Eisegesis - Bad for Science, Wrong for Scripture

A concise definition

 

1. We Assume, Rightly and Wrongly

Every human enterprise involves working from already-held assumptions and making judgment calls.

Something as simple as acknowledging that 1 + 1 = 2 is a correct equivalence requires one to have confidence in one's ability to understand what + and = mean, to be sufficiently convinced that there's no way one can reinterpret the statement to mean something else, etc.

For example: If I wrote instead that 一 + 一 = 八, you might be "pretty sure" it's the same statement, but if I asked whether you'd bet $1000 dollars on it, you'd probably not be willing to (you'd be smart not to, as 一 is indeed 1 but 八 is not 2, it's 8).

And if I wrote 一加一是二, unless you are familiar with Chinese, you might be willing to guess what it means, but not venture anything more than a guess. (Turns out it's the same statement, one plus one is two)

So even basic things we take for granted involve making judgement calls. We make decisions based on how much we assume we know, and if it's something we feel familiar with, we might not even realize we're doing it.

But sometimes our assumptions are wrong, especially when moving into territory that seems familiar, but isn't. There are cultures where a nod means no. There are cultures where laughter means someone is uneasy or embarrassed (sometimes true in Taiwan). Sometimes in different contexts, what looks familiar has an unfamiliar meaning, and assuming we know it, we misinterpret it.

In history, many wars were fought that could probably have been prevented if the leaders involved knew (or cared) that the other party was not so much hostile toward them specifically as working from different assumptions and wanting different things. I'm reading Diplomacy by Kissinger right now (a New Year's present to myself), and it's interesting to see how many times the Axis and Allied powers saw negotiations fail not necessarily because they didn't want a settlement (Hitler only did early on, to stall while he prepared for war, but Stalin pushed for advantageous ones with both Hitler and the Allies), but because they wrongfully assumed the other party was thinking in ways opposed but equivalent to them. Stalin couldn't figure out why America put so much importance on autonomy for Eastern European states because he assumed, like himself, that the US was thinking pragmatically in terms of balance between the great powers' spheres of influence, against which the smaller nations that lay between the Western powers and the Soviet Union were inconsequential except as bargaining chips. On the other hand, the US tried hard to convince Stalin to see the importance of those states' sovereignty and self-determination from an idealistic/moral standpoint, a mindset the man intentionally responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people might have found laughable at best.

So in the end the various parties often gained nothing but false understandings from their negotiations, because their assumptions about how the world worked and what the other side wanted were too different to reconcile. It seems as though they never even recognized this problem or tried to address it.

These days the concept of a "worldview" is fairly well known: the framework of ideas and beliefs through which we view and interpret the world. So the problems experienced by those leaders at the negotiating table we can now recognize as at least partly a clash of conflicting worldviews, and regret that steps were not taken to understand what their allies and opponents were truly seeking from the negotiations. (Though even now, I notice US foreign policy often has a blind spot with regards to non-western worldviews, like in the confusion over the motives of ISIS)

2. Eisegesis: Tinted shades are bad for making color charts

In seminary, a professor explained to us in our introduction to theology class that worldview also plays an important role in how we approach Scripture. We all bring assumptions with us that we sometimes read into the text, thinking that we're getting truth from God's word when we're actually unconsciously or consciously borrowing the authority of scripture to reaffirm existing biases, or imputing very modern ways of thinking to ancient authors who would have viewed the world quite differently.

Even the simple belief that through consistent and careful study we can distill theological truths from investigation of the scriptures is itself a product of our worldview. That is not to say it is a wrong view! It just means that we believe this about scripture because we first believe it about reality in general, then apply that belief to scripture. (I recall that one student could not wrap his mind around that concept. He protested that sufficiently careful study and proper methodology could eliminate our preconceptions and worldview from our study of the scriptures, not realizing that this conviction on his part was coming out of his worldview as well.) So one can't get "outside of" or "beyond" one's worldview, but that's ok, as explained below.

