I 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'?)<<
You responded:
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.
So, the story goes, God dictates to the favoured few. I am a bit confused because this is God-text isomorphism, but not a text-reality isomorphism (not isomorphism between words and reality), which I though was the subject. Does the Literalist think that because God dictated this text the words in it are isomorphic with reality? That seems clearly mistaken. God, for all we know if all we know is that He dictates to some favoured few, dictates words that have to be understood in their context. Or that should not be taken at their face value. Or God may love irony and metaphor.
However, my argument against the implication of God-dictation may support your view. Literalists' interpretive practices really spring not from believing God-dictation but from believing isomorphism. As you say, "It *is* that a belief in isomorphism, or what I once called scriptural materialism, leads to reading all prose according to its apparent meaning." Maybe, In any case it is not the belief in God-dictation that is doing the work.
To continue, I wrote:
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.<<
You responded:
"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."
I could believe that the belief in isomorphism is, in some sense, driving the interpretive practices associated with Literalism. But don't think it has to.
And I may have put the cart before the horse, but I don't think I am asserting a causal relationship, but a relationship of reasons. I suspect that as isomorphism as a rational basis for literalist interpretive practices is looked at by Literalists more closely, then both, isomorphism will become less and less attractive, and it will seem less and less the real basis of literalist interpretive practices. They will come to see, and I think it is true, that they may carry on their interpretive practices much as before without the doctrine of isomorphism, since it was never actually used in making interpretations.
I think some distinctions will make what I mean clearer. What believing in isomorphism explains is not so much reading all prose according to its apparent meaning, but RESISTING other readings of a bit of prose that, for example, make use of historical context. And not just resisting but HOW it is resisted. Just how are these other readings resisted? If they look at them and point out flaws in them, then that is one thing. But if Literalists think they can dismiss all such readings without even looking at them, then that suggests a philosophical assumption of some sort. They think that 'in principle' such reading is in error. From what you say Mark,that appears to be the case. And isomorphism is a philosophical assumption. So that is why you say 'that a belief in isomorphism leads to reading all prose according to its apparent meaning'. This is right, but I would change the emphasis: It is a belief in isomorphism that leads to rejecting out of hand all but those readings that express the apparent meaning of prose. (And let us note, they must in fact be rejected. First, because there is all this higher criticism around, and second, because taking into account context is after all, not so out of the ordinary in making sense of words.)
I want to bring out the difference I have in mind by making a contrast. Contrast a naive Literalist with a - what? - faithful literalist. A naive Literalist has no idea there is any other way to read the Bible than he and other Literalists do, and so he does not resist other ways of reading it. Our naive Literalist does not, I think, at least not in the same way as a faithful Literalist, believe in isomorphism. A faithful Literalist, has, however, to resist other ways. He does that by making 'philosophical' assumptions about the way the language of the Bible works, assumptions like isomorphism. (An analogy is how most scientists treat astrology. They don't look at the evidence but assume it is 'in principle' mistaken.)
Now, if you can follow me this far, what now? Well, I am inclined to think that isomorphism does not really do the job the faithful Literalist thinks it does, because the whole idea falls apart as you look at it more closely. What position is the Literalist in once he no longer believes in isomorphism, and once he sees that the whole idea falls apart? He can still, I think, read all prose according to its apparent meaning. This is because isomorphism was not USED in making any of his interpretations. (I am using the distinction between making interpretations and resisting interpretations.) What he cannot do is use isomorphism to resist other ways of reading prose. He may carry on his interpretive practices as before, or he may not. (If you include as part of interpretive practices attacking out of hand other ways of reading the Bible, then the answer is not.) He may carry on as before because no longer believing in isomorphism will change nothing in the way he interprets a text - if he wants to go on as before. He may not carry on as before because, in the light of all these competing interpretations and ways of interpreting, which he can no longer rule out in principle and out of hand, he may not want to go on as before.
I hope that is clear enough.
Regards
William
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