Theoblogy Seminar |
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An online place for some friends to get together and argue about what they care most about.
The "b" is silent. At the seminar table: Stephen Webb Trevor Bechtel Margaret Adam Phil Kenneson A. K. M. Adam Comments, queries, feedback to: A K M Adam 
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Friday, February 15, 2002
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Steve, I thought that introducing a voice not hitherto cited in this discussion might help clarify what we'd been saying about biblical interpretation earlier. If you look at Brian Eno's observations, especially on page five of the interview, you will observe him offering comments that lie close to what we propose.
*I'm asking for trouble by reopening this topic, but I just thought I'd nominate an authority with whom none of us studied. Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Steve, as I mentioned earlier in a sidebar email, I haven't had time to read Griffiths. It sounds more interesting and nuanced than I would have guessed by my superficial scan of titles, and I'll try to make time for it--at which point I'll be sure to put another two cents in.
*"Election" and the Trinity seem not to provoke immediate strong reactions around the table. Now, I know that one quality of a good seminar is the capacity to sustain long silences toward an appropriately rich discussion of a deep topic, but perhaps if I asked about topics relative to Radical Orthodoxy we could restart a conversation on a path that diverges from biblical interpretation (as most RadOx writings markedly have done) (diverged from biblical interpretation, that is). I know MArgaret has been piqued by the (non-) relation of most of the RadOx essays to feminism; I've been disappointed that there has been so little manifest connection between explicitly RadOx writings and biblical interpretation; and around here we had a talk before Christmas about the interchange between David Ford and Catherine Pickstock in the recent issue of SJT (there was another pertinent article in the issue, whose author's name escapes me, concerning Pickstock's read of Derrida). I wish you all the grace of a holy Lent, that we may be prepared in heart and mind to greet the Feast of the Resurrection with renewed Alleluias. Tuesday, February 12, 2002
I would like to know what people think of the book Religious Reading by Paul Griffiths. It is interesting because he explicitly denies the autonomy of the text, and looks at religious reading as a communal activity. Nonetheless, his approach does not reduce textual meaning to communal interpretation. On the contrary, he does a very good job at explicating how religious communities revere texts and are disciplined by them. Some quotes might get some of his ideas across:
*He contrasts religious reading with consumerist reading, and argues that religious reading is done for the purpose of developing the skills needed to give a religious account of the world (I would prefer that he say the skills needed to live in a religious community and witness to that community's message). "The first and most basic element in these relations is that the work read is understood as a stable and vastly rich resource, one that yields meaning, suggestions (or imperatives) for action, matter for aesthetic wonder, and much else...The basic metaphors here are those of discovery, uncovering, retrieval, opening up: religious readers read what is there to be read, and what is there to be read always precedes, exceeds, and in the end supersedes its readers." (p. 41) He goes on to discuss the rich language in of the Medievals to describe the ways in which the Bible is an infinite treasure chest, etc. "It is typical of religious readers that for them the act of reading is, in George Steiner's nice phrase, an unmistakable witness to the ambiguous mastery of texts over life" (p. 42). Religious reading is about rereading, because the work can never be exhausted; thus commentary is the paradigmatic genre of religious writing. "Hartman's distinction between "everything is text" and "everything is in the text" is crucial. Religious readers believe the latter (and read as if they did) but not the former. According to them, the textualized world is intrinsically other than the human, ordered independently of it, and capable of acting upon it. But according to consumerist readers, the nonhuman effective dissolves into the human." (p. 45) He goes on to contrast such a realistic approach to texts with the postmodern philosophical position of what Alvin Plantinga calls creative antirealism (what I have been calling metaphysical idealism). This all strikes me as sound, but if it is a good description of religious reading, then it calls into question the applicability of AKMA's theory to the church and how Christians in fact understand their own reading practices. Monday, February 11, 2002
Well, someone has to break the cycle of "that's not what I said--you're misconstruing me," so although I'm really tempted to go back over things I've said before and set Steve straight, I think we've both amply demonstrated that our arguments aren't connecting effectively.
*So, let's find another topic. Steve got the ball rolling earlier in the winter by talking first about vegtarianism, pacifism, and implicit claims to ethical purity; then he compared Reinhold Niebuhr to Stanley Hauerwas in surprising ways. What might we tackle that won't lead us straight back to biblical interpretation? The most recent news item about theology was the revision of the New International Version of the Bible; I'm guessing that's too close to the trouble zone. Steve, didn't you bring up "election" in one of the preceding exchanges? That might provide a suitable alternative for discussion. Or we might try to get Margaret going on the Trinity.