Now what I am saying is not that we cannot hope to find "untainted" truth in scripture, that we comprehensively distort everything we observe, but merely that we all bring our own assumptions to scripture, like anything else, and being aware of that can help us avoid problems of eisegesis. (Eisegesis means reading our own understanding into scripture, the opposite of exegesis which is deriving our own understanding from scripture. The Eisegesis wikipedia article, though poorly written in places, does a fairly good job of explaining the basic idea)

Granted, there is some level of "reading into" the scriptures that we cannot possibly avoid; we have all been born into the 20th/21st centuries, not the 1st century with Paul, let alone the time of the Patriarchs. We will bring our 21st century understandings with us to scripture, even if we've studied some about the cultural backgrounds and contexts of the human authors. But unlike the leaders of the World War 2 powers, we can recognize that our assumptions are there, that our worldviews are vastly different from the authors of scripture, and try let our worldview and ways of thinking be informed and transformed by scriptural truth. Many assumptions are so deep that they're invisible to us and thus we can't set them aside (although I've found living in another culture has helped bring many of mine to light), but guess what- God knows this, and He planned for us to be born now and not thousands of years ago, so it's ok.

Scripture has spoken to ancient Jewish kings, to Oxford dons, and to cannibalistic tribes; the Word of God is living and active, and not confined by your culture. The question is whether you may be confining yourself by not freeing your study of scripture from your limiting cultural assumptions. (Like those people who feel shaken to discover the events of Jesus' life are not all written in chronological order in the gospels, not realizing that thinking a linear time sequence is the most important way to arrange something is definitely a fairly modern and western concept! Even much of the 21st century world does not view time as linear.)

Therefore, since everyone approaches scripture from the place and time in which God has located them, our goal is not to be "contextless," which would be impossible, but to glorify God from the context in which He's placed us and move towards an ever-increasing understanding of the scriptures, and we have the Holy Spirit to help us in this process.

So our worldview is not like colored glasses we can take off; it's like the lenses and rod and cone cells inside our own eyes. Many of our assumptions, however, can be like those glasses, and we can take at least some of them off; to not do so increases the risk of unintentional eisegesis.

Take your eisegesis too far and you'll have Santa slapping you next...

3.1 Secular "Eisegesis" - Ex: Global Warming

With these things in mind, we can see why elevating "science" to a position of infallible authority is not only wrong given the existence of divine revelation, but also misguided even from a secular standpoint, because it implies the impersonal, self-correcting nature of the system can sufficiently overcome the human fallibility and mixed motives of those using it, and that the impartiality of the scientific method means a given conscious human being employing it in a non-theoretical world would also be impartial and not bringing their own assumptions to the process, which is itself really a pretty silly assumption.(Though less so if one believes humans are inherently good or at least neutral. The doctrine of human sin nature deeply affects the Christian worldview on a wide range of topics, often putting us at odds with the secular world where it is considered morally good to maintain a faith in the inherent goodness of humanity)

One can see this with the ever-convoluted issue of Global Warming. Bringing up the topic in the presence of True Believers tends to immediately provoke angry responses of disqualification- "are you a scientist?" (As if all historians and only historians could have valid input regarding Southern culture during the Civil War, regardless of whether their specialty is something like Ancient Egypt and you are actually from an old family in the South) Being "a scientist" does not magically give one qualifications beyond one's specific field of expertise, and not one scientist, or even team of scientists, can study a significant chunk of the global climate metasystem (systems of systems) in all its complexity, let alone the whole thing. One has to focus on or specialize in certain narrow aspects of it.

So when I question Global Warming I'm not suggesting that Climatologist A doesn't know lots of information about how the monsoon cycle over East Asia changed over the past decade, nor that Atmospheric aerosol modeller B is using the wrong equations to calculate the level of carbon dioxide in a certain context. The problem for me is not so much whether a bit of data here or there is accurate, but the vast, vast amounts of it, and that deciding what it's all suggesting involves a lot of judgment calls. Judgment calls that are not made by an impartial system, that is not conscious and so can't evaluate anything, but by actual humans who at best have their own biases and assumptions, and all too often ulterior motives, prioritized career goals, or a belief that any means are justified by their ideological end.

