They Seem To Be Used Interchangeably

Hermeneutics: the art of analyzing and interpreting the meaning of text. This is a key element to discovering what it true according to the Bible and vitally important to developing Christian doctrine.

The title of this article, They Seem To Be Used Interchangeably, is often offered as an argument for accepting some types of doctrinal conclusions. That is to say that where a couple of different words are used in similar contexts, whether the two words mean precisely the same thing bears some relevance on determining the meaning of the passage.

There are two common examples from scripture. One is when “love” translated from two Greek words, “agape” and “phileo”, in the common American reference to them. Another example are the Greek words, “psyche” and “pneuma”, translated as “soul” and “spirit” in similar contexts respectively. In the “love” argument, the difference in doctrinal conclusions is whether or not to make a distinction between God’s love and the love of the world. In the “soul and spirit” argument, the difference in doctrine has to do with whether man is made up of three parts: “body, soul, and spirit”, or only two parts: “body and soul/spirit”.

One of the problems I have with making such sharp distinctions is that such argumentation ignores the subtle nuances of interpretation when words overlap in meaning but are not precisely the same. I’ll offer here a couple of neutral examples of what I mean.

I have used in the past a stark example of how words can appear interchangeable but mean completely different things. I drive a red Ford Focus. It’s a common car and gets good fuel mileage. That means that it’s relatively cheaper to purchase, maintain, and operate than many other cars. What if I say of my car, “My car is red.” What if I say again later that, “My car is a Ford Focus.” If you knew what the word “red” meant, but had no idea what “a Ford Focus” was then perhaps you might be inclined to conclude that “a Ford Focus” was the color “red”. Perhaps you thought to yourself and realized that the two statements might be referring to two different categories. You would be correct, but you could still get into trouble if you though to yourself that all Ford Focuses were red. Using such a stark example, I hope you can see how both are obviously silly conclusions.

I have a more subtle example that brings this observation to bear on the hermeneutical argument. In my town of Statesville, NC, West Front Street is an industrial development serviced by a train that runs between the industrial properties. I can say one of two things that mean the same thing. I can either say, “There is a train that runs along West Front Street,” or I can say, “There is a railway that runs along West Front Street.” Both statements refer to the exact same thing. All I have done is replaced “train” with “railway”, and both terms refer to the system of rails, cars, and engines that transport goods to and from industries along West Front Street.

But let me use those very same terms in another statement. I can either say, “We need to do maintenance on the railway, “ or “We need to do maintenance on the train.” These two statements mean somewhat different things. The first statement indicates that we need to go out and repair or renew some segment of the tracks on which the train runs. The second statement indicates that we need to repair or renew some aspect of the cars or engines that run along the rails. While these terms can be used interchangeably in one context, they refer to somewhat different things in another. I say “somewhat different” because the terms are still related.

It is for this reason that I hold this argument suspect in biblical hermeneutics. If I observe similar usage of different terms, I will observe how they are used. If there is sufficient reason to conclude in one place that they are referring to the same thing, then so be it. However, I won’t presume that two terms always meant the same thing in every context. For the examples I have given, I believe it is a logical error to conclude that different terms used as referents to the same thing in one case will always refer to the same thing in other cases, especially if a doctrinal conclusion hinges on it.

Faith is Epistemic

“Faith is epistemic.”

So I said at a recent introductory meeting for a men’s theological reading group at my church. As simple a statement as it is, to fully expound on it would take more time than our brief hour warranted with much more ground to cover than just the idea that we require faith to understand theology (and that theology likewise informs our faith).

Even secularists can understand the role of faith in epistemology 1. (Although the author is a Christian, his article is published by Princeton.) That is, a faith in the continuity of the universe and our perceptions that is experiential at best is necessary for apprehending empirical data. Read the article for details.

Paul Manata explored a similar model 2 with regard to the Christian Faith a few years earlier.

My previous article likewise discussed the nature of faith as being informed, rather than by the notion proliferating in the popular philosophy of these days: “blind faith”.

The model of epistemological faith that these articles discuss is the need for an apologetic of one’s epistemology that necessarily requires a modicum of faith. But the need for faith is also required to understand information that has already been apprehended.

I discussed many of the principles I have discovered in a couple of series of articles within the past few months that can be found in the following articles:

Understanding the Bible

Glorifying God: Leveling the Theological Battlefield
Examples of this principle:

• Glorifying God: Leveling the Free Will / Election Battlefield 
• Glorifying God: Leveling the Cessationist / Continuationist Battlefield

I won’t rehash the discussions here, but if you are interested in how faith is necessary to know God and understand him better, the articles referenced here may serve a good primer.

In the future I plan to discuss more in depth the formation of faith by knowledge obtained by faith. however, that discussion will be part of a much larger series investigating an apologetic for Biblical hermeneutics.




For now, I will only offer an example as to how faith is both informed by and informs our knowledge of God.



My wife is leaving next week for a trip to Uganda and Kenya to help with a Christian mission as well as visit some friends from our church who are currently serving in Kenya. She approached me last month with the sense that she should go against all other considerations. I'm wary about such subjective "leading of the Holy Spirit", but I'm also quickly supportive of any desire to go and serve given spiritual fitness and giftedness to do so. Without any support up front, we took savings money and purchased tickets. My wife sent out a support letter expressing her need for expense monies. Enough came in that the money we took out of our savings account was reimbursed and all trip expenses are virtually covered. Such it is that we glorify God in faith exalting him for his provision to do his work.


When we were first married, I planned to continue in school such as to finish a degree. Degrees have a way of opening doors and my intention to go into some sort of ministry was the driving factor. However, no jobs were available where the school was and I was subsequently resigned to find a job in our hometown where I work to this day. God didn't provide what we needed for us to live in such a way that I could continue my direction. Should I say that God is not faithful? No. Rather, my faith informs me that God provided for me not to continue my formal education. Although I continue to study on my own, I realize that God has no apparent use for me in this way. My faith, therefore, is not in God fulfilling my desire, but in my seeking to fulfill God's desire. I can understand that Paul's admonishment to "earnestly seek the higher gifts" is not a promise that we will recieve those gifts.


