Using myself as an example, if you were to conduct an inquiry among all the people in my social circle you would very likely get many different versions of me, particularly if you tapped into people as diverse as my children in comparison to my coworkers. However, I am quite certain that amidst that diversity, there would be something of an overlap in the characteristics that people identify such that it would be evident that they are all referring to the same person. Regarding the nature of human understanding, the idea is that underneath all the perceptions there is some kind of relatively stable entity that people are interacting with that feeds into their perceptions such that there is some commonality. If there is no or little commonality then the question naturally arises, “are we dealing with or talking about the same person or entity?”

In the extremes of Postmodernism the question is raised as to whether there is such a thing as essence regarding anything that has being, and the same question is raised regarding whether any text has specific meaning. The Postmodern response is “no.” For the strict Postmodernist all we have are human constructions that are derived from preconditioned perceptual responses to limited data. No one can really know if there is any genuine correlation between how things are in their understanding and how things are in the world (or in a text). This is the idea I resist, primarily because the implication of this view is profound alienation and a world without communion and love. There must be some kind of genuine understanding in order for love and communion to happen, and chalking everything up to personal interpretation undermines the possibility of love.

To give you a formal title for my stance regarding all of this, I am a critical realist, which is to say that I think the Postmodern critique regarding human understanding should be heeded, but often their skepticism goes too far. To put critical realism in colloquial terms, this position says, “Yes, we do see, but we see at a distance,” also, regarding the matter of interpreting texts, in response to Roland Barthes who asserted that the author is dead, which is to say that meaning is found exclusively in a readers mind, this position says, “The author is not dead; he just got up and walked away.” Generally speaking this is to say that meaning is a dynamic relationship between an entity and a perceiver, and/or a text and a reader, which allows for a range of possibilities for meaning, but this range is not unlimited. There is a boundary that marks the range of possibilities.

Taking all of this and bringing it back to God, in the Xian tradition the limits of what can be said about God is bound by the person of Jesus Christ. Certainly, Jesus can be and has been interpreted and seen in many ways, but if he was a genuine person, there is a limit. This is not an easy matter as some of the ways he is understood may at first appear contradictory, but is later found to have a connection that implies some kind of stable center. Other ways he is interpreted, however, go beyond the boundary, and are seen to be the product of perceiving something else all together, even if only the projection of the perceiver’s desires.

Sheesh!

(Now seriously) Anthony, your conclusion is wonderful!

“…we need to conduct ourselves in such a way that we reveal the hope we have beyond…”

We do indeed have a hope beyond!