That can lead to a feedback problem. Once a scientist has been convinced that global warming is happening, and that demonstrating this is something like a moral necessity (for the good of mankind and future generations, etc), their research will reflect that belief. Note that in this case I am neither accusing them of illicit motives or of dishonesty. I think many do it because as members of the scientific establishment they have faith in the ability of the system in which they all participate to filter out human error or bias and thus accept "the weight of scientific opinion" as an extension of the rigidity of their own scientific endeavor. Then, feeling it important to do their part to contribute, they can publish their research which demonstrates conclusions which provide more evidence that global warming is occurring, and dismiss findings which demonstrate otherwise as random flukes or data that needs further research to explain why it doesn't fit the global warming model. This is where the eisegesis-like behavior comes in: they are no longer building a theory based on observed data, but analyzing observed data based on a theory they have already accepted as a given. Like eisegetes, they come to the table with assumptions, and it's all too easy for the data to seem to be fitting patterns it's supposed to, even without any fudging or special selecting.

Humorously, "Science defenders" will sometimes respond to this kind of assertion of systematic problems with links to scientific papers (or worse, scientific journalism articles) which argue that this problem does not exist, exactly like Christians who respond to accusations regarding Biblical inerrancy by quoting verses from it regarding its truth. (I certainly believe in Biblical inerrancy too, but responding in that way is like trying to refute the claim that all rulers are the wrong length by measuring one with your own ruler to show they're the same. An argument that assumes the authority/reliability of a source won't work for someone questioning the authority/reliability of that source.)

Note that this is business as usual for scientific research; of course one builds on accepted theories to develop new ones, that is how a field progresses, and one can't constantly question the underlying theory or little progress can be made. We all do the same thing in our daily lives. Unfortunately, that is also the way systematic bias creeps in. Choosing this or that accepted theory to begin a new chain of hypotheses leads to differing "schools of thought" in a particular field, very much like what one sees in theology, and then what should have been settled with rigorous scientific investigation (or rigorous scriptural investigation, respectively) starts becoming a matter of politics, as "schools of thought" gain or lose influence by means we are all more familiar with: depending on the name-recognition of its proponents, who has better PR, etc. Some people get prickly when you point this out, but it's the case in any realm of academia.

3.2 Scriptural Eisegesis - Ex: Prohibition

I have noted above the parallels between the scientific community and the theological community. It's important to recognize that just as the scientific community comprises those who practice science and is distinct from the reliable body of data science has helped gather about our universe, the theological community comprises those who study theology and is distinct from orthodox Christian theology that the careful study of scripture and the teachings of Christ and the apostles and the early Church councils helped assemble. So when I say "theologians do this too," I don't mean that basic doctrine is also suspect, but that at any given time there are droves of theologians saying all kinds of things about the Bible, and just because what they do is called theology we are not obliged to believe it any more than we must believe all the things said by all scientists just because they have that title.

So in that spirit, let's look at how eisegesis can creep into what we believe about scripture and how we can work to avoid it. I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, but I think the concept of alcohol as inherently sinful provides a good example of how this occurs.

Note: I have many brothers and sisters in Christ who choose to abstain from alcohol, and I believe they are right to follow their conscience in this matter and glorify God by doing so, and I do not and would never criticize their decision. In various times and situations I abstain from drinking alcohol as well, and did so for my years at seminary because of a pledge we signed. So I am not suggesting for any believer to drink or not to drink, but to follow their own conscience regarding this matter, as Paul is very clear about. I must take issue, however, with anyone who takes personal convictions and proceeds to preach them as scripture, as sadly often still happens in the US with regards to this particular issue.

For starters, we can easily establish that drunkenness is clearly and repeatedly described as foolish and sinful in Scripture both as an activity and a lifestyle. It follows that those who feel that to avoid drunkenness, or to avoid causing those close to them to stumble, it is better to abstain from alcohol altogether therefore have a scriptural basis for doing so. On the other hand, given the verses which portray drinking alcohol as a neutral (uncondemned) activity, sanction it (Deuteronomy 14, The Wedding in Cana. Amos 9:14), or even recommend it in specific cases (Ecclesiastes 9:7, 1 Timothy 5:23), it seems equally impossible to construct an argument from scripture that the consumption of alcohol is itself a sin.*

Yet in many American churches, this is indeed preached. One argument I have heard regarding Jesus changing water into wine is that the Greek word used for wine is the same as that for grape juice. "So," the argument went, "since we already know alcohol is sinful, we know Jesus must have turned the water into grape juice and not wine; the Lord would never provide an occasion to sin." I can join in with an amen for that last part, as scripture testifies clearly that God never tempts us to sin. But notice that the interpretation of the scriptural passage and even the chosen definition of the Greek word rides on an assumption which is not itself based on scripture- that the consumption of alcohol is sinful.

