Ken Ham says: "If you can’t trust the Bible when it talks about geology, biology, and astronomy, then how can you trust the Bible when it talks about salvation?". But can we trust Ken Ham's judgement on this matter?
The slogan Sola scriptura (Scripture alone!) was important to reformation Protestants
because it succinctly summed up the revolt against the authoritarian leadership
of the Roman Catholic Church of the day, a leadership which insisted on its exclusive
authority to interpret the Bible to its flock. But the slogan is also important
today as a rallying cry against those Christians who wish to impose their
proprietary interpretations of scripture on other Christians, often by means of
some form of spiritual intimidation. However, although Sola Scriptura used as a slogan is
excellent at keeping at bay those who see themselves in the role of didactic
authorities, it is not, nevertheless, literally true.
Natural language
is essentially a string of symbols with the purpose of “delivering” meaning;
but these symbols do not literally contain
meaning. Rather, meaning is generated by the context upon which the symbol
string impinges. But to do this the context must be set up in such a way as to handle the incoming string and derive relevant information from it. In the case of human beings the interpreting
context includes a vast information system which consists of both mental
resources and cultural knowledge (the latter includes knowledge of history); in
effect a huge hinterland of texts and narrative to which our minds largely
unconsciously refer when we interpret incoming text. Bible text is no exception
to this rule (See here). But to a God who is sovereign over both the incoming stream of
symbols and its interpreting context this is no necessary barrier to the generation
of right meaning.
But
fundamentalists are loathe to admit the Bible’s semantic debt to its host
context, opting instead for a closeted insularity from what they perceive as a
profane worldly context. Fundamentalists much prefer to portray the Bible as a self-contained
universe of meaning where “contamination” from worldly science, philosophy and
what they despise as “man’s thoughts” is minimized. They crave an epistemic
that delivers certain knowledge and
the thought that they themselves and their context are highly proactive active
agents in the interpretation of scripture is to them a dangerous thought. For
them the Bible has plain meanings
that are intrinsic rather extrinsic to scripture. That the “extraction” of Biblical meaning
comes via the lens of our world view embedded in the receiving context is far too insecure as
an epistemic for the fundamentalist; the hardened fundamentalist craves
certainty and turns the actual model of translation on its head. For (s)he
believes that somehow the Bible is the lens through which (s)he sees the world
and it thereby delivers unambiguous truth and absolute certainty to its readers.
To illustrate the
way the fundamentalist mind handles the Bible there can be few better examples
than Jason Lisle. With a genuine PhD in Astrophysics you might expect that he
would have an inkling about how natural language actually works and would understand
the context dependence of scripture translation. In fact I think Lisle does understand how it works, but he is
so gripped by fundamentalist tropes which make the translation role of context
invisible that in the final analysis Lisle is forced to affirm scripture as a
self-contained universe of meaning. As evidence of this I reproduce the
following comment by Lisle. In this comment Lisle is responding to a query
about Biblical meaning from one of his following. Lisle seems to start OK but because thinking is more analogue than it is digital, the fundamentalist stress
on certain terms seems to overwhelm Lisle and so eventually he comes round to
more or less affirming that scriptural meaning is self-contained. Anyway here
we have it (my emphases):
Zach, the answers to your questions involve the
concept of the “hermeneutical circle” or “hermeneutical spiral.” I have a book
coming out in the summer that addresses these issues in rich detail (in chapter
9). For now, I’ll have to give a shorter answer. God’s Word would have to be
true because of the nature of God; He is truth. God has “hardwired” us to know that He exists, and to recognize His
Word when we hear it or read it (John 10:27). How we respond to God’s Word will
determine what happens next. If we receive His Word with humility then we
participate in the hermeneutical circle. Basically, this means that God’s Word
is sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it upon reading it.
After all, God designed our minds and knows how to write a book such that our
minds can understand it.
My Comment: I would not want to say
that the foregoing is especially wrong for it shows at least some inkling of
the role of a sovereign God in contextual translation. However, given that the
above comes from the mind of a fundamentalist it is quite likely that Lisle
will have a very strong interpretation of the words I’ve highlighted: e.g Lisle
emphasizes that we are hardwired, but he should also be
taking into account our culturally programmed software/firmware, a huge body of
knowledge which includes knowledge of the history out of which the text
emanates; clearly that knowledge isn’t going to be infallible. And of course
when Lisle says God’s Word is
sufficiently clear that we can understand and correctly interpret much of it a hardcore
fundamentalist like Lisle will likely include his “plain” readings of Genesis. For
example, compare the fundamentalist Andrew Holland, whose comment made in the
context of a Genesis discussion I have often quoted as an example of
fundamentalist thinking. Viz:
....the historical parts of the Bible, such as
Genesis, should be taken at face value,
otherwise it is tantamount to calling God a liar! Thus the account of creation,
Noah's flood and Jonah's adventures are accurate and can be completely trusted.
