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Postmodern Perspectives
Brian Housman
August 9, 1995
One among the many things that have become clear in the course of this seminar is that the church
does not exist in a vacuum. Throughout its history, the fact that it is God's special possession has
not prevented it from also being a creature of its time. In each period we studied, there was a
noticeable--perhaps even determinative--effect on the hermeneutics by wider societal forces: the
reigning or recently reigning philosophies, worldviews, and ideologies; major historical events;
state and church politics; and different religious movements whose influence competed with
orthodoxy from within and without the church. The hermeneutic of each period reacted against,
responded to, and/or was directly influenced by these external forces. For example, the early
teachers developed their allegorical method under the influence of the current Greek philosophy
and the fashionable way of interpreting pagan classicss. St. Thomas and his contemporaries
developed their more natural and literal approach in reaction against the preceding emphasis on
spiritual reading and under the influence of the newly-discovered writings of Aristotle. The
evangelical deductivists developed their theories in response to the recent attacks on the reliability
of scripture because of the Enlightenment stress on science and reason. The very development of
the canon occurred in an effort to protect the apostolic church against the encroachments and
attacks of the gnostics. Each of these different approaches to scripture and its interpretation has
caused its proponents to be drawn toward different parts of scripture and to receive different
messages from their reading of it.
These days, postmodernity is perhaps the societal force which most sets the terms for discussion
about hemeneutics. One of the foundation stones for postmodern theory is the belief that in
writing and reading texts we are inescapably bound by our preconditions--that is, our worldview,
our place in society, and other components of our selfhood which predispose us to think the way
we do. According to postmodern thought, the multiplicity of viewpoints found in the history of
the church is indeed necessary; the unfortunate conclusion postmoderns derive from this fact is
that the scriptures do not have discoverable, normative meanings. Each reader creates his or her
own meaning. In their efforts to rescue the normative value of scripture, many respondents to and
reactors against postmodernity return to a more purely rationalist position, claiming that it is
indeed possible to leave behind our preconditions. However, their arguments are severely
undercut by the undeniable existence of so many different current and historical interpretations
which claim to be the true intended meaning. Even if one authoritative meaning exists, it is of
little use if it has not yet been determined and agreed upon. In the end, it might be that
modernism and postmodernism so effectively critique one another that neither position is able to
offer a satisfying positive solution.
One possible escape from the continuous volley between modernism and postmodernism is a
position which accepts preconditions as positive contributors to the pursuit for normative but
currently relevant meaning. Perhaps scripture was designed from the beginning to account for,
accomodate, and speak to preconditions--while also limiting and even critiquing them. In this
view, a passage of scripture states a standard, unshifting meaning, but it is not a monochromatic,
easily captured meaning. Rather, it is so rich and multi-faceted that it speaks equally legitimately
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to a variety of different perspectives. If this is the case, then our precondition can be a tool which
helps us to capture one facet of the meaning of a particular text, a facet which is likely to speak to
issues we face in the contemporary church.
The multi-faceted nature of biblical texts ought to be clear from the way we approach them in our
personal study and devotion. At different points in our lives, a passage has different significance.
In reading Psalm 22, sometimes we meditate on its description of Jesus' suffering; other times we
contemplate the situation of the narrator of the psalm. Although we mostly associate with the
priest, Levite, or Samaritan in the parable of the good Samaritan, it might sometimes be helpful to
identify with the man on the side of the road, rescued and healed by Jesus, the ultimate good
neighbor. If we were to try to determine the one true meaning of these texts, we might disagree.
Based on some standard such as authorial intent or pertinence to the gospel, we might be able to
agree that only one of the possible meanings of these two passages is the proper meaning of the
passage. However, such an effort is unnecessary. These multiple meanings are not, I would
argue, purely subjective or secondary to some actual meaning. They are intrinsic to the texts,
products of their depth and richness and the grandness of the story they tell. It is our precondition
which draws us toward one particular meaning at a particular time. If this process occurs within
our own lives, how much more is it appropriate with different people across the centuries.
There is evidence in the development of the canon itself that a multiplicity of perspectives is
expected and encouraged. For instance, there are two different canonical accounts of the history
of the kings of Judah and Israel and four different accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. It's
not so much that there are too many facts to be related in a single account. Rather, there is too
much rich significance in the history to cogently fit into one story. For instance, if only one
tradition of the history of the kings existed, we might read from it the theme "The temple was a
good idea" or "The temple was a bad idea" or perhaps the thoroughly unsatisfying "The temple
had its good points and its bad points." With two distinct traditions, we receive the two separate
themes "The temple was a good idea" and "The temple was a bad idea." Since both traditions are
available, it is possible and appropriate that one of them will speak to our current situation and the
other will not. At the same time, as we read each individual tradition, our knowledge that the
other tradition exists heightens our awareness that there might be more to this one tradition than
is immediately apparent. We know that the story we are reading is part of a bigger story, and we
begin to expect that parts of that bigger story may show through in the subtexts, nuances, and
margins of the smaller one.
