Subjective or Objective Truth on a deserted island

[Angainor]

Fidelis:

I would say that Wilson is a poor or lazy or ignorant interpreter, because he isn’t interpreting–he’s reading this in isolation without context or background. Any rational being, even with Wilson’s remarkably impoverished educational background would not leave it at that but immediately would start asking questions: Who, or what do we mean by God? Who was this “only begotten son”? What does it mean by “begotten” What does it mean by “believe”?

There is always more information to be had. You accept Rome’s interpretation of this passage, yes?

“What color eyes did God’s Son have?” Unless Rome can interpret what color eyes Jesus had, I can never accept Rome’s interpretation as true. Why, there are dozens of possible truths that fit into Rome’s interpretation. Brown, gray, hazel…

That is sarcastic of course. The point is, an interpretation can be true even if it is incomplete.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Is a true interpretation of John 3:16, even if it is incomplete by leaving out facts such as what color eyes did God’s Son have or Who, or what do we mean by God? or Who was this “only begotten son”? or What does it mean by “begotten” or What does it mean by “believe”?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

Wilson is stranded on a deserted island. He has never heard of Christ, Christianity, or the Pope.

A New American Standard Bible washes ashore. He opens the Bible to John 3:16. Wilson interprets this passage.

This is the sum total (no more, no less) of Wilson’s interpretation of John 3:16:For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Is Wilson’s interpretation:

“Is Wilson’s interpretation”…what ? Three-legged ? Wearing a top hat ? Talking Swahili ? It could be doing or being anything - was part of your post snipped or lost or something ?​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

RobNY:

At this point Wilson would have to ask himself… what does belief entail? From finishing the very same chapter he might get some glimpses in his search:

Which ties in belief with obedience to God. At this point he would need to scan the totality of Scripture to see best what it is to be obedient to God.

What grounds have we - if any - for assuming that Wilson is human ? Or literate ? Or that the words read are what Wilson reads, rather than a representation of what he reads (if he does read, that is - or he may be like Superman, and be able to ingest tens of thousands of words in an an instant)​

Until we know a great deal more about Wilson, this is going to be impossible to answer.

Wilson may be a Vulcan or an Elf; or the words read may mean to him what “Decorate the bathrom, please” does to us. He may think they are a puzzle like Sudoku - or that the ink on the page is mess, and only the plain part of the page should be read. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

It isn’t going as quite as I expected, but I’m not sure what I expected.

I certainly did not expect someone to vote that Wilson was false in interpreting John 3:16 to mean

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

One of the problems is this - to take a Gaelic example, “uisge beatha” is the phrase heard as “whisky”, and so rendered in English. Now, “uisge beatha”, taken literally, is “water of life”. In English Bibles occurs the phrase “water of life”; so a Gaelic-speaking Wilson, if he knew both Gaelic and English, might well, when reading the phrase “water of life” in Revelation -​

• Rev 21:6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
• Rev 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
• Rev 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely

• envisage a bottle of best malt; of Talisker, say. But, the author of Revelation probably did not have Talisker in mind, or even Glenfiddich, as the drink of the blessed; and the mistake would not lie in Wilson’s having misidentified the whisky; probably the author of the book had no knowledge at all of Gaelic, or of Scotland. He was a Jew, not a Gaelic-speaking Highlander - not unless one is going to try to “prove” that the Jews were Highland Scots and spoke Gaelic.

So probably the heavenly city is not bisected by a river of Talisker - despite this; and we are probably not to imagine that the throne of God is a distillery. And while tight-fisted Scots might be delighted to read in 22.17 that free whisky is on offer, they are likely to be in for a great disappoitment

That is why dictionaries are often very misleading as guides to what people believe; and why translation is so full of pitfalls; and why there is a problem of interpretation.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

Quite possibly.

But before that,

Wilson has interpreted John 3:16 to mean (no more, no less): For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Is this interpretation Subjective Truth, Objective Truth, or False?

ISTM that if he interpreted it savingly at all, that would be the work of the Holy Spirit - of Whom he might not know anything.​

And the verse would only be any good to him, if it were a graced message of some kind; the brain work we’re doing on this threat, useful as it is, is not, by itself, a saving or grace thing: only God can give grace - the “raw matter” of human thinking and interpretation, taken purely by itself, can’t save or grace us.

