Vern Poythress's book Science and Hermeneutics is free and available online - have a look here. Vern is one thoughtful reformed person, and I've loved reading his work on theology, mathematics and logic - but here's a few good parts of the forementioned book (from chapters 8, 10 and 12) - just a few tasty bits that might invite some more interest!
"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."
Must we say that all differences in biblical interpretation and in theology are differences between truth and error? Are they all like the difference between Arianism and Trinitarianism? Sometimes the differences are like the difference between viewing the church as the temple of God and viewing it as the body of Christ. Clearly we have to do here with complementary truths rather than opposition between truth and error. The difference here is a difference between two perspectives on the same truths.
In such a situation, each perspective is better at seeing and emphasizing certain truths of Scripture. Hence it would seem advisable to use a multiplicity of perspectives. As we have seen, this use of multiple perspectives can be valuable even when we are dealing with a passage such as 1 Cor. 3:10-15 where one analogy is textually dominant. We should first of all endeavor to determine what analogy, if any, is indeed dominant in a given passage of Scripture. But we should not hesitate to see how other biblical analogies illumine the same passage. Such a procedure may alert us to neglected features of the passage. (For example, the role of fire in 1 Cor. 3:10-15 is illuminated when we use the biblical picture of God as judge rather than confining ourselves simply to the analogy between church and temple.) Use of some other analogy will almost certainly make us more aware of connections between the passage that we are studying and the many other passages of the Bible which use the analogy that we have chosen."
"The use of multiple perspectives must itself be qualified as one approach among many. Within the body of Christ, different people have different gifts. Perhaps, because of our natural disposition or the background that God has given to us, we will use only one theme ourselves. We understand one approach better and we are more familiar with it. But we must be ready to listen to other people in the body of Christ whom God has gifted in other ways.
Hence, we are to listen to other people with other perspectives. Listening to people does not mean that we must tolerate whatever we hear or whatever someone else does. We are not to be complacent about sin or error. But we are not to be too quick either to brand something as sin or error, before listening enough to find out whether a complementary perspective may be involved. The earlier example of Arianism shows that we must sometimes draw a clear line. But the example of covenant theology vs. familial theology shows equally that we must not have a hair-trigger intolerance. Only growth in discernment, love, and knowledge of God's word will enable us to succeed more and more effectively in building up the body of Christ in the truth (Eph. 4:15-16; cf. Phil. 1:9-11)."
"The implications for biblical interpretation are multifarious. On the deepest level, we are challenged to become more aware of our dependence on God, and of the significant role of the Holy Spirit and of our Christian commitment in influencing the acquisition of knowledge in general and biblical interpretation in particular (see section 33). Also, we become more aware of the contaminations of sin in the intellectual realm. We must train ourselves to detect alien, antibiblical presuppositions underlying the disciplinary frameworks for interpretation influenced by the Enlightenment. At the same time, none of us escapes the influences of our own sin or the sinful biases of the surrounding culture. Hence, we must be self-critical as well as critical of others. "
Great balanced and helpful thoughts there... love it.
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