Post-Critical: (the exciting conclusion to the hermeneutical saga)
Okay, so not a conclusion: I most certainly have reached such an end. In fact, it seems that every answer won begets, hydra-like, even more prickly questions. By the time I had finished three years at Multnomah, I was ready to move on: while it would take a few more years to get across town, I needed to go back to PSU. I needed to go back to PSU because they had the resources (classes, faculty, etc) that would allow me to further explore the hermeneutical questions I was pursuing.
I quickly realized that, if our knowledge was constructed, then the way we constructed that knowledge was determined by the communities we belong to - or, are shaped by. That realization helped along by a new-found love of theology: Late in my stay at Multnomah, I discovered that there was more to theology than the boring Systematics textbooks that we used in classes. The theology I read outside class convinced me that I loved theology and that I was not well prepared for it: I needed to become well versed in philosophy - both the “masters” (Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, etc) as well as the “upstarts” (Foucault, Ricoeur, Agamben, etc). I needed to study how communities are shaped by, and shape texts. How language work, and works us over. I didn’t leave Multnomah completely, I stayed around for several more years as a tutor and to teach “bible study methods” For several years, half my week was spent reading philosophy and medieval literature, and the other half thinking and talking about hermeneutics: I learned alot.
While I have few conclusions (some of which I have outlined elsewhere), I have set off in some plot-able directions:
1. It seems as though the hermeneutical conversation was created in and as a result of that phenomenon we call “modernity:” our concerns, our questions, the categories allowed. While throwing the whole lot out merely because it is “modern” seems a bit hasty, if we are to see the extent of this shaping clearly, we (or, I) have to immerse myself in something “not modern” so as to gain some distance - and thus perspective. SO, I have spent the past couple of years reading medieval literature. Again, here I haven’t come to any conclusions. But I suspect that a Hermeneutics that isn’t merely a reaction to “modernity” may look more like a medieval churchman’s world view rather than less. Like, say, Bernard of Clairvaux’s
2. The goal of our reading is not, in the first instance, to become more knowledgeable. Rather, we use the text toward churchly ends. That is, the reading of the Bible is not an end in of itself, but it is a tool to be used toward appropriate ends. The Bible functions in the church as scripture. Using it well, of course, requires intimate knowledge of the text: but we do not read to be knowledgeable, but to be shaped - as a community - by it.
3. And, Finally, I am beginning to think that really robust theology is developed as a side-effect of doing the work of the church. That is, the theologians office is the church, and has kids running through it.
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May 1st, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Chris,
Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, but I was in your Bible Study Methods lab, and was also in Professor Pothen’s writing class (I wrote a long—way too long— paper on the philosophical history of the “two natures” of Christ, if that rings any bells) three semesters ago. Anyway just thought I drop you a line and say I enjoyed reading your “Hermeneutical autobiography.” I was wondering a couple things
1.) Are you reading any philosophers that you’d recommend right now? I started reading Heidegger’s “Being and Time,” and Sarte’s “Being and Nothingness,” but they are really slow going…
2.) How is your M.Lit. at PSU going right now? (if I in fact remember what you are pursuing correctly…)
Anyway have a good one! Hope to see you around Multnomah
May 7th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Derrick,
Well, I have to agree with you that Heidegger and Sartre are tough going: For myself I had to take a class to help me through them. I think, though, that Heidegger has been more significant a read for me.
1. Perhaps my most recent post can serve as an answer to your first question. Although, between you and me, maybe start with the early Marx (The Grundrisse, 1844 Mss.). So much of current philosophy and cultural studies depends on these documents that it is hard to make any headway without having read these; and the later Marx seems overly “Engel-ized.”
2. School is going slowly: this is mostly owing to a lacking in the Funding department. Alas, I am also eager to re-enter the world of theology, and that effects my motivation to finish the Literature program.