Meaning, Postmodern Theory and the Glory of Jesus

This is another paper which I wrote this semester dealing with the topic of hermeneutics. This was also written for Dr. John Walton at Wheaton College Graduate School. As always, comments are welcome as I want to continue to grow and mature in this area of my thinking.

Hermeneutics: The Glory of God in Meaning

According to Anthony Thistleton, “Hermeneutics denotes critical reflection upon processes of interpretation and understanding, especially the interpretation of biblical texts or texts that originate from within other cultures.” Thus the science and art of hermeneutics deals with the epistemological underpinnings of the process of interpretation as well as the methodological processes by which the interpreter will seek meaning in a given text. To many, the process of self-critical reflection upon the act of reading and interpreting may seem like intellectual and academic overkill. In the case of contemporary literature, this critique may be appropriate although it still reflects a certain naiveté about the nature of discourse, communication and meaning. However, when one comes to the Biblical text by which the interpreter is separated chronologically by the span of 2000-3500 years, linguistically by the difficulty of learning and understanding Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and culturally by the immense differences in thought and worldview, the possibility of simply reading and interpreting correctly becomes problematic. In light of these barriers to understanding, having a well though out and epistemologically grounded approach to interpretation is essential for faithful interpretation, particularly when it comes to the text of Scripture. Therefore, I will seek to argue for the supremacy and sovereignty of Jesus Christ as the basis by which interpretation and appropriation of the Biblical text is possible followed by a brief sketch of an epistemologically humble, methodological approach to Scripture.

As has been said previously, the goal of hermeneutics as applied to the Biblical text is faithful interpretation and appropriation of its content. Interpretation and appropriation both relate to knowledge since knowledge is what is sought in interpretation and is a necessary ingredient for the process of appropriation. Therefore, epistemology bears greatly on the subject of hermeneutics. This is especially so when it comes to discussions of meaning about which no clear consensus exists in the philosophical or literary community. The nature of meaning and how texts “mean” are issues that have filled volumes at least since the time of Socrates and Plato and show no signs of abating in the scholarly literature any time soon. In the face of such lack of understanding regarding meaning, one wonders if it is possible humanly to account for the phenomenon of meaning in a text or communication. It is at this point that I take Derrida’s critique of modernity to have been successful.

Derrida begins by addressing himself to the issue of structure within modern thought. These structures, or meta-narratives as Lyotard termed them , are the means by which humans make sense of the world around them. Language, Philosophy and Theology all fall under the category of structure in Derrida’s thinking. Every structure is held together by what is termed a “center”. According to Derrida, “The function of this center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure… but above all to make sure that the organizing principle of the structure would limit what we might call the play of the structure.” However, while also being the integral part of a given structure, the center is also an element that is outside the structure and thus governs how much play is possible within the structure. “Thus it has always been thought that the center, which is by definition unique, constituted that very thing within a structure which, while governing the structure, escapes structurality.” This very idea upon which the structures or meta-narratives of modernity rest is fundamentally incoherent in that the center cannon simultaneously be both within and without a structure. In order to manage this incoherence there must be a sign-center substitution in order to try to maintain stability in the structure. Because of this Derrida writes, “it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no center, that the center could not be thought in the form of a present-being, that the center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus but a function, a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions came into play.”

It is this infinite-regress in substitutions of signs for center that ultimately makes meaning, humanly speaking, impossible to get at. There is a constant deferring of sign for signifier by which language and meaning, for all intents and purposes, is broken. Now, at this stage, it is important to grasp what Derrida, and those postmodern theorists who followed him, is saying and is not saying. He is not saying that there is no “world out there” or that truth and meaning do not exist. His critique does not amount to a denial of absolute truth. It is rather as Lyotard put it, “incredulity toward the meta-narrative”, the inability to access or know that we have access whatever is real. Fish writes of this, “this is not say that the world apart from the devices of human conception and perception doesn’t exist ‘out there’; just that what we know of the world follows from what we can say about it rather than from any unmediated encounter with it in and of itself.” What this amounts to is a recognition of brokenness or, might we say, fallenness in the ways that we as humans access reality. The postmodern posture then is not to nihilistically reject the meaningfulness of everything in life but rather to work within the broken systems while simultaneously recognizing their brokenness. It is impossible for humans to have an unmediated access to reality and therefore it is impossible for humans to escape the systems or meta-narratives with which we make sense of the world.

Theologically, it appears that Derrida and the postmodern theorists have stumbled onto an astounding realization, namely the fallenness of the creation. The Bible makes it clear throughout but particularly in the New Testament that the fallenness of the creation extends not only to the physical realm but also the metaphysical realm. In the realm of human thought, Theologians have termed this phenomenon the “noetic effects of sin” . The implication of this is that humanity should not be able to understand anything rightly, communication and knowing should not happen. Yet, experience alone tells us that meaning does happen. I am able to sit down to dinner and have a conversation with my wife in which we can (most of the time) understand each other. I can read a text and grasp the basic content contained therein. Ultimately there is no human way to adequately account for this phenomenon; the answer must be theological. In Colossians 1:16-17 Paul writes, “For by him (Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Typically, this statement by Paul is thought of in the physical sense that Christ is the Creator and Sustainer of all that we see, interact with and experience. However, creation was not simply the physical realm but the metaphysical realm as well. Therefore, because Christ wills it, the universe holds together and does not fly apart and also, because Christ wills it, metaphysical reality still works despite its fallenness.

