Linguist Kenneth Pike proposed that  "etic data provides access into the system --the starting point of analysis."  Whether the system be linguistic, semantic, psychological,  or anthropological, the only means for measuring and judging the validity of any system is through a culture-free framework of fixed conceptual constants which Pike called "etic data" and which Karl Jung called "archetypes."

 

For Jung, there existed archetypes which "could be identified and used to categorize people's behaviors."  For Pike the linguist and Jung the psychoanalyst, such mental data once identified, provided access into the unconscious mind.  

 

So the existential question becomes: Does such a universal database of fixed, inherent  meanings attached to forms structured in the unconsciousness mind really exist? According to anthropologist-missiologist Charles Kraft, the answer is:  "No." 

For example, anthropologist-missiologist Charles Kraft declares: “meanings belong to the people. They [meanings] are not inherent in the forms themselves. …(and) meaning is the structuring of information in the minds of persons”  and this meaning is “context-specific.” 

 

In other words, all meanings are first created by SOCIAL EXISTENCE in a “specific context” and then imported into the brain aka "mind" where they are magically connected to the appropriate form.  No form has an inherent meaning. Both Pike and Jung were mistaken. Meaning has nothing to  do with mental data structured  in the unconscious mind. . 

​

Such a bottom-up, inside-out epistemology demands that everything be reduced to the  physical.  In the words of atheistic philosopher Daniel Dennett, 

There is only one kind of stuff, namely matter —the  physical stuff of physics, chemistry,

and physiology - and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon.  In

short the mind is the brain…We can (in principle) account for every mental phenomenon

using the same physical principles, laws, and material that suffice to explain

radioactivity, continental drift photosynthesis, reproduction, nutrition, and growth.

 

According to Kraft, who, like Dennett,  also holds to a bottom-up, outside-in epistemology, “Human biology provides the backdrop for all that we need to know as humans.”   There exists no mental stuff; only inert matter.    No concept or form has attached to it a meaning which does not “belong to the people.” And if “human biology provides the backdrop for all that we need to know as humans.,” then the mind must be classified as a physical organ. For Kraft, meaning has nothing to do with mental stuff. 

​

As a theist, I strongly disagree. Without mental stuff aka “etic data” structured in the unconscious mind, there exists no way of knowing what ought to be. Without data which is universal, fixed, and constant, it becomes humanly impossible to evaluate the validity and appropriateness of a cultural form.  Which cultural form a society selects is relative. Materialists deny the existence of eternal values, rules, and concepts from which a society can diverge. 

​

Now what Kraft and every materialist fails to taken into account is man’s capacity as a rebel to “distort innate positive universals into negative particular actions” (Pike).  For example, whenever a society denies that “membership [in a family] is absolutely restricted to the parents and their offspring in the first degree,” it will, in every case, replace a positive  universal, the nuclear family, with a negative particular, a type of family structure based on the merging of mutually exclusive status positions like siblings and cousins. This shift from a positive Universal to a negative cultural particular shaped by SOCIAL EXISTENCE Pike called ETIC DIVERGENCE. 

 

As the Bible declares: “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death" (Proverbs 16:25)," in this case, a new family type.  It represents a structural move from roles to ascribed  functions, from freedom to compelled duties, from a Biblical family type to a classificatory type as illustrated below.    

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

For the concept-innatist, there exists an unlearned Interpretative System, a Framework of Etic Data or Archetypes which have been "woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within us that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong" (Romans 2: 14-15  --The Message).

 

That "something deep within us" serves as an internal compass which shows every person the way through the sea of emic data which is composed of two meaning systems;  first, a meaning system composed of universal ideas to which there are attached inherent meanings which are fixed and constant, and secondly, a meaning system which is learned and “context-specific.”  In this case, Kraft is partially correct.  Some meanings do “belong to the people;” the ones which are learned and shaped by one’s contextual environment.

 

Both systems, whether learned and unlearned, are manifested together in the behavior, allegiance patterns, customs, and values of every society. Together they represent a society’s “emic  perspective” aka worldview.

​

Within every cultural operating system there exist units of meaning which are constant and units of meaning which are relative, meanings which are "learned" and meanings which are "acquired" and brought to consciousness through a triggering process.  

 

The materialists, as well as evangelical contextualizers, insist that all meanings are "learned" and therefore relative. All meanings "belong to the people." No concept nor form common to all has a culture-free, fixed meaning that does not "belong to the people." For such, the term "emic" excludes the possibility of a transcendent Divine frame of reference "woven into the very fabric of our existence." to which one can turn a deaf ear.

 

Now unknown to the materialist, the apostle Paul describes this tension between these two meaning systems as "war":  

"For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me,

waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin

at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body

that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our

Lord! "(Romans 7:22-24).  

​

If, for example,  the meaning of "family," as defined by the Rule of Exogamy means  "the inhabitants of a village," then, for the contextualizer,  the meaning is valid because its definition was shaped by the contextual "elements of the environment." (See: The Practice of Village Exogamy) The meaning "belongs to the  people." But if the people's meaning derived from context is valid, then Jesus, the Creator of the universe,  must be classified as a "bastard" because Mary and Joseph were inhabitants of the same village.

 

If, for example,  the meaning of "family," as defined by the Rule of Exogamy means  "the inhabitants of a village," then, for the contextualizer,  the meaning is valid because its definition was shaped by the contextual "elements of the environment." The meaning of the family, in this case, "belongs to the  people."  It represents a form that “is waging war against the  law of the mind.” 

 

Now if the people's meaning derived from context is valid, then Jesus must be classified as a "bastard" because Mary and Joseph were inhabitants of the same village.  Such a bottom-up, outside-in epistemology which declares there exists no innate mental stuff destroys the Gospel.

 

From a Biblical perspective, however, every kind of cultural life-way consists of the total sum of coexisting representations and misrepresentations of the universal.  This means the task of the cultural analyst should be that of gleaning from the sphere of human behavior aka “emic data”  the verbal and non-verbal representations of the Ideal. 

​

Convictions.

1. The starting point for understanding how far a society has diverged from the Ideal starts with a framework of Fixed Standards aka etic data.  In the words of Pike, ”Etic [mental] data provides access into the system. …it. Is the starting point of analysis.” 

2. There exists a spiritual phenomenon called ETIC DIVERGENCE aka “the replacement of a positive Universal with a negative cultural particular.” 

3. The task of science it to separate the representations of the Universals from the misrepresentations.

4. If all meanings belong “to the  people,” then there exists no “sound words” in the Scriptures (II Tim 1;13). There exists no God-breathed words which are useful for teaching, for reproof, for restoration of the Universals, and for training in righteousness (II Timothy 3:16).

5. When the apostle Paul wrote: “the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God” (Romans 3:2), attached to these words were meanings which did not “belong to the people” but to God. 

​

Gilbert Prost

November 2019