And so in either case, God is glorified. We are not. God is revealed. We are not. God's purposes come to fruition. Our purposes must be changed to agree with his. This is the foundation of Christian epistemology. This is how we know God.


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1. Park, Joung. "The Role of Faith in Epistemology." Revisions. Princeton, 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
2. Manata, Paul. "The Epistemology of Faith." The Epistemology of Faith. Triablogue, 30 Aug. 2007. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.

Subtext

Electronic social media is becoming well ingrained in our cultural identity. Some people bemoan the many ills of social media and others demonstrate how right they are to be concerned. Yet others use electronic social media to communicate important ideas or sell products. Most of us just use it to stay connected. It’s hard to stay connected with someone who is buried in their electronic device unless you use their electronic device to connect with them.

So I follow some people on Twitter. Some of the people on Twitter write messages like they are talking to someone in particular. I don’t have a clue what they are talking about. It’s like reading one side of a conversation. I can’t understand one side unless I can also read the other side. It kind of gives context. I’ve learned that this has a name. It’s called “subtweeting”.

But even then, there is information that may still be lacking. I’ve listened in on conversations that I had no idea what people were saying. When I hear them laugh and ask what the humor is, I often get the answer, “It’s an inside joke.” I freely admit to being a little socially awkward, and as a result am inclined toward non-interaction. So I have to be very intentional to speak to people and develop relationships or else live in relative obscurity. For example, when I observe someone speak to someone else in a certain way, I may try to speak to that person in the same way even if it doesn’t make sense to me to speak that way. Sometimes it doesn’t work. I’ve had to learn that some kinds of conversation require developing a rapport that is integral to the kind of relationship they have already developed. I mention this because it’s important to understanding the Bible.

When we talk about understanding the Bible, we normally talk about context. It’s important to understand something of the circumstances surrounding the writing of the text. This includes such things as who wrote it, who they were writing to, why they were writing it, etc. But perhaps the biggest factor that plays into analyzing differences of understanding, particularly as they relate to addressing different theological schools of thought is the relational subtext. A relationship that informs unique rapport is part of a larger set of communication factors called “subtext”. It’s like reading subtweets or picking up on inside jokes except that the Bible usually gives us clues to understand the relational subtext.

We are usually good at understanding the larger subtext of Paul’s letters. For example, we understand that Paul wrote to the churches he planted or helped to plant. Casual readers of the letters of Paul are often not as quick to pick up the subtext given in other parts of the same letters regarding why he is writing.

I’ll use Paul’s letter to the Romans as an example. We know that Paul wrote the letter to the Romans and that it has some specific information about salvation in it. It also has some other stuff about the Jews, for example, that just seems added in there.

But when you take the subtextual details into consideration, it starts to make sense. At the end of the letter, Paul explained that he hoped to use Rome as a base to launch an evangelistic effort into Spain. While that effort didn’t materialize in Paul’s lifetime, he took pains to address a conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Rome both tactfully and strongly. He needed the Church in Rome to be unified behind his goal to reach more Gentiles.

So he took many words to spell out details of salvation as the common ground between Jewish and Gentile believers. Then he explained how Jews were to be used in the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles and how brotherly love was to exist between Jewish and Gentile believers. Paul didn’t waste words on random thoughts when he had a specific goal in mind that resulted in the longest letter of his destined for the canon of scripture.

And so in this way we should study the subtext of scripture and understand how each part fits nicely into the whole.

Not every piece of scripture has all the information of the subtext evident among its passages, but where the subtext is important, it is given. Be sure to look for it.

If Postmodernism is True...

If postmodernism is true, then I can't know what they believe.

If postmodernism is true, then they can't know what to deconstruct.

If postmodernism is true, then why do they even write books?

If postmodernism is true, then how do they know that I don't understand them?

Since I know what postmodernists believe, they seem to be clear on what they are deconstructing, they write books propagating their absurdity, and they think they know that I don't understand them, then we know a few things:

• Postmodernism is false.
• Postmodernists are justifying untruths that they want to be true or denying truths they don't want to be true. (Since postmodern deconstruction seems aimed at ethical considerations, squirming out of moral obligations is almost certainly the purpose of postmodernism.)
• The opposite of naturalistic, evidential science (which is rationalistic) isn't supernaturalism (which is also rationalistic), it's postmodernism (which intends to deconstruct rationalism).

Watch this panel discussion to see Christian philosophers Sarah Geis, Larry Burtoft, Doug Groothuis, and David Mathewson deconstruct postmodernism.

Glorifying God: Leveling the Cessationist / Continuationist Battlefield

This is an article that was introduced by this article and provides one of two examples for it.

I also want to mention that I won’t address every single issue relating to the larger theological debate, but to demonstrate how glorifying God opens the door for understanding his purpose in the theological tension.

There has been debate among Southern Baptists recently regarding the activity of the Holy Spirit among the people of God. In some ways this is a simpler debate than what I addressed in the previous article, but the tension is still there.

The core of the debate stems from a difference in the way we understand how God speaks to us. Continuationists point out that the Bible never directly says that the charismata (miraculous gifts) were supposed to cease. This is a fair observation. It’s also a similar argument non-Trinitarians make that the Bible never mentions the Trinity. However, since we see that the Bible still teaches the Trinity one aspect at a time, it is viable that the Bible could teach that the charismata have stopped. Nevertheless, it’s a somewhat more tenuous position than the Trinity. It’s only a degree of rationale removed from that used by Harold Camping, for example, to promote his unique (and now rather obviously incorrect) eschatology.

Nevertheless, Cessationists make this case. But their issue has an additional rationale that is related to how we know what is to be included in the canon of scripture. In other words, if God is causing people to speak in tongues that they don’t know or prophesy the future in such a way as to direct people what they are supposed to do, that means that we should have some material today that should be added to scripture. So there’s a presuppositional argument for making the connections in scripture that they do.

There is far more to the debate than this. To be fair, Continuationists don’t think that prophesy today should be included in scripture and Cessationists don’t think that all charismata have utterly ceased.

One big argument that Cessationists make is that Continuationists enable false claims. My first observation here is that it doesn’t falsify the Continuationists to point out their abuses. However, there should be no claim to charismata without serious discernment to ward of false claims.

