What do you think?
Rate this book
The Church and Postmodern Culture #4
Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (text only) by M. Westphal
Whose Community? Which Interpretation?: Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture) [Paperback]Merold Westphal (Author)
Paperback
First published September 1, 2009
28 people are currently reading
269 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
June 4, 2012
Call me a mystic. My epistemology includes external influence which others might diagnose as purely internal influence. There are even experiences in my life which I am unable to classify purely according to psychological causes or mystical causes. I prefer to take a stance of tentative diagnosis with enough reservation to await further evidence. To me, that is the only honest approach to the problem of truth.
My background is rural, conservative, and evangelistic. My formal training includes a strange mixture of fundamental, conservative, and secular education. As a result, I sometimes feel like saying, “A pox on both their houses!” when confronted by dogmatic people on both the rigid religious and the rigid rationalist side. It seems to me that both dogmas go too far beyond the evidence.
Merold Westphal has offered some marvelous talking points to people in my position. His Whose Community? Which Interpretation? is ostensibly a book about biblical hermeneutics (At least, that’s why I became interested. He wisely calls it “philosophical hermeneutics” which widens the horizon.), but it is as much about human understanding of epistemology as it is about anything. He writes that he considered calling this volume, Taking (Hans-Georg) Gadamer to Church, and that would have been as accurate as it would have been unmarketable. His publisher made the right call.
The issue is finding and explicating truth. He begins by citing those people who have a rather naïve perspective of the Bible and say, if I could use a line I heard many times in my youth, “It means what it says and it says what it means.” Does it? Does it mean what it says when it portrays Elijah as the forerunner of the Messiah in a literal sense or does it mean what it says when it suggests John the Baptizer was “Elijah?” Does it mean what it says when it portrays Israel as the “suffering servant” in Isaiah or does it mean what it says when the New Testament appropriates those prophecies for Jesus’ crucifixion? People like me believe that the Bible had meaning for the original hearers, readers, preservers, and for modern believers. Yet, that is the problem Westphal addresses.
I found his illustration of human perception being like a black and white television set to be helpful (p. 19). I’ve heard people (even one well-known radio apologist from Atlanta) assert that there must be ultimate Truth and go on to espouse the idea that if you know God, you know ultimate Truth. Yet, I am very cynical toward the human rational apparatus of interpreting that Truth. I believe we can only know a portion of that Truth and that what we can know within our human limitations can easily be distorted. Does this mean I have no confidence in the Bible as the Word of God? Of course not! I’m virtually “fundamentalist” in my treating of the text. So, that’s why I liked Wesphal’s television image.
See, I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s with a black and white television set. When, in the early ‘60s, networks began broadcasting in color, I knew that Batman’s costume was gray and Robin’s costume had bright colors (from the comics), but I wasn’t sure what color Gene Barry’s Rolls-Royce was in Burke’s Law or Robert Vaughn’s ties and suits were in Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Those items did have color, but I couldn’t know with my primitive reception and set. Did that mean that I assumed that Marshal Dillon’s outfit had no color or that Marlo Thomas’ Anne Marie (sic) on That Girl always wore grey dresses? Did that mean that I didn’t believe the red shirts on Star Trek were cannon fodder? No. It meant that I enjoyed the shows for the stories they told and the images I could perceive. I didn’t worry about the colors I couldn’t comprehend.
How arrogant it would have been for me to insist that My Mother the Car was “green” when I couldn’t be sure! (I still didn’t know until I just “Googled” it—I just imagined it that way and it turns out it was red.) Yet, those who are afraid of postmodern relativism insist that if we let one brick of our understanding of a text be pulled out of the wall, the entire wall will crumble. So, even though something like Jastrow’s rabbit (Well, it looks like a rabbit from one angle, but looks like a duck from another!) may be perfectly clear to one audience, it isn’t necessarily clear to another (p. 24).
