Theory Mapping and Theology

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Every religion has different competing denominations based on different versions and interpretations of its written and oral traditions. Each denomination believes that it has the most coherent account of the faith.

Most people belonging to the faith would presumably decry such internecine conflict which weakens the faith in its dealings with the outside world. However, there seems to be a lack of any means to resolve it. I suggest that this is due to two underlying problems:

• Different reference points: just as each world view has a different test of the truth to defend its claims, so each denomination has a different set of reference points (written or oral traditions) against which they defend their claims.
• Ambiguity of reference points: even if two denominations share the same reference point (e.g. the same version of a holy book), the reference point can be ambiguous in various areas and hence subject to various possible interpretations. For instance, different denominations of Christianity can all point to many verses in the Bible to support their particular doctrinal positions. Each side believes that it has the most coherent interpretation, but the shear complexity of the issues makes it very difficult to assess.

Theory Mapping is a perfect tool to help address these problems. The problem of different reference points is resolved by both sides agreeing on the basic facts about the reference points (which can they do if the facts are stated in their raw form i.e. as publicly verifiable observations), from which each side can then construct its own preferred interpretation providing it is coherent. The complexity of reference points can be handled by treating individual verses of a holy book as ‘facts’, where each theory has to come up with the most coherent explanation of them and the quantitative measure of coherence provides a simple summary of which is the most successful.
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