Ship of Fools: Reading Between the Lines

Thread: Reading Between the Lines Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Over on this thread, where the discussion is about a possible universalist interpretation of a Pauline passage (viz, 1 Tim 4:10), Pooks not unreasonably pointed out that the context of the verse is not about universalism at all, but a warning against false teachings. She then wondered,

quote:
is it good practice to build my theology based on an assumed 'X' when the surrounding text is about 'Y' and 'Z'?

My problem is: if we apply this hermeneutical principal generally, would we ever get the Trinity out of the Bible? The Trinity is never what the surrounding text is about; it is inferred but never the actual topic of conversation. If we can't draw inferences about something that is not the actual thing the text is "about," then we cannot be Trinitarians, it seems to me. We need to be able to read between the lines, or be Arians (or worse).

Am I missing something here, or does this make sense? (or both?)

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

It makes sense in that I've seen it observed more than once that there is no explicitly Trinitarian passage in the Bible.

I don't think it's just a question for Biblical interpretation, but for all interpretation. Personally I think there's a place for inference, but we should stick to inferences that are necessary to make the whole system work, or consistent with all the explicit stuff. If an inference is only supportable because we pick-and-choose our evidence, that's a problem.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

I am reminded a little of Eleanor (the grandmother in the marvellous BBC radio comedy After Henry)'s observation that while it may not actually say in so many words in the Bible that one should not put the milk bottle on the table, anyone with a sense of propriety and in receipt of the proper guidance can see that it is there.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

I've always been a fan of trying to let the text be the text. Let it be contradictory, obscure, comforting, horrifying, uplifting. Let it be gold or dross. And if, say, someone says the Trinity isn't there, then I shrug and I say, "Maybe not. But a while back some folks read the book for a couple of hundred years and decided the Trinity was a good way to make sense of it all."

And anyway, my golden rule of scripture is that "The Bible says" is only ever the beginning of a conversation, never the end of one.

Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :

Creation as an act is in the Bible, Jesus is in the Bible claiming to be God incarnate, and the Holy Spirit is given by Jesus to the Church as God's miraculous agent.

Are there any examples of God's presence in the Scripture that fall outside of these three?

I think the Trinity is just an attempt to rationalize this reality that is expressed in Scripture. The pieces are all there, but someone had to do the intellectual legwork to put them together, and the arrangement thereof has been the source of all the old arguments. My seminary prof said that the Trinity emerged early on as a middle ground between a lot of strange extremes.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

I don't think we get a virgin Mary, and we do get siblings for Jesus. I think people read and have read between the lines since whatever happened, about which we have 4 main versions and all sorts of ideas. The devil may be in the details, and perhaps we may find enlightenment if we don't get too devilish.

Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :

It seems pretty clear that Mary hadn't "known a man" before being pregnant with Jesus, so there's that.

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