How then, can we ever be certain that we are interpreting correctly? The classic liberal approach offered two hermeneutical (interpretive) circles: 1) grammatico-linguistic and 2) psychological. In the first circle, one started with (a) a sentence and moved to (b) the larger text unit of paragraph, pericope, scene, or chapter to (c) the genre (or tradition) through (d) the shared vocabulary and language of the author or editor and original hearers/readers and on to (e) the full spectrum of human language. In the second circle, one started with (a) the author’s entire body of work progressed through (b) the biographical information available on the author, and onward to (c) the information we have about the author’s society and the entire world during that milieu. (This is a summary of Schleiermacher on p. 28) The strength of this approach is that it forces one to interpret the “part” of the message (or truth) in the light of the whole (p. 29). But the book goes on to underscore the dangers of following this second circle into the romanticizing approach where one empathically tries to enter the mind of an author or of an ancient people (p. 30). Our black and white television isn’t definitive enough to do so.
Here is where Westphal inserts Gadamer powerfully into the discussion with the same kind of skepticism with which I keep going back to that black and white television. “He doesn’t think that there is a method or set of rules which can extricate us from the hermeneutical circle, which means that our understanding will always be relative to the currently operative presuppositions that shape our interpretations.” (p. 34) Of course, if Westphal (building on Gadamer) is concerned about the classical liberal approach to the text or tradition being bound by recurring circles, he is doubly concerned about the naïve approach which believes (as Harold Lindsell wrote in his very destructive Battle for the Bible some decades ago) that words have definite meanings and which is afraid of the multiplicity of meanings (p. 49). He (and Gadamer) are intensely skeptical that we are capable of firmly grasping the author’s “original intention” (a term invoked in both politics and religion these days as though it was easily perceived) and interpreting from there (p. 49). Of course, in both cases, the interpreter is building a circular argument that the text means what the interpreter has already brought to it—assumptions based on cultural traditions that may not be exactly what the author had in mind.
Westphal speaks of the link between meaning and cultural conventions. “If identical meaning is to emerge and if meaning is tied to cultural conventions, it would seem that the cultural conventions at work in my understanding must be identical with those at work in yours. But this is dubious!” (p. 55) In other words, your simple meaning may not be mine. What is obvious to you may be erroneous to me.
On a different tack, I was particularly enamored with Westphal’s dichotomy between atheistic postmodernism and believing postmodernism. He says that the former says, “I am not God, therefore there is no God.” Whereas the believer says, “Someone else is God, therefore I am not God.” (p. 59)
As obvious as that may read, it is an intriguing way to point out the difference between the “closed” system of the atheist who presumes it is possible to know everything that is and isn’t and the “open” system of the believer who recognizes that it is not possible to know everything that is and isn’t, merely that one is not all that there is.
Alas, I have rambled on so much that I haven’t left room for discussion of Gadamer’s assertion that there is “…no final exhaustion of what lies in a work of art.” (p. 76) Nor have I allowed room to discuss the necessity of a “double hermeneutic” where we work assiduously to discover what an author actually said in his/her context and just as hard to hear what the author might say to us in the here and now (p. 93). This is a vital concept that means we too often autopsy ancient texts (and particularly scripture) and leave the corpse on the table without bringing the insights and lessons from our forensics to our readers or hearers.
Perhaps, like the black and white television illustration, one of Westphal’s best insights is an illustration drawn from photography. On p. 105, he notes that photography as an art is more than mechanical reproduction. Ansel Adams did not have the kind of equipment that is available in the average digital camera (maybe even the average smart phone) today. Yet, he was able to use the equipment of his era to “define” the power of nature. We have the ability not only to reproduce but to modify photographic images today, yet we have lifeless images if we do not allow our artistic side to frame those images to convey a message. That’s what I learned (among other things) from Westphal.
My background is rural, conservative, and evangelistic. My formal training includes a strange mixture of fundamental, conservative, and secular education. As a result, I sometimes feel like saying, “A pox on both their houses!” when confronted by dogmatic people on both the rigid religious and the rigid rationalist side. It seems to me that both dogmas go too far beyond the evidence.
Merold Westphal has offered some marvelous talking points to people in my position. His Whose Community? Which Interpretation? is ostensibly a book about biblical hermeneutics (At least, that’s why I became interested. He wisely calls it “philosophical hermeneutics” which widens the horizon.), but it is as much about human understanding of epistemology as it is about anything. He writes that he considered calling this volume, Taking (Hans-Georg) Gadamer to Church, and that would have been as accurate as it would have been unmarketable. His publisher made the right call.
