So many people think that once they pick up a text, they can simply read it and understand what it says. They think there is little to no interpretation going on when they engage a text. It means what it says, and what it says is what they get out of it. They do not understand that, in the process of reading a text, a reader is going through several interpretative processes, creating a meaning for the text itself. Now, on a subjective level, the meaning the person gets out of the text cannot be said to be wrong – what they get out of the text truly is what they get out of it. But on the other hand, they are doing more, they are transforming the text into a specified, objective meaning, and that meaning may or may not be what the author intended. If it isn’t, then something is wrong, miscommunication is going on, and in one major sense, the reader’s interpretation must be said to be in error. This is why C.S. Lewis once suggested that literary criticism is best done after the author is dead: at that time, the author won’t be able to contradict the meaning placed upon their text by some outside source. Since the author is the originator of the text, they have the final authority to determine whether or not one’s application of their text is proper or not, although if it is not, there could be many explanations for this problem, including how the text was written. Yet, probably more often than not, the problem lies in the fact that an author has many preconceived notions they are using as they write, some which they might make conscious in the text, but many which they do not. The author might not even be conscious of them. That means, in any text, there is always something lost in communication; there is always some mystery left behind it which only the author can reveal.
The truth of this can be shown when we move out of the written word, and enter into the realm of symbols. Indeed, symbols are notoriously difficult to interpret, once the key to their interpretation has been lost. For their meaning is far more context driven than the written word. When most people see a symbol, their own contemporary cultural understanding of it will be the context they uses to understand it, even if that context completely transforms and contradicts the meaning of the symbol as it was intended in its original use. Thus, when Christians saw ankhs on the walls of the Serapeum, they saw it as a sign of the cross, and believed they prophetically predicted the destruction of the pagan temple at the hands of the Christians. Or, in modern days, when the average person sees a Swastika, they immediately think of its connection to Nazism, despite the fact that the symbol is over three thousand years old and most of its meanings have had nothing to do German nationalism.
One of the most interesting things about symbols is that, throughout time, their interpretation can slowly evolve, making for radical, and even contradictory, meanings. A great example of this is found with the pentagram. Many people today associate the symbol with the occult, even Satan himself. However, in the middle ages, Christians saw it as a Christian symbol. In the Arthurian Romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we find Gawain’s shield has a pentagram painted on it. Since the reader might be confused as to what it symbolizes, the author explained it, giving it a five-fold significance:
“First faultless was he found in his five senses,
and next in his five fingers he failed at no time,
and firmly on the Five Wounds all his faith was set
that Christ received on the cross, as the Creed tells us;
and wherever the brave man into battle was come,
on this beyond all things was his earnest thought:
that ever from the Five Joys all his valour he gained
that to Heaven’s courteous Queen once came from her Child.
For which cause the knight had in comely wise
on the inner side of his shield her image depainted,
that when he cast his eyes thither his courage never failed.
The fifth five that was used, as I find, by this knight
was free-giving and friendliness first before all,
and chastity and chivalry ever changeless and straight,
and piety surpassing all points: these perfect five
were hasped upon him harder than on any man else.
– Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Greek Knight, Peal, Sir Orfeo. Trans. J.R.R. Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), 41.
Here we see, in a customary fashion, the author of Sir Gawain cataloguing the ways the pentagram was understood in his time. It was a multifaceted symbol which represented the virtues and joys found in one who has perfectly put themselves under mantle of Christ. More specifically, the five points of the pentagram recounted the five wounds of Christ, showing us that the symbol was tied to the cross, with the virtues associated with the cross transferred to it: the pentagram was believed to offer aid and protection against evil, especially against magic, explaining why it would be placed upon a shield. Witchcraft could not overcome the power of Christ.
