Chapter 8

Analogies as Perspectives

At any one point in our study of the Bible, must we use only one analogy, or one type of analogy? To answer this question, let us first look at the situation in natural sciences.

29. Analogies as complementary

We are accustomed to seeing in science one model used as the key element in a particular scientific theory. Other proposed models are discarded when one model gains dominance. For example, the Ptolemaic model, with the earth at the center of the solar system, was discarded after the Copernican model, with the sun at the center, gained dominance. If biblical interpretation is analogous to science at this point, we should expect that the winning interpretation would supersede all previous interpretations and would invoke one dominant model.

To some extent, the use of a single dominant model has indeed characterized some theological controversies. The historical-critical method, for example, used as its main analogy the example of historical investigation of secular history. The Bible had to be treated like any other book from the ancient past. This model virtually defined the historical-critical method and gradually gained dominance in academic circles. In the circles in which it dominated, the older "dogmatic" methods of interpretation ceased to be practiced.

Or consider another example. In the controversy between traducianism and creationism, already mentioned, one of the issues at stake is the dominance of an analogy. What is the best analogy for understanding the origin of individual souls? Is it the analogy with the generation and growth of the bodies of children, or the analogy with the original creation of new beings in Gen. 1? Once one decides which analogy is correct, the other analogy is seen to be invalid. One therefore discards the other analogy.

However, this second example gives us pause. On an issue like traducianism and creationism, it seems that the debate is difficult to decide, even when we have basic agreement on the authority of the Bible. Could it be that neither position is wholly right? Could it sometimes be the case that more than one analogy is applicable up to a point? At the same time, it might be that no one analogy captures with superior clarity all the features of biblical teaching on the subject. The origin of human souls might be like an original creation in some respects, and like the generation of human bodies in other respects. Then each side would be able to appeal to verses that appear to validate its position.

In many cases of interpretive controversy, only one position can be right. In the interpretation of Rom. 7, the two major interpretations, regenerate and unregenerate, cannot both be right. Perhaps one of the two is right, or perhaps neither is right and some third position, like Lloyd-Jones's "awakened sinner" interpretation, is correct. In the interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:4 "one's own vessel" must mean either "one's own body" or "one's own wife," not both. Likewise, with respect to the historical-critical revolution it was either right or wrong (I think wrong) to practice historical reconstruction with antisupernaturalist assumptions built into the use of historical analogy.¹

But in other cases, the use of multiple analogies may be permissible. Certainly, the Bible itself uses multiply analogies in its teaching about the church. The church is the temple of God, the body of Christ, and the assembly of God's people (analogous to the assembly of Israelites at Mt. Sinai or Mt. Zion). These affirmations about the church are complementary rather than contradictory. Similarly, God is a king, a father, and a husband, three analogies expressing complementary truths.

Likewise, we might say that the four Gospels present us with complementary pictures of the earthly life of Christ. Of course, the Gospels do have much in common. The differences among them can easily be exaggerated. Yet differences of a subtle kind do exist. Such differences are complex and difficult adequately to summarize. Some of the differences of emphasis among the Gospels can indeed be related to differences of perspective on the idea of Messiahship. Matthew, for example, strongly emphasizes Christ's Davidic kingship. The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy which includes a list of Davidic kings. John, on the other hand, emphasizes Christ's role as the Son of God. Christ as Son exists in close relation to the Father and reveals the Father in his work. Likewise Mark and Luke have some distinctive emphases.

Christ's Messiahship and his work of redemption are so rich in significance that they might be viewed from many angles, and in the light of many connections with OT promises and institutions. No one of these approaches by itself would capture everything. Surely the idea of Christ as Davidic king (Matthew) and the idea of Christ as Son revealing the Father (John) are both true. But it would be unfortunate if we were to use only one of these approaches.

For one thing, the two ways of explaining Christ and his work invite us to link up his life with two different sets of OT texts. If we say that Christ is Davidic king, we link up our thinking right away with the history of OT kingship, with its successes and failures, and with the promises made to David, which never find a final fulfillment within the pages of the OT. If we say that Christ is the Son of God, we make some contact with the OT texts talking about Israel as son in a subordinate sense (e.g., Exod. 4:22-23; Deut. 8:5). Christ was obedient to God, whereas Israel failed. We also make contact with the theme of revelation in the OT, both revelation in creation (John 1:1-5) and redemption (John 1:14, 17).

