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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Lee—I agree with everything you say about
language in this last post. But here I only see you making the same case I’m
making. I agree that texts always slip out of the control of authorities and
subvert their intentions. We see this with virtually every written law. But
this is exactly why the claim to a divinely inspired text is a useful yet
dangerous tool for authority. It serves as an artificial brake on the runaway
nature of language and provides justification for authorities to rule out
different readings. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The claim that a text is
divinely inspired or authored serves only to institute an “authorized” reading so
as to render that reading unaccountable and unassailable. To every question put
to the Bible, for example, the only answer that need be given is: “because it’s
the word of God.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The problem is
attitudinal—the attitude that the divinely inspired text has only one true
reading or message. Even where the hierarchy may not actually believe the text is
the word of God, if this notion is successfully sold to the parishioners it
serves to legitimize Church authority. In the history of the Catholic Church,
for example, alternate readings are not just other readings but heretical
readings. This quality of divinely inspired texts helped to institutionalize
the authority of the Church for centuries. For who would challenge God?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I grant there are other
non-religious texts that attain to similar status as so-called divinely
inspired texts, such as the U.S. Constitution, but this only confirms the
tendency to rigidify a text for purposes of “institutional capture” of its
meaning. This process is just the secular equivalent to divinizing a text. But
in the secular arena of the Constitution, this process is ultimately arrested and exposed to
accountability because the Constitution can be changed—although the process is
difficult. If the Constitution were held to be divinely inspired like the
Bible, there would be no institutional process for changing its language. The
language would be set in stone—like the Ten Commandments. But this is clearly
not the case with the Constitution.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">As I’ve argued
previously, secular equivalents to divinely instituted religious authority
occur when a leader assumes the position of unaccountable authority. This
amounts to the divinization of the ruler. In some cases, as you point out, such
rulers actually insist on being treated as divine beings. Others, such as
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao effectively attain that status without claiming
divinity, but nevertheless wield unaccountable authority like a god.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">So, in my view,
unaccountability is the broader problem. But one popular tool in the toolbox
for unaccountable power is the claim to divinity—either for a text or a person
or both. At the end of the day, I do not understand any desire to salvage
respect for such claims, especially given what we know about language and human
behavior.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Greg </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>
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