I don’t see why God cannot give grace through a non-biblical, and non-Christian, text - what is to stop grace coming through the Koran ? Or through an article in a politics magazine ?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Angainor:

Listen everybody. You are making it way too difficult. This is not some Protestant ruse. Montanaman seems to have grasped the concept well enough.If any Christian is asked “Did God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”? A Christian should, without hesitation, say YES!

This is a true statement everybody, as-is, no qualifiers. As far as I’m concerned you can all take your your that-depends-ons and your what-do-you-mean-bys and throw them in the lake.

Catholics sneer at Protestants for allegedly being Subjectivist, but you guys wouldn’t recognize an Objective Truth if it bit you in the nose. Ladies and gentlemen, the plain words of John 3:16 are communicating Objective Truth.

I’ll give you all a second chance. Will anyone here give me a [thread=104893]big AMEN[/thread]?

What an “Ayyyyyyyyyyy-MEN !” suffice ?​

(Though I think you may have complicated mattera by dragging the q. of truth, objective or otherwise) ##

 

[vz71]

Angainor:

There is always more information to be had. You accept Rome’s interpretation of this passage, yes?

And with that, we have an admission that the quote is not an interpretation.

Perhaps you should think more about the question before asking.
It does not seem that much thought went into this one.

 

[Philthy]

Angainor:

• Maybe it is a fault of mine, seeing the world as black and white instead of “shades of gray”, but I generally think any given statement is either true or false.
• The point is, an interpretation can be true even if it is incomplete.

Hi Angainor-

I pulled these two statements out of your most recent posts. I have to say, Im not sure where you are going with this thread, but I will simply tighten loose ends as they develop.

With respect to the first bullet, I agree. A statement is either true or false, but this has nothing to do with how that statement is interpreted. The interpretation of the statement may have elements of truth and error simultaneously.
Part of the problem with the hypothetical situation posited for the thread is that you attempted to EQUATE the STATEMENT with Wilson’s INTERPRETATION by simply restating the statement AS the interpretation. That simply does not work for statements which have complex ideas actually or potentially associated with them.

With respect to the second statement - which perhaps was the “point” of the thread - you have only expressed one possibility. Certainly it is true that an incomplete interpretation can be entirely true, but it can also be entirely false or, more likely, partially true and partially false. And all of those possibilities are the NATURAL result of the human intellect engaging the imperfect form of communication called language. The propensity for error is increased radically when language cannot be interactive but is simply left to the unchallenged human imagination.
Remember your “I threw a ball” example? Do you want to know what I first thought you were talking about? A dance - ie ballroom. Its ridiculous, I know, but that is simply where my mind went first.

 

[Angainor]

Philthy:

With respect to the first bullet, I agree. A statement is either true or false, but this has nothing to do with how that statement is interpreted. The interpretation of the statement may have elements of truth and error simultaneously.
Part of the problem with the hypothetical situation posited for the thread is that you attempted to EQUATE the STATEMENT with Wilson’s INTERPRETATION by simply restating the statement AS the interpretation. That simply does not work for statements which have complex ideas actually or potentially associated with them.

With respect to the second statement - which perhaps was the “point” of the thread - you have only expressed one possibility. Certainly it is true that an incomplete interpretation can be entirely true, but it can also be entirely false or, more likely, partially true and partially false. And all of those possibilities are the NATURAL result of the human intellect engaging the imperfect form of communication called language.

So you are saying, if I wrote you and said I threw a ball, this is a true statement, but the mental image that pops into you head when you read it might be me throwing a football (it would be hard for a person to truely conceptualize a person throwing a generic ball). If I, in fact, threw a baseball, your interpretation would be false.

This supposes that the person can’t recognize that his mental image is rather more specific than the information allows and make a mental note that the ball might be a ball other than a football.

More than that, I think your reasoning rules out that any interpretation is correct unless that interpretation includes an omniscient understanding of the events.

If you discovered I threw a baseball the mental image in your head might be of me throwing a curveball when I in fact threw a fastball.

If you discovered I threw a fastball the mental image in you head might be of me throwing outside when I in fact in a gym.

If you discovered I threw in a gym…

When do you stop?

I could demand you say the Catholic interpretation of John 3:16 is incorrect because the mental image that pops into my head is that Jesus had brown eyes when he could of, in fact, had green eyes. Or we can agree that interpretations can be both correct and unspecific.

