Fallen Into Knowledge

This Post is a response to Adam’s comment on the post below, “Paradise Lost”

• 1.  Anyway, should a poetic theology be constituted chiefly by allegory?

As I mentioned in class today, we must distinguish between allegory and typology.  An allegory is a story whose meaning depends on the reader’s associating ideas that lie outside the story itself to particular aspects of the story (characters, places, etc.):  an allegorical theology is not that to which I am drawn.
Rather, I am interested in recovering a figural reading of the Bible.  A figural interpretation depends on an assertion that the Biblical text constitutes a narrative unity which encompasses both all that is in the text as well as all that lies outside of it.  Which is to say a Figural reading of the bible depends on our seeing the story of the Bible as both teleological in nature and pattern.  This is how, I believe, the author’s of the Bible read scripture.
A figural, or Poetic theology, will be chiefly constituted in re-telling the story of scripture such that our place within it, and, as a necessary part of that telling, what we should do in response, is rendered clearly.
(for more about figural interpretation, see Frei, “The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative,” Chapter 2.

• 2.   Of course there is theology embedded in every act, but should art which only seeks to allude to biblical imagery be thought of as poetic theology?

Well, First: by Poesy, I am thinking of a definition like Sir Phillip Sydney’s:  “Poesy therefore is an art of imitation…that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth - to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture - with this end, to teach and delight.” (In Defense of Poesy).  By poetry I am including a wide range of creative acts, not strictly verse.
Secondly, a Poetic Theology, as I see it, has at its core filtering the theologian’s own sitz im leben (something like: life circumstances) through the structure (or, the logic internal to) of the biblical story.
I’m sure I’ll think of more, but this is already a long post; feel free to respond - questions may stimulate more cogent thought.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.