First off, some disclaimers and apologies. If you are a psychologist or intimately familiar with the psychological concept of meaning-making, you will notice I’m off base. While I’ve heard the term because I work in the field of mental health, I don’t have in-depth knowledge about it, and that is not where the idea for this article originated. But there is crossover - a slight Venn diagram overlap. Mostly, the ideas here stem from my deeply held skepticism (something I should probably work on).
I’m confident there is a strong counterargument to much of what I say here. But I write what I write because I see meaning-making happening around me and know the proponents of it, but I don’t see the other-side perspective from people who appreciate the Bible or other great texts. Also, meaning-making is fun! It is detective work - a treasure hunt. For this reason, we need to check ourselves, consider our biases. Anytime we are easily drawn to one opinion or belief because it is easier or more fun or intellectually stimulating, we should put forth a concerted effort to dig into the other side of things, to consider the opposition. Consider how much time people have put into proving that the earth is the center of the universe or that the earth is flat.
My definition of meaning-making is the ability of humans to create meaning where it didn’t already exist. A worry, and my argument, is that people sometimes create meaning when they think they are finding meaning. This can happen on a large scale in the context of life-altering decisions (like with religion and the meaning of life), or it can be quotidian, having little impact on the bigger picture.
The first time in my life I remember thinking that those around me might be “reading into it” was in my senior year of high school English Literature class. I remember the moment vividly (ok, the more I try to remember it, the more I realize that I hardly remember the details). We were in the thick of The Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, and there was a part that had to do with jail bars and tiger stripes, or something of the sort - one representing the other. But to me, there was nothing in the text that brought me to this conclusion. And for maybe the first time, I thought about the author and wondered how likely it was that he came to all these same tenuous conclusions and purposed these random pieces of symbolism. Maybe he just wanted to spin a yarn, or (gasp) sell a book to make enough money to continue living. Or perhaps he intended some of the deeper meaning but not all of it? Or could he have inserted symbolism that we haven’t found, but then we inserted (meaning-made) our own symbolism that he didn’t intend?
I think all of these could be plausible. When it comes to books considered to be the greatest ever written, such as this, there is undoubtedly some intentionality to the depth. After dipping my toes into writing fiction, I realized not only the difficulty of writing but also the potential to have onion-level layers of meaning imbued in the work. So if this is evident to an amateur, then world-class writers deserve some credibility.
Everyday conversation may elucidate my point. Consider the dating scene when you were in high school. This could have been before smart phones 20 years ago or in the last couple years. How was communication between yourself and your love interests? Likely it was anxiety-provoking yet exhilarating. But was it clear? Did you know exactly what his feelings were for you? Or how she expected the relationship to progress? Did she just want to be friends? Maybe the interaction didn’t go past a smile and wave in the hall, but you were convinced she was into you, or you were convinced she wasn’t into you and was just making fun of you. For better or worse, meaning-making was occurring. Assumptions were had. There were restless late nights contemplating the hidden meaning of that text: “I liked seeing you today (smiley face).” If the face was winking, that changed everything.
Meaning-making can have life changing effects as well. Take, for instance, the Bible - the ultimate meaning-making/meaning-finding adventure. The more important we consider the book, the more meaning we will believe it holds. For the majority of the world, this places the Bible at the top of the list. For those of us who aren’t Muslims, consider how little meaning-making we have done with the Quran, and how much meaning-making might be done by Muslims.
To zoom out before we dive in, let’s consider religion. Books have been written on this, so I’ll keep it brief. Religion itself involves finding meaning in something that is not clearly true. While some, like myself, believe in God and life hereafter, many do not. And there is a good argument, espoused by many religious critics, that humans created religion. How senseless would life be without an overarching purpose outside our lives?
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Karl Marx
Ok, so you have completed Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and decided to believe in not only religion, but specifically in Christianity. Bravo. But the problems don’t end. Consider how the Old Testament (OT) largely seems to have no bearing to our modern society and also seems somewhat negated by the New Testament (NT). Yet scholars and pastors pull all sorts of ideas from the OT that are either obscure prophecies of the NT or are applications to our modern society, 2000-3000 years later. And that two to three thousand year gap matters. When I’m questioning the symbolism of Charles Dickens who was writing less than 200 years ago, there is a cogent argument against me that we might understand much of this subtext and even that it might relate and apply to us, us being in a Western Caucasian culture with many similarities to 19th century France. And our historical records from that time are excellent compared to those of 2000+ years ago. But the story is different when we consider the Bible.
If all of these stories, concepts, and prophecies were as argumentatively impenetrable, as pastors and theologians make them sound, there wouldn’t be Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, innumerable denominations, or Judaism.
Revelation is also commonly used as a source for all sorts of wild modern day connections. Growing up in the church, I heard many Christians talk about the apocalypse and the antichrist. Over and over, they found modern signs or figures that may point to our impending doom. Like I’ve written elsewhere, humans like to predict and prophesy, but we are quite bad at it - often no better than a random guess. But there is clearly appeal if having a book, especially a book as respected as the Bible, that could assist us in making these predictions.
Let’s take the antichrist. During my lifetime, I’ve heard people say either the Pope or Obama is the antichrist. In War and Peace, Tolstoy wrote about how much of Russia believed Napoleon Bonaparte, who was invading Russia, was the antichrist. I would assume that the French, who also considered themselves Christians, albeit a different breed, didn’t consider Bonaparte the antichrist. A quick search from a less-than-reputable website shows that we jump on the antichrist bandwagon every few years for the silliest of reasons.
Where does this take us? Should we believe that everything that could be made up is made up? No, that isn’t a happy or realistic world. We should consider that our minds have the ability to invent things, grand creative ideas. But that these ideas, although grand and sometimes Unabomber level dot-connecting, may be wrong - that there may be another way to see things. Or possibly that we are reading into something that may be taken at face value. Unfortunately, when we are talking about things written in other languages thousands of years ago about the nature of an all-powerful yet invisible being, faith has to play a part. There is too much of a disconnect - too much room for error and ambiguity. Does this mean I don’t believe in studying theology? No, we should dig, analyze, investigate, and pray, but let’s do so knowing how wrong we might be.