That is where glorifying God comes in. False claims are exclusively a result of seeking to glorify the bearer of the alleged charismata (and, in the case of some professional charlatans, to line their pockets) rather than glorifying God.

How does this work out?

For Cessationists, legitimate charismata happen. Given that the goal of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ by revealing him to us, that is precisely what such charismata will do. Outside of this result, the charismata should be suspect. For Contiuationists, since the charismata will only result in glorifying Christ through leading us to his known revelation to us, much of what passes as charismata are not legitimate.

If our focus is turned upon the glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in his work on the cross and his divine sovereignty over us according to the revelation that we have by virtue of the same Holy Spirit who inspired it, then there is no debate. The false bearers of charismata should be duly rebuked by both Continuationists and Cessationists alike while legitimate charismata should be received with gratitude by both for pointing people to the true Christ of the Bible.

Glorifying God: Leveling the Theological Battlefield

I haven’t written much lately because I’m planning an extensive series on Christian epistemology. The term “epistemology” refers to how we answer the question “How do we know…?” I don’t intend merely to give a defense of the Bible. Rather, I intend to investigate how we know that the Bible is true, how we know our understanding of the Bible is true, and discover the presuppositions that undergird that investigation. This is an extensive study that links the nature of God and creation with his revelation to us. I also hope to make it accessible to the average reader. The hard part is to linearlize it so that I can make an index that organizes it so the relationships between different areas of thought and study can be understandable.

In many ways, this short series is related to that series. There is a link between the purpose of revelation and our ability to know what it means.

Let me ‘splain:

Theology matters. If you get God wrong, you end up worshipping the wrong God. There are two, even three, categories for analyzing the importance of theological doctrines. Dr. Al Mohler calls this Theological Triage. The difference between the first category and the other two is a matter of salvation. Doctrines that one must hold to be true in order to know one is saved are in the first category. All other doctrines are in the second and third categories.

There are many who would dispute finer points of what should be included in the first category and what should be included in the second and third categories. For example, orthodox Christians hold that the diety of Christ should be in the first category, but there are denominations that claim that Jesus is not God who would dispute that the deity of Christ belongs in the first category. Very liberal theologians might argue that the only thing in the first category is a claim to be a Christian. They would claim that one could even deny that there is a God at all (much less that he sent a Christ for any reason) and still be a Christian. As ridiculous as that all seems, it only goes to show that it’s important to make a case that theology matters.

There are those that tend toward liberal theology for the reason that we all just need to get along. They would say that glorifying God by getting along is better than actually knowing what god we are trying to glorify. Therefore, they intentionally ignore the fundamental differences between the One True God and the plethora of false imitations.

So thoughtful Christians debate the finer points of who God is by virtue of his special revelation to us in the Bible, through a particular denomination’s traditional interpretation, the general revelation of the created order, and our intellectual ability to sort it all out. Most people miss the fact that they have cultural blinders on when they theologize. With all this to muddy the waters, it’s no wonder that we wind up with theological differences as we try to reconcile apparent theological tension.

Some people even dismiss theological tension either by chalking it up as a divine mystery or claiming that there is no way that we can know. They say that we just have to accept it “by faith”. While it’s true that there are things about God that are unfathomable to us now, special revelation was given to us precisely so that we could know and understand what has been revealed.

I’ve largely been dissatisfied with the historic debates, even when I agree wholeheartedly with one side over another. First, they tend to focus on differences rather than similarities. Second, opposing categories of doctrinal thought are in opposition precisely because they hold different fundamentals in primacy over the rest.

It’s that second reason that I'm addressing in this article. So I’ll have two areas of theological debate to use as examples. And I will replace both with the fundamental that all things: revelation, the process of sanctification, the ordinances/sacraments of the Church, the fellowship of the Church, etc: all things exist to glorify God.

As this article is getting long so I’ll break the couple of examples into separate posts.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply

What are your expectations for this article? What do you think you will discover that I have written? It probably is not what you expect. If you expect something, then you have some idea what I have written before you have read it.

Likewise, if you have read the Bible a hundred times, or even just once, you will have some idea of what to expect if you read it again. Nevertheless, you will undoubtedly find something you didn’t notice the first time you read it.

But understanding the Bible more deeply doesn’t involve simply finding information you didn’t remember from reading it before as you read through it again. While that is part of it, there are some additional principles that are helpful for enhancing how you gain a deeper understanding.

First, reading the Bible over and over again is additive. It’s like pouring coffee back in the coffee maker and brewing it over and over again. It will get stronger each time you brew it.

Second, as you read, you will want to investigate information in passages that you didn’t investigate before that helps you understand the passage better.

Third, as you learn about what the Bible says, you must read it as though what it says is true. That means it will influence your philosophy and desires. This colors what you read and frames it the way the Author of the Bible intended instead of what you intended the times you read it previously.

Fourthly, as your mind and heart change, your ability to think in the terms of the Bible will change. I’ve discussed this before as categories. The greater your intelligence, the greater your ability to apprehend these different categories.

Finally, your understanding will increase as you put into action what you learn from the Bible.

I will write in more detail on these in future articles, but I wanted to introduce this series to you beforehand. While I will be writing in more general terms, I do want to make known that what has instigated this is a desire to counter a tendency for people to engage the Bible on a more superficial level. Particular strains of this are as follows:

• Many people fear all theological debate as somehow unnecessary. Some theological debate is indeed unnecessary. However, there is plenty of deadly theological error that goes unchallenged because people won’t internalize convictions that counter rank heresy. If God truly saves people, some theological battles are important lest people unwittingly engender a lack of faith.
• There are people who believe that some things cannot be understood because they cannot understand them. There may be some things that we cannot understand, but I assure you that we can understand far more than many of us think. Where even great theologians have chalked some things up to “mystery”, many of these mysteries are understandable because God has revealed them to us and has given us the Holy Spirit to help us understand what the Bible says.
• People are sinful and simply don’t wish to learn what they are doing wrong so they can repent of it. On one level, they know what the truth is, but they cloak their eyes as though they don’t see it and either convince themselves that it isn’t true or isn’t understandable.
• People have a cultural sensibility or hold some popular philosophy that is challenged by the scriptures. They determine to understand what the Bible says only up to the point where it disagrees with their deeply-held unbiblical beliefs.