The issue is finding and explicating truth. He begins by citing those people who have a rather naïve perspective of the Bible and say, if I could use a line I heard many times in my youth, “It means what it says and it says what it means.” Does it? Does it mean what it says when it portrays Elijah as the forerunner of the Messiah in a literal sense or does it mean what it says when it suggests John the Baptizer was “Elijah?” Does it mean what it says when it portrays Israel as the “suffering servant” in Isaiah or does it mean what it says when the New Testament appropriates those prophecies for Jesus’ crucifixion? People like me believe that the Bible had meaning for the original hearers, readers, preservers, and for modern believers. Yet, that is the problem Westphal addresses.
I found his illustration of human perception being like a black and white television set to be helpful (p. 19). I’ve heard people (even one well-known radio apologist from Atlanta) assert that there must be ultimate Truth and go on to espouse the idea that if you know God, you know ultimate Truth. Yet, I am very cynical toward the human rational apparatus of interpreting that Truth. I believe we can only know a portion of that Truth and that what we can know within our human limitations can easily be distorted. Does this mean I have no confidence in the Bible as the Word of God? Of course not! I’m virtually “fundamentalist” in my treating of the text. So, that’s why I liked Wesphal’s television image.
See, I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s with a black and white television set. When, in the early ‘60s, networks began broadcasting in color, I knew that Batman’s costume was gray and Robin’s costume had bright colors (from the comics), but I wasn’t sure what color Gene Barry’s Rolls-Royce was in Burke’s Law or Robert Vaughn’s ties and suits were in Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Those items did have color, but I couldn’t know with my primitive reception and set. Did that mean that I assumed that Marshal Dillon’s outfit had no color or that Marlo Thomas’ Anne Marie (sic) on That Girl always wore grey dresses? Did that mean that I didn’t believe the red shirts on Star Trek were cannon fodder? No. It meant that I enjoyed the shows for the stories they told and the images I could perceive. I didn’t worry about the colors I couldn’t comprehend.
How arrogant it would have been for me to insist that My Mother the Car was “green” when I couldn’t be sure! (I still didn’t know until I just “Googled” it—I just imagined it that way and it turns out it was red.) Yet, those who are afraid of postmodern relativism insist that if we let one brick of our understanding of a text be pulled out of the wall, the entire wall will crumble. So, even though something like Jastrow’s rabbit (Well, it looks like a rabbit from one angle, but looks like a duck from another!) may be perfectly clear to one audience, it isn’t necessarily clear to another (p. 24).
How then, can we ever be certain that we are interpreting correctly? The classic liberal approach offered two hermeneutical (interpretive) circles: 1) grammatico-linguistic and 2) psychological. In the first circle, one started with (a) a sentence and moved to (b) the larger text unit of paragraph, pericope, scene, or chapter to (c) the genre (or tradition) through (d) the shared vocabulary and language of the author or editor and original hearers/readers and on to (e) the full spectrum of human language. In the second circle, one started with (a) the author’s entire body of work progressed through (b) the biographical information available on the author, and onward to (c) the information we have about the author’s society and the entire world during that milieu. (This is a summary of Schleiermacher on p. 28) The strength of this approach is that it forces one to interpret the “part” of the message (or truth) in the light of the whole (p. 29). But the book goes on to underscore the dangers of following this second circle into the romanticizing approach where one empathically tries to enter the mind of an author or of an ancient people (p. 30). Our black and white television isn’t definitive enough to do so.
Here is where Westphal inserts Gadamer powerfully into the discussion with the same kind of skepticism with which I keep going back to that black and white television. “He doesn’t think that there is a method or set of rules which can extricate us from the hermeneutical circle, which means that our understanding will always be relative to the currently operative presuppositions that shape our interpretations.” (p. 34) Of course, if Westphal (building on Gadamer) is concerned about the classical liberal approach to the text or tradition being bound by recurring circles, he is doubly concerned about the naïve approach which believes (as Harold Lindsell wrote in his very destructive Battle for the Bible some decades ago) that words have definite meanings and which is afraid of the multiplicity of meanings (p. 49). He (and Gadamer) are intensely skeptical that we are capable of firmly grasping the author’s “original intention” (a term invoked in both politics and religion these days as though it was easily perceived) and interpreting from there (p. 49). Of course, in both cases, the interpreter is building a circular argument that the text means what the interpreter has already brought to it—assumptions based on cultural traditions that may not be exactly what the author had in mind.
