03/09/2022 – The Truth of Broken Symbols
Why are all true religious symbols broken? What is meant by “truth”? What is meant by “symbol”? And why are they all “broken”? I’m glad you asked those questions, because we’re going to get into all of it here today. Stick with us. This is TenOnReligion.
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We’re looking at an excellent book which really should get a lot more attention than it does because it answers so many questions found in the understanding of religion in general, especially as they relate to religious philosophy. The author is Robert Neville and it’s titled The Truth of Broken Symbols. He argues that religious symbols aren’t simple fictions which might have functional value like helping people socially and morally, but such symbols are really something other than religion, like psychology. Let’s just talk about the elephant in the room right off the bat. What does the phrase “broken symbol” mean? A broken symbol is one that effectively engages us, but whose limitations are also known. But, if that’s the case, how can they still be religiously effective? In order to answer that, we’re going to talk about what religious symbols refer to, how religious symbols refer, and explain more about how religious symbols are broken and yet still true.
It’s interesting because when the symbols of a given religious tradition are fresh and living, people see through them to the divine. They do not notice the symbols as such any more than they notice the glass in a window. When another religion with different symbols is encountered, however, suddenly one can easily see religious symbols as, well…symbols, and it’s as if the window was dirty. For some reason, one is often not able to see the “symbolness” of their own religious symbols. They don’t recognize them as symbols. So, then what is this “symbol” thing all about? The objects referred to by religious symbols are both finite and more than finite. It sounds tricky, but stick with me for a minute or two…or ten. Cause this channel is like TenOnReligion…
Religious symbols are iconic symbols in that their objects are referred to as being like the symbol. Inside the world of the myth where the symbols reside, what the myth says is what reality is like or how it is engaged. But this is always done in a certain respect, like when someone says “God is a rock,” they’re not meaning for a person to go study geology and then they’ll learn more about God. Saying “God is a rock” is obviously a metaphor, so one has to interpret what aspect of “rock-ness” is being applied to help one understand “God.” Here’s how this works. First, there is the religious character of the human imagination. Second, the human imagination functions in reference, so as to engage experience with its object. Third, the reference of religious symbols are finite/infinite contrasts. In the first step, imagination experiences things with images, and in the case of religion, this means boundary conditions between the finite and the infinite. That’s supposing a contrast with what would be the case without the boundary condition. An obvious example would be death. Different religious images determine different global engagements of the world. In ancient times people engaged the distant stars as if they were gods determining human destiny; now we engage them as tempting frontiers. In the second step, religious symbols are intended to engage people with the real boundary conditions of finite/infinite contrasts to which they are interpreted to refer. They become idolatrous when they seem to refer to the finite/infinite contrast but actually only refer to one side, usually the finite side. In the third step, all religious interpretations will have to be metaphorical, at least in part, if the interpretation refers to the infinite as well as the finite side in the finite/infinite contrast. That’s why religious symbols will always be symbols. Because the infinite is part of the deal, there’s always more to the story. Cultures differ regarding the nature of the world thus they will also differ in their systems of symbols and are always on the way to creating new symbols. We have no better ones than our current ones and “our” symbols are no less metaphorical than anyone else’s.
Symbols get networked together in a system of layers. The modern problem with networks of religious symbols is that frequently some of the layers don’t make sense as the culture receiving the symbol from ancient times has changed significantly, such as a primitive or false geography for heaven and hell, which made sense two thousand years ago but no longer does today. Or the idea that Jesus is returning on clouds of glory but he somehow needs a spaceship with a heat-resistant shield to complete the journey. It just sounds ridiculous. Yet these meanings cannot be removed or decoupled by choice. The attempts in some modern religions to purge their symbol systems results only in transforming the symbols into instruments of something else rather than symbols of ultimate realities. To construct a new imaginative symbol genuinely engaging the divine while avoiding objectionable figures is very difficult.
Much religious growth and development consists in turning the network meanings of important symbols into content meanings. Interpretations according to network meaning make interpreters competent at following the networks’ rules. The meaning of life and death as human existential conditions is a central borderline finite/infinite contrast addressed in the symbologies of nearly every religion, though not always with the same outcome, such as heaven, reincarnation, or becoming an immortal in Daoism. The short span of human years, the finite element in the reference, is contrasted with the infinity of a person’s non-life, both before and after one’s existence.
An interpretation consists in the impact of the symbol’s referent, usually one or several finite/infinite contrasts, on the experience of the interpreter or interpreting community, as mediated by the symbol. This impact is the symbol’s content meaning integrated into practice. The symbol makes the referent effective practically in shaping life. And here’s the main point. The theological context employs religious symbols that have the structure of referring to finite/infinite contrasts, which means they are broken symbols. If those symbols are adequately encoded in a religious system, they can be intentionally referred literally to the divine in the sense that they need no further metaphorizing. It is assumed to be adequate. Symbols are true insofar as they engage us correctly with divine matters. Symbols are inadequate simply at the level of imagination if they do not engage us, which simply means we need to find better symbols.
Symbols can be polysemic, meaning they can mean more than one thing. For example, the Exodus account can mean Zionist nationalism for Jews, freedom from slavery for African-Americans, or God in salvation history for German theologians. The devotional use of symbols is to have the power of transforming the religious dimension of a life considered in relation to a finite/infinite contrast. Sometimes such devotional symbols are really specific to the point of distorting reality in order to speak to the person at their particular state or stage in life, such as a blue-eyed blond Jesus when he obviously looked like a typical first century Jew. But when religious symbols are adapted to devotional use and made appropriate to the state of the devotee, it seems almost universal that there be a reification and personification of a divine object. As a boundary condition, however, personhood is finite and what lies beyond the boundary cannot be personal, any more than it can be a world tree or a scientific Big Bang explosion.
One thing that people need to be aware of is that there are consequences of religious symbols that are not tied to the meaning or truth of the symbols but instead come from the ways the social context can react to the symbols. Like the British freaking out about sacred cows when they first went to India. Also, some kinds of fundamentalism consist in the use of religious forms of political ends, with the political ends in turn distorted by the ultimacy appropriate for religious objects. Crusades and jihads idolatrously identify political goals, which often have nothing to do with the divinity of finite/infinite contrasts.
Ultimately, the question is not how to get symbols to represent a reality to which we have non-symbolic access, but rather how to correct the symbols we have, or how to correct our symbols through an encounter with other symbols. Let’s summarize all of this in one sentence. All symbols are broken since they’re on the finite side of the finite/infinite equation, yet they’re still true because they carry across the value from the infinite side.
So, what do you think about the truth of broken symbols? Has Neville explained something here that makes sense? Or does this way of understanding religion not work for you? Why or why not? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Until next time, stay curious. If you enjoyed this, support the channel in the link below, please like and share this video and subscribe to this channel. This is TenOnReligion.