Hi, William, At 08:36 AM 9/30/03 +1200, you wrote: >>What I do doubt is that there is for Literalists an assumption of isomorphism >>between words and reality. (Do any of them actually say this, 'We base our >>interpretive practice on an isomorphism between words and reality'?)<<
I doubt in those precise terms. However, the dogma of verbal inerrancy, which is confessed by most fundamentalists (and accepted, often in a watered-down form, by many neo-evangelicals) is basically a God-text isomophism. The premise is that God dictated His ideas, word by word, directly to the biblical authors. Although God may have chosen to make this dictation in the personality of each writer (channel?), it is still God's exact words. One fundamentalist wrote: "Christ accepted the verbal inspiration of the Bible - the words, not just the thoughts." http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/bible_&_Jesus.htm "Inspiration means God so directed the writers that, using their individual styles in any way that seemed feasible to them, they produced His very words without error. However, the question now arises: How did God do it? There are various theories of inspiration. The foundation of all these various theories is one key issue: the dual authorship of the Scriptures. On the one hand, God wrote it; on the other hand, man wrote it." http://www.ariel.org/ff00037c.html Verbal inerrancy is the most extreme position on literalism. A less extreme, and controversial, position is superintendence, which asserts that the biblical writers wrote in their own words, but under God's supervision and, where necessary, inspired correction. Either way, the words used are assumed by fundamentalists (not necessarily neo-evangelicals) to literally reflect God's ideas. >>But were I convinced of that I would still suspect that they DON'T HAVE TO, in that >>that they could carry on their interpretive practice much as before without the >>assumption of isomorphism.<< In that case, they would be neo-evangelicals. There is no love lost between the neo-evangelical movement, represented by the magazine, _Christianity Today_ (which coined the pejorative "fundie"), and fundamentalism. There is a wise spectrum of beliefs among neo-evangelicals. Some approach fundamentalism (without its extreme separatism). Others are closer to modernism (in encouraging higher criticism). >>One reason I think this is that, as I conveyed in my last post, reading explicit >>prose as explicit prose is an everyday thing, and does not - or so I claim - assume >>isomorphism.<< If that were all there was to it, no. However, your statement, IMO, puts the cart before the horse and asserts a causal relationship. It is *not* that, to fundamentalists, reading explicit prose as explicit prose assumes isomorphism. Certainly, it is possible to read prose as prose without being a fundamentalist. It *is* that a belief in isomorphism, or what I once called scriptural materialism, leads to reading all prose according to its apparent meaning. >>A savvy Literalist should say. 'You read some things literally. We read this text >>literally (where it is not stylistically figurative). In so doing we assume no more >>than you do when you read things literally. If that is the isomorphism between words >>and reality then so be it.")<< Reading some things literally is not necessarily literalism. I generally read the writings of the Guardian and the House of Justice, and the letters respectively written on their behalf, literally, but I do not subscribe to the philosophy of literalism. >>So, am I right, without the assumption of isomorphism could Literalist's carry on >>their interpretive practices much as before?<< I would not agree with that, no. >>Lastly, you ask: "Yes, but what does it mean that something is literally true?" >>Leave aside "literally true", I think we all know what true means.<< By literalism, I mean a combination of two things: verbal inerrancy (or verbal inspiration) and a rejection of context (that letters written to Corinth and Ephesus are meant for all of us, for instance). Mark A. Foster * http://MarkFoster.net http://CompuServe.m.foster.name ---------- You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Baha'i Studies is available through the following: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.jccc.net/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=bahai-st news://list.jccc.net/bahai-st http://www.escribe.com/religion/bahaist (public) http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (public)