These patterns of misunderstanding the Bible are deadly to the Church because many of these kinds of people are otherwise faithful church members. Many people pray for a revival. The only way it will come about is if these patterns of unbelief are challenged and changed by a movement of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians. That’s why I’m presenting this series.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Acting on the Bible

If you read the Bible as though it were true, you must act on what the Bible says.

Let’s say you purchase a new hair dryer. On the label is a warning not to use the hair dryer in water. I can’t imagine how anyone would use the hair dryer while they were taking a bath, for example. However, something happened to someone to warrant putting a warning label on hair dryers. So you read the label warning you not to use the hair dryer in water. You say, “Aha! It’s dangerous to use the hair dryer in water.” It doesn’t seem reasonable that you would then get in a bathtub full of water and try to dry your hair.

However, we too often do that with the Bible. We read what the Bible says, agree with its admonitions, and then promptly go out and do something other than what the Bible says. When that happens, we make it difficult to understand the Bible better because it would be detrimental. Isaiah, when faced with a vision of the living God in Isaiah 6:5 said, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips…” If too much were to be revealed to us at once, we would be undone. Isaiah came close.

As we act on the admonitions of scripture, we are strengthened to receive greater understanding by virtue of the Holy Spirit who indwells all believers. When we fail to act on the scriptures, our minds are cloaked by God, even those who are unbelievers, so that we don’t understand. Paul wrote this to the Romans in the first chapter of his letter to them:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things...

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done."

Therefore, although you have knowledge of all the God has revealed, disobedience will result in a failure to understand what you know.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Reading with a Changed Heart and Mind

This will take some explanation. As I stated in the previous article, none of us approaches the Bible as a blank slate. One way we do this is that each of us understands things by using systems of categorization. These systems also include rules for assigning things to each of these categorizations. Our systems of categorizations are learned from the things that are normal to us: our families, our friends, the media we give our attention to, the teachers we have, etc. Whenever I talk about “sensibilities”, this is typically what I mean.

Let me give you a simple example of what I mean by categorizations. Let’s say we have a bag of M&Ms. Can you think of some categories by which we can separate these M&Ms? The most obvious is by color. So we can separate them into piles of red, blue, green, orange, brown, etc.

But there may be another way of separating them. Now if the bag we have is just opened from the store, it probably only contains one kind of M&Ms, but if not, then there may be different kids mixed in. What I’m talking about is the difference between plain, the ones with nuts in them, or the ones with pretzels in them. Those are different categories than colors.

Are there any other kind of categories? Imagine the factory where M&Ms are made. They make M&Ms by some kind of lot number, I presume. That’s a category that few people think about. Or I would assume that there are some kind of quality control standards. Hopefully all M&Ms are in the category of those M&Ms that will pass inspection. But realistically, there are probably a few that do not pass inspection. Each quality standard is a different category against which each M&M must be tested. Each will either be in the category “pass” or the category “fail”.

But we don’t usually think about those categories. Nevertheless, it is a very important category for M&Ms. If you want the quality of M&Ms that you are used to, you should hope that each bag that you purchase has only M&Ms that are in the “pass” category of each quality standard.

But it’s the same way with the Bible. We approach the Bible at first with the most obvious sets of categories. As we read the Bible, we might pick up on the fact that there are sets of categories for examining our lives and thinking about God that we have never thought of before.

Too many theological debates are a result of different theologians using different sets of categories for understanding the Bible. All theological debates will be cleared up when God brings each of us to understand the set of categories we should have been using all along. When investigating different views, it is a sign of theological maturity that we are able to identify the sets of categories theologians use. When this happens, we can easily understand why theologians often debate so.

Identifying a theologian’s system of categories is also important for discerning the truth of a matter. Too many theologians are disingenuous. Such discernment allows us to see a theologian’s internal deception.

But also, as we develop Biblical systems of categories, our understanding of the Bible will deepen. So as you read, look for ways of thinking about things according to how they are presented in the Bible in ways that you haven’t previously considered.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Reading As Though It Were True

None of us approaches the Bible as a blank slate. On one end of the spectrum, some of us have a set of beliefs that we are intent on holding as true no matter what evidence is given to us to the contrary. On the other end of the spectrum are those who are willing to ditch their beliefs for any new thought that comes their way.

There is a balance between these that we can term “cautiously open” to changing our thinking. The question is on what basis we are cautiously open:

We might be cautiously open because we want to believe anything that will make us the most comfortable. Some atheistic naturalists like to accuse theists of merely fulfilling some evolutionary need to believe in a higher power. The fact is that we all have some need to feel good about ourselves and our lives.

We might be cautiously open because we want to justify some lack of moral culpability. We just want to sin and we don’t like anything or anyone telling us that our particular sin is immoral. If anything tells us we can commit that sin, we are willing to believe it. If anything tells us that we cannot commit a particular sin we are willing to deny it.

We might be cautiously open because we want power over other people. Like or not, these kinds of people exist in this world. They are willing to propagate beliefs among others that will enslave them ideologically and are willing to stifle beliefs that will free them ideologically. Most people are not very good at this. Some people are exceptionally good at this.

Parenthetically, we proclaim a gospel that sets people free from sin without denying that things clearly are sinful. It’s no wonder that some oppose this message with both the contention that something is not a sin and the good news that we can be free from it.

But the way we are to be cautiously open to changing our beliefs is if we desire truth and are willing to accept that we might not currently know the truth as fully as we can. This begs the question that the Bible is an accurate source of truth. The key to knowing is if we are honest about our sinful motives. If we are, then even a cursory reading of the Bible is sufficient for demonstrating that it is more honest about our own motives than we are. Peter testifies as much when he answers Jesus in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well testified in John 4:29, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” This is the same reaction that we find in ourselves when we read the Bible and are honest about our own sinful motives.