Furthermore, the two ways of understanding Christ have different purposes apologetically. The emphasis on Davidic kingship answers the interest of Jews in expecting a Davidic Messiah. The emphasis on revelation of the Father proclaims the universal bearing of Christ's work, and answers interests in knowing God.

30. Using multiple analogies

We can now generalize this pattern. In many areas of studying the Bible, it is illuminating and profitable to approach the same text or the same topic from a number of different perspectives. Each perspective will use a somewhat different analogy or controlling concept in looking at the text or topic.² As our test case, let us use 1 Cor. 3:10-17.

It might seem at first that when we are studying 1 Cor. 3:10-17 we are confined to using the analogy between believers and a temple. After all, this analogy is the one that Paul himself uses! Anyone who neglects this analogy and substitutes another is just going to ignore or distort what the Bible is saying at this point. The use of multiple analogies must never overrun or obscure the fact that a single passage often uses a single dominant analogy.

But even in a passage with a clearly dominant analogy, something may be learned from using other analogies. By using other analogies we obtain illumination, not so much about the passage in itself, but about the relation of the passage to larger concerns in the Bible.

For example, let us use the analogy between God and a judge. When this alternate analogy is invoked in the Bible, it teaches at least some of the same things that are taught in 1 Cor. 3:10-17 using the analogy with a temple. For instance, within 1 Cor. 3:10-17 the apostle Paul brings in the theme of judgement, particularly in 3:13-15. Consistent with the temple analogy, he speaks of a fire coming to destroy everything in the building that is made out of poor material. This fire results in a kind of judgement on the building.

When the analogy of a judge is used, a similar point is made. God is the judge, and we as human beings come before him to have our deeds evaluated. God rewards patience (James 5:7-11) and good labor (2 Cor. 5:10) and punishes evil.

So far, we see that the same things can be said using either analogy. But, in addition, the analogy with judging helps to illuminate 1 Cor. 3:13-15. If we just had 1 Cor. 3:10-17 in isolation, we might wonder why there should be a fire at all. Why does it come? Does it have to come? Why should the whole building be encompassed (rather than some people's parts of the building escaping completely)? Observing fires and buildings on earth does not really help us answer these questions. On the other hand, the analogy involving judges clears things up immediately. The fire is there to accomplish the negative judgement on what is inadequate.

Moreover, the analogy with judging also helps us with the question, what is the standard for success or failure? In 1 Cor. 3:10-17 Paul says that those who build with gold, silver, and precious stones succeed, while those who build with wood, hay, and straw ultimately fail. But what sort of contrast is Paul making? What do gold, silver, and precious stones stand for? That is, what are they analogous to? The mere fact of analogy between temple and group of believers does not make it clear. Paul gives some of the answer in 1 Cor. 3:11, where he indicates what the right foundation is. We might guess that the gold, silver, and precious stones represent any activity based on Christ's work. But then 3:12 seems to envision that one might build on this (correct) foundation, but still with the wrong materials. One might guess that using the wrong materials amounts to building in a way inconsistent doctrinally or practically with the foundation, namely, the core of Christianity, the doctrine of Christ. But how would this differ from not building on the right foundation at all?

There are some questions of this kind to which Paul may not have given us full answers. The context of discussion about Apollos (3:4-9) and Peter (1:12) does make it clear that one of Paul's concerns is that teachers should build up unity, and that those who follow them should guard that unity. But beyond these conclusions it is hard to be specific.

If we use the analogy with judging, it can help here. If God is judge, the standards for judgement will be God's standards. These standards include the concerns for church unity and consistency with the doctrine of Christ. But of course they include many other things besides. These standards help us to draw out the broader implications of the picture offered in 1 Cor. 3:10-17. It has a lesson about good workmanship in the church. The lesson certainly applies most immediately to the circumstances of disunity at Corinth. But it will also apply quite broadly to whatever work we do, as measured by all the standards of God's word.

On the other hand, we must not claim that the analogy with judging is so good that it ought to replace the analogy with the temple. The analogy with a temple is very effective in certain respects. In particular, it shows that defective work in the context of the church receives a reward that is really fitting for it. There is an inevitability to it, a logic to it. "If you are foolish enough to build with inferior stuff, anybody can see that you will lose, because the inferior stuff will perish." This point is less obvious if we use the analogy with judging. Human judges may or may not have good standards of judgement. There may or may not be a connection between the intrinsic quality of one's work and the reward that one gets from the judge. God, of course, is a just judge, so it is different with him. But an analogy with the temple can help to demonstrate precisely that point.

