Jesus made much in his teaching about those that have ears to hear—let them hear. But if we operate on a correspondence theory of truth, I would suggest that we don’t have the ears to hear what cannot be measured by our experience. So, therefore, it is of no interest to us. However, in a connective theory of truth, it may very well be the case that intentional meaning outranks extensional meaning. The intentional meaning that we contemplate from the scripture would act as the vine and the extensional meaning would act as the branch. It would have branch status. This would explain why we are so committed to giving scripture its representational phenomenological status. It is a representational phenomenon. We are moving from the singular to the differentiated, which is very much in association with the vine concept. The predicates about things and experiences do not always exist in our experience when we are told them from scripture.

Now if we take into consideration what is referred to as the logical requirement, I am of the persuasion that this is not a position held uniquely by our author, but it is generally a conception that is ascribed to by what we think of as right-thinking people and that is that representations ultimately have to answer to what is. If we read scripture conceptually conforming to what we call the logical requirement, we may come to a conclusion that what we are reading here is not what is, it is what was. The bible would be seen as a historical text and some things that happened in those times do not happen now, and they are not supposed to happen now because they are not in agreement with extensional meaning or with human experience. However, the scripture seems to take the position that what was is what is. God is spontaneous to all things within the world situation. Therefore, we have no other conclusion to reach except what was in the book of Daniel is what is. That overturns this dependence upon extensional meaning and its apparent capacity to outrank intentional meaning. It simply reverses the poles altogether.

There is another statement made within the book that is mentioned above and I want to draw that out to make an application to it. The author writes "The fact is that representations as such depend in a large part on some understanding of the way things are in the world." Yet Nebuchadnezzar cannot take this posture in terms of the larger significance of the dream that he is given in Chapter 2. In his dream, he sees a large statue with legs of mixed iron and clay. A rock cut out of a mountain, but not with human hands, rolls down this mountain and forces the collapsed destruction of this grand image that he saw in his mind, and then that rock became a mountain and filled the whole earth. That is beyond his experience. He has nothing to which he can compare this. This is not something that he can understand according to the "way things are in the world." Or as the quote continues, "In other words, what propositions are true, probably true, uninterpretable, vague, fantastic, probably false or false." What is conjured up in that passage that I have quoted is what we can refer to as a kind of "scalar set." If extensional meaning outranks intentional meaning then it imposes a scalar set on what scripture can teach or the way in which scripture connotes certain meanings. Let’s draw a scale running from the bottom of the page to the top and every so often we will add something moving up the scale. Beginning at the bottom we list those things that are "false." Moving up we note those things that are "probably false." Go a little higher and list those things that are "fantastic." They may be a little difficult to believe but that doesn’t mean they’re false. Moving beyond the fantastic, we might find something that is "vague," a little hard to understand. A little higher up the scale we find the "uninterpretable." A little higher than that we find those things that are "probably true" and then finally at the apex of our set we have that which is "true." That means that at the top of the page you have those things that are of maximum pertinence to us because they are true, and that at the bottom of the scale you have those things that are of minimum pertinence to us because they do not correspond to the "way things are in the world."

In other words, as we apply this to our reading of the text, some passages are more pertinent than others according to their extensional significance. That imposes a set of connotations on the scripture. I suggest that this is exactly what we have done with such passages as James 5 and James 4 when he refers to the rationalization of means. If that’s the case, it’s done on the basis of the correspondence theory as to whether or not we can provide the proof of an isomorphism between what we think and say things are within the framework of our own experience and what God has said to us via the revelation. That really means that truth is neither anchored nor rooted in revelation. Quite the opposite. It is uniquely rooted in human logic. And that becomes the basis upon which we read the scripture and the basis upon which we assign to various places in the scripture sets of pertinence or impertinence.

There is a linguistic phenomenon that we call the "pragmatic bind." For instance, and this is quoted also in the book that has been previously mentioned. "Someone poses a question to Mr. Smith, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife yet?’ The questioner indicates a belief that Smith beats his wife. If the presupposition that he is beating his wife does not hold, then that question is uninterpretable, or Smith cannot answer the question without admitting to a falsehood. (This is something we have kicked around as kids.) If he says, ‘yes’ he has admitted to being a wife beater, but he has ceased. If he says, ‘no’ he admits being a wife beater that is still in process. This creates what is called a pragmatic bind; that is, based on a connection between two things. There is the asserted proposition and that is the question asked of Mr. Smith. Now there are the inferred propositions." So you have a question, that is the asserted proposition, and then you have inferred propositions that do not appear on the page, but they are conjured up in the logic of man. We use inferential reasoning to connect those two propositions together.

