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List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 5:47 pm
Anyone familiar me knows I approach Scripture from a largely symbolic point of view. Many Christians object to this on the theory that if any part of the Bible is not strictly true in every sense of the word, then you cannot know if the essential elements of faith are true. To my surprise, many atheists also object to a symbolic interpretation saying that only a literal meaning makes sense for one reason or another.
My intention is not to debate the issue I just want to know: what is your objection to viewing Scriptures as conveying truths by means of allegory and symbol?
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RE: List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 5:53 pm
I view symbolism to be largely a fiction writer's tool. If one is writing nonfiction, other than for the appearance of flowery language, what use would symbolism be in describing the truth?
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
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RE: List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 6:09 pm
I have no problem with symbolism if it's obvious it's symbolic. If it seems otherwise, and a great amount of people, even the great majority of people, would on first reading, appear to them to be literal, then I would say, it's a fallacy of ambiguity, to say it's not. This is true, even if a literal meaning is proven to be wrong.
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RE: List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 6:43 pm
Well, the problems comes when you attempt to take any of the bible as not allegory/metaphor. For example, was the entire resurrection story an allegory and of what exactly? What "truth" does it tell us if it didn't actually happen? How is this "truth" different than the "truths" of any other work of fiction? The entire episode could be taken for rebirth/renewal/springtime/whatever - not exactly the transcendent knowledge of the universe.
Another objection is, many theists use the metaphor/allegory approach as an escape hatch to pick and choose which portions to accept (the parts they like) and which portions to assign to metaphor (the parts that are heinous/ridiculous or contradicted directly by science). Not exactly a rigorous approach to determining "truth".
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RE: List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 7:08 pm
If the original text is allegorical and or symbolic, I have a problem with anyone insisting on literal interpretation.
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RE: List Your Objection to Symbolic Analysis
April 5, 2013 at 7:31 pm
I have no problem with an approach that treats some of it as real and some of it as allegory or metaphor. It does muddy the discussion somewhat, because it's likely that there will be differences of opinion among Christians regarding at least some parts of the Bible, aside from the ones that insist that all of it happened exactly as written. As long as we're clear where a person stands on any particular story being discussed, I don't see the problem.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