Now let us use still another analogy, the analogy between the church and a human body with its members. Clearly this analogy also is a biblical one, used overtly in 1 Cor. 12 and Rom. 12:4-5. But can we apply this analogy to 1 Cor. 3:10-17?

Once again, we find a basic harmony. Using the analogy with the temple, 1 Cor. 3:10-17 makes some of the same basic theological points as those that come out in 1 Cor. 12 and Rom. 12:4-5 using the analogy with a human body. All three passages are concerned with Christian unity. First Cor. 3:10-17 makes the point by stressing that all the building must take place on the one foundation. First Cor. 12 and Rom. 12:4-5 make the point by showing that each person in the church has a need for the gifts and contributions of all the other people. Only by working together as many members can there be a healthy, well-functioning body.

But there are also some differences of focus between the passages. First Cor. 3:10-17, by using an analogy with a fixed structure, helps us to focus on the significance of once-for-all unity founded in the work of Jesus Christ. Everything that we do in the church must rest on that finished achievement. First Cor. 12 and Rom. 12, on the other hand, focus more on the practical, working, functional unity of the church. It is fitting for them to use the analogy with the human body, since the organs of the body show their unity by practically functioning together towards harmonious goals.

The analogy with the human body can now help to reveal something that otherwise might be mysterious or overlooked in 1 Cor. 3:10-17. Paul wants the principles of unity and sound growth to be applied not only to the area of teaching content, but also the practical manner in which believers relate to one another (with jealousy, pride, or party spirit, or with humility and gentleness). We might make the mistake of interpreting the fixed, stony character of the pieces of the building in 1 Cor. 3:10-17 to mean that only doctrinal issues or issues of individual morality were at stake. In view of the rest of 1 Cor., such a conclusion would be a mistake.

When we transform 1 Cor. 3:10-17 into the alternative analogy with the body, we help to make the implications clear. For example, unity on one foundation corresponds to unity in being a member of the body--not just any body, by the body of Christ. Building on the foundation corresponds to functioning as a member of the body. The type of building material corresponds to the type of activity of the member, helpful or unhelpful to the health and goals of the body as a whole. At this point we find the strength of the analogy with the human body. When we use the analogy of the body, we make clear the dependence of each member on the others.

The testing of the building with fire corresponds to the testing based on the history of healthfulness and helpfulness of each member of the body. But it is difficult in this area of testing to get a good analogy without invoking the analogy of judge or some other analogy. Here the analogy with the body does not serve us as well as other analogies.

What do we conclude from our analysis of 1 Cor. 3:10-17? The principles of multiple analogies that we have applied here can be useful with many other texts. When a passage of the Bible is dominated by a single analogy, it is important to take this feature into account, and not to pretend that all analogies are equal. But even in this situation, some details of the passage, or more often aspects of the relation of the passage to its larger context, can be illumined when we use alternate analogies. The alternate analogies may not be absolutely necessary. But they help to draw our attention to aspects of the passage that might otherwise be neglected.

The same lesson holds on a higher level. Consider the general issues of organizing a biblical theology of the OT or the NT or both. There has been considerable controversy over what is the best organizing theme or organizing center when writing a theology of the OT or the NT. Biblical theology desires to have a center that will capture the inner structure of the biblical material itself, not simply organize the teaching of the Bible in terms of traditional topics (God, man, Christ, salvation, last things, etc.).

More than one center has been advocated for the OT: the covenant, the kingdom of God, Israel's confession, promise.³ Similarly, for the NT there has been debate over two major centers, justification and redemptive history. Should we have as the primary center the nature of man as lost and saved, particularly the work of justification? Or should we have as a center the theme of redemptive history and the transition between epochs of redemption (two ages) achieved in the work of Christ, especially his resurrection?⁴

These issues are complex, and it would be impossible for us to analyze them in detail here. But our argument thus far suggests at least two implications. First, the kind of organizing center chosen does make a difference. It functions as an exemplar, an important element in the disciplinary framework for studying the Bible. To shift from one such center to another may involve a major, even traumatic change.

Second, no one organizing center is uniquely the right one. Gerhard F. Hasel, in his books surveying biblical theology of the OT and NT, suggests as much.⁵ He wonders whether the Bible is so rich that no one center will succeed in captures all aspects of it equally. In our own framework, we might say that even if one or more than one center could achieve such a result, there would still be need on a practical level for a variety of analogies and a variety of perspectives on the Bible. The Bible itself offers us a variety of analogies in various areas of doctrine. When we attempt to synthesize biblical teaching as a whole, we are bound to try to relate these analogies to one another. The best results would be achieved if these analogies could all illuminate one another, and we would notice aspects of biblical teaching that we might overlook using a single perspective, however correct it might be.

