As is usually the case, what I am writing about here is the result of something I read or heard. I read an article this morning that was titled; “Racism definition: Merriam-Webster to make update after request.” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52993306
My subject matter here has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the definitions of words.
Francis Schaeffer, in his book ‘Escape from Reason’, said the following.
“So, it is with the Christian church. Its responsibility is not only to hold to the basic, scriptural principles of the Christian faith, but to communicate these unchanging truths “into” the generation in which it is living. Every generation of Christians has this problem of learning how to speak meaningfully to its own age.”
Over the past several years now I have gained a better handle on exactly what this involves. As most people have contact with other people on a daily basis and enter into conversations, we are faced with what appears to me to be a phenomenon that I don’t recall happening until recently. It may be more prevalent in more technical fields than in everyday conversation. Nevertheless, I am well aware of it now and am on the lookout when I talk with people on virtually all subjects.
What I’m talking about is the re-defining of words.
When I first noticed this, I immediately became defensive and critical. I even saw it to some degree to be conspiratorial. After some time has passed and upon further consideration, I’ve settled down and see it in a different, more generic way. Let me give you an example.
Several years ago, I was involved in an ongoing conversation with a young man who identified as agnostic leaning toward atheist. We have had some really good conversations. Sometime in the first year or so we were talking about faith. The more we talked the more frustrating it became that I couldn’t seem to understand the conclusions he was drawing from what I said about faith. Also, the things he said about faith (basically that putting faith in anything was stupid) were, in my view, not in the least rational, and yet, up to this point, the young man showed that he had some reasoning ability. This went on for a while.
One day, a thought struck me. So, I went on line and looked up the word faith. The dictionary did not give me the definition of the word that I was familiar with. Weird. I looked in another dictionary. Same definition. It didn’t add up. How could two dictionaries both be wrong about the definition of faith? As I considered it further, I had an idea. I went back on line and searched a 1950 version of these same dictionaries. (Amazing that one can do something like that so easily.) What I found was more amazing. The definition in the earlier addition was significantly different than the modern version. Here’s what I found.
1950 Webster Dictionary: Firm and earnest belief, on probable evidence of any kind.
Current Webster Dictionary: Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
Upon discovering the cause of my frustration regarding the conversation I was having, I was able to go back to the young man and reveal what I found. At that point, I said that I agreed with him that, by his definition of the word faith, putting faith in anything is stupid. I then told him what the older definition of faith was and that that was the definition used in the Bible (which is the definition I was using in our discussion) and that the modern definition of faith is what we used to call “blind faith” and, yes, blind faith is stupid.
All this time we were talking past each other. We were using words that we assumed we both defined in the same way. It changed our conversation on that subject considerably. I fear that this is a more common occurrence than we are aware of.
In another discussion, we talked about the origins of the universe. My position was the simple idea that you can’t get something from nothing, therefore, given that things exist now, there has to have been something that has always existed. Even if you don’t conclude that it was the Creator/God, the principle still stands; you can’t get something from nothing. Of course, the other person argued that you can, in fact, get something from nothing. Instead of spending too much time scratching my head about this, I did some research and found that, while most in history have defined nothing to mean “no thing”, this is not the case with many in this age, including some well-known scientists. Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking allow for very small particles to come in and out of “nothing” which would make possible “something coming from nothing”. Of course, if there is something there (even really small somethings), it ain’t “nothing”. The point being, again, different definitions of “nothing”.
The last example I will use, though I’m sure you could find more, is the word “liberal”. This is a most interesting word when it comes to definition. According to the modern take of the word, it is seen to represent a significant moving away from traditional American/western values, moving leftward. Big government, relativistic morality, situational ethics, etc. Yet, if you look up the word in dictionary, you find something completely different. While the first definition eludes to what we see today to be liberalism, the rest of the definitions given are just about the opposite of that.
1.) favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2.) (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3.) of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
4.) favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
I’m not looking to get into the political discussion, rather simply to point out that definitions are important. If we are to have meaningful discussions with people, we have to be on the lookout for this phenomenon.
Especially for the Christian, it’s important to be clear for the sake of an accurate representation of the God we serve. We need to think carefully before making statements that may, in the mind of the person we are talking with, cause misunderstanding.
To be continues…