SECTION
TWO
 
 

"The Big Three"
 

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CHAPTER
FOUR
 

The ABCs of Interpretation

    Personal interpretation of scripture should not be dogmatically asserted but there are guiding principles, if followed, that allow for the greatest certainty of reasonable understanding. The following section will lay the ground rules for the process of general Biblical interpretation used here. There are different elements which may be enumerated but these three basics categories will provide a quick survey. Let's look at the ABCs of Bible interpretation.
 [ Return to Chapter Six Principle D. Deduction ]

    The first is the authorship of God. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Prov. 1:7 KJV). God wrote the Bible through men. The ideas found in the Word did not originate with men, i.e. men did not create the ideas found in the Scripture.

    "First of all you must understand this, that no scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." (2 Peter 1:20-21 RSV).

    The writers of the Bible did not hope that they were close in their theories and observation about God and that time and testing would prove or disprove their veracity -- that approach is called the scientific method.
 
 

    Saint Thomas Aquinas made a clear separation between Theology and Science, recognizing that the one is man trying to understand the universe that God has made and the other is the study of the God who made the universe. The difference between the two disciplines, science and theology, is most easily illustrated at the miracle of Lazarus' resurrection. Lazarus was a very prominent person in the Jewish community. Even though there were many intelligent and highly educated leaders there to witness the event (being assembled for the wake), many did not believe what the scientific evidence clearly communicated (John 11:42-53). They allowed their physical senses and logic faculties to align with their agenda rather than conform to the most irrefutable fact. Pure science deals with how - not the why in a cosmological sense.

    Science can never determine the causality of the universe because by its very definition a theory must be consistently reproducible -- cosmic origin has never and can never be reproduced. For years, scientists discounted the possibility of catastrophism, the idea that great calamities of nature resulted in dramatic changes for life on earth, instead believing religiously in slow Darwinian evolution. In fact, Dr. Schumaker, the author of the catastrophic theory, stated how hard it was to make paleontologists receive this concept since it violated their scientific religion - an interesting choice of words (stated in the 1998 PBS Nova special on meteor impacts). Now after recent discoveries (some of which are illustrated by meteoric disaster movies, e.g. "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact") of a meteor impact which killed off the dinosaurs, catastrophism is making a big comeback in scientific circles. It puts forth the idea of catastrophism as the source of major change.

    Science violates its own prime directive when attempting to explore the concept of ultimate origin. Even scientific theories concerning relatively recent geological epochs are feathers blown in the wind, subject to change and not provable by the observation. When science tries to answer why, it has crossed the threshold of how and has removed itself from its foundational charter, the scientific method. Without the scientific method of empiricism, there is no science. Science becomes a blind man roaming in the dark and groping for contextual relevance as it pretends to guide us into ultimate truth. At best, it can only cry for help while falling from one unseen reality to the next, describing a room with no walls, no entrance, and no hope of exit. It can in the end, only describe a piece of furniture from a limited perspective and try to piece together a working floor plan in our little piece of the cosmic maze. Science by itself leads only to Camus' desperate hopelessness. In its proper place, science is a blessing from God and a further reason for praise to the Master Scientist, Jesus Christ.

    Science says "when I see it reproduced I will believe it." Theology says, "when I believe it and it is infused into the core of my being, I will see it." These are not contradictory, they answer questions in different realms of truth, the realm of the how and the realm of the why. The two astronomers who verified the existence of primordial debris, proving the "Big Bang" theory were asked what was here before the Big Bang. Their response to the reporter's question was shrugged shoulders. They don't have a clue and never will. They had to admit that the barrier of scientific wisdom had been reached.
 [ Return to Chapter Six Principle D. Deduction ]

    The scripture itself states this principle this way, "in the mouth of two or three witnesses, shall every word be established" (2 Cor. 13:1 KJV, cf. Mat. 18:16). Of course, the origin of this principle is based in the legal code, but it also applies to the study of the scripture. If God is ultimately the author of the Bible, then over the 1600 years and 40 human authors we would expect the Word to correlate significant concepts, especially in the area of eschatology: end times teaching.
 [ Return to Chapter Six Principle D. Deduction ]

    The final principle is context, a scripture out of context is a pretext. The Bible interpreter must seek to understand the passage within the context of its history, surrounding text, and human agents. This is often difficult to accomplish without a serious scholarly undertaking but can be achieved by at least a recognition of the general book and passage in which the verses are found and an understanding of the human author's environment. There are many wonderful helps in this area, many on CD-ROM for computerized study.  [ Return to Chapter Six Principle D. Deduction ]
 

[ Chapter Four | Section Two | Table of Contents ]
 
 

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