The subjectivity of interpretation

It should go without mention that no two individuals see the world or interpret it in exactly the same way. The lenses whereby we interpret the world around us have been molded by our own subjective experiences throughout our lives. Heck, even the same object can mean one thing to one person, and mean a completely different thing to another.

But, can this gap between interpretations can be bridged, and can we at least agree on some things? Well unfortunately it is not clear that agreement entails identical interpretation. Let’s take an example—an example I’ve utilized before—to illuminate this fact. I know more about my father than most people do, because we both spent the last years of his life together, just him and I. Now, this means that if some other gentlemen who knew my father said “John was funny,” and I agreed, then it seems obvious that we both agree on the fact that humor can be predicated of my father. Now, here it seems that our judgments are identical because we are both predicating the same thing (humor) of the same subject (my father).

However, it’s actually in the subject (my father) where we find subjectivity rearing its head. For even though the gentleman and I both have the same symbol as our subject, our interpretation of this symbol goes much farther than the simple concept we have just predicated of him and have agreed upon. Why? Because a subject, in order to be recognized by one, must already have other predications of it. To shift to another example, if I say “the pencil is sharp” I am utilizing the pencil as the subject in my proposition. But, in order to recognize the concept of “pencil” I have to already understand other things about it—namely, that it is yellow, has an eraser, is capable of writing etc.

This is why our interpretations of a symbol or concept can differ even though we have made the same judgment or predications of it, because the subjects of our predications already carry so much extra baggage with them. To return to my first example, even though the gentlemen and I can agree that John was funny, I will still have a different (and more intimate) interpretation of what the symbol “John” means than the other man.

This illumination into the subject of interpretation has significant consequences for how we communicate and understand. It means that subjectivity is present and pervasive even where the most objective of statements is made. It means that two people can never have identical interpretations about a subject even though identical judgments can be made about it. And it means that we should be quick to listen and slow to make assumptions regarding a concept or subject that one is expounding, because chances are our interpretation is very different than theirs.

Thom Stark on faith

Christian Thom Stark--upon answering atheist John Loftus a few years back regarding a review of his great book The Human Faces of God--perfectly articulated what faith is, in a very profound and intriguing manner:


To me, if a Christian is certain that God exists and that everything Christianity teaches (whatever brand of Christianity they think is truest) accurately describes metaphysical and physical reality, then they don’t have faith. To think that you can “know” that these things are true is by my definition of faith precisely to reject faith. What faith is by my definition is action based on hope, and hope is a direct response to profound uncertainty. Let’s put it this way. Loftus and I both agree on what resources we should utilize to figure out what the moral thing to do is in a given situation. But for me (and maybe Loftus doesn’t have this problem, and if not, more power to him), what I’m not sure about is whether being moral is itself morally significant. I see people suffering, I want to try and alleviate their suffering, but I struggle with the question of whether my doing so has any point, beyond the obvious one of the immediate alleviation of their suffering. Why is the alleviation of human suffering the right thing to do? If the universe is a cosmic accident (and it may very well be just that), I can’t figure out why human beings should have impetus to behave morally, other than when it helps us to preserve ourselves or our species or to make us happier in some way. When morality conflicts with self-preservation or self-gratification, I just don’t know why morality should win out.


I really don’t know. This isn’t a hypothetical or an argument for the existence of God from the undesirability of a morally absurd universe. The universe may well be completely amoral. I’m afraid it might be. And because I’m human, that troubles me. (I doubt it troubles raccoons.) That doesn’t mean I believe because I’m emotionally weak. Anyone who’s read my book will know, so it’s really no surprise, that I don’t by a longshot believe everything Christianity says is true. But the question is, when I am faced with human suffering, and I set out to alleviate that suffering, is there a point to it? Does it matter, not just in that moment, but in the long run? Does it ultimately matter whether human beings continue to exist or not? I don’t believe that it does. I don’t believe that it doesn’t. I really don’t know whether it does or not. But here’s the point: I earnestly hope that it matters; and when I act on that hope, that is, when I act as if human suffering matters, I am acting in faith. That to me is what faith is. It is action based on hope, which in turn is a direct response to profound uncertainty. If I weren’t profoundly uncertain, I couldn’t hope that our existence has a profound meaning; and if I didn’t have that hope, then I couldn’t have faith (which is action, not assent to metaphysical propositions).


