Models of Meaning 1

Which models did you wake up with today?

What do you mean by model? Like fashion model? I never woke up with a model. I've never met a model.

You must know what I mean by model. I'm not talking about a human being or a woman. A model for life. An idea. A start. An ending.

Meaning. What meanings did I wake up with? Is this the question?

Likely, yes. Where do you find your meaning? People have different stories about this. I call these stories, the model. How they attach themselves to this world?

In the beginning there was the attachment. Was there a meaning?

Likely, yes. The word in the beginning would have a meaning? There was a word, but was there meaning to this word?

I don't think so. For meaning to arise, there must be something to be meant. If the word in the beginning was the sole being that was in existence, there probably wasn't anything it refers to.

So the model in the beginning was lame. It contained a word, but no meaning. Now, the word refers to Jesus Christ, and the meaning is the world he was created in it. The universal meaning. The universal redeemer.

It's likely that John meant Jesus and God, the trinity when he wrote that sentence. In the beginning there was the word with three aspects, the word itself that refers to Jesus, the meaning that refers to God, the connection between the word and the world, that is the Holy Spirit. When he said word, he didn't just meant a symbol, he meant something complete.

So the model he had about God with three aspects was something complete. What you have in your mind as a model for God?

I don't have a model for God. I don't to believe in models.

You can't escape from models. You can only modify them, maybe enhance them, maybe simplify them. Having models is a side effect of being finite.

Sure. When there is a word, there is a model. When there is a model, it's simplification. It's incorrect in some aspects. The word had also made mistakes. He was dead in the hands of Jews. He wasn't a complete God. He needed a Father to become a God. So the model they had was an incomplete God and they looked for a way to complete him with a son. Anything that you ascribe to God is in a sense making him inadequate.

A model is always inadequate, you said.

It's true. Best model is no model. I think this is the reason I don't like to insist on a model about God. Any model, any word about him is inadequate.

But you have to believe in something. This is affirmative. There is no way escape from belief. Even if you don't believe in God, that's a belief. A model.

Sure. Even non-belief is a model and a belief. What I say about God is a model without boundaries, as he must not have a model.

But not having a model is also a model. You may believe that you're not insisting on anything. But in reality, you are. You're most likely having an implicit model about him, for example and instead of making this explicit, you're believing that implicitly and avoid any scrutiny on that.

Ah, I see. You ask what's my implicit assumptions about God when you ask about the model, then?

We can say that I think. Yes, what's your implicit assumptions about God?

That he exists, maybe. That he answers prayers in some way. That he's the same God that's the universe, not created as a separate being but as himself. That he speaks to us with the events in our lives and creates us to find ourselves.

These make up a whole lot of a model. You believe more than necessary about him, it looks.

This is actually the reduced version of my beliefs. It was more than this. I'm keeping only a few of these. As years pass, I'm disbelieving a few of the concrete things. If I can get away without a belief, I I don't try to keep it. I lose some of my beliefs every year.

Model simplification I'd say.

I'm simplifying and looking for ways to make my beliefs more general.