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Dialogue on the Subjective Clarity vs. Objective Clarity

 

Is it possible for a document to be “objectively clear” even if it is widely misunderstood?

 

Gary Hoge

 

It seems to me that the sticking point [between us] is that you speak of “clarity” as a subjective judgment made by an individual who encounters some piece of communication, but I speak of it as an objective quality of the communication itself.

 

Actually, I agree that clarity is a quality of the communication itself. It is the quality of being easy to understand. It is the quality of being written in such a way that its true meaning is readily apparent. Obviously, this depends on the language of the text, and is thus a quality of the communication itself. A clear communication is one that facilitates the reader’s understanding of its message, making it unmistakable.

 

What I disagree with is the idea that a communication that isn’t easy to understand and that isn’t written in such a way that its true meaning is readily apparent, can still validly be called “clear.” That is in fact the exact opposite of “clear,” and is thus a violation of the principles on which you yourself said human language operates. In this very letter you said:

 

[H]uman language . . . operates on the logical principles of noncontradiction, identity, and valid inference. Words mean definite things (identity), [and] cannot mean absolutely anything (noncontradiction).

 

Well, the word “clear” is ordinary human language, it has a definite meaning (which I have documented with copious references), and it can’t mean absolutely anything (and certainly not its opposite). Thus, by redefining the word “clear,” which you have to do to support your claim that Scripture is clear, you appear to have violated the principles of identity and noncontradiction.

 

Both definitions are valid within their own spheres, but the one you use is at best only tangentially related to the idea of Scripture’s intrinsic clarity.

 

You speak of two definitions. I’ve only seen one definition that’s relevant to this discussion (remember all those dictionaries from which I quoted?), and I assume it’s what you would call “subjective clarity.” Very well, how do you define “objective clarity”? I would really appreciate a dictionary-style definition here, so we can discuss this intelligently, because so far, I just don’t get it. Perhaps it would help if you also completed these sentences: “A communication is objectively clear when . . .” and “A communication is objectively unclear when . . .”

 

Your argument against the idea is based on the fact that (to take a common figure) “30,000 denominations” all say that Scripture is “clear,” yet they come up with different interpretations of it. I believe you are confusing the subjective and objective definitions of “perspicuity.”

 

In that case, I eagerly await your definition of “objective perspicuity” so we can discuss whether Scripture possesses this mysterious trait. I assume that in accordance with the principle of identity you will refer me to an already-established meaning of the word, and not something you’ve made up yourself. I also assume you will be able to document that your definition is in fact an accepted meaning of that word by quoting from some published reference text. Any dictionary will do.

 

I reiterate the analogy of my own subjective physical inability to see the objective details of a room clearly without the aid of glasses. I think it self-evident that the astigmatism with which my eyes are afflicted does not have anything to do with whether the details of the room are themselves clear (i.e., ordered in a certain way that is independent of my eyes).

 

Obviously, if a table seems blurry to you, it would be ridiculous to blame the table. Thus, by analogy you seem to imply that if someone doesn’t understand a written document, it would be ridiculous to blame the document. But that is a false analogy. Visual clarity is necessarily a function of a person’s visual acuity, because a table can’t be “intrinsically blurry.” But verbal clarity is a function of the language of the text and how well it gets its message across to its readers. As I’ve said before, if a document is written in such a way that its true meaning is readily apparent to its audience, it’s “clear,” otherwise, not. Pending your definition of “objective clarity,” I stand by that.

 

The room is what it is despite my dysfunction in seeing it. Likewise, the Bible is what it is and says what it says regardless of anyone’s dysfunction in understanding it.

 

But Tim, every book “is what it is and says what it says.” Is every book therefore objectively clear? If not, how do you know when a book is “objectively clear” and when it is not? I would really like to know. Pretend we’re not talking about Scripture. If someone hands me Book X, how do I determine whether Book X is objectively clear?

 

[T]he method [of communication God] used is human language, which operates on the logical principles of noncontradiction, identity, and valid inference. Words mean definite things (identity), cannot mean absolutely anything (noncontradiction), and must be interpreted according to authorial intent (valid inference). And in the context of large documents, authorial intent can often be deciphered from contextual clues if not from direct comprehension of the words themselves.

 

But you don’t seem to follow these logical principles yourself. You’ve defined your doctrine using words that, if given their normal meaning, render it manifestly false. Therefore, you have to redefine those words contrary to their established meaning, and thus you violate the logical principles that you yourself claim are the basis of human language. At least, that’s how it seems to me.

 

If you give words their actual meaning (the principle of identity), Scripture is “clear” only if its teachings are “readily apparent,” without the need for Tradition or an authoritative Church to guide our interpretation. I continue to think that centuries of doctrinal disagreements among those who hold the “common principle that Scripture is the final arbiter of all truth and that its meaning is clear” is evidence that its meaning isn’t clear (at least with respect to the disputed issues).