Obviously, such a Christian understanding of the pentagram has been lost, and this is because of its use in various occult traditions. The explanation for this transformation would take us many pages to explain, but when one considers the kinds of occult practices which were practiced in the renaissance, one can begin to grasp how this evolution occurred. Central to this story is its use in “demonic magic” to control demons. If the pentagram was seen as an aid against evil, its placement on the floor would allow a demonologist to summon a demon, and seemingly be protected from its malice. For centuries, this was how it was viewed: as protection in demonic magic. Its association with Christ would eventually be lost, and ancient mathematical symbolism would be used to validate its power (though at one stage, the pagan and Christian traditions would be merged together in occult lore). Centuries later, someone else, probably Eliphas Levi (1810 – 1875), would then transform it into a picture of “the horned beast,” that is, the devil, and give it the meaning many now associate with it. What was once a symbol for Christ was turned upside and became a symbol for the devil, although we could find others, such as the upside-down cross, a symbol with traditional Christian meaning now popularly viewed by society as a Satanic symbol.
When we reflect upon what words are, we learn that they too are symbols. Because of this, it is easy to understand why the science of hermeneutics is important. Like all symbols, the meaning behind a given word is not always so clear, and can evolve over time. Even at the same place and time in history, people can use words differently. Equivocation is easy. Text out of context serves as pretext, because without that context, one can easily impute a meaning to the text which the author did not intend. This is why, however difficult it might be, a charitable interpretation of another’s words is always important. If we enter a conversation for the sake of proving a point, for the sake of an ideology, instead of trying to learn how another thinks, it is easy to lose sight of this. It’s easy to take words, force an interpretation on them and use it to question the credibility and beliefs of another. However, that should only be done if, in the course of conversation, the charitable interpretation is proven false. Only if, in conversation, you ask if a specific interpretation is intended and it is rejected, can you properly lay it aside.
As with most texts, there are varying degrees of interpretation required in order to ascertain the meaning of a document. For example, there are provisions in the Constitution that are so narrow that there can be little doubt about their meaning (the age requirements to hold office come to mind). Other provisions of the Constitution contain common-law terms of art that incorporate hundreds of years of jurisprudence, and thus provide fairly broad interpretive parameters. And other provisions of the Constitution require one to look at the history, structure, and text of the Constitution in order to determine their respective meanings.
So yes, context matters. On this, we agree.
That having been said, constitutional meaning does NOT change over time (in the absence of a constitutional amendment) because of the nature in which it came into being (compact of states delegating aspects of their sovereignty to the newly-formed federal government).
Nice Post Henry, I like the quote from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is good to see Christian symbolism and Christians symbols brought to the attention of the blogging public.
Good points, especially about the symbolic character of language. I’m particularly fascinated by how metaphors in language and the frameworks established by words shape our understanding, so that (in our experience) there is no reality beyond language but reality is in part constructed by our language. “Reality” is both objective and subjective.
A favorite example of mine is the way we speak and think about time in the English language. We’ve all heard the cliché “Time is money,” but it’s not just a clever phrase: it actually formulates a hermeneutic framework by which we understand time. Notice the words we use for time are often the same words we use for money: spending, wasting, managing, economizing, etc. The metaphor of money molds our words, and therefore understanding, of time. Someone in a culture with no monetary system would undoubtedly speak and think of time very differently. They would also philosophize about the meaning of time based on different symbols or metaphors.
Feddie,
Even the so-called “narrow” texts are being interpreted as we read them. Your example of “age” demonstrates this. Who defines age and how do you define it? The Western interpretation is “from birth.” But not all define age this way. This is an example of a cultural understanding which must be read into the text, and is read in the text, whenever one reads it. And since the document comes from the Western tradition, it is true, we can figure out the answer to be “from the time of birth,” but what must be understood is that this inside information is being used to interpret the text whenever we do read it.
Nonetheless, as time moves on, so does the culture. It is easy to forget how much society has been changed since a document has been written, and it is so easy to anachronistically interpret it. Indeed, all readings of a document from a bygone age requires a reconstruction of the mindset from the time it was written, and that reconstruction will never be perfect. But the more care we take to think within the worldview of a specific writer, the better our interpretation will be. An originalist interpretation of the Constitution can never be read outside of the context of slavery and what was allowed in slavery. Of course, the United States is not limited to that context because of how we have changed the Constitution. But since that has happened, we must always be clear, the original intent of the Constitution is now null and void. Instead, we have a more complicated task: we must discern how changes to the Constitution (and developments in our understanding of the implications of the Constitution itself) merge with the original intent of the Constitution and form a new, third category. That is what I believe is often forgotten, when discussing the Constitution and its application in today’s age.
