I just started reading through John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress (I read part of it for one of my classes, but have never read through it in its entirety) so there may be most posts of this nature in the coming days/weeks.

Skeptic: There is no right interpretation. In fact there have been lots of interpretations over the many years since the Bible was written. Who are you to say you know what the Bible means? We can’t know what it really means.

Christian: So let me see if I understand you correctly. You’re saying that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that there is no salvation without Him.

Skeptic: What? No, that’s exactly what I’m not saying! I’m saying you can’t conclude that, there are many valid interpretations of the texts.

Christian: So you’re saying that there is only one correct interpretation and we should try to find it.

Skeptic: No, no, why are you twisting what I’m saying? You know I’m not saying that.

Christian: Are you saying I am interpreting your words incorrectly?

Skeptic: Yes, you are!

Christian: So, it seems to me that a person could be interpreted wrongly. If that’s the case, then some interpretations about what the biblical authors wrote could similarly be wrong, couldn’t they?

There are no doubt passages of the Bible that are difficult to understand. Perhaps, for some, we will never be sure of the correct interpretation. But most are not so difficult, and even some of the difficult ones are only so because we choose to make them so. As with most things in life, the interpretation with the best reasons to back it up “wins”; we make educated inferences to the best explanation. There ARE correct interpretations of the texts. That doesn’t mean I claim to be 100% right about all of mine, but since I believe there are right answers, and I care about finding them, I will be willing to change my mind if I am convinced otherwise.

A parable, recorded as it came to me.

A distinguished lady was walking down the road when she spied a decrepit looking house ahead. Having plenty of experience with restoring dilapidated dwellings, she knocked on the front door. At length, and with the chain still clinging tighty, the door opened a crack. A young man squinted his eyes and peered out suspiciously from inside. “What do you want?” he coughed.

“Good evening sir,” began the lady. “I was passing by your house, and, seeing that it is in a state of disrepair, thought that I might offer my services to renovate it.”

The man unhooked the chain, and swung the door open. “I am quite insulted by your accusation!” he said, crossing his arms. “My house may not be perfect, but I assure you that it is in excellent condition!”

“I meant no offense,” assured the lady. “But I beg to differ. You see, I have plenty of experience in this area, and can readily identify foundational problems.”

Nonplussed, the man turned slightly, uncrossed his arms, and gestured inside his home. “I’ve lived here for my entire life,” he said, “and the walls seem to be holding up just fine. I’ve never had any trouble.”

The lady nodded understandingly. “That may be, but what you can’t see can still kill you. As an outsider, I can identify certain surface and structural problems that you may not have noticed yourself. Why don’t you let me make some suggestions? My services are free after all so you have nothing to lose.”

“Would you also perform all of the repairs for free?”

“No,” the lady said with a hint of remorse. “I’m afraid I don’t have the resources to perform the necessary repairs.”

“Well then, our conversation is futile, because even if my house were in need of grandiose repairs as you claim, I certainly don’t have the skills to fix it myself, and I could not pay to have someone else to do it.”

The lady’s face brightened as she began to point towards the man’s backyard. “What if I were to tell you that the resources to repair your house are already within your grasp?” she asked.

Mildly intrigued, the man asked “What do you mean?”

Encouraged, the lady continued. “Right now, the means to repair your house are already within your grasp. I happen to know that, right now, there is treasure buried in your backyard. All you have to do is dig it up, and it will pay to repair your entire home.”

“Ridiculous!” the man scoffed. “If such a thing were true, it would already be abundantly clear to me. I wouldn’t need some stranger to come and tell me.”

“If what I say is true, there would be little to lose by checking. With me as your guide, it would take hardly any time at all. In fact, I would even dig it up for you and present it to you.”

The man laughed. “I wouldn’t bother wasting any time at all on such an idea, mine or yours. Where would this supposed treasure even come from anyways?”

The lady sighed. “I could explain it, and would be quite willing to do so, but would any explanation make your current situation any less dire? If a person is dying, what they need is the cure, not a complex scientific explanation of the chemical reactions by which the cure works. Similarly, if your house is falling down, what you need is the solution. Could you honestly say that if I explained it to you that you would then be willing to dig up the treasure with me to repair your house?”