I would suggest that faith, biblically defined faith, usually if not always, creates such a pragmatic bind. Because the bind is in the way in which biblical meanings are linked up with experience. We use inferential reasoning to connect those. There are the asserted propositions of the text and then there are the inferred propositions. If the inferred propositions owe their allegiance to the "way things are in the material world" then we would conclude that although the Lord said to Abraham, "I assert these propositions. You will have a child and you will be the father of a great nation," he cannot infer the truthfulness of that because it owes nothing to the way things are in the material world. Or the statements made in the presence of those listening in the Valley of Elah when David said, "I will go forth and slay the giant."

There are asserted propositions, but inferential reasoning cannot connect them to anything because there is nothing in experience with which to connect them. Much the same case as we experience here in Chapter 2 with Nebuchadnezzar when he is given these statements from Daniel about the larger significance of the dream. They do not depend upon extensional meaning. It does not depend upon this logical requirement. The reason that this does not depend upon that is because truth from a biblical point of view is simply not rooted in human logic. It is rooted in the vine. It is true for one reason ONLY; that is, because it comes from the vine. Whether we can connect it to experience in our own way or the experience of others is something very different. We are dealing with the mind of God. We will refer to his mind as "pure" and "ancient." His mind is non-situational in construction. His mind is not explainable by extensional meaning. Never has been, never will be.

However, we like to study old things. We use telescopes of one grade or another and other such ways of peering into the heavens, we try to study ancient photons coming from many light years away. We like to study fossils because they are ancient and they might tell us something about the world we came from. We study meteorites as they fall to earth. We study archeological ruins. We study other old things like the personal past, like history of different periods previous to ours. We study these things to try to understand that we are enjoying an effect that started out here from some ancient cause. In the connective theory of truth, things are true because they are connected to the vine. They are not true because they show up in extensional experience.

Truth is that which is ancient and pure; that, which in other words, predates man. It predates his situation. Certainly in Daniel 2, the truth of the greater significance of this dream is that which predates the Babylonian empire. It predates the presence of Nebuchadnezzar. It certainly predates this particular episode. Truth is rooted in the ancient and in the pure intentional mind of God. Therefore, what we are looking for is the creation of a pure mind. We have the ancient and pure ultimate mind of God. He is willing to push that intelligence our way. So he is saying that he can develop in us a "pure mind." We can partake of that ancient and pure way of thinking that predates our experience. This is what Daniel had. He had a pure and ancient mind because it was pushed his way. It predated his circumstances. It predates his life. It existed before the world was created.

Sometimes, in our expositions of representational truth to audiences, people hear what we are saying as "new." We ought to take the position that there is nothing new about it. We don’t need to know something "new." We need to know the pure and the ancient. This is not the same thing as the "moral mind." It is not the same thing as the "doctrinal mind." It is not the same thing as a mind that has surrendered to certain soteriological demands. In 1 Peter 1:16, Peter said as he writes on behalf of the Lord, "I am holy; you be holy. I am pure, you be pure." This purity is not part of the situation. It is not derived from the situation but it is in the situation. In this sphere that we call the "horizon of world situations," there are generalizations that come from outside of our own intelligence in any physical sense. Daniel makes this clear in his statement in Chapter 2:27, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries." In Chapter 2:30, he says of himself, "As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind."

He had access to a pushed intelligence, an ancient and pure and pre-dating intelligence that told him what he needed to know and that becomes the basis for his claim to wisdom. Wisdom pushed into the mind of these four men, especially into the mind of Daniel. That is what we are looking for. This ancient, pure detached truth that predates our circumstances, predates every situation in which we will find ourselves, predates the creation of the universe itself. It is stated by some that intentional meaning is empty precisely because it does not meet what is considered to be a logical requirement of owing its existence to the way things are in the universe or that these representations are empty because they cannot be verified by extensional experience. They are empty in another way our critics say because they lack any rich propositional complexity.

