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« on: December 27, 2009, 10:58:10 AM »
On another thread,
Brian Stoffregen wrote:
God's word doesn't change, but our interpretations and applications of it have changed over the centuries, and they change depending on our own life-experiences. It's likely that if you ask a group of people about their understanding of a passage of scriptures, there will be differences -- often because of their own experiences.
To which Tom Pearson replied:
I suppose there is a trivial, empirical sense in which Brian is right about this -- there are a lot of people who have adopted this sort of viewpoint on the understanding of God's Word. But I also believe this perspective represents a terrible mistake about human understanding, is rationally indefensible, and entails the erosion of the incarnate church. I guess that makes it a pretty bad idea, no matter how many people fall into it.
During the past half-decade, ELCA folks have sometimes said that the problem in our house is not sexuality, but the authority of scripture. It seems to me, however, that this question of "interpretation" needs to be addressed before we clarify issues related to the authority of scripture. Everyone invokes the authority of scripture, on all sides; we saw that repeatedly at the CWA in Minneapolis. What we need to figure out is what kind of thing an "interpretation" is, what role "interpretation" plays in theology, whether there are good "interpretations" and "bad "interpretations," and how we tell the difference.
Let me offer one puzzlement (expressed in three questions) about all this. Brian, you say that “God's word doesn't change, but our interpretations and applications of it have changed over the centuries, and they change depending on our own life-experiences.” If this is so, how do we distinguish between “God’s word” (which doesn’t change) and “interpretations of God’s word” (which do change)? It is possible reliably to identify “God’s word” apart from any “interpretation of God’s word”? If not, what’s the point of separating “God’s word” from “interpretations of God’s word”?
And Brian answered:
To give a too simple answer as I need to get ready for church. I've used the oxymoronic phrase tentative absolutes to talk about our understanding/interpretation of God's Word. While we may present our interpretation as an absolute of God's Word, I believe that by seeing it also as a human interpretation, there is always a tentativeness about it; meaning, God can reveal a new and different interpretation/understanding at sometime in the future.
It might be that the dichotomy is better defined as "God's revelation" and "human interpretation". Does an interpretation come only because of our human abilities or is God involved in the interpretations? If the second, would God give different revelations at different times? Based on what I have experienced in my life of faith, I would say yes. It seems as tons God has given different revelations of the meaning of his Word at different times in my life.
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I think this has the potential to be a good and useful converstion, so I've started a new thread, on which I request that folks (including my bad self) please refrain from snark, insults, and ad hominem arguments, so actual conversation about an important question can take place.