Quickly becoming exasperated, the man protested “But I still don’t believe there’s anything wrong with my house!”

Remaining calm, the lady paused for a moment, seemingly collecting her thoughts. “Sir,” she began, “A mouse who has spent his entire life in the city would of course be incredulous were a meadow described to him, but his confined worldview would be the problem, not the postulation of the meadow. I can’t force you to accept my help. All I can ask is that you keep what I’ve said in mind, just in case your seemingly well-built house comes crashing down upon you, perhaps collapsing when you least expect it.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but reconsidered and quickly shut the door, leaving the lady standing on the porch outside.

He locked the door. Slid the chain into place.

Rattled the door knob a couple of times. Just to make sure.

Turning away from the door, his eyes began to dance from place to place around his home. Although he was loath to admit it, he could see the cracks in the walls. Hear the creaking foundations. And feel an ever-present -intangible and shadowy, yes, but nevertheless real- creeping sense of foreboding. In truth, he had always suspected that his house may be built upon a faulty foundation. But surely that couldn’t be. After all, all his friends’ homes were built the same way. And they couldn’t all be wrong.

Could they?

He momentarily thought to call the lady back, but instead sternly resolved to put the matter out of his mind and continue on with his life as he always had.

Meanwhile, the lady had already began to walk on, but not before affixing a card to the man’s door, urging him to call her, anytime, should he reconsider.

Filled with deep concern and sorrow, she walked on, glancing back over her shoulder at the decrepit house.

She hoped he would choose to call before it was too late.

A recent parable written by David Anderson echoes one of the first posts I made on this blog, namely “Can you Prove what you Believe?“. Both deal with what could be termed “hyper-skepticism”. Here’s his parable (followed by his interpretation of it):

Does Richard Dawkins exist? – A parable

Of course, the author is not really denying Dawkins exists. But that’s the whole point: Hyper-skepticism is often wielded by its proponents “only against things they dislike, whilst taking others for granted” (Anderson’s wording). As I said in my “Can you Prove…” post: “This is a somewhat frivolous example. But it demonstrates that everyone believes things we can’t prove with 100% certainty and that we are quite right to do so.”

(Thanks to Thinking Christian for the link.)

Further reading:

• Following the Evidence – Grek Koukl’s article on the nature of evidence.
• The Evidence for Jesus – Can anything be proved 100%? Even if not, we should accept what is reasonably demonstrated by the evidence available.

A Buddhist koan is “a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition”. One of the most famous koans is this one, as explained by Lisa and Bart Simpson:

Lisa: If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around, does it make a sound?
Bart: Absolutely! [makes sound of a tree falling]
Lisa: But Bart, how can sound exist if there’s no one there to hear it.
Bart: Wooooooo… (thanks SNPP)

(The picture to the right is of Bart ‘solving’ another popular koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”)

Now, with all due respect to Lisa, I think the “tree falling” koan is rationally solvable. The answer is yes, there is sound … but there is no perception of the sound. The sound itself (a “series of pressure waves”) is the result of the tree falling; our perception of it is when it enters our ear and we interpret it by the process of hearing. Could there be sound in our ear without the sound waves? No, because THAT is the ‘sound’. Here’s an example: If someone slaps me, and I feel pain, the pain itself is not the slap, the pain is only the perception of the slap. The slap would still exist even if I didn’t feel the pain, for example, if I were on pain-inhibiting medication.

Furthermore, the idea that a someone must be present at an event when it occurs for it to truly have happened is ridiculous. We know trees do not (under normal circumstances) fall silently to the ground when they fall; therefore if we find evidence that the tree has fallen, we can conclude that it made a sound. Direct observation is not the only way that we can reasonably know that something is true. For example, we know historical truth by examining the historical evidence. We cannot directly observe, say, Abraham Lincoln being shot, or Columbus “discovering” North America, or even Jesus rising from the dead, but we can still be reasonably certain these historical events occurred by studying the available evidence.