I was chatting with a colleague the other day at lunch. She made a common suggestion: that a person's understanding of communicated truth is dependent on the subjective interpretation of the individual.
I guess Christians tend to encounter the corollary of this: We can't draw any firm conclusions from (for example) the Bible, because it is open to a host of subjective interpretations all equally valid.
It struck me that we don't live like that(!). We act in all our decisions and relationships as if we have confidence in language to communicate truth with identifiable and limited ambiguity so that interpretation isn't subjective. (That is we can identify potential ambiguities in language and, where they arise, have available to us well understood methods for limiting the scope of meaning to that which the writer intends).
If that weren't true, we couldn't ever say anything or write anything with any confidence in how it would be understood. Then contract law would be a joke, love letters a waste of time, and friendships built on very dodgy ground (how could I know what my friend really meant when they said "such-and-such"? Common experience wouldn’t be common because their subjective interpretation of our conversation could be completely different). I wouldn't be able to write these words with any confidence that you would interpret my words in a way that is consistent with my intentions in writing them!
a) Is interpretation of language really that subjective?
To take a concrete example: We live in a culture that prizes home ownership. I take it generally people are confident that the deeds to their home secure their ownership (given the increasingly crazy amounts of money people are handed over to each other!). Ultimately a buyer’s confidence rests on a document with a particular form which is presumably "open to interpretation". If someone rocks up on your doorstep saying they have a different interpretation of your deed (that it has expired, or actually applies to a different flat or a different person,... that the separate storage room isn't actually yours or whatever...), I take it most of us wouldn't consider their interpretation equally valid alongside our own at that point! They'd probably be more than happy to tell the other person they were wrong - that their interpretation was nonsense! Subjectivity wouldn't enter into it!
The answer must be that, in practice, the way we interpret language cannot be that subjective. Our confidence in language stems from an assumption that in practice ideas, concepts and desires can be communicated with sufficient ambiguity removed so as to be useful... We take it for granted that an asserted truth (or at least a very narrow set of possible truth claims) can be understood from, say, the deed to my flat ("I own it"), the bank contracts I sign ("you owe me") or all sorts of other documents (e.g. "it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught" Luke 1v3-4).
So, in answer to the question: "Isn't it all just subject to interpretation?"...
In a word: "No!"
Or in five words: "No one really believes that".
b) Why is it easy to think that way?
I think in practice, we have a host of intuitive ways in which we rule out certain interpretations as "invalid"... A variety of ways in which we "rule out" potential ambiguities, and narrow the scope of "valid" acceptable interpretations when we dealing with documents, conversations, letters, literature, poetry, history, or whatever... The thing is, in the ast majority of cases, it is instinctive! We are so used to applying rules of interpretation that we don't think about it.
The instinctive nature of these rules for interpretation would explain why its only when we enter the realms of the unfamiliar (e.g. reading the Bible) that we try to assert that the modes of communication we entrust our lives to daily (e.g. "please mind the gap"!) aren't as reliable as our lives say that they are.
c) So how can we be consistent in our approach?
As I pondered it on the bus, I tried to piece together what these instinctive rules for interpretation might include. It seems to me that we follow two steps:
- "Step 1" of interpretation is to identify possible word meanings based on cultural usage. This provides a set of "technically possible" interpretations.
- "Step 2" is to rule them in (as valid) or out (invalid) according to other considerations (cultural setting and references, personal knowledge of the author and his other writings, internal consistency within a document...). This leave a smaller set of "valid" interpretations
"Step 1" is a language thing (the universe of possible word meanings is determined by cultural usage) and is probably less controversial for anyone whose every used a dictionary. "Step 2" I think is more intuitive, but would include:
i) We trust the cultural context to limit the scope of "valid" interpretations within those which are "technically possible".
We do not communicate in a vacuum, we do so against a backdrop of authorial intent, the purpose of the document, the prevailing culture etc...
So when a cheesy poet writes "your eyes are like the stars" it is not written in a vacuum. Knowledge of the author, his intent, and relationship with the recipient allows us to intuitively narrow the scope of any ambiguity. When he says "like the stars" he is unlikely to be referring the recipient's eyes as being similar to enormous natural fission reactors melding elements at mind-boggling temperature and pressure, emitting vast quantities of energy in the process and possessing a gravitational pull sufficient to hold planets and move comets. If you've read cheesey poetry before, you don't even consider the possibility that it might(!). In the same way, when a cosmologist writes about "...acts as sources of the heavier elements like the stars" he's not referring to the experience of seeing a brilliant pinprick of light against black sky. The phrase "like the stars" possesses limited ambiguity within our use of language. You can (linguistically) attribute either interpretation to both these fictitious writers but the two interpretations are not equally "valid" because the context does not permit it.
ii) We demand logical coherence:
Where a given interpretation conflicts with other writings by the same author, how do we handle that? Does coherence narrow the universe of valid interpretations? (e.g. Luke's gospel says it is an eye-witness account, some people claim that later parables told are not the words of Jesus, or that the miracles are symbolic. Has Luke changed his mind/purpose half-way through? Is he a liar? Is the "symbolic" interpretation a valid interpretation giving the internal contradiction required?).
All language is open to interpretation. When anyone is confronted with a variety of interpretations (of the Bible or anything else), the question must be: Are they all equally valid? Is the one being advanced fair? We ought to ask ourselves:
- What rules of interpretation are being applied to reach these various conclusions?
- Are the rules of interpretation appropriate and being applied rightly?
- Does the cultural background, the use of language or the intent of the author allow me to narrow down the universe of "technically possible" interpretations to a smaller set of "valid" interpretations?
Only once done, can we take a view on what the author is saying. But in practice we're not left with a very large set of possiblities, and the scope for subjectivity is small to tiny.
Nobody lives as if interpreting language is as subjective as some people try to suggest. In engaging with the Bible, it seems to me often the claim to subjectivity stems from a combination of intellectual laziness and lack of familiarity with the Bible itself (i.e. applying the same interpretive grid we apply to our house deeds, love letters and everything else).
Having recognised it's not a legitimate objection, the first step is surely to read the material, and to start to interpret...
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