When we say the meaning of the text is ‘clear,’ we are testifying to an experience described metaphorically as ‘seeing the meaning through’ the text. By this metaphor the text is transparent. This occurs when the act of reading is effortless, so that we are not conscious of the text as ‘coded’ or of interpretation as such. When we are conscious of the text as coded – usually because we are unable to decode it through an unconscious meaning process – we say that the text is opaque.
If someone points to a text that is transparent for you and asks you ‘What does this mean?,’ your first impulse may be to say that it means exactly what it says. But then you realize that such a response is not helpful for someone to whom the text is opaque; and only someone in such a predicament would ask such a question. In order to deal with this predicament you have to raise the decoding (meaning) process into consciousness somehow. And in doing this, you sacrifice the transparency of the text. This sacrifice is motivated by compassion. (And so is any genuine question about the meaning of the text – for the one asking the question is motivated by trust that the text is meaningful although it is still opaque to him.)
Even a text which has been transparent may lose its transparency if the reader notices an ambiguity in it. Perceiving an ambiguity entails having to make a conscious choice, and thus makes us conscious of the text as coded. If you manage to recover the transparency of the text without losing its ambiguity, the text has gained for you an added dimension of meaning. Thus the ‘fall’ from ambiguity into opacity is ‘redeemed’ by a deeper, richer transparency.