31. Can an analogy represent truth?

For many modern people, the word "analogy" or "metaphor" tends to suggest something unreal or untrue, a mere rhetorical trick. Hence, it seems to depreciate the seriousness of biblical revelation when we say that the Bible uses many analogies and metaphors, and that we should do so too.

However, we must not underestimate the power of metaphors to express truth. Well-chosen metaphors assert the existence of analogies that God has placed in the world, not merely analogies that we impose on an unformed or chaotic world. Thus metaphors assert truth about an analogical structure in the world, and by invoking such analogical structure, they also assert truth about their principal subject. For example, when Paul says, "You are God's temple" (1 Cor. 3:16), he implies that God has himself ordained that there would be revealing analogies between temples of stone and the structure of the NT community. Both are dwelling places of God, both are holy and involve penalties on those who defile them (1 Cor. 3:17), both have foundations that function to establish a unified plan for the whole, both are constructed with good or bad workmanship as the case may be. In implying these things Paul thereby also implies some true assertions about the nature of his principal subject, the Corinthian church.

Similarly, much of the Bible's language about God himself is metaphoric in character ("anthropomorphic"), but not less true for that reason. The Bible's use of metaphor is both true and useful, and functions rightly when we freely recognize such use.

In addition, when biblical metaphors touch on the deepest realities, they often surpass what we would casually expect from a superficial analogy. We can illustrate this principle from 1 Cor. 3:16. A metaphor invokes an analogy between two subjects, in this case the subject of the church and the subject of temples. The temple is the known original thing (subsidiary subject), and the church is the subject compared to it (principal subject). Thus we might say that the temple is the original, while the church is only a copy analogous to this original.⁶

But what is a temple anyway? A temple of stone is more than just an architectural object. It represents religious truth symbolically. It is a dwelling place for God (or in the pagan case, for a false god). In fact, in the Ancient Near East temples are built somewhat like royal residences. In their architectural arrangements temples themselves exploit a further analogy, an analogy between God (or gods) and human kings. Whether we look at the temple as a dwelling for God or a residence of a king, the fundamental religious ideas do not depend on there being a stone structure. Something else might serve as a temple as well, for instance, a human body.

In fact, the final temple of God is Christ's body (John 2:20-21). The tabernacle and the temple in the OT were constructed according to God's plan to display beforehand some of the things that would be realized in full only when Christ came (Heb. 8-10). The design of the temple looked forward to Christ, though this fact would not be perfectly understood until NT times.

It appears, then, that the OT temple was built after analogy with the "real" temple, Christ's human body. Believers in Christ become human temples, not merely temples of stone. In this respect, they are better or more perfect temples than the OT temple of stone and wood. Earlier, at a more superficial level, we said that the stone temple was the original and the church was the copy. Now at a deeper level we find that the church is closer to the original and the stone temple is the copy.

What do we want to conclude from these observations? The church is indeed analogous to the OT temple of stone. Such a statement expresses truth, not illusion. Moreover, the analogy is not an accident. In this and in many other cases in the Bible the analogy reveals a depth dimension, transcending merely superficial comparisons. We find here multiple relationships based on the profound unity of God's wisdom for creation and redemption. The symbolic structures and institutions of the OT, which seem to be the starting point for building analogies, are themselves always based on an original in heaven, in the plan of God.

Another example may help make this point clear. When the Bible says that God is king, it uses an analogy between God and human, earthly kings. We would be tempted to say, therefore, that the earthly kings are real kings, whereas God is king only in a secondary, analogical, metaphorical sense. But then where do earthly kings come from? They do not just spring out of the air. God created human beings in such a way that they have power to govern, and God providentially appoints some to be in positions of authority (Ps. 75:6-7; Dan. 2:21; Rom. 13:1-7). In such positions these people are representatives of God and God's authority. Hence human kingship and rule ultimately derive from the fact that God's created human beings in his image and that he delegates his kingly power in a limited form to governmental authorities. The earthly kings are not the "real" ones, but kings only in a secondary sense by analogy with the real king, God himself. Rather than saying that God is described anthropomorphically, we might better say that human beings are described theomorphically, after analogy with God the Original.⁷

In sum, when we identify a biblical saying as an analogy or a metaphor, we should remember that far from being rhetorical tricks, biblical analogies express profound truths.