Israel could not and did not connect the words of the prophets to the concrete situation in which they found themselves. In Chapter 9, Daniel is praying and he says of the nation of Israel, "We still don’t understand. We have disobeyed. This is why we are in our situation. This is why we have been brought to this low point in our existence." In 9:13 he says, "Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of our Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth." They still cannot connect it. But because they could not connect it, did not mean that it lacked rich propositional complexity. Because it certainly was not lacking. They failed because they did not understand the nature of truth as that which is rooted in revelation. It is not rooted in their logic. It is not rooted in their physical circumstances. They could not do that because they believed that extensional meaning outranks intentional meaning. If that is the case, they would say, "Well we’re not in this position because we didn’t heed the words of the prophets. We are in this situation because we had a weak military or because our defenses fell into disarray or ruin or we were overwhelmed by an alien economy or we had poor leadership or we are talking about an ascendant power of Babylonia that simply could not be stopped once they had all that power in motion against us." They didn’t see that it was the intentional meaning of revelation that explained the Israelite experience. All they could see might be a kind of pragmatics. Or in our own contemporary world, they might just see a formal notation system of one variety or another.

Going back to Daniel Chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar’s practice is very instructive. You have his dream and then you have Daniel relating the contents. There is an isomorphism. This was impressive to Nebuchadnezzar but it was quite measurable and that was probably the reason why it was impressive to him. Then in Daniel 2, there is the total significance of the dream and there are Daniel’s words but there is no isomorphism there. Nebuchadnezzar had not the slightest understanding of that. It didn’t have the slightest affect on his actions as we see by his setting up of the golden image in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, we have the total meaning of another dream that he had given about a large tree that was going to be cut down and we have Daniel’s interpretation. There was no isomorphism in Nebuchadnezzar’s mind. Once again it did not have the slightest affect on the man. A year passes, and he pays no attention in spite of the fact that in Chapter 4:27, Daniel is very sharp with the king. He says, "Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue." This meant nothing to him. A year passes, he is walking on the roof of the royal palace in Babylon and in verse 4:30, these words come out of his mouth: "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my might power and for the glory of my majesty?" This is very isomorphic with reality as far as he is concerned. Continuing in verse 4:31, "The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, ‘You are in trouble.’" He looked isomorphically at the world. He said, "this is true" about his words in vs. 30 and he did not have the slightest doubt in its truth. We might take the position that this failed him because he insisted that his words bow to the logical requirement—that they fit in with the "way things are in the world." But the "way things are in the world" is not the truth. What God says about the way things are in the world, that is the truth. How can this proclivity toward correspondent truth or as we have defined it toward isomorphism, be averted.

Let’s go back to a chart we drew some time earlier and see if we can make some sense of this. On the right hand side of the page, we have a box that represents the "horizon of the world situation." On the left-hand side of the page, we have the "non-situational intelligence of the Lord." Then there is a connective linkage. A pipeline that pushes that non-situated intelligence into the minds of individuals. That begins to pose for us the basic scheme of the way life is lived out for us—those who operate on the basis of faith. Now notice that we come to a conclusion about what intelligence does at this point. Intelligence really exists to resolve ambiguity. It answers questions. It looks for clarity. "Resolution" is the word that we use to describe what the clarity looks like. We are resolving. In this term "resolution" we are making an appeal to an optical phenomenon. As we look through a telescope we can adjust the focus so that it brings things into closer resolution. Cameras have a level of resolution. The better the camera, the better the resolution. The better the computer screen, the better the resolution. In this sense, the resolution makes things clearer. It is not like we are using it to mean attempts to "resolve" a personal difficulty or something like that. We are using the term in the specific sense of achieving greater clarity.

Notice that there are three kinds of resolution, or three layers of resolution that show up in this particular scheme. Level One runs between the non-situated intelligence and pushed intelligence. Pushed intelligence is what shows up within the fabric of the world horizon. That is the branch. Non-situational intelligence stands outside of space and time and that is the vine. There is a resolution between God and man. There is clarity and all ambiguity is resolved between the two because of a connective linkage. The branch and its existence are resolved relative to its relationship to the vine. When questions about the way in which man relates to God are resolved, the ambiguity is resolved and knowledge results. People know things. The lights come on. Answers are forthcoming. And we understand that resolution is not an event. It is an understanding. That is very different and very significant. Once this question of the ambiguity that exists between man and God is resolved, then and only then are we ready and prepared and instructed in such a way as to be able to turn to the world of situations. So here is the first level of resolution—ambiguity is resolved between God and man. We know our relationship. That is firmly established now.