Westphal speaks of the link between meaning and cultural conventions. “If identical meaning is to emerge and if meaning is tied to cultural conventions, it would seem that the cultural conventions at work in my understanding must be identical with those at work in yours. But this is dubious!” (p. 55) In other words, your simple meaning may not be mine. What is obvious to you may be erroneous to me.
On a different tack, I was particularly enamored with Westphal’s dichotomy between atheistic postmodernism and believing postmodernism. He says that the former says, “I am not God, therefore there is no God.” Whereas the believer says, “Someone else is God, therefore I am not God.” (p. 59)
As obvious as that may read, it is an intriguing way to point out the difference between the “closed” system of the atheist who presumes it is possible to know everything that is and isn’t and the “open” system of the believer who recognizes that it is not possible to know everything that is and isn’t, merely that one is not all that there is.
Alas, I have rambled on so much that I haven’t left room for discussion of Gadamer’s assertion that there is “…no final exhaustion of what lies in a work of art.” (p. 76) Nor have I allowed room to discuss the necessity of a “double hermeneutic” where we work assiduously to discover what an author actually said in his/her context and just as hard to hear what the author might say to us in the here and now (p. 93). This is a vital concept that means we too often autopsy ancient texts (and particularly scripture) and leave the corpse on the table without bringing the insights and lessons from our forensics to our readers or hearers.
Perhaps, like the black and white television illustration, one of Westphal’s best insights is an illustration drawn from photography. On p. 105, he notes that photography as an art is more than mechanical reproduction. Ansel Adams did not have the kind of equipment that is available in the average digital camera (maybe even the average smart phone) today. Yet, he was able to use the equipment of his era to “define” the power of nature. We have the ability not only to reproduce but to modify photographic images today, yet we have lifeless images if we do not allow our artistic side to frame those images to convey a message. That’s what I learned (among other things) from Westphal.
March 16, 2015
Westphal wrote that he wanted to call this book Taking Gadamer to Church as much time is spent in conversation with the philosophy of Gadamer, a 20th century philosopher who wrote on hermeneutics. The questions Westphal is getting it all relate to how we interpret the Bible. As opposed to the high and mighty claims of some who state we can reach universal objectivity, Westphal (and Gadamer) continually emphasize our context as people. In this context we all have biases and presuppositions and we bring all of this background to the text. Yet there is no need to fear relativism, and Westphal is not saying this leads to an inability to know anything. We are able to learn as we bring our biases to the text, though once we learn something new we have new biases which we now bring to the text, creating a sort of hermeneutical circle. Or, to put it in more Christian lingo, especially relevant to Protestants, we can say we are ever-reforming as we reflect on the text in community with others.
What I most like about this approach is it retains a humility that is often absent from interpretative methods that claim universal and unbiased objectivity. I highly recommend this book for pastors and any Christian interested in philosophy and interpreting scripture. When you finish this, and if you like it, I think another book to check out would by Myron Penner’s The End of Apologetics.
What I most like about this approach is it retains a humility that is often absent from interpretative methods that claim universal and unbiased objectivity. I highly recommend this book for pastors and any Christian interested in philosophy and interpreting scripture. When you finish this, and if you like it, I think another book to check out would by Myron Penner’s The End of Apologetics.
August 10, 2014
In the past few posts I have attempted to offer a critical engagement with postmodernism, yet one that also seeks to appreciate legitimate moves within the system. In this post I will review Merold Westphal's Whose Community? Which Interpretation? (Baker Academic).
Thesis: Westphal, following James K. A. Smith's The Fall of Interpretation, argues that we should not seek a "pure stream" reading of the Bible that bypasses the act of interpretation. This position of seeking and *im*mediate reading of the text has precendents in Plato0 when he said the philosopher apprehends the purely intelligible structures (Phaedo 66e) In other words, our reading of the Bible is mediated to us by our hermeneutical filters, be they cultural, linguistic, philosophical, or whatever.
