Frame of reference: a structure of concepts, values, customs, views, etc., by means of which an individual or group perceives or evaluates data, communicates ideas, and regulates behavior.
We all have and utilize frames of reference, and much of the time we barely realize it or advert to them.
Here’s a simple example. When I was a child and started school in New York City, the first question I was asked by the other kids was, “What are you?”
In those days and in that place, the question meant, “What is your national background or family origins?”
(Since the United States was generally an immigrant country, what differentiated people was the country they or their parents or other relatives came from.)
I never had a simple answer like Italian, French, or English. I had to explain that my father was of German descent (German Jewish, since “Stern” was immediately identified as a Jewish name) and my mother, of Irish descent (presumably Catholic of course).
My parents had agreed before marriage to raise their children as Catholics, and so I was, but the confusion lingered. Even as a young priest, sometimes I was asked how old I was when I converted (i.e., became a baptized Catholic)?
Sometimes I enjoyed answering, “A couple of hours!” My birth was difficult for my mother, and I was presumably dying at birth and hastily baptized.
The expected kind of answer to, “What are you?” would have been very different in another place or time. The answer might well have been your caste, trade, tribe, or social class.
Some other frames of reference in our lives are more subtle and less obvious.
For example, religious teachings, practices, and beliefs. First, they vary among different religions, but they also vary within the same religion. They may be fixed and unchanging or developing and evolving.
In Christian tradition we still have a lot of words and practices which originated in and reflect a different physical, scientific, social, or other frame of reference. For example:
– a flat world: the good go up (heaven) and the bad go down (hell).
– a ranking of persons: “clergy” (upper or ruling class) and “laity’ (lower or subject class).
– degrees or kinds of divinity or godliness: the blessed Trinity, angels and their ranks and functions, saints and their distinctiveness and roles.
Often religious misunderstandings and conflicts are rooted in frames of reference that are not recognized as such.
If you’re familiar with the great works of St. Thomas Aquinas, you can’t help but be dazzled by their depth and breadth. But, his frames of reference, besides Christian faith and the customs of his day included the philosophy of the pagan Aristotle.
Many disagreements within Christianity are rooted in different cultures, practices, historical traditions, and linguistic systems.
A holy writer esteemed by some may be considered as unintelligible by others.
“How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” may once have been a legitimate topic for debate among scholars long ago, but now is usually dismissed as a ridiculous and even meaningless question.
The point is, we all have frames of reference. Try to be aware of them. and try to keep yours up to date!
30 January 2022