There is a Level Two of resolution that exists between the pushed intelligence (that exists within the world horizon) This is the relationship between man and his internal world. Here the relationship that man sustains to his situation is resolved. There is clarity. He understands how to look at the world horizon and he is prepared to do that because his mind has been turned into a branch because of the first layer of resolution having been resolved, now he is in a position to see a resolution between himself and the external world of events or circumstances, a lot of which are good and a lot more of which are very, very bad. If his mind is not resolved relative to God, he is simply not prepared otherwise to deal with the demands of biology, economics, psychology, sociology and all of the things that lean against him.

Now there is a word that I care to use here because I think it is very explanatory. That is the term "entrainment." This term will refer to the concept of a series of boxcars. This is not a process; it is a connection. It exists on the basis of its connection one to another. So in the first instance, the non-situational intelligence of God is one boxcar. The pushed intelligence of man operating within the world framework is another boxcar. The resolution depends on their connectivity. That is when the lights come on. That is the when the resolution is had. Resolution is the same as entrainment. In Daniel 4:18 Nebuchadnezzar says, "This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, had. Now Belteshazzar, tell me what it means, for none of the wise men in my kingdom can interpret it for me. But you can, because the spirit of the holy gods is in you." Now poorly stated by a pagan, he is appealing to the entrainment of the mind of Daniel. The ambiguity that existed between Daniel and the pushed intelligence and his God had all been resolved. Now, and only now, is he prepared to turn to the world of external reality and clarify its "meaning." Thus the second level of ambiguity is resolved.

There is also Level Three of ambiguity that is resolved between the non-situational God and the world itself. It becomes very clear how God functions relative to the world situation. How he commands the material world to conform to his wishes. This third area to be cleared up is "how does God relate to our external reality? That is a question that can be answered only by entrainment. If we think that we need to solve problems, that would be a poor way to express what is happening. What we need to do rather than to solve problems and to deal with situations directly is to entrain the mind. The non-situational intelligence is entrained to the pure mind that is developed in us by the grace of God. The situations that surround them are entrained to that pure mind. Then we see clearly that the world order in which we live is uniquely entrained to this non-situational intelligence that commands it and controls it. This entrainment shows up in the material world in remarkable ways. In Chapter 1:19-20, it says, "The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom." This entrained mindset is ten times better. Why? Because it brought higher resolution. This higher resolution, this pure resolution is something that comes from a mind that is ancient and pure. It predates the situation. It predates human experience and predates the created order.

Entrainment is a semiotic action. It is an action that expresses. It is the interpretation of life. But it involves the element of waiting. We entrain the mind and then we wait. We wait to see what God will do. We wait to see the answer that he will render. It involves, and inerrably so, waiting. An entrained mind is the only way to relate to the material world. In other places, David for example it is stated in more than one place in the psalms he wrote that he is depressed because he couldn’t resolve certain questions in his mind. There was this persistent ambiguity. He did not understand why bad men flourish and good men suffer. Because he could not come to a resolution about that he became depressed. He simply couldn’t resolve it. Well we can’t resolve all those things, but we can entrain the mind. We can’t always answer why it is that children die or why injustices happen on the face of the earth, but we can entrain the mind. Human observation is always going to be our inclination, but how do we observe. Resolution comes about on the basis of this pushed intelligence and the way it has been entrained. Once it is entrained it has the ability to observe in particular ways so as to bring into resolution the relationship between the non-situated intelligence and the world horizon. This ancient and pure mind resolves the temporal order. The eternal resolves the temporal as the vine resolves the branches.

So the ultimate answer is entrainment. Three boxcars lined up-the Lord, the human mind and the world situation. As these three connections are demonstrated, greater resolution, greater clarity comes forth. We have a greater understanding. We have greater knowledge. Extensional meaning would have to add ambiguity. Situational propositions would only add ambiguity because they ARE isomorphic. In Chapter 2, if Daniel had operated only upon a correspondence theory of truth, Nebuchadnezzar would have had only questions, but no answers. If he had said, "Here is what you experienced. Here is the image you saw in your mind when you were lying on your bed," he would have explained nothing to Nebuchadnezzar. It would have added only ambiguity. The same thing happens when we, for instance, observe celestial objects and are operating on something that is really composed of extensional meaning. We are not operating on a concept of truth that is unique because of the way it appears upon the earth. The way it appears on the earth is not by being conjured up from within the entrails of human logic but God standing outside the system has revealed it to men. Operating on the basis of formal mathematical systems, we would be in error. These things add ambiguity. Exact isomorphism adds nothing because it is rooted in sin.