In less abstract talk: have you ever seen the advertisement for a particular translation claiming, "No interpretation needed"? Westphal argues against such naivete. This should not alarm Reformed folks. Did Van Til not say that there are no brute facts but all facts are already pre-interpreted by God?
Musing: Is Van Til a right-wing deconstructionist?
Westphal then examines recent moves in philosophical hermeneutics from the Romantics to Schlieirmacher to Wolterstorff.
But What About the Radical French Postmodernists?
So far Reformed readers will have no problem with the above narrative. The problem comes with the French trio (Derrida, Foucault, and someone else) who assert, so it is said, "The death of the author."
But maybe they aren't saying exactly that (mind you, I have my own questions about Derrida).
Even the French trio doesn’t think the author is truly dead. “To deny that the author is the unilateral source of a text’s meaning is not to deny that the author plays an important role” (58). Westphal explains, “For our French trio, the finitude of the author in relation to the text is expressed in a double relativity. In the first place, human authors ‘create meaning’ only relative to the language available to them...this language shapes and conditions their thought in ways of which they are unaware and over which they do not preside” (59).
To say it yet another way: “The author is not a godlike, infinite creator of meaning” (65). Humans are finite and our sub-creations (what Milbank would call mythopoesis) are always within the realm of the finite and conditioned.
This is fully in line with Reformed anthropology.
Westphal then comes to the heart of his project: Hans Georg Gadamer. We must affirm tradition, but in line with our anthropology, we must affirm the "finitude" of our tradition.
Gadamer's fundamental thesis about tradition is “belonging.” p. 70. Tradition plays a double-role. It gives us a place to stand and it is is plural. We do not belong to a single, universal tradition. “All interpretation is relative to traditions that have formed the perspectives and presuppositions that guide it” (71).
“To be historically means that knowledge of oneself can never be complete” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 301-302).
Westphal then offers several theses on reading tradition and being read by tradition:
Alterity Thesis. Tradition as other. Tradition will set before us what it has already done within us.
Authority Thesis. We acknowledge tradition as a “sub-authority” over us. “My conscience is a grounded opacity that allows a richly mediated knowledge of its object” (Westphal 74).
Fallibility Thesis. Question of critique: “How can we distinguish the true prejudices--by which we understand--from the false prejudices (by which we misunderstand” (75). Tradition must be open to this critique. Even worse, the difference between true and false is not always either/or but a matter of degree.
What the French Should have said
Authorial intent is important in understanding a text, but only to a degree. Authors themselves are wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstein, historically effected consciousness. They don’t have absolute self-transperancy either. Westphal has an interesting suggestion: “there is a power at work in finite authorial creation--for Gadamer, tradition--of whose agency and effects the author is never fully aware” (81).
Conclusion and Evaluation
In terms of philosophical analysis the work is first-rate. Westphal may be the only Continental-school philosophy who can write clearly. Unfortunately, Westphal moves to analysis--and since that deals with the church, theology. Here the book suffers from ambiguity or simply wrongness.
Westphal suggests we should follow Gadamer in seeing Truth Beyond [Scientific] Method. I have no problem with that, but aside from references to beautiful art and literature, I am not exactly sure what he wants me to do.
Westphal offers an interesting paradigm for understand difference in the church. He highlights the debate between political liberalism (classical liberalism in society) and communitarianism (Alasdair MacIntyre). Political liberalism affirms difference but in the midst of an overlapping sphere of agreement among the parties involved. Of course, this is valuable for the church: we will disagree at times, and even traditions (Rome, EO) that pretend to be uniform have to own up to that. Ironically, though, it is rather strange to find a postmodern writer affirming classical liberalism, which is a child of the Enlightenment.
Westphal realizes that and admits the communitarian model is probably better for the church (but he rejects it for the state).
The book ends with a hopeful suggestion taken from the Roman-Lutheran Joint Declaration on Justification. The theology behind such a move is atrocious and one is disappointed that Westphal ended a fine book on so weak a note.