I think I've laid out my idealism charge in some detail, and it hasn't really been answered except in a joking way by AKMA, so I'll let that dog alone for now. I do think that hearing is a very important concept in the church, certainly in the Gospel, and it might go a long way in making a bridge between us if I said that it is the text proclaimed, not privately read, that is an agent of the Holy Spirit. But I don't know where to go with the argument that texts mean absolutely nothing "by themselves" and that any interpretation is possible as long as it is credited by a community, any community. I try to teach my kids to really listen, to put aside their distractions and pay attention, and I think paying attention to an object, especially a rather complex object like a text, is an important skill that we need to teach more of. (Idealism by the way is the rather broad philosophical tradition that argues that reality cannot be ascertained external to the observer, or to a group of observers; the world is the way we make it, not the way we find it. In this case, the argument that texts are what communities make of them would pretty simply and clearly fall within that broad philosophical category.) One of my concerns in this argument is precisely with allegorical and figurative readings of texts, along the lines of Frei's argument, so I would be interested, very interested in hearing more of Margaret's passion for de Lubac. Send me that paper, Margaret!
*AKMA denies my summary of his position and then restates my summary in his own words in such a way as to basically repeat me:
I suppose that if we had a text in front of us then we could point to it and gain more clarity on just where our disagreements emerge and our interpretations diverge!
*Sunday, February 10, 2002
What is this business about idealism? Speaking from confused ignorance, I must ask someone to explain to me why the position which believes texts do things is the realist position, and the positi0n which believes that the animated creatures do things and the text does not is idealist.
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Hi guys.
*Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this conversation: 1) It had better shift gears before you run yourselves into the ground finding different ways to articulate a difference which must be clear by now. 2) One direction I’d be interested in shifting is toward why we think it matters whether the text (and the Holy Spirit) or the interpretive community (and the Holy Spirit) is the agent. I am persuaded of the latter understanding, as I have yet to be impressed/persuaded by the former, and one of the reasons it matters to me is how people authorize their interpretations. Many of those who understand the text to be the agent (and I am not necessarily charging text-agent folks in this conversation here) place the authority for their interpretation in the text itself. Hence, a preacher can proclaim, “See, it’s right there in the text!” and an arguer can suppose she has made a decisive point by explaining what the text really says. Along these lines, we can observe a number of interpretive moves that seem more determined by the community’s practice and ideology than anything else, text or otherwise. And yet, in these situations, the community’s practices and ideology are glossed over, made invisible, since the text is the voice, the actor, the “source” of authority. What I hope for is that, by emphasizing the interpretive community’s role in interpretation, and by demystifying the text, we can call on each other for more accountability in interpretation. I am all for authoritative proclamation. I am by no means suggesting more of the pluralist, anything goes, every interpretation is as good as the other approach. But I do not think it makes sense to animate a text, when it is the Holy Spirit who animates us in our engagement with the Word. Jesus Christ is the animated Word. We, as the body of Christ, practice our bodiness by reading and hearing each other proclaim the word. I suppose one of our differences here is that my understanding of reading and listening is not so much about receiving as it is about participating in production (wait--that’s David’s vocabulary!). Anyway, we don’t “just” hear anything--ask any parent of teenagers--they do not necessarily hear what you think you said; rather they seem to be participating in a conversation while producing meaning that suits the planet they are on. But, back to my attempt to redirect the conversation: I suppose I should ask, tell me about why you think it matters to place so much agency on the text, and why you are not worried about downplaying the participation and production of meaning that we, as creatures, do. My presentation of interpretation allows for a multiplicity of meaning (I am infatuated with de Lubac on medieval exegesis), in which we discern what is rightful interpretation by the family resemblance to those we have been taught (by those whose lives illustrate God’s truth) and we discern what is not rightful interpretation by a disconnection to the stories we have been taught and the lives who taught us. In order for me to see otherwise, I guess I would need to be taught why the text has agency, by someone who can demonstrate family resemblance and godly practice.
Doesn't it get under your skin when someone tells you what you just said, when it's not what you just said?
