From: jocallag@artin.helios.nd.edu (john ocallaghan)
Subject: Re: Language, Meaning, Truth (Was: Homosexual acts)
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 02:58:11 GMT

In article <6536@mccuts.uts.mcc.ac.uk> mfulsmb@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Martin Barry) writes:
>In article <1993Jan20.031203.8835@news.nd.edu> jocallag@artin.helios.nd.edu (john ocallaghan) writes:
>>Jim McIntosh writes:
>>>Greg Wolff said:
>>>>Truth never changes, only the means of the teaching changes.
>
>: Yes, exactly. The truth remains the same, but how we describe it has to
>: change as the language changes and the minds of those who hear those words
>: change.
>: Now we have to find the words to
>: communicate the truth we know. The words of the past no longer suffice.
>
>>Here are a couple of words of the past, that if your statement is true,
>>no lnger suffice:  I am the way, the truth, and the life; he who believes
>>in me shall never die.
>
>I don't think Jim is saying anything different from what Pope John XXIII
>said. It's objective fact that (i) languages change and the meaning of
>specific words change; (ii) cultures change and the preconceptions and
>connotations which people associate with particular words and phrases also
>change. When our Lord said "I am the way, the truth and the life" (if
>strictly speaking he did say it -- I once heard an eminent Dominican canon
>lawyer say that the Gospel of John contains all the things our Lord would
>have said if he had had time to say that much :-) ) he said it in Aramaic,
>and it has been restated in many forms since then before arriving at the
>modern English version. With simple (?) words like those we have a very
>strong likelihood of understanding their meaning in the way our Lord
>intended; but what of "hiding your light under a bushel" or "a camel passing
>through the eye of the needle"? These are both instances where biblical
>scholarship suggests that the literal meaning is not what would have been
>understood by hearers in our Lord's day. Likewise "the waters above the sky"
>uses words that suggest a simple interpretation should be possible, but the
>mismatch between old testament cosmology and modern cosmology means that this
>is not so.
>
>In short, it is self-deception to claim that the only authentic manner of
>articulating the truths of the faith is the one they originally received; or
>to claim that earlier formulations of the truth will still necessarily be
>intelligible in linguistic or cultural terms. A kind of fundamentalism,
>perhaps?
>
>Martin Barry.

Ah Martin, you again.  I take it we have suitably forgotten the actual
points that were being made in the original thread, namely that as our
times are different, our language is different, and our "world view"
is different, this gives us reason for suggesting that what was true
in their times is not in ours.  From that you have extrapolated and given
a whole account of what you apparently take me to be saying, expressing a 
rejection of John the XXIII.  But after all this time I would have thought
that you would know that you cannot drive such an easy wedge between
me and the pope.

WARNING TO PIOUS EARS: WHAT FOLLOWS IS SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC SO DO NOT READ ON
IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET BY SUCH EXPLICIT LANGUAGE















I take it to be the case that in biblical times men had penises.  I also
take it to be the case that in biblical times men had rectums.  I also
take it to be the case that people died.

Now I take it to be the case that according to the best translations we
have now in English, the claim is made that the best way to translate what
was recorded by various writers of various scripture passages is that various
individuals including St. Paul were saying words to the effect that if
a man puts his penis in another man's rectum and ejaculates then such a man
has done great wrong, and is, as someone pointed out earlier "deserving"
of death.

Now I take it that men still have penises. (I do anyway; the rest of you
can stand up and be counted. ;-) )

I take it that men still have rectums.  (Again, some of you at this point
may want to call me one. :-< )

I also take it to be the case that people still die.

So taking all these things to be the case, I think even in our day and
age we can understand what was said even back in those primitive times
when everything was different, words, world views, technology, except
perhaps penises, rectums, and death.

Now we may no longer want to accept as true what was said.  We may want
to say it was true for them but not for us.  But I don't think you can argue
on the basis of different language, different world view, different times
that something that was true is not now true.  My point is this is not
a question about language, world views, times etc.  This a question about
human actions that were capable of being performed then, and are equally capable
of being performed now.

I give my example again:
I grow up in France learning that 'deux et deux font quatre'.
As an adult I move to the U.S. that speaks a different language, and is
a different culture.
Which should I teach my child, from my own learning as a child:

a) Two plus two is four

b) Two plus two is not four.

Talking about the language and cultural differences may be interesting, but
it does not tell us which I should teach my child.
It seems to me that if indeed we are capable of understanding what was written
at a different time, and in a different age, we have to give more substantive
arguments than trivialities about problems of translation, for rejecting
what was once thought to be true, as false.
Afterall translation presupposes a modicum of understanding.

To suggest that I deny the facts of linguistic, and cultural change, upon the
simple point I have made is to put words in my mouth.  I would like to say
I'm surprised and shocked Martin that you would do this;  instead I am merely
amused.

Peace,
John


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