 

This is the crux of my dispute with your definitions – it acts like human minds are totally objective and that if, therefore, multiple minds don’t unanimously agree as to the meaning of some information they all received, there must be something wrong with the information itself (or at least, the way the information was conveyed).

 

If multiple intelligent, educated, faithful minds don’t agree as to the meaning of some text they’ve studied for years, then the true meaning of that text is obviously not readily apparent and easily understood. That’s all I’m saying.

 

I still think that the best you are entitled to say is that the true meaning of the text is not apparent to them. You go too far when you say that the true meaning itself is not readily apparent and easily understood.

 

What’s the difference? I mean, what do you think the phrase “readily apparent” means? According to that ever-inconvenient principle of identity, the established meaning of “readily” is “without much difficulty” and the established meaning of “apparent” is “clear or manifest to the understanding” (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc.), 1985, p. 980 and p. 96, respectively). Therefore, “readily apparent” means “manifest to the understanding without much difficulty.”

 

I’ll say this again: Words like “clear,” “manifest,” “apparent,” etc., describe the fact that the true meaning of the text is easily perceived by its readers. And the reason the true meaning is easily perceived by its readers is because the language of the text presents that meaning in such a way that it’s “easily understood or recognized by the mind.” That’s why clarity is a property of the text itself, but one that only exists if the text does in fact make its meaning readily apparent to its readers. If this is still not clear to you, I trust that it will be abundantly clear to our readers by now.

 

Why? Because of what you admit in the very next paragraph, “I’m well aware that human minds aren’t objective, and that everyone is influenced by his own biases and presuppositions”. Yes, yes, yes--this is the whole point! In the majority of cases, this is why there are disagreements about what Scripture means.

 

Sometimes, sure. For example, Acts 22:16 says, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” Because you are biased against the belief that baptism washes away sins, you misunderstand this text. On the other hand, John 14:28 (“The Father is greater than I”) requires a trinitarian bias in order not to misunderstand it. In my opinion, it’s wrong to believe that we can approach Scripture in an “unbiased” manner. At least, no one ever has. The trick is to have the right biases.

 

Rarely is it the case that disagreement exists because of some genuine obscurity in the text itself – for instance, some linguistic, historical, geographical, or sociological fact about the ancient context of the Bible that we moderns don’t understand.

 

How does my failure to understand the history, geography, or sociology of the ancient world count as a “genuine obscurity in the text itself”?

 

* * * * *

 

The existence of multiple contradictory interpretations of the Bible indicates that many people are misunderstanding its teachings, including millions of intelligent, educated, faithful people who are sincerely trying to understand those teachings. That being the case, it follows that those teachings must not be readily apparent and easily understood. If they were, these people would easily understand them. I think that’s self-evident.

 

Not at all. What’s happening here is that the subjective and objective definitions of “clear” are not being distinguished.

 

I’m not convinced that such a distinction exists, but I’ll try to keep an open mind pending your definition of “objective clarity.”

 

Many times when people say that “Scripture plainly teaches our doctrine X,” it sounds like an affirmation of Scriptural perspicuity. But it really amounts to an affirmation that they themselves understand Scripture “clearly” as opposed to their opponents, who (allegedly) do not.

 

Again, I fail to see the difference. When people say, “Scripture clearly teaches our doctrine X,” how is that not an affirmation that Scripture is clear, at least with respect to doctrine X?

 

Now, try as hard as I can, I just can’t get my mind around the idea that this conclusion logically and necessarily follows from the premises of the argument. Observe:

 

1. The Bible is communication.

 

2. Communication is the successful impartation of information.

 

3. But different people sometimes disagree about the meaning of the imparted information.

 

Conclusion: Therefore, there’s something wrong with the imparted information (your conclusion, as you stated it multiple times in the discussion over the summer).

 

One doesn’t have to be an expert in formal logic to see that the argument, as you presented it, is illogical. For one thing, premise 3 contradicts premise 2. If people don’t understand the information someone was attempting to impart, then it wasn’t successfully imparted.

 

No. Premise 3 says information was successfully imparted despite the differing interpretation of it, so there is no contradiction with Premise 2. The information impacted their minds and was absorbed and analyzed. Conclusions were drawn from it, even if they were wrong.

 

If that’s all you think it takes for information to be “successfully imparted,” then you’ve just eviscerated your own argument. You said in the beginning that Scripture is “clear” because God is able to “communicate” (i.e., successfully impart information). But now every message – whether it’s clear or unclear – counts as successful communication by your definition. After all, even the most convoluted, obscure, indecipherable message impacts the mind, is absorbed and analyzed, and has conclusions drawn from it. Therefore, according to your definition, every message successfully imparts information, and thus God’s ability to communicate (i.e., to successfully impart information) doesn’t logically imply anything about the clarity of His communication.

