Truth in ambiguity

Ambiguity is not necessarily a bad thing.

I wrote a few days ago about the need for clarity in our speech and writing (See Misunderstandings, Oct. 28). Yet often people who are quite capable of clarity deliberately choose ambiguity. It is quite possible to tell a truth that amounts to a lie, something politicians, cheating spouses and teenagers become quite skilled at. Ambiguous statements are a useful tool toward this end.

Robert Frost

Yet there can also be truth in ambiguity. It is this truth that is the goal of fine literature. Our best poets and novelists are rarely crystal clear about what their works mean. What was Robert Frost getting at when he wrote those last lines in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"? "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,/But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep." Is this simply a description of an event, or is there something deeper going on? Frost leaves it ambiguous and lets each reader decide what it means. Readers can — and have — interpreted these lines very differently. Or the lines can be appreciated just for the beauty of the language, never mind what they mean.

So it goes with most works of literature, prose as well as poetry. Often the more ambiguity, the more respected the novel or poem. Unfortunately, this allows some writers to write works that suggest great depth but which are actually nonsense.

Ambiguity is also one of the strengths of the United States Constitution. Had it been more specific, it would have had to be much longer. It might also have become obsolete years ago. Its ambiguity allows for changing interpretations as times change. That's why the Supreme Court exists — to tell us, for example, what the right of free expression guarenteed by the First Amendment mean in the age of the Internet and Twitter and what the right to bear arms means in the age of semi-automatic weapons.

And then there is Scripture. The appeal for many people of Eugene Peterson's The Message and other modern translations and paraphrases of the Bible is that they clarify what the most confusing passages actually mean. But clarifying Scripture can actually be misleading because one meaning is chosen over other possible meanings. Much of Scripture, such as the teachings and parables of Jesus, seems to be deliberately ambiguous, not to obscure meaning but to allow a range of interpretation by different people at different times in different places. Every sermon preached on the prodigal son is not the same sermon, and that seems like a strength, not a weakness.