Thesis: Westphal, following James K. A. Smith's The Fall of Interpretation, argues that we should not seek a "pure stream" reading of the Bible that bypasses the act of interpretation. This position of seeking and *im*mediate reading of the text has precendents in Plato0 when he said the philosopher apprehends the purely intelligible structures (Phaedo 66e) In other words, our reading of the Bible is mediated to us by our hermeneutical filters, be they cultural, linguistic, philosophical, or whatever.
In less abstract talk: have you ever seen the advertisement for a particular translation claiming, "No interpretation needed"? Westphal argues against such naivete. This should not alarm Reformed folks. Did Van Til not say that there are no brute facts but all facts are already pre-interpreted by God?
Musing: Is Van Til a right-wing deconstructionist?
Westphal then examines recent moves in philosophical hermeneutics from the Romantics to Schlieirmacher to Wolterstorff.
But What About the Radical French Postmodernists?
So far Reformed readers will have no problem with the above narrative. The problem comes with the French trio (Derrida, Foucault, and someone else) who assert, so it is said, "The death of the author."
But maybe they aren't saying exactly that (mind you, I have my own questions about Derrida).
Even the French trio doesn’t think the author is truly dead. “To deny that the author is the unilateral source of a text’s meaning is not to deny that the author plays an important role” (58). Westphal explains, “For our French trio, the finitude of the author in relation to the text is expressed in a double relativity. In the first place, human authors ‘create meaning’ only relative to the language available to them...this language shapes and conditions their thought in ways of which they are unaware and over which they do not preside” (59).
To say it yet another way: “The author is not a godlike, infinite creator of meaning” (65). Humans are finite and our sub-creations (what Milbank would call mythopoesis) are always within the realm of the finite and conditioned.
This is fully in line with Reformed anthropology.
Westphal then comes to the heart of his project: Hans Georg Gadamer. We must affirm tradition, but in line with our anthropology, we must affirm the "finitude" of our tradition.
Gadamer's fundamental thesis about tradition is “belonging.” p. 70. Tradition plays a double-role. It gives us a place to stand and it is is plural. We do not belong to a single, universal tradition. “All interpretation is relative to traditions that have formed the perspectives and presuppositions that guide it” (71).
“To be historically means that knowledge of oneself can never be complete” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 301-302).
Westphal then offers several theses on reading tradition and being read by tradition:
Alterity Thesis. Tradition as other. Tradition will set before us what it has already done within us.
Authority Thesis. We acknowledge tradition as a “sub-authority” over us. “My conscience is a grounded opacity that allows a richly mediated knowledge of its object” (Westphal 74).
Fallibility Thesis. Question of critique: “How can we distinguish the true prejudices--by which we understand--from the false prejudices (by which we misunderstand” (75). Tradition must be open to this critique. Even worse, the difference between true and false is not always either/or but a matter of degree.
What the French Should have said
Authorial intent is important in understanding a text, but only to a degree. Authors themselves are wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstein, historically effected consciousness. They don’t have absolute self-transperancy either. Westphal has an interesting suggestion: “there is a power at work in finite authorial creation--for Gadamer, tradition--of whose agency and effects the author is never fully aware” (81).
Conclusion and Evaluation
In terms of philosophical analysis the work is first-rate. Westphal may be the only Continental-school philosophy who can write clearly. Unfortunately, Westphal moves to analysis--and since that deals with the church, theology. Here the book suffers from ambiguity or simply wrongness.
Westphal suggests we should follow Gadamer in seeing Truth Beyond [Scientific] Method. I have no problem with that, but aside from references to beautiful art and literature, I am not exactly sure what he wants me to do.
Westphal offers an interesting paradigm for understand difference in the church. He highlights the debate between political liberalism (classical liberalism in society) and communitarianism (Alasdair MacIntyre). Political liberalism affirms difference but in the midst of an overlapping sphere of agreement among the parties involved. Of course, this is valuable for the church: we will disagree at times, and even traditions (Rome, EO) that pretend to be uniform have to own up to that. Ironically, though, it is rather strange to find a postmodern writer affirming classical liberalism, which is a child of the Enlightenment.
Westphal realizes that and admits the communitarian model is probably better for the church (but he rejects it for the state).