Therefore, we cannot understand the Bible accurately if we do not read it as though it were true.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Investigation

As I pointed out in the last article, the Bible wasn’t written in our cultural context. It was written by and to a people long ago with a different culture. They had different practices and routines, different political situations, and different popular philosophies. No doubt as we read the Bible we will encounter many references to things that are unfamiliar to us.

Also, as I pointed out in the previous article, reading the Bible over and over will result in noticing things we didn’t notice before. In early readings of the Bible, we will have a tendency to skip over things that we don’t recognize when they appear in the midst of things we do recognize. As we read through the Bible, it is likely that new things will strike us as something we need to investigate in order to understand the passage better.

Fortunately, we are blessed in these days to have rich resources for investigating these kinds of things. There are Bible handbooks, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, etc. I recommend checking more than one. Different aspects of information might be available in the work of different scholars.

Don’t be alarmed if you find that they don’t agree. You will be able to get a fuller view of uncertainty in scholarship that way. If the observation is related to a theological point of view, you will be able to see why something either supports or undermines your own point of view and you will be able to refine your thinking.

So you grow more deeply in your understanding as you gain more information on what you are reading. You also grow more deeply in your understanding as your own previous beliefs are challenged.

Understanding the Bible More Deeply: Additive Reading

One key area where education practitioners test students to indicate development in verbal skills is reading comprehension and retention. If everyone were the same, they wouldn’t need to test students to see what their current abilities are. The fact is that none of us have perfect comprehension and retention. When we read something for the first time, we don’t fully apprehend its meaning. I have email replies from people asking questions that I answered in my original email. I know for a fact that they didn’t get it.

The Bible is no small tome. Its material is typically referentially anachronistic from our point of view. That is to say that it wasn’t written by or to people with our cultural sensibilities. It can be difficult reading and it can be easily misunderstood if care is not taken to understand what is written in the various contexts.

It is common for pastors who have been well trained and have already read the Bible through many times to read a passage over and over before they develop a sermon on it. If pastors have a need to do this, how much more do the rest of us need to read passages multiple times in order to understand the full import of the meaning?

The reason is because there is a principle where reading some over again allows us to notice things that we missed or don’t remember the first time. Unless we re-read the Bible many times we cannot claim to have much of an understanding of it. Some people may require fewer readings to understand it deeply. Others may need to read the Bible more in order to understand it more deeply. Regardless whether your comprehension and retention is better or worse than others, we all need to read the Bible over and over again to understand it more deeply.

“Not Everyone Agrees” – A Bad Argument

There’s an argument that I hear or read more often than not. It’s used typically by people who have a theological view that differs from the predominant view. A discussion will arise about some point regarding the predominant view and someone will step in with a view that disagrees with the predominant view. After a couple of arguments or explanations are bandied back and forth, if the person lobbying the opposing view senses that the argument is going badly for them, then they make this argument to give some sense of legitimacy to their position.

Now they don’t typically state the argument as a dry proposition.  Usually it will be worded something like this:

“All I’m trying to say is that there are people who disagree that this biblical passage means what you say that it means.”

Or:

“My point is that not everyone agrees on this theological issue.”

The argument that is insinuated is that the case for the legitimacy of a position is made by trading on the fact that people don’t agree. This argument assumes that the disagreement doesn’t include heresy. It also fails to make the observation that only one mutually exclusive truth is possible. Therefore, only one view can actually be true.

Now there are areas of theological disagreement that are legitimately subject to uncertainty based on different hermeneutical presuppositional structures. That’s a mouthful for most of you so I’ll break it down. Hermeneutics is the area of theological discovery that applies principles for understanding written text. This is where you investigate the writer and the audience, the sentence structures, the cultural context, figures of speech and idiomatic expressions, etc. When using these kinds of principles you often find a variety of possible meanings depending on how you apply the principles. Some passages are simply clearer than others. In order to understand more difficult passages, it helps to use facts learned in clearer passages to shed light on which meaning is most possible. As the Bible is studied and various facts understood, it helps to arrange these facts in logical associations to see the larger truth. Some facts depend on other facts and ultimately a small set of related facts will form that foundational truth for how you understand the rest of the Bible. This is your presuppositional structure.

Ideally, a presuppositional structure is formed by hermeneutical principles consistently applied to the scriptures. Unfortunately, most people will have a set of ideas already in place as their initial presuppositional structure and they will apply hermeneutical principles in such a way as to reinforce it rather than to change their presuppositional structure as consistently applied hermeneutical principles contradict their presuppositional structure. So where one presuppositional structure is suggested by the Bible, many people end up with different presuppositional structures.

Let me pick one of the less-controversial conflicts to use as an example. The Bible doesn’t say that the pets we have here in this world will be resurrected in the next. In fact, as far as the Bible is concerned only humans will be resurrected. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be animals of some sort in the hereafter. The Bible simply doesn’t focus on this. It’s not important. This is a consistent way of approaching the Bible. I’m looking at what the Bible views as important. I have pets that I enjoy as companions but I don’t expect to have them with me for all time and it’s not important to me because it’s not important in the Bible.

However, it is important to some people. They are particularly attached to their pets. Instead of letting the Bible guide their thinking on this, they import ideas that are foundational to understanding the Bible so that the Bible ends up meaning what the Bible never teaches. These ideas are things like, “God just wants me to be happy,” “Fluffy and Fido make me happy,” and “God gave me Fluffy and Fido to make me happy.” Therefore, they conclude, “God will give me Fluffy and Fido in heaven to make me happy.” So they read the Bible with this logic in mind as to how they should apply hermeneutical principles to understand the Bible. Since they don’t see a passage that specifically says that pets won’t be in heaven, they dismiss the passages that when taken together logically won’t allow that conclusion.

So let’s say there’s a discussion about animals in heaven. These passages are brought up. But the person who holds the pet-friendly hermeneutic is upset because people are saying that pets we have today like Fluffy and Fido won’t join us in the resurrection and be our companions for all time. They jump in with a contention against this. When the consistent hermeneutic is explained, they retreat to the argument I spelled out in the beginning of this article.

Believing that Fluffy and Fido will be resurrected isn’t specifically a heretical idea. It’s a bad one and an erroneous one, but we know that we have some church members who insist on these kinds of errors for their own reasons.

