Christians Endorse God's Hatred

[Esquilax]

Fine you say, but how do you know that you are not tailoring your symbols and allegories to fit the text? That’s possible. But suppose I did actually have a super doper decoder that could be used consistently across the entire canon and support a single doctrine. The reliability of the decoder would justify both its validity and the validity of the code on which it worked. As a matter of fact, I do have a super doper decoder, starting with the 22 volumes of Swedenborg’s “Arcana Coelestia”. These texts present an internally consistent interpretive framework for understanding the inner meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

I see a problem here, and that's that at most, all you've done is push the question back one step: how do you know the book you're using to interpret the bible isn't just Swedenborg's convenient interpretations? I find it particularly interesting that when asked how you can be sure that you aren't misinterpreting a book purportedly written by god through man, you'd point to another book written by a man, instead of some way you can be sure the interpretation you've opted to use comports with the intentions of the being that inspired it.