When we’re talking or writing about something, we may be speaking literally or figuratively—and both are perfectly respectable, proper, and effective ways to communicate.
Speaking figuratively is communicating in a non-literal, metaphorical way using images, figures, likenesses, symbols, and such.
It’s not a lessor way of speaking than literal communication; actually, it often can be more effective and evocative—even poetic.
Some things, some ideas, are so hard to communicate literally that we must recourse to speaking figuratively. Sometimes we even don’t use words at all—e.g., the maxim, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
When we’re trying to speak about things that are beyond our detailed and complete understanding we’re almost forced to speak figuratively.
Sometimes we tend to think that science and scientific speech is better, truer, more accurate, and more effective than religion and religious speech. But, actually, it is often the other way round!
Good Theology is just as important and vital as good Physics—and maybe more so. But, alas, just as a scientific experiment can be sloppily performed and its reported results untrustworthy, so, too, some theological ideas can be sloppily or naively put together and result in untrustworthy doctrines.
However, scientific results and theological doctrines may well be accurate and true, even though the way they were arrived at had failings and weaknesses.
Name notwithstanding, the “Scientific Method,” is a good way to think about all matters, including Science and Religion.
It is a method of procedure consisting of systematic observation and research, formulation of theories and hypotheses, experimenting and testing them, and reporting conclusions.
Critical thinking resembles the scientific method. Both involve conjectural insights that must be validated by lived experience. Both respect trial and error.
Just as the accumulated body of scientific knowledge grows and is constantly revised and further extended, so too does the accumulated body of theological knowledge grow and is constantly revised and further extended.
Some ideas and conjectures may have been astoundingly radical and controversial when first voiced and now are accepted and presumed as a matter of course.
Some are articulated in what now may be rejected and out-of-date concepts but which may have been strikingly challenging and provocative when first used.
There is always a danger that older theories and insights may be ignored or rejected because they use words or concepts that are different then current usage—the classic danger of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Just because a theory, description, doctrine, or way of communicating seems hopelessly out-of-date doesn’t mean it lacks insight or value. It may still be a stepping-stone to something newer, greater, and even more insightful, useful, and significant.
Clinging to older, out-of-date ideas, concepts, and values is understandable but not commendable. A good scientist or theologian, a good thinker or believer always is testing and experimenting with new or revised insights and theories.
Don’t tire! The process never ends. We are limited in our understandings; only God is omniscient. Rejoice in having a rich heritage, but don’t store your fortune or squander it—use it well and make it grow!
6 November 2022