 

[Balance]

Angainor:

That depends on what your meaning of the word “is” is.

whoever suggested Angainor had no sense of humour is way off the mark!

 

[vz71]

Angainor:

When do you stop?

I could demand you say the Catholic interpretation of John 3:16 is incorrect because the mental image that pops into my head is that Jesus had brown eyes when he could of, in fact, had green eyes. Or we can agree that interpretations can be both correct and unspecific.

I see another admission here that the interpretation of a scripture is different from the translation of the same scripture.

I have seen you admit this twice, yet you still defend the position that the scripture is its own interpretation.

When do you stop?

 

[Angainor]

vz71:

I see another admission here that the interpretation of a scripture is different from the translation of the same scripture.

I have seen you admit this twice, yet you still defend the position that the scripture is its own interpretation.

When do you stop?

Let me admit it a third time. An interpretation of a scripture is different thing than the translation of it.

Except that Wilson’s interpretation is, for this example, defined as being limited to the strict translation of the text.

 

[vz71]

Angainor:

Let me admit it a third time. An interpretation of a scripture is different thing than the translation of it.

Except that Wilson’s interpretation is, for this example, defined as being limited to the strict translation of the text.

Well don’t keep us in suspence…Tell us what this strict interpretation is.

If we do not have the interpretation, how can we be expected to comment on its correctness?

 

[Angainor]

vz71:

Well don’t keep us in suspence…Tell us what this strict interpretation is.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

 

[sick_heretic]

This thread reminds me of Satan. So we should definetly lock it.

 

[vz71]

Angainor:

Let me admit it a third time. An interpretation of a scripture is different thing than the translation of it.

Angainor:

vz71:

Well don’t keep us in suspence…Tell us what this strict interpretation is.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Your statements are mutually exclusive.

You are lying to someone somewhere along the way.

 

[Angainor]

vz71:

Your statements are mutually exclusive.

You are lying to someone somewhere along the way.

I am not lying.

“Interpretation” is a different concept than “translation”. That does not mean an interpretation, (that is, one’s understanding of what the verse means) must be mutually exclusive with the translation (the expression of what information a block of language communicates).

 

[vz71]

Angainor:

I am not lying.

“Interpretation” is a different concept than “translation”. That does not mean an interpretation, (that is, one’s understanding of what the verse means) must be mutually exclusive with the translation (the expression of what information a block of language communicates).

You are correct when you say “That does not mean an interpretation, (that is, one’s understanding of what the verse means) must be mutually exclusive with the translation (the expression of what information a block of language communicates)”

However, that statement does not apply in all instances nor does it apply in this circumstance.

The quote you list is a complex one, and one could find several meanings from it. The quote cannot serve as its own interpretation.

As stated before, you readily admit that a quote from scripture cannot serve as its own interpretation:

Angainor:

Let me admit it a third time. An interpretation of a scripture is different thing than the translation of it.

And yet you contionue to defend the position that the quote from scripture is its own interpretation.

You are lying to someone somewhere along the way.

 

[Angainor]

Stop calling me a liar.

vz71:

As stated before, you readily admit that a quote from scripture cannot serve as its own interpretation:

Angainor:

Let me admit it a third time. An interpretation of a scripture is different thing than the translation of it.

I do not “admit that a quote from scripture cannot serve as its own interpretation” Obviously.

My interpretation of John 11:35 is Jesus wept. By this I mean, “Jesus wept”. This is my interpretation as to what John was trying to communicate to me, by which, it is my understanding, that Jesus wept. That happens to match the quote from scripture.

The point of the thread is that an interpretation that expresses the same idea as the text of scripture is true.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Angainor:

The point of the thread is that an interpretation that expresses the same idea as the text of scripture is true.

Of course it is, but the thing is that what any given text of Scripture says is what the interpretation is attempting to convey. You cannot simply repeat the words. For example - “This is my Body.” What if my interpretation is, “This is my body?”

The thing is that when you say “this is my body,” you mean something completely different from what I mean even though I express mine just by repeating the text. So you can’t just take the text, repeat it, and call it an interpretation.

But, if you really want to just take the words for what they are, shouldn’t you agree with my interpretation of “this is my body?”