32. The foundations for multiplicity in the attributes of God and creation as revealing God

One thing remains disturbing about using multiple themes or multiple analogies in studying the Bible. This procedure does not agree with the practice in natural sciences. Once a scientific field has reached a certain stage of maturity, according to Kuhn, it will normally operate in terms of one dominant disciplinary framework. Included in this framework will normally be some specific theories using models. Only in times of revolution, when the existing framework does not seem to be solving problems satisfactorily, will there will be some degree of multiplication of analogies or models, as people cast about for some better way of coping. Should biblical interpretation try to imitate science at this point and use only one dominant model or analogy?

There are at least three possible responses to this difficulty. First, we may say that, in biblical interpretation as well as science, the use of multiple analogies or perspectives to describe the same subject is an imperfection that ought to be overcome by the development and consistent use of a single more comprehensive model. Second, we may say that using multiple perspectives is OK in biblical interpretation, but only because biblical interpretation is not really analogous to science. The third is to say that the requirement of a single dominant model may be too rigid even within science.

Let us examine these alternatives one at a time. First, is there something the matter with using more than one analogy on the same subject? Scientific practice shows us that scientists usually pursue their goal using only a single dominant analogy or model. But this practice seems unduly rigid in biblical interpretation, particularly in light of the fact that the Bible itself sometimes authorizes multiple analogies. We have already seen that the doctrine of the church and the presentation of Christ's Messiahship in the Gospels involve more than one dominant motif. We could hardly rigidly exclude the use of such analogies without implying a criticism of the way the Bible itself does things. That course is not acceptable to anyone who believes that the Bible is really the word of God.

Second, we might argue that biblical interpretation and theology are not analogous to science. This position is, I think, closer to the point. But what kind of biblical interpretation are we talking about? Biblical interpretation of a very practical, down-to-earth kind is continually practiced in the church, by people with and without formal training. Though such interpretation is hardly scientific, as a human activity it does still have some distant relation to science. Some things can be said that will apply pretty well to all activities of human groups, and all activities that share human knowledge.⁸ But the distant analogy between science and human activity in general does not permit us to impose scientific practice on all of life. Interpretation in a broad sense will continue to make use of the full range of analogies in the Bible, and other analogies from modern life as well.

Are different conclusions warranted when we consider the study of the Bible in an intellectually rigorous way? Rigor in biblical interpretation will have greater similarities to the intellectual rigor demanded in scientific activity. But the subject matter of biblical interpretation is different from natural science. We are dealing with the Bible and with its teaching, hence with God, man, salvation, sin, and many other complex topics. By contrast, the physical aspects of the world are the natural focal topics within natural science. Even the physical aspects of the world are complex and marvelous enough. But there may be a different order of complexity when we study directly phenomena involving persons. If human phenomena are innately more complex, it may not be possible adequately to capture them using only one model or analogy.

Of course, some people do try to understand all of human nature from a single starting point, whether that be the economic aspect (Marx), the biological (Freud: especially sexual), the political, or the aesthetic. Such people sometimes achieve useful insights. But over all, they always misrepresent humanity by reducing and flattening humanity to one dimension.⁹

From a theological point of view, we should not be surprised that human phenomena are difficult to capture through only one dimension. Human beings are made in the image of God. To understand them one must simultaneously understand something of God.¹⁰ And how does one understand God? Through his revelation of himself. But of course the Bible uses many analogies in speaking of God. He is the great king, the father of his people, the maker of heaven and earth, the judge, the holy one of Israel (an analogy by way of the holiness code and the holiness of the tabernacle and the priests). He is one who speaks, plans, thinks, loves, hates, blesses, and so on. All these actions are analogous to the actions of human beings. Human beings as the image of God present, in a striking way, many analogies to what God does. But even the other created things speak in a general way of God's everlasting power and deity (Rom. 1:20-21). No one thing in creation is a uniquely suitable standpoint from which and through which to understand God. These verse imply that everything could in some sense be a starting point.

Thus it would appear that because of the very nature of God, and the nature of his relations to creation, there is no one analogy which could claim uniquely to be an adequate starting point for forming a model of God or a theory of God. God is revealed in everything, and yet as the creator he is unique, unlike anything in creation. We are forbidden to think that we could capture him with a model. All the things that the Bible reveals about God, and all the ways that it has of speaking, using many analogies, are all relevant, all profitable. We are to use them all.

