire, are real, and yet the perception of such realities are shaped by our context-based lenses (to borrow the modern metaphor)?
At what point does reality quit and perception take over? --at the point in which the concrete reality is transferred into word or image. Wittgenstein also thought that words and images cannot completely reflect what is "the case" though they can come close. And he thought that words/images could actually shape the reality of human thought and action (though perhaps not of a concrete object--calling a "chair" a "table" does not change its shape but only its signification).
In the Bible, we read words which describe concrete events (such as the Flood) , actions (Jesus' life and death), and real objects (the Euphrates River). Many, in fact most, of these concrete phenomena are known to be real because, for example, we can visit the Euphrates River now, we can read about Jesus' life in the writings of Josephus and other historical sources outside of the Bible, and we can find archeological evidence for events such as the Flood. In conclusion, we can rely on a certain historical accuracy in the Bible. Often, the words do not err.
We also read words describing what people said, and in some cases the descriptions of what one person said differ from one part of the Bible to another. At this point, a skeptic might question the reliability of the Bible; or, if a believer reads, they might wonder: which words did Jesus really say? And we have no answer, now. At this point, believers rely on faith, trusting that despite a human error which obviously crept in during centuries of transcription, the sense of the scripture remains, and truth awaits us through prayerful reading and thinking about the scripture in question.
We also read words said by God, or Paul, or someone else, in the Bible, and we wonder how literally a current believer needs to take them. A famous example is the line in Leviticus forbidding God's people to touch anything made with the skin of a pig, but many scriptural passages confront us with questions about how they apply to us as believers today. Are bigamy and slavery ok for believers because Biblical believers had multiple spouses and owned slaves? Jesus even mentioned slavery and never condemned it. On that basis, nineteenth-century Christians argued about whether or not slavery was immoral.
What remains real in the Bible? To me, the spiritual weight and sense of its precepts remain real; God remains real; the principles articulated from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation remain in force. I can go take a look at the Dead Sea too, but through reading or talking with various experts I can discover that physical aspects of it have changed since Biblical times. So there is a midpoint, a grey area, lurking in any modern individual's view of the Bible. To me, it's obvious that the Bible is not meant to serve as a guide to modern life in the concrete sense. I don't expect the Dead Sea, or the Mount of Olives, or the Euphrates to look exactly as it did when Biblical writers wrote about these concrete realities. Reality has changed. Similarly, believers today don't own slaves, we don't (most of us) practice bigamy, and all football-playing people touch pigskin regularly.
There's a slippery slope, definitely, in this thinking. And I would urge us not to strain out the slippery slope and swallow a camel. Instead of arguing for scriptural inerrancy, we could be sharpening our discernment. Between the lines of Paul's writing, I see a constant focus on discernment: he urges believers to become the kind of people who can know the difference between good and evil, between truth and lies. Discernment is never easy. The lesson of the scriptures, for me, is that I need to work on my discernment. What's at stake is not who wins an argument about scripture, but whether I can learn to discern what I need to understand in order to meet God's grace half way.
posted by Vicky at 5:43 PM
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