*Here are a buncha things Steve just said, with which I agree: "People don't agree on what texts mean, and the more important the text, the more disagreement." "Our communal loyalties shape those disagreements." "Our very ability to disagree also points to the fact that we have enough in common to be able to articulate and understand how and why we disagree." All of this seems eminently true and sound to me, and I draw from these things conclusions radically different from those Steve draws, and moderately different (so far) from those Trevor draws. For instance, Steve proclaims that my argument takes the form, "Since people don't agree on what texts mean, then their meaning must be totally dependent on [determined by] their own presuppositions. That is, texts only mean what we want them to mean." Contrariwise, my very simple premise is that no one has shown a way of ascertaining correct or legitimate interpretations that is so convincing and sound that a significant proportion of the interested population can agree on the way of determining correct or incorrect. (If I'm wrong about this--if a consensus about how to identify right or wrong interpretation has coalesced without my noticing--someone please let me know, because it would seriously undermine my argument.) But if one can't point to a general agreement on how to identify correct or incorrect, of what weight is a claim that our analysis really does yield such reliable results? How would we show this, such that someone who had hitherto adhered to a divergent model of verification would change her mind? My interpretive practice arises out of the respect I owe to the saints who have read Scripture before me (and who have thereby shaped my own relation to it) and also to the literary scholars who have taught me to read closely without necessarily getting hung up by details of historical background and also to my sister and brothers in my closest circles of human affectiona nd intimacy, who guard me against folly to the best of their abilities, and also to the historical scholars who have taught me mountains about the first century Judaeo-Hellenistic social scene, and also to the particular communities where I preach, and also to my bishop, my dean, and to the Master General of the Anglican Dominicans, and also to various members of the Body of Christ to whom I have directed a special commitment of advocacy, and so on indefinitely. When I have all these varying loyalties bearing on me as I read a text, dcan anyone give a genral account of legitimate interpretation such that my debts can be reduced to a single, prioritized order that determines what the legitimate interpretation of Philippians 3:7-14 (to take this morning's example) would be? When Steve says, "To argue that there are no limits to interpreatation except what one can persuade someone else to accept is treat the act of reading as a radically nihilistic and individualistic activity," I rush not to defend solipsism, but to find out what the limits to interpretation are that we can afford to impose on reluctant interlocutors. Clearly Steve thinks that there are limits that depend not on our assent, but on some less material, more theoretical basis; what are they? And why ought our interlocutors to recognize them? I have smiled occasionally during this conversation when Steve has accused me of being a nihilisitic metaphysical idealist, and identified himself with the forces of realism, when I have been sticking to observable phenomena in my discussion of interpretation and he has been appealing to transcendent metaphysical/ethical legitimations for interpretive Law.
I guess I agree with Trevor that much of AKMA's argument takes the form of: "Since people don't agree on what texts mean, then their meaning must be totally dependent on [determined by] their own presuppositions. That is, texts only mean what we want them to mean." That seems like a rather severe prescription for only a mildly onerous infliction. Of course people don't agree on what texts mean, and the more important the text, the more disagreement. And our communal loyalties shape those disagreements. But we need not take the rather large conceptual jump into a metaphysical idealism. Our very ability to disagree also points to the fact that we have enough in common to be able to articulate and understand how and why we disagree. (Davidson makes an argument like this against any notion of radical incommensurability.) The widespread problem of the conflict of interpretations suggests not only a reductive historicism but also a lively and ongoing conversation that is made possible by the text itself. The excess of meaning in texts (and thanks to Trevor for the Augustinian genea(b)logy) is itself evidence of God's grace, and we might also say that it is a sign of our sin: the ambiguity of signs, after all, is surely one of the chief signs of the fall. Words have lost their coherence and clarity and can be used and misused in apparently infinite ways. Nonetheless, there is a power of good in that plurality and ambiguity, as well as a potential for bad. Those of us on this blogger, for example, have been shaped by the Bible in such a way that we are willing to listen to each other's disagreements over biblical interpretation. This very conversation is made possible by the ongoing vitality of the Bible; we write in its shadow, or something like that. Ricoeur once wrote that history arises out of the debt we owe to the dead. History is thus an essentially ethical activity. Perhaps one could say the same thing about interpretation; it arises out of the debt we owe, not necessarily to texts, but to all those who have read the text before us. We read it through not so much our own communal location, although that is important, but also the echoes of all those from whom we have inherited the text to begin with. The text literally (metaphorically?) embodies this conversation for us, and thus some of our responses are more appropriate than others. To argue that there are no limits to interpreatation except what one can persuade someone else to accept is treat the act of reading as a radically nihilistic and individualistic activity that can be constrained only by a well-defined and doctrinally regulated community. Such an argument begins with the very individualism, even solipsism, that it then sets out to reject.
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The pages for the discussion of vegetarianism and pacifism (on one hand) and the comparison of Reinhold Niebuhr and Stan Hauerwas (on the other hand) are now ready, and can be reached via the left side panel. And if anyone wants to change the subject away from biblical hermeneutics, we have shown the capacity to argue over many other topics as well.... |