Paranoia. Theology.
Those two words are taken from a conversation in China Miéville's latest book, Kraken. They constitute one character's response to the question, "What is it you're doing?"
That question, in turn, is asked based on what the character appears to be doing, which is the application of a rather recondite 'reconstitutive intelligence', splicing together bits of information and memes into some sort of sensible structure. It sounds rather confusing, doesn't it?
But that is exactly what we do when we apply hermeneutic skills to a religious text. It is a kind of paranoia-driven desire to find meaning, under the assumption that there is a meaning to be found. We bend our apparently considerable intelligence (think of the thousands of scholars in many venerable religious traditions, obviously somewhat talented in the cognitive department, many of whom also with talents outside and apart from theology) to the manufacture of sense from what ought not, by the terms of the world, to make sense.
The texts themselves contain lines about how the supernatural authority or enlightened person behind them is impossible to comprehend for most (or all) mortals, and yet also that the text is from this being's deepest thoughts. Logically, then, most if not all of the text should be incomprehensible to the rest of us.
And yet, our fundamental assumption is that meaning can be gleaned through the simple application of some commonsensical skills and heuristics. Why is that so? Why should we assume this?
If the supernatural source supposedly has made the incomprehensible comprehensible, then it has diminished its own authority; it has 'dumbed down' the ineffable and unknowable. Most texts therefore strike a balance between what is obvious and what is mysterious.
It is a balance, however, that most people don't seem to think about very much. Either blood is symbolic or it is actual; it cannot be both and it cannot be neither and it cannot be part one and part the other. Either birds are birds or they represent the devil or the temptation of mankind or the salvation thereof. And so on.
We twist ourselves up in knots by attempting to fix meaning in things which shouldn't be fixed in meaning or cannot be fixed in meaning. When Jesus explains a parable, that's fine — it's his right, since he is divine. When we explain a parable that has no stated meaning, how do we know we are right?
That question, in turn, is asked based on what the character appears to be doing, which is the application of a rather recondite 'reconstitutive intelligence', splicing together bits of information and memes into some sort of sensible structure. It sounds rather confusing, doesn't it?
But that is exactly what we do when we apply hermeneutic skills to a religious text. It is a kind of paranoia-driven desire to find meaning, under the assumption that there is a meaning to be found. We bend our apparently considerable intelligence (think of the thousands of scholars in many venerable religious traditions, obviously somewhat talented in the cognitive department, many of whom also with talents outside and apart from theology) to the manufacture of sense from what ought not, by the terms of the world, to make sense.
The texts themselves contain lines about how the supernatural authority or enlightened person behind them is impossible to comprehend for most (or all) mortals, and yet also that the text is from this being's deepest thoughts. Logically, then, most if not all of the text should be incomprehensible to the rest of us.
And yet, our fundamental assumption is that meaning can be gleaned through the simple application of some commonsensical skills and heuristics. Why is that so? Why should we assume this?
If the supernatural source supposedly has made the incomprehensible comprehensible, then it has diminished its own authority; it has 'dumbed down' the ineffable and unknowable. Most texts therefore strike a balance between what is obvious and what is mysterious.
It is a balance, however, that most people don't seem to think about very much. Either blood is symbolic or it is actual; it cannot be both and it cannot be neither and it cannot be part one and part the other. Either birds are birds or they represent the devil or the temptation of mankind or the salvation thereof. And so on.
We twist ourselves up in knots by attempting to fix meaning in things which shouldn't be fixed in meaning or cannot be fixed in meaning. When Jesus explains a parable, that's fine — it's his right, since he is divine. When we explain a parable that has no stated meaning, how do we know we are right?
Labels: Hermeneutics, Logic, Paranoia, Theology
etched with acid at 12:46:00 am
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