:: Ryan Thomas ::

On we go with more of Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer’s “Mere Christian Hermeneutics” (Zondervan, 2024).

In this section Dr. V. unpacks frame of reference. I cannot imagine a situation where a reader could approach a text with no frame of reference. It is essentially impossible. We homo sapiens do not handle disembodiment very well and that is what it would take to even imagine things that had no frame of reference. 

For example, let’s say I am reading the description of an oak tree. Now, an extremely small percentage of humans alive today who live in the most remote arctic tundra or something may have never seen a tree before and may have no frame of reference for fully understanding the tree. But everyone else brings to the reading of that description their own experience and knowledge of trees. That experience and knowledge frames how they receive the description of the oak. Without thinking much about it, they compare what they know of other trees to this oak. Now, imagine that the description says nothing about janka levels of the oak, and the reader has only ever heard about and felt softwoods. Inherently, the reader will assume the oak is a softwood. The self-applied label is not malicious or even pretentious. It is simply the natural consequence of looking through one’s frame of reference.

Even if the reader is given a section from a Star Wars book, and they read about things that do not exist (like say, a Wookie flying the Millennium Falcon at lightspeed), there still exists a frame of reference that limits understanding. The metal of the ship, the concept of traveling through outer space, even the texture of the Wookie’s hair; all of these things, though unreal, are interpreted based upon the reader’s experience with similar things from actual human existence.

Therefore Dr. V. says, “Literal interpretation is beholden to frames of reference… Exegesis without presuppositions is not possible, for literal interpretation always involves a frame of reference, whether we acknowledge it or not.” (122) And this is something the theologian must be hyper aware of. It is a subtle thing that masters our biblical interpretation. It takes hard work to be conscientious of our own frames of reference.

It could be as silly as reading about David’s sheep and picturing sheep one has seen at a petting zoo in North Carolina. But maybe David’s sheep looked quite different from the North Carolina sheep. Does it matter? Probably not, but what does matter is that a frame of reference has been employed to interpret Scripture.

It could be as serious as reading the Genesis account, applying modern post-Enlightenment ontological frames of reference, and concluding that Christians who do not hold to a 6 consecutive, 24-hour days theory are unorthodox. This is one way that frames of reference can become divisive.

A local church has this posted on their website: “We believe in the literal interpretation of the Scriptures in their grammatical and historical context. We believe in the pre-tribulational Rapture of the church saints, followed by the seven-year Tribulation. We believe in the pre-millennial return of Christ to the earth and His literal rule of one thousand years. Following this one thousand years is the Great White Throne judgment and then the new Heaven and new earth.” (PS – why did they capitalize heaven but not earth?)

It is ironic that this church is attempting to commit to the “grammatical-historical context” while simultaneously obscuring the same with their modern-western frame of reference. Attending to the grammatical-historical context would mean to pursue due diligence in understanding what John and the 1st century Christians thought about the Apocalypse. Rather, this church has assumed that John was writing a literalistic ontology of the Telos. But that hermeneutic is a modern one stemming from a social imaginary that values scientific definition over metaphor and story-telling.

This is why Dr. V. stresses the 5 point model of getting to the sense of the discourse. It is what he calls “ruled reading.” He argues, “What ‘ruled reading’ rules is one’s choice of frame of reference, and one’s frame of reference affects how we read according to the letter.”(122) I find it fascinating that he says “choice” of frame of reference. It is an application of agency and responsibility that is not normally discussed in circles of hermeneutics. 

He continues to unpack our topic: “A frame of reference is the lens through which the plain sense comes into view, enabling readers to say what the words they are reading are about (i.e., the referential dimension of discourse).” (122) And discourse is critical to understanding any text – especially one like Scripture that can be described as a living discourse with a living God.

“Discourse involves more, but not less than sense and reference. While the sense is what someone says, the reference is that about which that something is said. Literal meaning and interpretation involve both sense and reference. The literal sense is the way words run; the literal referent is that to which the words run.” (123)

Here is an example Dr. V. gives that helps us see why the poor church above is a bit confused. I’m guessing the pastors of that church would readily say, “Look at that beautiful sunrise / sunset!” They have no problem with this saying. But it is a scientific fallacy. The Sun does not rise or set. The Earth rotates. So, to understand the pastor’s statement, one has to know the frame of reference through which they receive that statement. This involves dissecting the discourse that is happening.

The sense of the statement is metaphor. The referent is the experience of beauty. The speaker wants the hearer to participate in receiving the moment of beauty, and chooses to use poetic, non-scientific language to help them do so. But this is done in a modern frame of reference that understands astronomy. Previously in human history, people saying the same thing had the frame of reference that the Sun really was revolving around the Earth. This brings us to context:

“If the literal sense pertains to the way words go or run, then context specifies the kind of ground under their feet – the circumstances of a particular discourse.” (124) Unfortunately this is where much of western theology breaks down in its hermeneutics. Most of my life in various Protestant churches I heard plenty of teaching on 1st century Jewish context: feet washing, purity laws, social hierarchy, etc… but that context was entered into from modern frames of reference that already possessed bias and presumptions. Those biases and presumptions were crafted, inherited, and taught by the reading culture of the believer. Dr. V. again:

“And this is the key point: frames of reference are functions of reading cultures, and reading cultures, as we have seen, are cultivated by the prevailing social imaginaries. All three – frame of reference, reading culture, and social imaginary – shape the expectations readers bring to the texts, both as to “what there is” (in the world), and “what is there) (in the text).” (125)

Picking on that church one last time, those pastors bring expectations to the Bible: they expect that God has given the Church a non-metaphorical, detailed prophecy of a wild end to the Age of Sin. But the problem is that the social imaginaries and reading cultures of the post-19th century Western ethos brought those expectations to the table.

We must allow the Bible to set the frame of reference, we must allow history to set the reading culture, and we must allow the Spirit to form our social imaginary.