Saying that, this post really wasn’t about the Constitution. It was about hermeneutics in general, and a desire to let people know that the Pentagram is a Christian symbol. That context should help people interpret the meaning of what I just said.
Kyle
I admit, I’ve not gotten far into a study of metaphor; probably the best study I’ve done is Owen Barfield’s Poetic Diction. But you are right, our metaphors are quite telling about how we view the world, and they in turn, reinforce cultural developments.
One of the more interesting things I find in Buddhist thought is a recognition of how words and language affects our experience of the world, because we think in terms of such words. It is for this reason Buddhism often wants us to find a way to experience the world beyond thoughts, because it becomes beyond words, and therefore an experience of the world without such overlays. It allows us to experience the world as it is without our own mental, and metaphysical, constructions (the reason why metaphysics is often rejected in Buddhism is because it ultimately relies on our limited, human constructons to define the world, a world which transcends such definitions; yet, because we do experience the world in such constructs, there is a level of truth to it as well).
As a “New Histoiricist” in terms of my approach to teaching advanced high school literary analysis (the International Baccalaureate curriculum), I agree wholeheartedly with what you’ve written here.
However, there is some legitimacy for discounting the intentions of the author, because not all authors are “saints”; they are not all sincere or direct in revealing their prejudices or preconceptions, and they do not always WANT all of their readers to understand absolutely EVERYTHING in their works, and, as advanced a tool as literary “deconstruction” sometimes is, it takes TOTAL knowledge, sometimes, of an author’s culture and social circumstances to figure out what he may or may not have been wishing to occlude from the understanding of a large part of his own public.
Such “total” knowledge as a basis for the generally cultivated reader’s appreciation and understanding of texts is really impractical.
Digby
Right – as I was trying to say, there are elements of interpretation which are hidden in the mind of the author. Sometimes, it is just unconscious elements they don’t know exist as necessary parts of their overall whole, but on the other hand, many are conscious elements as well. It’s not even necessarily a matter of deception as much as an attempt to concisely engage a topic and assume a commonality between the author and the reader which might be true when it was written, but will not be true centuries later.
In this way, I think the meaning of a given text is still in the determination of the author; however, this should not suggest that the meaning of the text ends up to be truthful. And you are right, when asked about the text, they could lie. It’s not out of the question. But how you determine an author is a liar or mistaken depends upon how you interpret them, especially when they are dead. And when you do that, you must try to read behind the lines, to see what they don’t reveal, reconstructing the best one can the basis by which the text is written.
Henry — The point that context is important is most welcome on a blog that often seems to me to be infatuated with ideas while neglecting experience (i.e., that often equates ideas and realities while ignoring messy matters of power and social relations.)
But if you really want to take context seriously (and you are right that we had better if we really want to understand the world), I think you need to go a good deal further than you’ve done here. Its striking that you’ve set this up in terms of the sometimes problematic relationship between subjective interpretation of readers and the intention of the writer. You are still operating entirely in the realm ideas and ignoring the social experience that shapes them.
If you really want to take context seriously, the science you need is not hermeneutics but sociology and social history. Ideas cannot be reduced to social relations, but they cannot be completely disentangled from them.
And that of course leads to the question — this talk of context is all fine and good when we are talking about fairly esoteric elements of Christian symbology or the U.S. Constitution. But are we prepared to take context seriously when we are talking about important teachings of the Church?
Prince
Actually, what is brought up in sociology and social history is, for me, an aspect of what one takes with them when interpreting. So I don’t think we would disagree. To me it is a given in proper hermeneutics. And this is why, for example, systematic theology MUST be done with a historical perspective and not outside of it. However, the problem is — as with all history — the sociological approach to the past is a reconstruction and must be understood as such.
