The Lord of the Bible?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by TORE

Truth: Truth is the matching relation between a truth bearer (me saying that the world is round) and a truth maker [reality] (the world being round). The matching of those two is 'Truth.'

Fine, as long as the reality can be established as a truth. More often than not, however, the word is used in a context whereby the supposed reality cannot be proven, but is a matter of faith.

Originally Posted by TORE

But the actual meaning of a text is not dependant on a reader's interpretation, it depends on the author's intentions.

Hmm. Countless pages of canonicity thread would suggest that it is not quite so clear-cut as you portray it. Am I fundamentally obliged to accept the author's intended meaning of the book as its true meaning? What if it does not strike a chord with me? What if society has significantly changed since the book was written and the author's intended meaning is no longer relevant to me? Why do I have to accept it as the meaning of the book if I perceive an entirely different meaning? What if we cannot sufficiently determine the author's intended meaning? What if the author changed his mind as to its meaning (as Tolkien frequently did)?

I can accept that the author may have intended his work to mean some specific thing. It does not follow that the work will have the same meaning to me, or indeed to others.

Originally Posted by TORE

But the books are not Christian works because Tolkien didn't intend them to be.

Tolkien stated that he intended the book to be a fundamentally religious and Catholic work - consciously so in the revision. That was the meaning (or part of it) that he intended to convey. It does not follow that I have to view it as a fundamentally religious or Catholic work.