Mark Quayle

Monergist; and by reputation, Reformed Calvinist
Supporter
May 28, 2018
13,006
5,622
68
Pennsylvania
✟780,938.00
Country
United States
Faith
Reformed
Marital Status
Widowed
In the same way that our humanity and experiences color the way we think, our language does also.

People think more differently from each other than most of us realize. Lately I've noticed that whole threads are full of people talking past each other because they simply don't think alike. Included in this phenomenon are those who simply have a different focus, but what I would like to point out here is how whole ways of thinking are different.

Most of us are aware that how (and what) we think affects how we talk and what we say. The Bible also mentions that what we say affects how we think. People of foreign countries are not only foreign geographically, but societally, and mentally. My purpose here is not to criticize, but I notice in the country where I grew up, for one example the people say "se me cayó y se rompió" --an exaggerated literal translation goes (and say it rather shrilly): "It went and FELL itself on (from) me and and broke itself !" In fact I have noticed, they need a construction of words to even say, I dropped it --they have to say, "I let it fall", which still sounds like it's attributing willful action on the part of the item dropped! But it has seemed to me that their thinking sometimes tends toward the notion of "this happened to me" rather than "I did it". I'm not trying to refer to the placing of blame or credit here, but merely the difference in mode of thinking as relates to language.

In English, and I don't know how many other languages, we think in terms of past, present and future --and these are the main tenses of our verbs. New Testament Greek is quite a bit more complicated than that, but mainly the thinking is in mode of action --point in time action, ongoing action, completed action, etc. Not that they don't also think in terms of past, present and future, but they don't do so the WAY we do.

My reason for bringing this up is to point out two things: That God's thinking is even more foreign to us than we can know, and that one's interpretation of Scripture (or anything else, for that matter, like, for eg, a concept) is almost unavoidably according to their mindset to the exclusion of other worldviews. When we might think, "Now I know what this means!", we have usually not even begun to come at it with anyone else's way of thinking, not to mention God's.

So, while it is true that words mean things, it is also incumbent on us to be not just logical in our thought processes in arriving at conclusions, but to bear in mind that our logic is drawn on our way of thinking, mostly, and that there is usually a lot more to what we are thinking about. As GK Chesterton pointed out, even the insane are logical --“If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.”
 

Clare73

Blood-bought
Jun 12, 2012
24,945
6,054
North Carolina
✟273,781.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
In the same way that our humanity and experiences color the way we think, our language does also.

People think more differently from each other than most of us realize. Lately I've noticed that whole threads are full of people talking past each other because they simply don't think alike. Included in this phenomenon are those who simply have a different focus, but what I would like to point out here is how whole ways of thinking are different.

Most of us are aware that how (and what) we think affects how we talk and what we say. The Bible also mentions that what we say affects how we think. People of foreign countries are not only foreign geographically, but societally, and mentally. My purpose here is not to criticize, but I notice in the country where I grew up, for one example the people say "se me cayó y se rompió" --an exaggerated literal translation goes (and say it rather shrilly): "It went and FELL itself on (from) me and and broke itself !" In fact I have noticed, they need a construction of words to even say, I dropped it --they have to say, "I let it fall", which still sounds like it's attributing willful action on the part of the item dropped! But it has seemed to me that their thinking sometimes tends toward the notion of "this happened to me" rather than "I did it". I'm not trying to refer to the placing of blame or credit here, but merely the difference in mode of thinking as relates to language.

In English, and I don't know how many other languages, we think in terms of past, present and future --and these are the main tenses of our verbs. New Testament Greek is quite a bit more complicated than that, but mainly the thinking is in mode of action --point in time action, ongoing action, completed action, etc. Not that they don't also think in terms of past, present and future, but they don't do so the WAY we do.

My reason for bringing this up is to point out two things: That God's thinking is even more foreign to us than we can know, and that one's interpretation of Scripture (or anything else, for that matter, like, for eg, a concept) is almost unavoidably according to their mindset to the exclusion of other worldviews. When we might think, "Now I know what this means!", we have usually not even begun to come at it with anyone else's way of thinking, not to mention God's.

So, while it is true that words mean things, it is also incumbent on us to be not just logical in our thought processes in arriving at conclusions, but to bear in mind that our logic is drawn on our way of thinking, mostly, and that there is usually a lot more to what we are thinking about. As GK Chesterton pointed out, even the insane are logical --“If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.”
Good stuff there. . .nevertheless, God's NT teaching is in Greek words that are knowable to those who know the language. . .God did not leave us unknowable NT teaching.
 
Upvote 0

Palmfever

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Dec 5, 2019
647
349
Hawaii
✟146,121.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Single
“If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment.”
"Never argue with a fool, they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience."
We all have our own looking glass. Experiences, proclivities, predispositions... We reach for unbiased opinion, which for me, is impossible to attain. My predilections are heavily reliant on God's word and truth.
In Christ


"The dogs bark, but the caravan rolls on."
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0