They are all verified in the New Testament…
However, Lisle’s
commentary continues as follows:
Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret
all of God’s Word on the first reading. But the portions we do understand
rightly will help us to understand the more difficult portions. In the process
of time, our understanding improves as the Scriptures systematically sanctify
our thinking. The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to
interpret it.
My Comment: Like a good paranoiac
fundamentalist Lisle’s reflex is to attribute misinterpretation first and
foremost to malign sinful motives. No
doubt sin does skew interpretation, but notice that Lisle gives no space to admitting
that it’s not just sin that allows us to err; the huge machinery of contextual
interpretation involves narrative that is not infallible and will also be
implicated in error. Fundies are reluctant to admit genuine error in others
when those others persistently contradict fundamentalist doctrines; fundies are more likely to opt for the explanation of willful error. In this sense the
above quote from Lisle is all too typical in that it homes in on the fancied
hidden malign motives of those who disagree with him; as I’ve so often said
these habitual suspicions sets fundamentalism up as fertile ground for the growth
of conspiracy theorism. I don’t disagree
with Lisle when he says that scripture is in involved in the interpretation of scripture;
after all scripture itself is part of the context of any verse of scripture. But
notice once again he tends to overstate his case in way that is likely to
strike a chord with fellow fundamentalists: For he does not acknowledge that scriptural
meaning cannot in an absolute sense bootstrap itself, but can only bootstrap if
it taps into huge external information resources. (No problem for a sovereign God to manage,
or course). So it is no surprise that in the end Lisle consummates with a
phrase thoroughly consistent with insular fundamentalism, namely that scripture
is self-contained:
"The Bible is therefore self-interpreting"
My Comment: Yes, scripture
is a resource in the interpretation
of scripture; but this bland statement by Lisle is not qualified with the
acknowledgement that scripture isn’t the only impinging resource of
interpretation. This concluding statement
is music to the ear of the fundamentalist who dearly wants to believe and hear something
which provides a pretext for writing off “man’s thoughts” in favour of the
thinking of his or her fundamentalist sect, a sect which regards itself as
tapping directly into Divine opinions via an uncritical “plain” reading of
scripture. As Lisle’s followers will regard him as an admirable guru, he is in effect
misleading them by (over) stressing only certain aspects of the biblical translation
process.
And yet in the
same comment Lisle says something which effectively admits that scripture is not a standalone revelation: it depends
on the exploitation of cultural resources: Viz:
Regarding Bible-versions, my upcoming book will also
cover this issue in chapter 6. The short answer is that you can be confident
that the major conservative English translations (ASV, KJV, NASB, NKJV) are
accurate by comparing verses in multiple versions. In over 99% of cases, these
versions give the same meaning for each verse, and there is simply no
translational problem at all. In only a very few instances is there any
disagreement at all, and even in these it is usually minor and involves no
doctrinal issue. For these rare cases you’ll have to do further study. But
there can be no doubt that the main doctrinal passages of Scripture have been
correctly translated.
My Comment: There is the admission
here that getting to grips with the Bible may involve access to information
about translation statistics; but this data about the reliability of Bible
translations is not contained in the Bible itself, of course. Research external
to the Bible is needed to check up on translation fidelity: Nothing wrong
with this though: I once used four or five translations to refute an argument from someone of the Witness
Lee Brotherhood who challenged the usual rendition of Romans 8:15 using the Brotherhood’s
“Recovery” version of the Bible. I’ve also used a similar approach with a Jehovah’s
witness I was corresponding with over the “New World” translation of John 1:1
But the bible itself
doesn’t tell us which translation to use since it knows nothing of translations.
The question of translation is a meta-question
that is only answered with reference to cultural resources and I largely agree
with Lisle that multiple versions indicate reliability (but not necessarily
infallibility) in translation.
However, once
again Lisle overstates his conclusion. Once you think you have a reliably
rendered translation there is still a very long way to go. For in translation
it is wrong to think that a word is a word is a word. Even if one-to-one
translation were actually possible (and it seldom is) that is a mere starting
point: As I have remarked before meaning
is far more than notational correctness. Probably more important is connotational correctness. For example, we can perhaps correctly translate the Biblical word for “water” with a fair probability
of being right. But the connotations of the word “water” in the parched lands
of the Middle East means that “water”
probably carried very different connotation in its originating context when compared to those of us who live in wet
cool climates. And of course, there is no reason why one-to-one translation
should be universally applicable anyway. Cross cultural translation will also
likely include one-to-many translations and also many-to-many translations.
