There is always a certain subjectivity in a response. We evaluate something through a number of pre-conceived notions. Because of these pre-conceived notions, we tend to organize the truth we receive in certain categories. Then we try to structure what we have received according to certain patterns. We test this structure through careful re-evaluation. Even though our response is based on the objective truth we have responded to, there is always an element of subjectivity.
I want to argue that this is a good thing. This is what people should be doing. It’s already part of our nature. We don’t give a bare recitation of facts or truths, rather we work them into a narrative. We do this all the time with history. A good historian doesn’t only give us a bunch of facts, he wants to tell a story with it. It should be the same for reading scripture. In fact, this should be even more true for scripture. God intends scripture to be one book. We are called to find the themes and symbols that bring scripture together.
The problem is that our subjective response is often wrong. Historians go out of their way to prove that other historians have the wrong way of interpreting history. Theologians and exegetes do the same with scripture. Now some of this is due to perspective, but many views actually contradict one another. Somebody has to be wrong. Isn’t it better to just stick to the data?
Absolutely not. If we just “stick to the data” we lose out on our ability to gain a deeper understanding of things. When we study something, we need a structure in order to understand it. The less arbitrary the structure, the better we will remember it.
We also lose the ability to gain a greater understanding of who we are. We are not the result of a set of data points we are the result of a narrative; a story. As Christians, we believe that God is writing the story of the world. Being made in the image of God, we are also storytellers. God wants us to re-tell the story of scripture. He wants us to understand history in light of that story. When we lose the desire to find a structure for that story so that we can re-tell it, we lose some of the impact of that story. We lose the ability to create a shared framework through which to understand ourselves.
Think about this in terms of typology for a moment. We can isolate the figure of David in two ways. We can either isolate him from ourselves, by looking at him as an ancient figure that has little to do with modern life. He is then a data point from scripture, that has something to do with the history of salvation. We can also isolate him from an interpretive framework of scripture, making him a nice moral story that really doesn’t have much to do with history. Or as a part of the history of salvation, we can integrate him into our understanding of the message of the whole of scripture. He becomes a type of Christ and so also a type for us.
The Bible gives us an objective beginning of both an interpretive framework for itself and for history. The beginning is the person of Christ. We often get the details wrong. We miss some data or over-emphasize a theme, but if we begin with Christ, we can be confident that we do have the basic interpretive framework of scripture and of history; that Christ is bringing sons to glory.