It follows, then, that the Bible itself, and the nature of God himself, keeps us from reducing things to a single model or analogy. This restriction holds true, certainly, in our study of God. But, by analogy, it will be true in a subordinate sense in our study of humanity. Since human beings are made in the image of God, some similar problems are bound to present themselves (and in fact do) in a study of human beings, particularly as we focus on the all-important question of their relation to God.

In sum, then, there are good reasons for thinking that the subject-matter of biblical interpretation presents us with new demands. These demands are not necessarily the same as the demands in natural science. Science may satisfy itself with a single dominant model where biblical interpretation cannot.

Moreover, one can understand this conclusion also on the practical level. Kuhn makes clear what are some of the social reasons motivating scientists to gravitate toward a single dominant model. The motives are that, if the model appears to be promising and to begin to be fruitful in suggesting avenues of research and extensions of its own theory, it is more efficient to follow the one model rather than to multiply models. Many of the alternatives will prove to be dead ends. The model tends to suggest detailed tests and extensions. In following these, people notice facts that would otherwise escape the most careful observer working without a fixed model. Moreover, when the community of scientists can agree on the over-all shape of their field and the ways of making advance, they can go on to treat in great detail the problems that are left. Experience shows that most profit comes from dealing with the remaining problems, and by carrying on more and more detailed and extended lines of questioning. We probe nature in detail on the same subject. By this route, any real long-range inadequacies of the theory will eventually be uncovered. They will not be uncovered by simply casting about wildly in the indefinitely large space of alternate models.

In biblical interpretation, to some extent, analogous observations could be made. The person who has a particular narrow point of view (say economic or sociological) will often notice things that escape others. The person who analyzes the Bible attending only to what it says on a single issue (for instance, about God's knowledge) will discover much that might be overlooked by other readers. Therein lies the attractiveness of using a single dominant analogy. The recent stream of theologies is an illustration of this: we have seen theology of the word, theology of love, theology of hope, theology of liberation, each seizing on a single theme through which to see the whole of theology. But in the long run this approach must be complemented by other analogies, lest the theologian overlook the other analogies which the Bible itself endorses. No one analogy will ever be so uniquely effective in every respect that it has exclusive claim to our attention. By contrast, a scientific model, during periods of normal science, is able to make this claim. The difference in subject-matter between biblical interpretation and science therefore explains why the use of a single model is appropriate in one area but not in the other.

The third alternative mentioned above is to say that multiple analogies ought to be used within natural science itself. On a certain level, this practice already occurs. In teaching and in illustration, a scientist may invoke a multiplicity of analogies in explaining things to an outsider. The quantum theory of light may be introduced by comparing light both to a wave (water wave, sound wave in air, vibration of a string) and to a stream of particles (which may be marbles, water droplets, molecules). But the theory itself, in its inner structure, still has an internal coherence based on an extended analogy between certain mathematical equations and the physical world. So this state of affairs would not seem to get us beyond the use of a single dominant model within the inner core of the theory. (Note, however, that the wave and particle views of light and of elementary particles seemed in the early days of quantum mechanics to be irreconcilable.)

We can still say that the essence of the unity of scientific disciplines is not to be found in the use of a single dominant model, but in the unity of a disciplinary matrix. This disciplinary matrix includes models, of course. But it includes standards for judging research success, ideas about what sorts of research are promising, a general framework of assumptions about what the universe is like, concrete exemplars in the form of past definitive results, and so on. Both biblical interpretation as a whole and various subdisciplines could have a coherent disciplinary matrix without sticking to only one analogy in each case.

In fact, we have been arguing here that in many circumstances it is profitable to use first one, then another analogy in order to learn all that one can about a particular passage or a particular topic in the Bible. The use of multiple analogies could itself become a rule of thumb which would be one element in the disciplinary matrix. In that case, it would serve to unite interpretive method in much the same way as science is united by some rules of thumb about research directions.

Our original question was whether biblical interpretation could justify the use of multiple analogies in contrast to the practice of science. The answer, I believe, is yes. The reasons arise from the complex relations of similarity and dissimilarity that biblical interpretation has to natural science, because of the differences in subject-matter. Of course, the value of using several analogies still does not guarantee that all analogies whatsoever will be fruitful. And we must remember that if an "analogy" means something including false assumptions about God and his world, it can lead us astray. The historical-critical method is the prime example. But the recent theologies of hope and of liberation appear to me to have destructive elements for similar reasons. The Bible has been made to fit into an alien world view by seizing on a theme and reinterpreting it against the background of that world view.