Theology, science, and Hendel

A lengthy discussion has ensued from my post responding to Hendel's recent critique of SBL. To put it starkly: I'm claiming that Hendel wishes to impose a particular theological dogma as a norm for determining who may legitimately read the Bible. This is a faith decision. There's nothing wrong with this per se - confessional schools do it as a matter of course, including, ironically, those institutions which gave birth to and still nourish critical Biblical study: the German theological faculties (see this fascinating article on the legal status of Gerd Lüdemann).

I'm grateful to Michael and Kyle, two valuable interlocuters who sit on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. Kyle has shared a link to an interesting article that might put Hendel's comments into perspective: "What Has Theology Ever Done for Science?" According to the author, the answer is "quite a lot." Of particular interest to me is the way that the actual content of our theology can effect the scientific enterprise, for better or worse.

I'd like to emphasize once again that I affirm the existence of an empirically reality that can be comprehended by reason and which can constrain our interpretations in a limited number of directions. Contrary to the author of the article above, however, I do no think that this necessarily contradicts "postmodernism" - though it does depend whose postmodernism we are talking about (for my interaction with an inadequate variety, see my posts on Walter Brueggemann). A very helpful take on this is James K.A. Smiths' The Fall of Interpretation . I quoted this book precisely on the issue of subjectivity and objective reality in my post Postmodernists believe in objective reality too! (Smith, by the way, also happens to author an excellent blog).

A theological problem with "postmodern" exegesis

I place the word "postmodern" in scare quotes, as I don't think that much of what passes for "postmodern exegesis" is really (necessarily) postmodern. As far as I can see, what Brevard Childs says here could fit very nicely with the theological hermeneutic of the postmodern philosopher/theologian Jean-Luc Marion (see his article "Of the Eucharistic Site of Theology"):

I remain critical of those interpreters who attempt to force exegesis into narrowly defined structuralist categories, or who restrict its only legitimate role to synchronic analysis. The relation of the synchronic and diachronic dimensions is an extremely subtle one in the Bible and both aspects must be retained (cf. Childs, Biblical Theology, 98ff.; 211ff.). Basically, my resistance to much of postmodern literary analysis derives from theological reasons. Although I have learned much from modern literary techniques, I differ in my theological understanding of the nature and function of scripture. I regard the biblical text as a literary vehicle, but its meaning is not self-contained. Its function as scripture is to point to the substance (res) of its witness, to the content of its message, namely, to the ways of God in the world. For this reason I remain highly critical of many modern literary proposals, which are theologically inert at best, and avowedly agnostic at worst.

Childs, Isaiah, 4.

Reading in a Revised Frame of Reference

In his brilliant essay "Christ in All the Scriptures?", R.W.L. Moberly asks, "What should a Christian be trying to do with the OT at this moment in history?" He is thinking of our postmodern context, a context which "does not wish to dispense with science or technology as such ... but that is rethinking their significance within the overall scheme of things" (91). Here are his suggestions for reading in a revised frame of reference:

1) Being a good historian should no longer be a prime requirement of biblical study but should should merely be one important ingredient among others needed in the pot to produce nourashing fare. This is not least because the content of Scripture has to do with moral and spiritual realities, which require moral and spiritual literacy if they are to be handled well. As Stephen Fowl and Gregory Jones have put it, in a groundbreaking study, "the interpretation of Scripture is a difficult task not because of the technical demands of biblical scholarship but because of the importance of character for wise readings." [*] The rationality that one needs is informed not just by the technical mastery of intellectual skills but also by the moral and spiritual disciplines of the church.

2) Christ must be not only the light to which we look but also the light by which we see. Israel's texts that speak of divine sovereignty and grace, human sin and repentence, and the calling of israel to covenant faithfulness should be come more luminous, for Jesus embodies (in various ways) that of which the texts speak. Faith in Christ can give believers conceptual and existential resources for truer understanding.

3) Biblical interpretation needs to be seen as revolving around context. This involves recognising that biblical texts have many contexts. There is a difference, for example, between the originating context and the literary context of preservation. When Gen. 1 is read in its historical context, it may well be the product of "priestly" Jews in Babylon responding to the disintegration of their kingdom. When Gen 1 is read as part of a canonical collection that includes the account of personified wisdom, present with God at creation, in Prov 8, a further set of intertextual resonances and possibilities is set up. When Ge 1 is read as part of the Christian Bible, with the retelling of creation in relation to God's Logos/Word, then further resonances are set up. When one adds to this the Pauline account of Jesus as the image of the invisible God, and then the broader context of extended Christian engagement with the meaning of creation and humanity in the light of Scripture as a whole, then the question of context for the opening verses of the Bible is rich indeed.

[*] Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life (London: SPCK, 1991), 49.

Poetry Wilderness

“The poetic imagination is marginal within our dominant scientific culture. This tends towards a deadening literalism. In most traditional societies, poetry, myth, song and music were central to the culture. In our society these have often been reduced to entertainment. The hunger for the transcendent is still there in the human heart. As St. Augustine said, it is restless until it rests in God. But in our postmodern society it is harder for the preacher to evoke that ultimate human destiny which transcends our words. Few preachers are poets. I am not. But if the preaching of the word is to flourish, then we need poets and artists, singers and musicians who keep alive the intuition of our ultimate destiny. The Church needs these singers of the transcendent to nurture her life and her preaching.”