So, I have faith because I really don’t know if any of this has any meaning. But I act like it does, because I hope that it does. I can’t be “wrong” (about this) because I haven’t made a claim one way or the other. And this isn’t Pascal’s Wager. Another thing I really don’t know about: I don’t know if there is a God that sends unbelievers to hell, but I hope that there isn’t. Not because I don’t want to go to hell, but because it would really suck if God turned out to be less just than most humans. I’m not talking about Pascal’s Wager. I’m simply saying that my uncertainty about the meaning of our existence goes so deep that any time I try to do what is right for right’s sake is an act of faith on my part. Maybe others (maybe Loftus) aren’t as profoundly uncertain as I am. Like I said, that’s great for them.


If somebody could show me beyond doubt that the universe is a cosmic accident and everything is ultimately meaningless, then I’ll accept that and find some way to go on, but it’ll be a different way, most likely. I’m not talking about needing a reason to live by rules. I’m not saying that if the cosmos has no meaning then I’d rather blow off my family and party till I’m dead. I’m not talking about that kind of morality. I’m talking about the very core of human endeavor itself.


It may well be that there is no meaning and that we can only create meaning for ourselves. But if that’s the case, then the best I can do is try to create the best meaning, and that’s what I’m already doing. I’m trying to find out what’s good and true and to pursue that. And I think that when it comes to such truths, the processes of “discovery” and the processes of “creativity” are virtually the same processes. All human beings can do is create their own meaning, and hope they got it right. The Bible is the product of such efforts, as are all cultural artifacts. To create meaning and believe in it is, I am convinced, what it means to be human. It’s when we refuse to acknowledge that our creativity is a response to profound uncertainty that it loses its human quality—that’s when we’re trying to be more than what we are, or rather, other than what we are. To be human is to have faith—to act on our hopes which arise consciously in response to our own ignorance and uncertainty.

The metaphors of theology

Christianity (like other religions) is founded upon centuries of theological doctrine—e.g., the Trinity, the atonement, the virgin birth etc. And many of these doctrines that have been passed down are seen, especially by fundamentalists, to be unquestionable and infallible. Fair enough. But, the question can be posed regarding whether or not some (or many) of these doctrines are necessary, useful, and, more importantly for this specific post, univocal. That is to say, my point in this post is to ask “Can the meaning of these doctrines be pinned down unambiguously?”

Take the doctrine that I so vehemently oppose, namely, the inerrancy of scripture. Christians who adhere to inerrancy believe that God, in some sense, was behind the authorship of scripture and rendered the nature of scripture error-free. Ok, but if you ask an inerrantist exactly in what sense God “authored” scripture you run into problems. Did God himself take up a pen and a paper and write out the Bible? Of course not. But then how did it happen? Did God supersede the consciousness of the writer of scripture and control his mind? Some inerrantists will say yes, and some no. But, therein lies the ambiguity in the doctrine. How can we even promulgate this doctrine with certainty if the means by which it was carried out are extremely obscure?

This example can be multiplied over and over again: Was Jesus literally God, or only metaphorically God? And does Jesus have to be seen as God himself in order to be our Lord? Was the story of the fall really meant to be predicated of an original pair of humans, or is it simply a story that illuminates that humanity as a whole has “fallen”? Is Hell an everlasting torture chamber of fire, or is the language predicated of Hell mostly metaphorical, and Hell is a different place altogether? Etc.

My point regarding these examples is not that people disagree about doctrines, though this is an important periphery here. The point is that the language and concepts usually utilized about these doctrines is ambiguous and obscure. These doctrines are wrapped in so much metaphor, analogy, and mere approximations that it seems difficult to state some of them literally. The question of what exactly we mean when we promulgate a doctrine can always be posed, and clear answers are not always forthcoming. But, if this is the case, then can we really say that some doctrines are unquestionable and infallible? If there is so much semantic wiggle room with regards to a certain doctrine, then I don’t see how questioning or offering radical interpretations of said doctrine can constitute heresy.

Let it also be remembered that the doctrines that we have inherited from the Christian tradition were originally expounded by fellow humans; humans who share the same semantic and cognitive limitations as us. And those doctrines were based on those individual’s own subjective interpretations of scripture—interpretations that we still disagree on today. So, even though most of our doctrines have had a long line of tradition to back them up, this does little to help our confidence in their univocality.

All that being said, I do not mean to insinuate that Christian doctrine is useless and void. Far from it. It is through Christianity that I believe we come into the closest contact with God and Jesus, and I don’t believe that the metaphorical nature of doctrine negates this. What it should do, however, is make us more sensitive to the differences that our doctrinal interpretations produce. We shouldn’t be quick to put our own Christian denomination on a pedestal and proclaim that the other denominations” have it wrong”. We should realize that different interpreters necessitate different interpretations, and that we can still be fellow servants of God while harboring these differences.