From where has this assumption come? Personal conviction, family tragedy, inherited from older believers held in respect by the one preaching or teaching... there are many ways people can become convinced that something is right or wrong besides direct attestation of scripture. That in itself is not a problem, of course- smoking is not found in the Bible, but one does not need an "anti-smoking verse" in order to see that it is at best a risky and inadvisable habit, anymore than one needs a "don't play in traffic" verse. The temptation comes when one is so passionate about endorsing or condemning something that one seeks to add the weight of scriptural authority to the endorsement or condemnation, knowing that this might convince those who otherwise wouldn't feel obliged to care or alter their behavior accordingly.

In an earlier post I wrote about folk theology and how it can creep in when we consider the origins of the symbolism surrounding holidays like Christmas. Sometimes similar can happen in a church or even a denomination over time, where something held as a strong conviction can slowly (or quickly, in churches where doctrinal issues are subordinated to popular social ones) assume a place alongside Biblical truth without being subjected to its authority.

Sometimes when this practice or teaching is found to be contrary to scripture, an eisegetical type process can be used to try to justify it, trying to "find" the practice or teaching in scripture to eliminate the perceived conflict. This often leads to "proof-texting," where verses which appear to favor the desired interpretation are selected and gathered out of context to provide the illusion of scriptural justification for the practice.

Now, did you notice anything about the little argument I ended with a * above? My methodology there was dangerously similar to proof-texting! I gathered a list of verses which demonstrate that the assertion that scripture considers drinking alcohol inherently sinful is not true. But what would be a better way? I can say for myself that my position on drinking alcohol for Christians was not determined merely by a list of verses but from finding that, after reading through the whole Bible from beginning to end multiple times, I could not come away believing that scripture taught the inherent sinfulness of alcohol based on anything in scripture itself. Rather, after reading verses about all the vineyards in Israel (and how this seemed to be a good thing) and various references to rejoicing with wine, and all the rest, I concluded the scriptural treatment of alcohol was as an earthly pleasure, and therefore a blessing from God as are all pleasures not misused or idolized, common in Israel, easily abused and thus the subject of many warnings, both abstained from and employed for religious ceremonial purposes (notably abstained from for a Nazirite vow, but used by Christ in establishing the ordinance of communion). I believe the look at specific verses should only come within an understanding of the entire Biblical perspective on an issue. (This is also useful for specific topics the Bible does not mention, like abortion, which makes proof-texting impossible anyway, but to which one can clearly still apply Biblical principles)

Of course that doesn't mean going back to check scripture regarding a practice or teaching is wrong; Paul praises the Bereans for searching the scriptures to confirm what he preached to them. But there is a difference between weighing an interpretation of scripture against the whole of scripture, and trying to find a verse here and a verse there out of context, or push for a creatively acrobatic interpretation of scripture, in order to justify something originally coming from outside scripture.

3.3 Conclusion

It's easy to bring out the charge of eisegesis against people with whom we disagree. For example, in the process of finding that batman picture I came across more than one graphic accusing anyone who said "Yom" in the Genesis account could be more than a 24-hour day as knowingly practicing eisegesis. I'm definitely not going off into arguments about what are and aren't valid interpretations of Genesis here, but remember what I said about the prioritizing of chronological-order, linear time descriptions being a relatively recent Western phenomenon? At very least, those making that accusation should be careful they're not ascribing their own modern, western sensibilities regarding time to ancient authors to whom the idea would sound foreign, which would be unintentional eisegesis on their own part.

It's clear that we should always be careful in our treatment of scripture, spending sufficient time in it ourselves to know it well, and not merely trusting the interpretations we receive from others (especially not developing the habit of mindlessly trusting the interpretations of one or two people), but weighing what we are taught against the whole of scripture as the Bereans did. We must also be careful to avoid injecting (active) or reading (passive) our own ideas into scripture, but seeking to understand what the Spirit is communicating from scripture through each author to us. If our attitude in approaching the Bible is to shape our thinking by God's word, we are already on the right track and will be less likely to unconsciously or consciously seek to confirm our own assumptions and biases that we bring to it.