the hermeneutic of humility

There is, I think, a certain humility that must be embraced when we read and study the scriptures and come to our own, albeit often shared, interpretations of them. By the nature of the thing itself, we’ll believe that our interpretation is the right one; if we didn’t believe that, then it wouldn’t be our interpretation. The truth of the matter is that no one agrees with anyone about everything; and another truth is that no one is right about everything. Humility, when it comes to our understanding of the scriptures and, thus, to our understanding of God, Christianity, and the world itself, should be embraced in lieu of several factors.

First, we must be aware that our interpretations do not come out of a vacuum. Some people will say, “Well, I just read the Bible for what it says.” Such people probably have never heard of those high-class terms “exegesis” and “eisegesis” and probably don’t think they matter too much. However, when it comes to reading the scriptures—and, really, reading anything informative—there should more than at least one cautionary step towards exegesis (reading out of the text) and eisegesis (reading into the text). The way that we read the Bible is laden with all sorts of preconceived notions and presuppositions. Our interpretations are influenced by our biases, education, experiences, social pressures and, at times, the need for rebellion or originality (and this originality for originality’s sake is really just conformity under a different name). When we read the Bible, we are constantly reading our own assumptions, presuppositions, and preconceived notions into the text; and these come from a variety of different influences, some which likely reside in the unconscious level, influences that we’ll never know and, thus, be able to guard against. Knowing this, we should strive to eradicate eisegesis as much as possible, employing the tools of exegesis; but all the while knowing that eisegesis will occur. The question is not, “Will I read into the text?” but “How much will I read into the text?” Being aware of eisegesis and all its trimmings, we should be cautionary when reading the scriptures and, at the same time, humble—even the most “clear” and “crisp” interpretations may be so only due to the eisegesis, be it seen or unseen, that we have performed in our studies.

Second, we must be aware of the difficulty of ascertaining truth. I’m a pretty modern, conservative person who isn’t into the whole postmodern thing with all its ins-and-outs. I believe in a thing called Truth, that is, something which refers to that Which Is and that Which Is Not. The problem, I think, is that when it comes to us discovering that truth, we find ourselves at a stand-still. We can employ all the techniques we want, but in the end we alone do not have the ability to ascertain truth for truth’s sake. We’re limited, finite creatures with low-capacity minds. We find puzzles when there are no puzzles to be found and we constantly misinterpret the world around us. Our worldviews, our meta-narratives, are a series of interpretations that overlap and intersect and even conflict at times. Amidst this morass of meta-narratives, I believe there is an ultimate meta-narrative, that which is Truth; but our meta-narratives swirl and collide and dance and go at war with each other below this. Not to say that the ultimate meta-narrative is so high that it cannot be touched. No doubt this swirling cesspool of limited meta-narratives often “reach into the heavens” and brush that ultimate meta-narrative. Certainly all of us have a conviction amidst our meta-narrative that runs parallel with the ultimate meta-narrative. The problem is that much of our meta-narrative is sub-par, in conflict with the ultimate meta-narrative, and we’re too limited and finite to tell which is which. Because of this, I think we should be humble in our perceptions of reality, open to change and re:thinking, constantly analyzing and scrutinizing, updating and revising our meta-narratives while knowing that what we think to be True now (if we didn’t think it to be true, we wouldn’t validate it in our minds) will, in some form or shape later, evolve and transform, too. Humility in our perceptions of Truth should be embraced, and, yes, I believe this is involved with our readings of the Bible. Do I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its original forms? Absolutely. But our interpretations of those original forms, 2000+ years later, are not going to be inerrant. Period. Anyone who says that they just “read the Bible” or “are led by the Holy Spirit” need to re:think reading the bible and the role of the Holy Spirit and just be honest with themselves. We’re not as smart as we think we are, and as dumb as we think we are, we’re probably dumber.

Third, we need to beware the poison of intellectual arrogance. There’s nothing as sickening and revolting as someone who says, “Here’s the Truth. I have it. Bow down to my perception of things.” I used to be that way, and thankfully I got slapped around a bit back in my day. Now I have much hostility towards this. Arrogant Christians who think they know the ins-and-outs to everything need to swallow the pill of humility and face themselves for what they are. Arrogant Atheists who think they’ve got this whole “religion” thing down to a “science” (literally) should not vaunt themselves up as gods, simply replacing monotheism with some sort of humanitarian polytheism. I don’t care what your intellectual persuasions are: if you’re on the high horse, get off. If you stay on, eventually you’ll get knocked off and break your teeth in the dust. Might as well save yourself some trouble—and some teeth—and carefully dismount now. Pride in our interpretations of the scripture erects divisions between us and other Christians—divisions that we erect ourselves—and is a great hindrance to the advance of the gospel in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Pretty soon a cold intellectualism will take root and we’ll become bitter, calloused creatures who see the world in black-and-white and can’t appreciate the beauty of the flowers in spring-time.

All of these three points (and I could name others, but I don’t want this post to be too long), bring me to my proposal. Out of all the hermeneutical tools out there, I think the best is the hermeneutic of humility. We must interpret with humility. We must acknowledge that, at least, 20% of what we believe is wrong. Our prayer ought not be, “God, show me by your Spirit what this verse really means…” (because that just breeds cold intellectualism and the automatic mental validation of whatever interpretation we come to) but, rather, “God, don’t make me perfect in my understanding of your world. Rather, keep me from straying too close to heresy.”