But there are people who espouse heresy who resort to that same argument. That’s why it’s important to point out that it’s a bad argument. Just because people disagree within the realm of orthodox Christianity doesn’t mean that both are true. Only one is true. The other is in error although not in a bad way. Dr. Al Mohler has developed his theological triage and wrote about it 8 years ago. It’s an extremely helpful tool for analyzing theological error.

Just because people can disagree on one level that carries some legitimate uncertainty doesn’t mean that people can disagree on another level with the same legitimate uncertainty. If the Bible is clear about a matter, it’s not open for debate within orthodox circles. It’s clear heresy. Today orthodox Christians have the sensibility that no one is going to be killed for being a heretic. That unfortunate historical approach in itself should be considered heretical. However, it is academically and pastorally necessary to point out mistaken beliefs among people who profess to be Christians. That includes pointing out the error in this kind of an argument.

From Star Trek "Into Darkness" to God's Revelation: Into Light

I’m watching a special on the History Channel that’s investigating physics from observations of the latest Star Trek movie. One statement was made that I think relates to understanding God. One of the contributing physicists made the comment that we don’t know why time dilation exists. This isn’t entirely true. He didn’t qualify this comment, but let me investigate it briefly and then turn to what this means for understanding God.

The speed of light is the speed limit of the universe despite theoretical speculations of warp fields and wormholes. The reason why is related to the production of electromagnetic radiation, aka “light”. Light doesn’t have mass. We can say that light transfers energy. More accurately, it is a pattern of energy manifest in multiple spacetime frames of reference. I’ll keep it as simple as possible:

Energy is transferred from particle of matter to particle of matter when those particles come close enough for their respective systems of forces to influence each other significantly. When a photon of light is produced, the particle that produced it approaches the speed f light and suddenly loses energy. That energy is transferred to the object the photon eventually strikes. As the particle that produced the photon approaches the speed of light in the process, the distance between it and the object that will eventually absorb the photon that is produced is diminished infinitely within the frame of reference of the originating particle. This is called distance contraction and is part and parcel of time dilation. So as far as the source particle is concerned, it hits the receiving particle and thus loses energy.

To the outside observer, no distance ever closed in. What happened is that time dilated for the originating particle and distance contracted. Once the energy transfer happened, the distance snapped back to “normal” and its temporal frame of reference became relatively aligned once again with its surrounding objects. But the distance contraction is represented to the outside observer as a photon and the observation of the originating particle hitting the receiving particle is represented as a difference of time related to the distance. This is the speed of light.

The reason we have time dilation is more easily thought about with a simple thought experiment. If Bonnie and Clyde drive by in their automobile and fire a gun down the road, the velocity of the bullet relative to Bonnie and Clyde is roughly the same as if the vehicle were not in motion. To someone standing by the side of the road, the bullet whizzes by at the velocity of the bullet if the vehicle were not in motion plus the velocity of the vehicle.

But light is different. If it were night time and Bonnie and Clyde had their headlights on, the velocity of the photons being emitted from the front of the vehicle would be precisely the speed of light. To the observer on the side of the road, the velocity of the photons would also be precisely the speed of light. So what happened to the speed of the vehicle? That’s where time dilation comes into play. There is a time differential between the vehicle and the observer on the side of the road that accounts for the difference due to the velocity of the car. That’s time dilation.

Now add to this that a vast spectrum of electromagnetic radiation is passing around us constantly in all directions. We perceive a relatively uniform temporal frame of reference. However, it is anything but uniform. On the subatomic level, time is extremely volatile and changing. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to perceive anything around us. The chemical processes that make our bodies work couldn’t happen. We wouldn’t be able to see the world around us. There would be no life.

Where to go from here? I could talk about creation and how this applies to developing cosmologies. I could talk about how this isn’t often applied very well when people consider the various speculations regarding the beginnings of the universe. But I want to make another observation regarding God’s revelation of himself.

What I’ve written above in very simple and short order is understood by very few people, including some physicists who are interviewed by TV shows. The reason is that most people find it acceptable to relate to and survive in the world with the mere macroscopic perceptions available to us. Most people couldn’t tell you how a simple radio works, but they know how to use one.

God revealed himself to us in a very practical way. In this way, even many intellectually challenged people can grasp the basics about God. However, the depth of information included is enough to make the brightest among us wrestle with some of the issues he revealed to us. Most people are able to function quite well with the information God has provided although some concepts are difficult and present apparently conflicting concepts.

The fact is, God knows the range of intelligence of the creatures that bear his image and planned on giving us all enough to warrant a knowing faith as well as keep us learning about him for a lifetime. The Great Commission is more than simply leading someone into the Kingdom. The Great Commission is more than simply teaching a new believer the basics. We are all to be disciples until we pass from this world.

A Response From an Embarrassingly Ignorant Young Earth Creationist

I was listening to Dr. William Lane Craig’s recent podcast where he was commenting on a discussion between theistic evolutionist, Francis Collins, and atheist Richard Dawkins. You can listen to it here.

At 7:51 Craig said, “…over 50% of evangelical pastors think that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Now when you think about that… that is just hugely embarrassing… This is just scientifically nonsense and yet this is the view that the majority of our pastors hold. It’s really quite shocking when you think about it.”

Well, I’m not a pastor, so perhaps I’m not quite as embarrassing. But what I find embarrassing is Dr. Craig’s apparent ignorance regarding the epistemic problems with scientific conclusions. He says two things that demonstrate some incoherence in his understanding of revelatory epistemology:

At 3:54, “I would agree… that you ought to exhaust the naturalistic hypotheses first before opting for a supernatural hypothesis.”

At 13:24, “With regard to Christian faith and practice I would say you need first and foremost to do your biblical hermeneutics responsibly and objectively. You need to not interpret the Bible in light of modern science, but to interpret it according to what its original author and original audience would have understood. That’s the first and foremost task is to interpret the Bible objectively and correctly. Then the second task will be trying to integrate what we learn from the Bible with the worldview of modern science so as to have a sort of synoptic worldview that takes into account all that we’ve learned, not only from divine revelation, but from God’s revelation in nature – in the book of nature. And then we will build a synoptic sort of worldview that makes the best sense of the data.”