Indeed this interplay between texts which even goes so far as to shine light on different meanings
within the individual texts need not be restricted to two traditions of the same history. To a
certain extent, all of the books of the Bible enter into this interplay with one another. The Bible is
neither a single book nor sixty-six independent books; it is sixty-six interdependent writings. They
contain countless textual units which taken together tell one big story. All of the individual
stories, because they are connected to the one big story, must necessarily interact with one
another also. Moreover, each of the individual writings is co-authored by God and at least one
human; all of the authors make their own contribution to the work. With so many influences on
and connections with each passage, how can it help but have more than one intrinsic meaning--or,
if you prefer, a single meaning which is so deep and complex that it can scarcely hope to be
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communicated in a statement much longer than the passage itself. And the above description does
not even take into account the normal techniques an author employs to create multiple meanings
or depth of meaning: literal meaning, metaphor, analogy, allusion, double entendre, double scene,
and more. The use of any number of these literary tools may be discerned in a particular biblical
passage.
Since the scriptures contain such an abundance of meaning, it could be a completely
overwhelming experience to approach them. It would be hard to know where to begin reading,
what meaning to drawing from our reading, and whether what we find will be relevant to us.
Thankfully, we have an automatic means of narrowing down our choices: namely, our
precondition. Our precondition naturally draws us toward certain passages, themes, or genres
which promise to be of interest. It also leads us toward interpretations and means of
interpretations which are relevant to our individual circumstances and quite likely to our culture
as well. Our precondition is a perspective or vantage point from which we view the text. It
allows us to see a meaning of the text just like our point of view allows us to see one surface of a
three-dimensional object. Without a particular point of view, it would be impossible for us to see
the object at all. Nonetheless, at best our perspective gives us a two-dimensional understanding
of the object. Other people might have perspectives which overlap with ours only slightly, or not
at all, yet are true to the object. Similarly, a biblical text has sufficient depth that two individuals
might find truly distinct but equally valid meanings.
Although our precondition is a necessary starting point in the search for a valid and relevant
meaning in a text, it is not sufficient for the apprehension of that meaning. The vision which our
precondition gives us may be blurry or narrow, and it is almost certainly shallow. In order to
receive a reliable meaning from a biblical text, we need to first check our vision, because it is quite
possible that our precondition causes us to see something which is simply not there, an
interpretation which has more to do with the shape of our eyes than with the shape of the object.
After checking that our vision is reasonably clear, we should attempt to widen our vision of the
surface we are viewing. Clear vision only insures that we are making a legitimate connection with
the text; widening of our sight allows us to see where that point of connection fits in the text,
thereby unveiling a substantive meaning of the text which has implications for our life. The third
step, optional but highly encouraged, is gaining knowledge of the other facets of the object--that
is, discovering meanings of the text discernible from other viewpoints. Although we are only
capable of actually seeing one facet of the text at a time, knowledge of other ones increases our
appreciation of the text, nuances our understanding of our current perspective, and opens us to
the possibility that there is more to be learned from the text than we will learn in this one
encounter.
In looking at an object, our view is checked, widened, and deepened by more closely studying the
object, walking around it, and comparing our observations with other observers'. The
corresponding activities in reading a text are devoting time and effort to close study of the
passage, thinking about it from other perspectives as much as we are able, and hearing or reading
other people's interpretations.
Studying the text more closely is helpful in finding meaning because our minds are, after all, not
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completely and totally limited to our precondition. From the words and context of a passage, we
are able to piece together enough of an idea of its meaning external to ourselves that we can
check our own perspective against it. This process is like when scrutinizing an object more
extensively we notice details which contradict our original notions of the nature of the object.
However, we cannot get far enough outside of ourselves to sufficiently critique ourselves, nor are
we capable of extendedly sustaining a wide enough perspective by ourselves. We need to
collaborate with other people in order to grasp a true and sufficiently rich meaning of a text.
Those other people include people we know, contemporaries we do not know, and church
tradition. People we know are helpful in gaining that original glimpse of relevance and in
correcting particularly strong personal biases; however, they are likely to have similar
preconditions and, therefore, similar blind spots. We need to be hearing from the perspective of
people different from us in order to help us clarify and widen our vision by more blatantly
exposing our precondition by contrast with their own. They also add depth to our perception by
giving us insight into perspectives radically different from our own. The role of other people is
not to help us narrow down the meaning to the one true meaning which passes the test of
endurance over time and distance. Instead, it is to aid us in dismissing illegitimate readings and
adding to the depth and breadth of our knowledge of legitimate meanings.
The final meaning we receive from a text on any given reading after this process of checking,
widening, and deepening our vision will probably be one which is not in complete harmony with
our precondition. Our choices at this point are to dismiss the meaning, to alter it so that it once
again fits our precondition, or to allow it to shift our perspective from its original precondition.
In doing the first two, we would merely be using our reading of the scriptures as an opportunity
for self-expression. By doing the third, we would be allowing the scriptures to take us from
where we were to a new understanding of God and our relationship to him. Our precondition will
be transformed. However, this new perspective will have proceeded from the interaction between
our precondition and the text in such a way that it still relates to that precondition. It reacts
against, responds to, and/or is influenced by the external forces which have shaped us. It has
given us a message relevant to our times.
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