Henry — good response, and I absolutely agree that history (and sociology) cannot transcend the domains they analyze, and so should always be turned reflexively on EVERY interpretive stance.
What about my final question — do you think the Church (or more properly, scholars who consciously work within the teachings of the Church) are comfortable with this socio-historical imperative?
My sense is that it/they are not, and that the desire to preserve a body of transcendent religious teachings makes socio-historical analysis a suspect endeavor for them, or that at least some aspects of Church teaching are walled off from such analyses. But I do not swim much in these waters so I could certainly be wrong. If you disagree, who do you think is doing rigorous sociological or historical work within the Church today?
Henry,
The works of Paul Ricoeur are a good place to go. One of his major texts on the subject of metaphor is The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disiplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language.
Prince
That’s not an easy question — not because sociological studies are not being used in theological investigations, but that things are far more complex than that. The theological discipline is split into many areas, and currently, they are not engaging each other as well as they should (there is no universal systematic representation going on which takes the advances in each area into consideration; of course, it’s difficult to do so, since there are so many areas to look into).
Thus, one of the areas where sociology is taken quite seriously in theological studies is patristics (sometimes to the expense of other aspects of study). Elizabeth Clark’s The Origenist Controversy is a good example of this done well.
Feminist Theology, as a whole, often looks at the influence on patriarchy on theological doctrine. Sociological studies, therefore, are important for them. There are some good ones, some bad ones, but I would recommend Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza – In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins .
Liberation Theology, of course, takes sociology seriously, since it helps show the structures of sin which need to be overcome. Do I need to give examples? I think it is central to all major thinkers of LT, though of course not the only aspect of their writings.
When you explore discussions on Vatican I or Vatican II, you will find sociological aspects are often brought up — which should not be surprising, since both councils were influenced by their times. It’s been awhile, but I think Pottmeyer might have some sociological aspects in his writings.
These are just mere examples, but I hope it helps?
Kyle
One of these days I hope I will get to him.
A taste:
“The symbol, I said, is constituted from a semantic perspective such that it provides a meaning by means of a meaning. In it a primary, literal, worldly, often physical meaning refers back to a figurative, spiritual, often existential, ontological meaning which is in no way given outside this indirect designation. The symbol invites us to think, calls for an interpretation, precisely because it says more than it says and because it never ceases to speak to us.”
From The Conflict of Interpretations by Paul Ricoeur
Henry — A belated thanks for the thoughtful reply….I was out of town and away from the internet a week and am just now catching up on things.
The theological discipline is split into many areas, and currently, they are not engaging each other as well as they should (there is no universal systematic representation going on which takes the advances in each area into consideration; of course, it’s difficult to do so, since there are so many areas to look into).
Sounds like theology then is in the same position as most modern intellectual endeavors, and certainly the humanities and social sciences. “Disarray” would be too strong a word, since so much good work is being done. But the work is going in very different and perhaps incommensurable directions. At any rate, a comprehensive synthesis becomes increasingly difficult to imagine even within disciplines if only in terms of the challenge of actually mastering the growing volume and diversity of studies that would need to be included. That’d be my description of my neck of the academic woods (science and technology studies) anyway.
Thanks for the specific recommendations — some I have heard of some not. I’ll add them to my things-I’d-like-to-read-when-I-get-the-chance pile. Speaking of which in re: Vatican II — do you know this book by Melissa Wilde, Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change. I don’t know anything about it, but it caught my eye.
But re: the position of sociology and history in the Church, let me push the point a bit further…. Aren’t these approaches still quite marginal outside of academic circles? More bluntly, isn’t the Magisterium is highly suspicious of these approaches — ok for academics to engage in, but dangerous for the faithful as a whole so that a socio-historical framework is pretty much missing from the catechism. (I’d suggest a parallel in the way that science proper is ok with STS at a distance, but keep it out of the laboratory, and by all means out of textbooks or (heaven forbid) policy discussion.)