It’s this incoherence that makes Dr. Craig a prime example of something Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, said in a recent interview. It’s worth listening to, which you can do here.

Continuing with Dr. Craig’s podcast, he goes on to say at 9:35,

“What would hurt the Bible would be if the Bible intends for us to believe that the world is only 10,000 years old and therefore comes into conflict with the best evidence of modern science. That’s what would hurt the Bible. What would not hurt the Bible would be if it could be shown that the Bible doesn’t take a position on how long the universe has been around. Then it wouldn’t be damaged by scientific evidence, or the geological age of the earth, or the age of the universe.”

Then Craig knocks Francis Collins for believing in theistic evolution. What difference does Craig see in the science that he feels supports an old earth and the science that is used to support evolution? From a scientific standpoint, they are equally unscientific if for no other reason than they have not been observed and cannot be tested. Those aren’t the only things wrong with the science, and I’ve already pointed to problems with the science behind the age of the earth in previous articles.

He continues in his incoherence by agreeing with Bill Nye (the Science Guy) that we should not teach our children about a young earth, but he believes that we should teach our children about the controversy surrounding evolution:

At 15:45, “I would not disagree with [Bill Nye] that we ought not to teach our children that the world is only 10,000 years old. I think that that’s not something that the Bible imposes on us, and it’s not supported by modern science, so I would agree that… we shouldn’t teach that to our children. But we should certainly teach them that there is a Creator of the universe who is God and who brought the universe into being and designed it in such a way as to support the existence of human life. And with regard to how human life and biological complexity came to be on this planet, I think we need to teach the children the controversy; teach them the various views that are held today so that they are conversant with the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution and can discuss it even more intelligently than their peers with regard to its pros and cons. And then teach them a range of alternatives that are available for the objective Bible-believing Christian today.”

But I want to go back and explain a little further how his comments about biblical hermeneutics are incoherent. If you take the first chapter of Genesis at face value without considering any modern scientific thought, you must conclude that days it refers to are solar days. If we look at the scientific investigation used to date the earth as very old, every last conclusion regarding the age begins with the assumption that the earth is very old. The scientific discovery is employed to determine how old. You can’t do radiometric testing on rocks without assuming the ionic percentages that made up the rocks at the time they were formed, which you assume was millions of years ago. You can’t construct a geologic column unless you assume that the layers were deposited over millions of years. Therefore, in order to use the conclusions of scientific endeavors such as these to controvert a plain reading of the biblical text and substitute a figurative reading of it, you have to assume that plain reading is inaccurate a priori.

Scientists are just as adamant that macro-evolution is just as certain as an old earth. The only reason Craig can say that the science behind old earth is beyond reproach where macro-evolution is not is because the text of the Bible can more easily be subverted to agree with an old earth than it can with macro-evolution. Perhaps another reason he gives is found is this comment:

At 8:37, “…the young people in their congregations [of pastors who hold the view that the Bible teaches a young earth] are convinced that the pastor is right that the Bible teaches this, but they are convinced by their geology teacher or the earth science teacher that the world is older than that, that means ‘give up the Bible and walk away from the Christian faith’.”

So does Dr. Craig mean that we need to be old earthers so that our young people won’t leave the church? It’s not clear that he means this, but I see no good reason for saying it otherwise.

Finally, it seems that Craig misses the fact that the modern scientific industry is founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true.

At 3:08, “But here he takes the rather cheeky position that the reason that they opt for the multiverse is to avoid a Creator which is, in fact, what Stephen Hawking has actually said in his book, The Grand Design.”

You can’t harmonize a Biblical worldview with conclusions that are founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true. There is a way to do science that recognizes the veracity of the Bible. This is where science was historically rooted. But the modern scientific academy rejects any but science that makes naturalistic assumptions. Craig acknowledges this on one level, but then tries to mix it with how to understand the Bible on the other. This is the most egregious error in his thinking.

Definitive Statements in the Bible

One of the many important factors in understanding the Bible is identifying how authors use specific words. So it’s important to be able to identify definitive statements made by authors. A famous one is Hebrews 11:1. I’ve heard that preached as definitive of faith throughout the Bible. Now, that’s not a bad thing. However, there is a refinement that is often overlooked.

There are two qualities to definitive statements: connotation and denotation. Now we are familiar with those words because we learned them in school as such: denotation is the dictionary definition; and connotation is how we feel about the word. “Piety” and “devotion” have that same basic denotation, but for many people they have completely opposite connotations.

How does this apply to the definitive statements?  One would hope that the dictionary would have strict denotations, but when a connotation becomes common enough it is added to the dictionary as a definition. So there’s not always a clear delineation between connotation and denotation.

This applies to study of the Bible when we identify a definitive statement. Like Hebrews 11:1, many take the statement as purely denotative. But we have to take into consideration that the statement is partially connotative. Logically, it works this way: Everything fits into categories. A certain amount of categories specified or excluded are enough to define something to a degree, but particular definition requires its exclusion from everything else in all categories that apply to it. Denotation is enough to fit the meaning of a word into a reasonable number of categories. But inasmuch as that word applies to more categories than what are generally specified, a definitive statement is connotative. So a connotation doesn’t require explicit denotation although some denotation may be given.

Let me give a tangible example as an explanation. I own a car. Now we all know the general definition of a car. So you know that I’m probably referring to a transportation vehicle that has four wheels and some means of propulsion. You might ask what kind of car I have and I might respond with, “I own a 2000 Ford Focus LX4.” That narrows it down significantly. But what if the police were after me and a witness said that they saw a Red Ford Focus, older style headlights, with North Carolina license plate that starts with “HCL” but they didn’t catch the rest. That might be enough information for the police to track me down as the owner of the car. So they didn’t have all the information, but they had enough to narrow down the information to one single car as different from the rest. Now, I could give you the VIN number without telling you anything else and you could find the car. The VIN number is completely denotative although I didn’t even say it was a car. The information exists elsewhere and can be easily discovered.

