Of Meaning and Context

I'm in a general biology class right now. Up to this point in my life I did quite the amazing job of evading every possible science course I could. Of the 129 hours for my bachelor's degree I think I graduated with a blow off earth science course, I CLEP'ed out of general biology and copied my friends work to scrape by with a B in statistics. Then I got a nursing licence which taught me some bare bones science, but which ultimately left me with no college credit. So, now, every monday and wednesday, I crowd into a lecture hall and my local college with a hundred kids who just graduated high school six months ago.

And this was providence.

My biology professor rocks. He's the only science teacher I've ever met who can carry on a conversation about philosophy or theology, and actually appear interested. I don't think he's forcing it either. Anyway, most of my thought has been veering off towards science lately . . . which is one of several reasons I haven't written much lately. Being a novice at science makes it rather difficult to write down any thoughts which amount to much. Nonetheless, one of the three readers I have who actually leaves evidence of having read this stuff has implored me to write . . . here goes . . .

So, a few weeks back in biology we were learning about proteins. Proteins basically do everything in your body. Anything that does anything at the cellular level in your body is a protein or is touching a protein. Proteins are made up of about 20 different amino acids that our bodies generally steal from the remains of other things that were once alive. These 20 amino acids are combined in certain sequences, and based on these sequences they form three dimensional shapes and it is these shapes that determine how they work and what they are capable of doing. These shapes rely on certain parameters to remain functional. Meaning if things aren't just right, their shape will change and the protein becomes useless, or worse, becomes harmful. These parameters are things like temperature, pH, and probably lots of other things I'm not aware of. This is why you aren't going to live very long if your body temperature jumps higher than 105 degrees for an extended period of time: the proteins in throughout your body, especially the ones in your bodies core, controlling your vital organs, will "denature", become dysfunctional, and you die.

And this intrigues me because . . . .

There are 26 letters in our alphabet. We put these letters together in sequence, and they form sentences and paragraphs and books, which form and express the ideas by which we understand the world. These ideas, formed by language, also rely on specific parameters to make any sense at all. We live in an age where we are increasingly aware that context is everything. The introduction or absence of single words into a sentence can change the entire meaning. Changes in syntax, order of clauses, variations in the structure of paragraphs, all these significantly effect the way ideas are presented through the words. They change the action of the ideas presented, and thus effect the meaning. Depending on the place, or time and historical context, the intentions and interactions of author and reader, and countless other factors, the meaning and effect of a document can be altered completely. In some ways it can be seen that just as protein denatures outside of specific environments, so also, language denatures.

This is undoubtedly an analogous way of understanding language, I don't mean to draw any sort of equation saying they are the same. But, I am increasingly convinced that all human knowledge comes in analogies.

So, bringing this around to matters of faith . . . I've dealt a lot lately with people who have the attitude that Scripture says what it means and we should simply obey it. My problem is that I don't think Scripture simply says what it means. The context is lost (however partially) to us, and in my opinion the meaning of the text is denatured. This implies that the meaning of the Bible itself has changed since the context is partially lost, and that the action/effect that the Bible could have also has changed since the people reading it are utterly different.

I have enormous respect for figures like Ray Vander Laan, Rob Bell, and others who are seeking to reacquaint us in the 21st century with the worldview of first century Jews. I personally have felt more hope for the future of Christian faith in listening to such figures as they bring the remains of Scriptural meaning alive again. The context IS lost, but only partially . . . and we can grow enormously from understanding how the words of Scripture would have acted in their time. Still the other edge of that sword is that I am not a first century Jew. Nor can I be. I am also not a Greek, or a Medieval Catholic, or a son of the Reformation. Nor can I be. If anything I am a descendent of the Enlightenment, but even that is challenged in our contemporary setting. I can't regress to a former era. Nor can anyone else . . no matter how bad we may wish to.

The hope for today, is that Scripture and the meaning of it, can be reformed (formed again), to carry meaning for us as we are. We don't live in a world of angels and demons, or magic, or the eager anticipation of the returning eschatological Messiah. We live in a world of political forces, of inequality, of globalization and the constant threat of human annihilation. Scripture does not speak to these things directly, but still it CAN speak to them. In fact, it needs, desperately, to speak to them. But, first we must be brave enough to accept what has been lost, in order to realize what can be gained.

I don't believe the Bible simply says what it means. The desire for this to be the case requires us to deny the truth of the world we live in. It forces us to pretend with live in first century Palestine. We don't. The other option is to twist Scripture to apply to us, where no application is present. There are a vast array of mega-churches that have perfected this art as well. They pretend the Bible was written to us and for us.

The other option is to see the Biblical world for what it was, and see our current world for what it is . . . and respect the immense differences between the two. The world of the Bible is lost, but not so completely that we can draw some inferences as to what the Bible would have meant to them. In seeing this, and then looking at our own world, as WE perceive it, we can then try humbly and faithfully to see what meaning Scripture has taken on.