The entrained mind, which is the pure mind, has a sole function apparently from what we can gather in the scripture; and that sole function is to resolve. We can go so far as to say that the mind is built by God to resolve things. The mind isn't pure simply because of the absence of the things that it can contemplate such as evil thoughts. The pure mind is an entrained mind in precisely the way that we have described this. There are gradations that have to be made. We can conclude that the extensional mind only produces ambiguity but it doesn't appear to be so bad because of the presence of isomorphism. If we can find a correspondence or an isomorphic relationship between the extensional mind and what we are experiencing this seems true to us. But it may seem true to us only because that ambiguity is masked by the presence of this overbearing isomorphism.

Entrained minds are only motivated by this quest for resolution and they know that comes from connectivity of our minds and the revelation, which links our minds to the non-situational intelligence of God. This would have a great deal to imply about the way in which we read scripture. We have talked about the kinds of unity that are possible before. For instance in a chart that we discussed in an earlier study, there was to be a relationship between the operating calculus, revelation and the world of extensionality. If we are interested in a unity between extensionality and revelation itself uniquely in an isomorphic form, then we are reading the text in a somewhat ambiguous way. Its power to create resolution is simply truncated. However, if we are trying to connect the world of extensionality to the operating calculus (the non-situational intelligence of God) through connectivity of our minds and the revelation, then that is a kind of entrainment. This leads to a reading of the text that resolves ambiguity. The original, pure, ancient and established function of the mind to resolve can now be done. The first step in resolution is to see the need to be entrained. But because of the presence of isomorphism, we don't think that there is a great and overbearing need to be entrained, to have the mind entrained to the revelation in precisely this way. Therefore, one would suggest that the ambiguity remains, but it doesn't seem so bad because we have settled for isomorphism. We are operating on a correspondence theory of truth. We are convinced that it is an adequate theory of truth.

I would furthermore conclude that this entrainment really is the uncloaked treatment of all world situations. It is an uncloaked response. We need to entrain all situations. Instead of asking ourselves, how do we deal with situations? Perhaps we would do much better to ask, "How can we entrain the situation?" "How can we entrain our emotions?" "How can we entrain our actions?" "How can we entrain our behavior?" "How can all of our responses to world situations be entrained in precisely the way in which we have described it?" Situated minds, situated intelligence as we have discussed it, will always prefer a kind of reductionism because observations and extensionality can be seen and revealed as isomorphic, as correspondent. So a correspondent doctrine of truth has overwhelmed us. There is an alternative. This is a kind of semiotic action. It is kind of resolution that is built on a reading of the text and an understanding of the way that God wishes to relate to us and how the mind is to be entrained.

Extensional meaning in our world is the basis for psychological diagnosis and therefore for what is normal. Extensional meaning is the basis for behavioral norms in general. Extensional meaning is the basis for what is called the practice of rationality in general in our world. If that's true, we simply cannot be resolved to society. There is no way that this could be fruitfully pursued. The non-situational creates a kind of action that we call semiotic because it projects and assigns meaning to things. There are resolving actions that come from this entrainment that produces all the resolution. Humility is mentioned in the text that resolves the difference between God and man. And that is why Gabriel would say what he said in Chapter 10:12 that Daniel is a humble man and that his humility is helping to resolve ambiguity. He knows why there is a necessity for humility because of the truth that is embedded in the revelation and not in the logic of man. This lack of humility is demonstrated in Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and Darius.

Baptism is a resolving action that comes forth from this entrainment. Repentance is a resolving action that comes from this entrainment. An inclination and a determination to wait upon the Lord are a resolving action that comes from entrainment. We call them resolving actions because they manifest something. What they manifest is a resolution between the non-situational and the situational. That is always going to be resolved on the basis of the non-situational. So the proposal goes out that we consider an entirely different theory about the nature of truth and what truth is-what we shall refer to, for lack of a better expression, as a connective theory of truth built on the premise of the vine-branch relationship. The situational will always exist as the branch. The non-situational always serves as the vine. The resolution between the two worlds does not depend upon our logic. It does not depend upon our natural or native intelligence. It does not depend upon our aptitude. It depends upon connectivity. And hence is called the connective theory of truth.