 

So, in light of your new definition of communication, what did you mean when you said that God’s ability to communicate is the foundation of Scripture’s basic clarity?

 

* * * * *

 

As I said, that’s what clarity is all about. For example, the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus rose from the dead. By this I mean that when we read the New Testament, its teaching that Jesus rose from the dead is readily apparent and easily understood. And therefore, just as we would expect, almost everyone who’s ever read the New Testament agrees that it says Jesus rose from the dead.

 

Likewise, I’ll bet that just about everyone who’s ever read the Westminster Confession of Faith agrees that it endorses infant baptism. That’s because in Chapter XXVIII, paragraph IV, it says, “Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents, are to be baptized.” Now that’s clarity. I don’t care how biased you may be, I don’t care what your theological presuppositions may be, if you can read English and are mentally competent, you can understand that the WCF endorses infant baptism. That fact is readily apparent and easily understood. Unfortunately, the Bible isn’t nearly as clear on this subject as the WCF is – not by a long shot – and that’s why there are so many Baptists in the world.

 

No, there are so many Baptists in the world because they approach the data of the Bible from a different set of presuppositions than do Presbyterians.

 

Right, and the Bible doesn’t present its doctrine of infant baptism in such a way that it’s readily apparent to the Baptists regardless of their presuppositions. The WCF, on the other hand, does. That’s all I’m saying.

 

Now, it’s pretty obvious that John Doe Baptist thinks his views are “what Scripture clearly teaches”–he doesn’t think Scripture’s teaching on baptism is unclear. The same goes for John Doe Presbyterian. But what is not obvious (despite your insistence that it is blindingly obvious) is that this difference of viewpoint arises from problems in the text.

 

The difference in viewpoint arises from the fact that the Bible doesn’t directly say whom to baptize. On the one hand, it doesn’t say we should baptize infants, but on the other hand, it also doesn’t say we should baptize only adults, either. That isn’t a “problem” with the text, it’s simply a result of the fact that the text was written to people who already knew whom to baptize. Therefore, the authors of Scripture didn’t have to mention it. I guess they didn’t feel the need to waste ink and papyrus telling people things they already knew.

 

A good point, and that is essentially what Presbyterians maintain about infant baptism. We say that infant baptism is implicit in the Scriptures and is drawn out by “good and necessary consequence” from the doctrine of God’s covenant of grace with mankind. We baptize infants into the new covenant precisely because infants were circumcised into the old covenant, and Colossians 2 expressly equates baptism and circumcision. Also, Peter said in his sermon in Acts 2:39, “the promise is for you and for your children.” We see infant baptism as being the fulfillment of the overarching covenantal unity of both testaments.

 

Sounds good to me, but the reason you have to construct these complex covenental arguments – which your Baptist friends don’t buy – is because Scripture never comes right out and says, “Baptize babies.” I’m not saying the teaching doesn’t exist in the Bible, I’m just saying it’s not clear in the Bible. In other words, it’s not “readily apparent” to someone who’s biased against it. It is clear, however, in the WCF.

 

As I said, this isn’t a “defect” in the Bible, because the Bible wasn’t written to tell people whom to baptize. It was written to Christians, who had been baptizing babies for years. It was written to supplement (not “provide”) the basic Christian training of its audience.

 

Now Reformed Baptists disagree with us on this point. They use certain passages from the OT that talk about the new covenant being written on the heart to deny that there is such a thing as a person who is externally connected to the covenant by virtue of baptism, and who therefore has the covenantal duty of internally believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. They say that the new covenant is only made up of true believers, and cannot have any apostatizers in it at all.

 

The debate continues apace, but the one thing that unites us all is our common submission to the authority of Scripture.

 

As a unifying principle, that doesn’t seem to have helped you. Despite your common commitment to following the true teachings of Scripture, and despite centuries of “wrestling with the text,” you still can’t agree on what those teachings are. This would seem to suggest that they are not “readily apparent,” “manifest,” “conspicuous,” “unmistakable,” “easily understood,” “explicit,” “unambiguous,” “clear-cut,” or whatever other definition of the word “clear” you wish to use.

 

We are confident that eventually the Lord will bring us to unity on the issue, and when He does, what a day of rejoicing it will be.

 

Don’t hold your breath. The only way you’ll ever achieve unity on this issue is for the Baptists to abandon the defining tenet of their existence (adult-only baptism), or for the Presbyterians to abandon their covenental approach to Christianity. And because both sides think Scripture “clearly” supports their own position, I don’t see why either side would be willing to consider the possibility that they’ve misunderstood the text for nearly half a millennium. No, I’m quite certain you guys will be debating this issue (and the others that divide you) until the Second Coming.

 

Of course, Christianity already had unity on this issue before the Reformation. It was Protestantism that destroyed that unity, and you guys have spent almost 500 years trying to get back to where the rest of us have been all along. If you ever get there, I, too, will rejoice, but I’m not holding my breath.