By the way, there is a common argument for dismissing some words in the Bible as synonymous. It is said of these that they “seem to be used interchangeably”. I’d have to look at them and analyze how they are used to determine if that argument is warranted. Sticking with the car example, one can say that my car is red. That statement is somewhat definitive. It can also be said that blood is red. That seems to be definitive. But my car isn’t blood. They are both in the category “red”, but they do not share many more categories than that. So it may be that two things that share many of the same categories are spoken of connotatively, but without arriving at a full denotation that demonstrates synonymy between them.

When John writes “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends,” we can arrive at some important conclusions about how John thinks about love, specifically the Greek “agape” as opposed to “phileo” that he uses a few verses later. There may be some more specific things that john has to add about love, and these are evidenced by the extended passages that serve as the context for these verses where he relays Jesus’ teaching about love.

So, when you are studying the Bible in depth and desire to think about what the words mean, I hope this helps to refine your thinking about how you do so.

Does Science Tell Us How To Interpret the Bible?

Here is a great impromptu panel debate on a TBN program, Praise the Lord. I'm not typically a watcher of TBN. It's Christianity "light" and open to all sorts of ministerial lunacy. This seems to be one instance where they accidentally let in a couple of people who knew the Bible and were willing to stick up for it.

Young Earther, Ken Ham, sticks it to Old Earther, Dr. Hugh Ross, with interaction by such names as Ray Comfort, Dr John Bloom, Sean McDowell, and Eric Hovind. It's worth watching and thinking about.


BTW, I'm a Young Earther. I believe it's possible for the rest of the heavenly bodies to be older than the earth and have been created after the earth and for the light to make it to earth. I think God could pull this off easily and that it could even happen without breaking the laws of physics. I don't think the current understanding of physics is particularly well advanced. We'll get there if physicists can set aside some of the unrelated philosophical presuppositions that they are using as models for proposing cosmological theories.

The debate boils down to the nature of revelation. For Ken Ham, The Bible is authoritative as the revelation of God. For Dr. Ross, natural revelation is equal to the Bible as authoritative. I agree with Ken Ham. Sola Scriptura.

ht: Answers in Genesis

Understanding and Responding to John Franke’s Nonfoundationalism

This article on SBC Voices by Jared Moore is very instructive. It's long, but very well done. My own comment adds only a drop to the bucket full of what Jared wrote:

Jim Pemberton February 20, 2012 at 5:04 pm
 
I think Franke here is guity of at least one common error: there is a difference between the truth and knowing the truth. Many people conflate truth with epistemology, talking about the truth with regard to how we know the truth. However, this denies that the truth that has been revealed to us is actually knowable.

But in one sense I see the issue that Franke is trying to address here. It seems (seems) like Jesus and the Apostles treated the OT scriptures often willin-nilliy. Jesus talked about how the Son of Man was to be raised up like Moses raised up the serpent (John 3:14) or that Jonah was a sign of Christ (e.g. Mat 12:39). But the NT meanings aren’t revealed by an exegesis of the OT passages. In these examples, Jesus is using those accounts as illustrations of something else he was trying to teach. That’s not to say that those accounts weren’t given originally in part to provide material for NT analogy, but we don’t have the place of being able to invent our own meaning for things like this. Jesus and the Apostles did – we don’t. So their use of OT scriptures is instructive to us, but we can’t fully base our methods of exegesis on them.

Maybe we hate Calvinism because we don’t understand it.

Dan Barnes, promoting a view of soteriology he calls Wovenism, considers that non-Calvinists hate Calvinism becaue they don't understand it in this SBC Voices article. I speculate that it goes both ways and charge that we must try to understand the positions of people who disagree with us.

Jim Pemberton February 16, 2012 at 3:48 pm

That’s why it’s important to try to understand whoever you decide to oppose instead of assuming that you already understand. And it goes both ways. James White and Greg Koukl both always preach to learn what those who oppose you truly believe.

I think the reason we don’t is because the human intellect has a kind of inertia. We tend to think that the way we understand the world is the only way to understand the world and we resist trying. In terms of Bloom’s taxonomy, I believe this falls under the category of analysis. We each have established systems of categories in our minds for analyzing information. The difference between one level of intelligence and another is the number of different categories we have. The reason people “talk past each other” is because one person speaks out of one system of categories and the other person analyzes what was said using a wholly different system of categories.

Incidentally, this is an important hermeneutical principle. We often analyze what the Bible says based on categories established by our present-day culture and popular philosophies. However, we must learn to understand the Bible using the categories that were used by the human authors that God used to produce the scriptures. This principle shows up in all good hermeneutical systems using different verbiage to describe and label it. But the point is that this is a practice that we need to master in order to understand the Bible better. So why not apply it to help us understand each other better?

We have ADS on this site?

Doug Hibbard notices that ad blockers have been filtering some good information on SBC Voices:

Then it dawned on me. I use an ad-block plug-in for Firefox and Chrome. I don’t see ads on many websites–here, Facebook, Twitter, even Amazon.com’s internal ads don’t show up when I browse through them. I have been blissfully filtering my internet experience and blocking out advertisements for several years now. And in that, I have become so accustomed to the filtering that I don’t even think about it. It’s automatic and is hidden: I don’t even see an icon that says “ad-blocked” like I used to back in the dark ages. Like 2007.

Conclusively, we would all claim that the Bible is our ultimate filter. We do not want to do, nor encourage others to do, anything that is unbiblical. Yet there are portions of Scripture that are open to interpretation and we come to those spaces with preset filters. It’s hard to see the things that we filter out, and rarely do we like our filters challenged. We need to think through it, though. Pray through it.Keep re-examining ourselves and drawing closer to seeing what we have been missing. There is truth in the Word of God that we will continue to miss if we only listen to those who meet our filter.

I responded:

Jim Pemberton February 15, 2012 at 3:43 pm
 
I’ve heard it oft said, and I’ve said it myself from time-to-time, that I get something new out of it every time I read this book or watch that movie. The reason is because of the filters we used the first time that have been eroded as we suddenly noticed something that conflicted with those filters. One good practice for studying a scripture to prepare a sermon is to read the passage multiple times. The reason is to wear down those filters so we are better assured that the message we are preaching is the one commended by the passage and not information from some filter we were unaware of.