That knowing, communication and meaning still happen should be viewed as a work of common grace, by which glory must be given to Jesus. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the logos or wisdom of God and the Scriptures take great pains to help us understand that Truth is no mere metaphysical abstraction, it is a person; Jesus Christ, the perfect image by which we know the Triune God. Truth is not merely an attribute of God as if Truth was some sort of abstract that stands over and against God; He is rather Truth Itself!

This understanding has immense implications for how we, as Evangelical Christians, approach Biblical interpretation. The systems which man has set up in order to make sense of texts are all broken and unable to account for meaning. Meaning is located in the Triune God as He has manifested Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the role of the person of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity to overcome man’s fallenness and lift the veil from our eyes to see God rightly in the person of Christ, the Word of God. There is, therefore, hope in interpretation because the Bible is the Written Word of God which corresponds precisely to the Living Word of God. The Spirit can be expected to overcome the noetic effects of sin and allow us to accurately understand the person of God on the pages of Scripture because that is how the Father has chosen to reveal the Triune God to us. It is not in hermeneutical systems but in the working of the Spirit of God then that we must place our trust for confidence in interpretation.

However, it is impossible for us to function interpretively outside of a hermeneutical system and so we can have confidence that the Spirit will work through our broken systems in order to bring us to a knowledge of and relationship with God. Therefore, I wish to briefly propose some methodological considerations to help us as interpreters come to the Biblical text and pray for God’s Spirit to allow us to understand the meaning of the text of Scripture.

First, I propose that what we are seeking when it comes to Biblical interpretation is/are completed speech-act/acts. According to Speech-Act Theory as laid out by Kevin Vanhoozer, a speech act involves a locution, illocution and perlocution. The locution is the mechanical act or content of communication, i.e. the text or the act and words of speaking. The illocution refers to the intentionality that the communicator invests in the locution. Finally, the perlocution refers to the effect that the locution and illocution have on the recipient of the speech act. A speech act is successful when each of the components has been successful.

Interestingly enough, this tri-partite structure corresponds to each of the three aspects of interpretation: author, text and reader. A text is a locution, it is the content that is being communicated. The author is the one who invests intentionality in a text and the reader is the one who receives the communication and is affected by it according to the intention of the author. It is because of this that interpretation cannot focus on merely one component of a speech act; it involves a triangulation of all three elements in order to get at meaning. A functional definition of meaning then can be understood as Vanhoozer puts it, “’Meaning’ is the result of communicative action, of what an author has done in tending to certain words at a particular time in a specific manner.” In light of this, a faithful approach to interpretation will then seek a triangulation of these three components.

In addition, a faithful approach to interpretation should begin from the ground up with a healthy recognition of the place and necessity of presuppositions in the interpretive process. For Christians, the gospel is the most basic presupposition which accurately understands Christ’s mediatorial role in the interpretation of the Bible and, indeed, of all reality. This should not be mistaken as a license to impose our theology on the text and to thus run roughshod over it. Rather, it is viewing the hermeneutical spiral as something that is good and God-ordained to help us in the process of interpretation. Our theology gives us a grid with which to make sense of the Biblical text and then the detailed, ground-up exegetical work in the text re-shapes our theology where it is not completely faithful to Scripture. This balancing process leads to exegesis that is properly shaped by the Gospel and Theology that is properly shaped by exegesis.

Finally, the process of ground-up interpretation is not completed until a text is viewed in its full, canonical context. In other words, if all of scripture is Christo-telic and history is unified by God’s sovereign plan to redeem the creation through the work of Christ then each text of scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, is not fully interpreted by us as Christians until we grasp how the trajectories in the text point us towards Christ and the Gospel. As Christians, this should not be an optional step to add to the end of the interpretive process; it is essential for our Biblical understanding as God’s covenant people. I do not deny that every passage in the Old Testament had authority for the Old Testament community when it was originally written. However, for Christians living on this side of the Cross, our appropriation of texts in the Old Testament must be done in light of the Christo-telic trajectories present in the text.

For Christians living at this period of history, the interpretive times are extremely confusing. The implosion of modernity and the postmodern turn are events which have sent shock-waves through the world and affect anyone engaged in interpretation of any kind. Ultimately, the anchor to which we must fasten ourselves as systems rise and fall is Christ. Mankind is desperately quick to latch on to and seek security in interpretive fads but God is the only true source of security and stability in the process of interpretation. Therefore, I think it is appropriate to emphasize again that God through Christ by the working of the Spirit needs to get all the credit and glory for our knowing and communicating just as we give Him glory for our breath and our salvation.

Bibliography

Briggs, Richard S. “Speech-Act Theory.” Pages 763-766 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass; Chicago, IL.: The University of Chicago Press, 1978.

Fish, Stanley. “French Theory in America.” No Pages. Cited 9 September 2008. Online: http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/french-theory-in-america/.

Goldsworthy, Graeme. Gospel- Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpreation. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2006.

Goldsworthy, Graeme. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000.

Gracia, Jorge J.E. “Meaning.” Pages 492-499 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Theory and History of Literature 10. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.

Thisleton, Anthony C. “Hermeneutics.” Pages 283-287 in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Company, 2005.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2002.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Is There a Meaning in This Text: The Bible, The Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. “Lost in Interpretation: Truth Scripture and Hermeneutics.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48/1 (2005): 89-114.