With many-to-many mappings the central idea is to attempt to capture the original
thought behind the text; that is, their connotation. Connotational content will loom large, particularly in the realm of
religion, myth, and metaphor where we are trying to convey humanities deepest
fleeting thoughts; a superficial notational paradigm of natural language fails to do justice to the truth of the matter. This opens up a very big area of psychological and sociological study,
one I myself have only just touched on in these writings:
Fundamentalism
is attractive because it is a great simplifier of meanings and epistemology. It
is especially attractive for those who want a notational Bible which provides mechanically unambiguous meanings facilitating the separating out of the sheep from the goats, thus helping to secure convictions of
compromise, heresy, apostasy and blasphemy. Highly sectarian fundamentalists
look for a rationale to explain to themselves why their perception of the holy catholic
Christian realm is such a small remnant (i.e. themselves). A notational paradigm
of scripture is used as a basis to write off the wider Christian community (and
other fundamentalist sects) as spiritually inferior if not apostate.
Finally, let me
actually put in a good word for Lisle. True, he can display typical
fundamentalist nastiness in imputing malign motives to those Christians (if
indeed he accepts them as Christians) he disagrees with (for example to Lisle President
Obama is a “wicked ruler” and those who believe in an old Earth he
accuses of idolizing time). But let’s be clear there are a lot worse out
there than Lisle. Lisle has some respect for logic and science and that is something to be grateful for in these days of encroaching Christian gnosticism and fideism. Moreover, I agree with Lisle that the rational readability of our world is an inexplicable brute fact, easily lost to nihilism, unless we can see beyond it to an immanent yet eminent personal God who is the underwriter of our knowledge. You can get a lot worse than Lisle. See
for example the appendix below where I reproduce the results of a random probe
of Ken Ham’s Facebook page …. and that’s before I mention John
Mackay and the flat
Earthers!
Appendix.
As if the
foregoing isn’t bad enough there is, in fact, a lot worse out there. At least
Lisle does try to bring some nuance into the subject of Bible interpretation before abdicating his
better judgment in favour of a fundamentalist epistemic. Not so with Answers in Genesis supremo Ken Ham: I quickly
found the texts below when I randomly sampled Ham’s Facebook page for examples
of fundamentalist thinking. I would paraphrase the contents in terms as
follows: Obeying Christ means obeying the
fundamentalist message about literalism. To trust the Bible means trusting in Genesis
literalism. The Bible is to be
considered a scientific text book about geology, biology and astronomy; if you
don’t believe this your salvation is called into question. The Bible doesn’t need interpreting,
you just believe it. The resurrection proves YEC and you can’t be a consistent Christian
if you don’t believe in YEC. There is a reason vs revelation dichotomy. Particularly
interesting below is the comment which raises a very American paradox. Viz: The
founding fathers of America were great enlightenment thinkers and yet this
grates with right wing fundamentalists whose freedom to practice their version
of religious fanaticism was assured by these despised liberal whiggish thinkers
who wrote the very declaration of independence that gives them freedom to
follow their sectarian version of Christianity.
hxxps://www.facebook.com/aigkenham/posts/1145449605485394
Ken Ham: We want people to trust God’s Word so that,
ultimately, they will trust in Jesus Christ and receive salvation and
forgiveness from their sin.
Biblical Authority and the Book of Genesis: If you
can’t trust the Bible when it talks about geology, biology, and astronomy, then
how can you trust the Bible when it talks about salvation?
(see also this
link:
hxxps://answersingenesis.org/the-word-of-god/biblical-authority-and-book-genesis/?utm_source=khfb&utm_medium=linkpreview&utm_campaign=trust)
Charlie Wolcott THIS is what separates group like AiG from
every other OEC group. It's not a matter of interpretation. It's a matter of
"Do you believe the Record?". I do not always agree with everything
Ken Ham and AiG says, but I know they are pointed the right direction.
Believing the Word of God as the Word of God and knowing that YEC alone does
not cut it. YEC by itself does not make sense. YEC with the CROSS makes it all
work. If someone asked for a single piece of evidence that convinces me of a
young earth: my response is the Resurrection of Jesus. Why? Because the
Resurrection validates every word of the Bible as written to be the authority
over ALL authorities in the world. You cannot be a Christian and believe in an
Old Earth and be consistent in your thinking. (My guess is that this guy is
so fanatical that he finds Ken Ham too moderate!)
Steve Tyler Ken Ham, yes we've been evolutionized, but
evolution is a subset of the larger issue: The Enlightenment. Enlightenment
thinkers hold that "Reason" trumps revelation, and therefore
everything in the Bible that is "unreasonable," such as the virgin
birth of Christ and His resurrection are discarded. This is so ingrained in our
American culture because the main Founding Fathers were all Enlightenment
thinkers... it's the American religion