Semantics and the mind

Last week I posted an article devoted to articulating the famous Argument from Reason (AfR). This argument attempts (and succeeds, in my opinion) to demonstrate that if naturalism were true, then there would be no such thing as reason. The AfR goes about demonstrating this by first highlighting the nature of reasoning. Reasoning, according to David Bentley Hart, is “to proceed from one premise or proposition or concept to another, in order ideally to arrive at some conclusion, and in a coherent sequence whose connections are determined by the semantic content of each of the steps taken”. The AfR then contrasts this account of reasoning with “reasoning” on a naturalistic worldview. See, for the naturalist all that exists are material processes governed by the laws of physics. But, this means that the cause of “reasoning,” on naturalism, is not semantics and meaning, but only electrochemical properties in the brain—there’s more subtlety to the argument than this, this is simply a quick summarization. Thus, it is argued, there would be no such thing as reason on a naturalistic worldview.

After articulating this argument on the aforementioned post, a frequent and attentive commenter named Ray posted some of his objections in the comment section. One of these objections I found to be quite substantive, and thus I felt the need to write a post addressing it.

His objection was that the AfR makes a hidden assumption that needs to be supported. The AfR contrasts semantics and meaning (the basis of reasoning) with purely material processes, and it claims that the former constitutes reasoning and the latter does not. However, the naturalist believes that semantics and meaning themselves are also the result of purely material processes, and therefore the proponent of AfR is creating a false dichotomy. He makes it seem as if the naturalist must choose between a rational cause—grounded in meaning and semantics—or a non-rational one—both choices leading to a rejection of naturalism. However, if meaning and semantics are themselves the result of material processes then there is no such choice for the naturalist—that is, there is no choice between a process grounded in non-material causes and material causes, since on naturalism all causes are ultimately material in nature. Thus stated, the proponent of AfR needs to demonstrate that semantics and meaning are not reducible to material causes before the AfR can be valid.

I do believe that this is a good and valid objection to the AfR. So let us see if semantics can indeed be reduced to the material. Let’s begin with an example. Take the symbol “2”. What does it stand for? Well, it stands for the concept of “two”, derived from set theory to represent the set containing two elements (II). But, it’s important to point out that the symbol “2” does not contain this meaning intrinsically. If that were true, then the symbol “2” would necessarily have to have represented the concept “two”. But the symbol “2” is completely arbitrary. In fact, it’s quite possible that we humans could have designated “2” to represent the number “five” instead, or it could have represented the concept of “love,” as opposed to a heart, if we so chose to embed it with that meaning.

Another way to demonstrate this is by imagining a primitive tribe that actually does take the symbol “2” to mean “love”. Now, if this were a true state of affairs then we could ask the question, “What does ‘2’ mean?” And the answer would be that it depends. To us it means “two” and to the tribe it means “love”. All this means that the symbol “2” by itself is intrinsically nothing but a meaningless squiggle. Its meaning is only grounded in minds who impart meaning to it. And what’s crucial here is that we can say the same regarding any symbol.

Hence, symbols can only exhibit derived meaning, and thus their semantic value is of a secondary, and borrowed order. But, symbols are the only type of meaning that we’ve seen material things exhibit, and therefore our conclusions regarding the secondary semantic nature of symbols applies to the physical as well. Thus stated, we arrive at the following conclusions regarding the physical. First, the physical and material can only gain meaning from a mind. (This of course demonstrates that naturalism cannot account for the semantic content of the mental, because meaning already presupposes the mental, and it cannot therefore account for it without arguing in a circle.) Second, meaning is not intrinsic to the physical, but is only derived, or borrowed.

I maintain that all this suffices to show that the skeptic’s challenge has been met. It has been demonstrated that semantics and meaning cannot be reduced to the material. Therefore, since semantics cannot be reduced to the material, then the contrast between rational and non-rational causes that the AfR promulgates is valid. Thus stated, the AfR stands and refutes naturalism.

Moreover, even if the above demonstrations didn’t lend validation to the AfR, they would still land a fatal blow to any naturalist theory of mind. For, to reiterate, if the phenomena of the mental cannot be reduced to the material, then naturalism is in jeopardy. And I maintain that we have done just such a thing by demonstrating that semantics cannot be found in the material, but must be predicated of the mental alone.