(Timothy Radcliffe OP, ”The Sacramentality of the Word,” in LITURGY IN A POSTMODERN WORLD, pp.133-147, here p.145)

Postmodernists Believe in Objective Reality too!

In recent conversations with Stephen from Emerging from Babel, the question has arisen as to the adequacy of postmodern theory in helping us formulate a theological hermeneutic. My purpose here is to argue that the claim that the Bible as an external reality can shape our response to it (Childs' "coercion of the canonical shape") does not contradict the epistemological critique of postmodernism.

My thoughts are taken from James K.A. Smith's book, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (2000), specifically the chapter entitled: "The World as Limit: A Phenomenological Criteria".

Postmodernism claims that all articulations of truth function within the specific conditions of human finitude. A great way to signify this is Heidegger's use of the term Dasein ('there-being'; being-there, at a particular point, and not everywhere). Our perspective, shape by our context, inhibits us from ever being able to comprehend anything within the world exhaustively. My knowledge of an object cannot be adequate to the object itself. As such, there can be no normative interpretations.

But to deny that there are no normative interpretations is not to deny that there are no interpretive norms. There is an external reality, there is a given/gift - creation (and in this case God's gracious gift of the Bible) - that every interpreter encounters. This reality stands before our interpretations and is binding upon every construal. It is the phenomenological criterion of every construal, what Smith calls an 'empirical transcendental' (i.e. the world as given and experienced). The 'Bible' is not mine to be manipulated, it is rather the norm that judges my interpretations. The Bible does not prescribe a single "correct" interpretation, but it does preclude an infinite number of interpretations.

The idea that truth is 'subjective' does not mean that it can be whatever we want it to be. Rather, it means that 'truth' is dependent on the uncovering role of Dasein: "All truth is relative to Dasein's being - not "left to subjective discretion".

Two quotes:

"These empirical transcendentals urge themselves upon a plurality of interpreters and resist capricious construal, allowing for a plurality, but not an infinite number, of interpretive possibilities. ... Interpretation is not merely a subjective appropriation: it is a subjective construal of an objective reality."

These thoughts are relevant to the Childs/Brueggemann debate. I hope they can provide us with more precision as we stake out our respective positions.

Programmatic Statement No.# 2 (Amos 5)

A result of Derrida's deconstruction is the radicalization of the the Christian dictum that theology is “faith seeking knowledge” so that it applies to all intellectual endeavour. As members of interpretive communities we are forever caught up in the interconnected webs of significance which these communities have spun. Truth is relational, and as such we must constantly take account of our neighbours when claiming to speak of the truth. If that is true for the 'others' in our world who are our neighbours, then how much more the Other who is our maker and redeemer. The modernist dream of unmediated access to truth is a lie, so that even those who believe in their own objectivity will have to give account to the One who judges all our thoughts.

This brings us back to the ancient wisdom of the sages: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1.7a). The question of whether this statement is theological (LORD) or philosophical (knowledge) misses the point that all thinking about a world that matters is subject to the judgement of God.

It is thus appropriate that the words of Karl Barth's variation on Amos 5.21-23 should accompany us as we start our journey (see comments for German original):

“I hate, I despise your lectures and seminars, your sermons, papers and retreats. For when you display your hermeneutical, dogmatic, ethical and pastoral wisdom before one another and before me – these offerings of yours I will not accept, this offering of your fattened calves I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise which is made by you old people with your thick books and you young people with your dissertations!” (Verabschiedsvorlesung WS 1961/62)

Programmatic Statement No.# 1

Considering that these will be my first few posts, it's appropriate that I write something programmatic, something to set the tone for my approach to come.

Where do I start, philosophy or theology? Derrida or Barth? This question has bugged the church since early days. Some say that they should have nothing to do with each other (à la Tertullian, “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?”). Others think they're either talking about different things or the same thing in different ways (e.g. Jean Paul II, “faith and reason are the two wings of a bird”). Liberal Protestants such as Kant and de Wette felt that theology was subservient to philosophy.

Perhaps that's the wrong way of framing the question ... I quote Derrida:

"In all the other disciplines you mention, there is philosophy. To say to oneself that one is going to study something that is not philosophy is to deceive oneself. It is not difficult to show that in political economy, for example, there is a philosophical discourse in operation. And the same applies to mathematics and the other sciences. Philosophy, as logocentrism, is present in every scientific discipline and the only justification for transforming philosophy into a specialized discipline is the necessity to render explicit and thematic the philosophical subtext in every discourse. The principle function which the teaching of philosophy serves is to enable people to become 'conscious', to become aware of what exactly they are saying, what kind of discourse they are engaged in when they do mathematics, physics, political economy, [biblical studies,] and so on. There is no system of teaching or transmitting knowledge which can retain its coherence without, at one moment or another, interrogating itself philosophically, that is, without acknowledging its subtextual premises; and this may even include an interrogation of unspoken political interests or traditional values.” (in Kearney, 1984: 4)

Clearly 'philosophy' of a special kind is being envisioned here. This is not an intellectual discipline to be arranged alongside others but a kind of river flowing beneath our feet, depriving us of a solid foundation to stand on. 'Philosophy' as discipline is a pragmatic decision to reveal the river which threatens to tear away all our pretensions to intellectual certainty.

So where do we begin? C. Bartholomew (2000) suggests that both theology and philosophy are academic disciplines which are traditioned. The starting point is Christ as the clue to both disciplines.