Ultram er. Ultram….

Although I have no thorough response, these are my preliminary thoughts:

As you note above, our explicit discourse on symbols tends to explicate them with a pseudo-algebraic logic, as though one can simply solve for x, with virtually no theoretical discussion. But it would be interesting to see a diachronic study exploring what is identified as a symbol and how its meaning is constructed (did the early Church even discuss symbols?). Although I haven’t looked closely at the issue, I suspect one significant aspect of what’s going on is that associations that are obvious in one context are lost over time. Due to the fundamentally conservative nature of religion, forms are clung to even as their content shifts dramatically and must be recreated. What in one environment was ordinary clothing, for example, was adopted by monks, and as fashions shifted, within a few hundred years it had become sacralized.

I suspect a parallel phenomenon is at work behind what we identify as “symbols.” Mundane “forms” in one era are not necessarily discarded as the culture (and thus the religion) changes, and so they become esoteric over time. My impression is that our (unstated) methodology for explicating symbols, although we talk about them as though their meaning is self-evident, is historical–that is, one establishes the “meaning” of a symbol by uncovering how people in the past understood it. (This fits our restoration paradigm, which locates legitimacy in antiquity.)

I also have the impression that, since we treat symbols as a code to be cracked, the role they play in social hierarchies in the Church closely parallels that of secrecy: social capital accrues to those who know the “code” and the secrets. In the outer circle are non-members; secrecy and esoteric information serve as one reinforcement of that boundary. (But I suspect those who are implicitly authorized to explicate them must already have a certain social standing in the community–is the priesthood a prerequisite, for example?)

On the other hand, even though we hear indications that symbols are self-explanatory to the astute observer, we also exploit their wiggle room when it suits us. One friend informed me that anyone can interpret the language of the temple any way they choose. (Wow!! Let’s just all speak in gobbledy-gook!) It fascinates me that in a tradition barely willing to engage modernism, let alone postmodernism, we’ll readily hurl ourselves off a nihilistic cliff if the moment seems opportune, leaving even radical reader response theorists in the dust.

In this vein, while we look to antiquity to create esoteric associations around what we identify explicitly as symbols, I think in other instances symbols we don’t identify as such play an important role in our self-concept as a transcendent, unchanging institution across time. I would love to see a study comparing Mormonism and Neo-Paganism; in both instances, continuity with the past is claimed by transplanting terms out of ancient contexts (“prophet,” “Druid,” etc.) and creating entirely new ideological apparatuses to support them. Symbols can be one way of changing while asserting continuity across time–each generation can claim it has discovered the “true,” intended “meaning” of the symbol which previous generations did not entirely understand, so apparent change is explained away in acceptable terms or rendered invisible.

I’m not sure what factors influence which approach we take, but HOLY COW this comment is long, so I’ll stop rambling for now.