The book ends with a hopeful suggestion taken from the Roman-Lutheran Joint Declaration on Justification. The theology behind such a move is atrocious and one is disappointed that Westphal ended a fine book on so weak a note.
August 30, 2024
Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Church is one of the best texts, with the most potential for practical application, in the Baker Academic Press series: “The Church and Postmodern Culture.” It is clearly written and expressive of the author’s vast theological and philosophical erudition. The author asks, is not “every devotional reading (silent), every sermon (spoken), and every commentary (written) an interpretation or series of interpretations of biblical text?” (p. 17). Hence the interest with hermeneutics…
The title, raising questions about community and interpretation, specifically relates to the tradition and heritage comprising our involvement with the Church and the various ways in which we attempt to understand, clarify, and validate our roles within that community through hermeneutic activity, for all “biblical interpretation is personal, pastoral, or scholarly” (p. 28). All this with the pre-understanding that our interpretive endeavors will never yield results that rise to the level of “objective” certainty but will rather offer conclusions through dialogic consensus that are legitimate enough to avoid the dreaded charges of “relativism” - the “anything goes” epistemological mindset.
Like Gadamer, Westphal eschews the view that all interpretation should culminate in “truth” expressive of propositional certainty (apodicticity), instead he embraces the notion that we are always left with an epistemological “excess” that haunts all modes of human interpretation and understanding. Westphal writes, “The multiplicity [and diversity] of interpretations stems not from the indeterminacy of the object but from the way it exceeds the ability of any limited perspective to grasp it in its totality” (p. 26; see also pp. 32, 75, and 83).
The bulk of the text, chapters 1-9, offers a detailed and solid historical, biblical, and philosophical overview of hermeneutic interpretation with the author’s focus on the careful exegesis of Gadamer’s view of philosophical, or what is often termed “moderate,” hermeneutics, whereas Westphal incorporates the term, “deregionalized” hermeneutics, which is quite correctly related to Socratic dialogue or dialectic, and indeed, Gadamer published much on Plato’s dialogues. The survey and explication of hermeneutics includes the usual suspects (familiar to all readers of Continental philosophy!) namely, Dilthey, Schleiermacher, Hirsch, Ricoeur, and Gadamer. Interestingly, most commentators ignore Hirsch, I note, in passing, that he is anathema to many educators embracing critical theory/social justice pedagogy.
Some key issues include the following: (1) The difference between hermeneutics seeking and claiming “objective” conclusions and those relegated to the pejorative status of “relativistic” in nature. (2) The issue of where the central emphasis in the interpretative process lies, whether it is the reader (interpreter), author (psychologism/authorial superiority), text (context of interpretation), or some interpretive combination thereof. In relation to these issues, against authorial superiority, Westphal contends, “Real authors do not create meaning in the way God created the world” (p. 58).
For Gadamer, author, text, and reader work as a collective interpretive unit, forming the context wherein hermeneutic understanding (phronesis/practical wisdom) develops, which is a process where Bildung is transpiring, and can be translated from the German as representing our educative (maieutic) “transformation” and “formation” as human learners. Here we encounter the crucial and somewhat controversial notion of “heritage,” “tradition,” or what might be understood as “pre-understanding” - the history and prejudice we all bring to the interpretive endeavor as “historical interpretive beings.”
The phenomenon of pre-understanding and meaning derived from our heritage is what allows us to enter the “hermeneutic circle,” to begin the interpretive process. The context within which text, heritage, and interpreters merge and coexist is referred to as the “fusion of horizons,” here the worlds opened through interpretive activity, “do not remain merely particular - alien, closed, eccentric to each other - but become part of a larger community [broken open via discourse] within which differences are not abolished but mediated by conversation that effects understanding” (p. 107). Traditional forms of our grounded historical understanding, and this again is the influence of Bildung at work, hold the potential to be re-formed and transformed, becoming open to re-interpretation - all of this made possible because of our grounding in history/tradition; as interpreters we all possess a “historical consciousness” (p. 74).
Throughout, Westphal stresses the “hermeneutics of facticity” (Gadamer via Heidegger), which is intimately bound up with the acceptance of human limitation and “finitude” (e.g., mortality as an inescapable “ontological category” of human existence – we are also limited in our potential for knowing). Although this might seem odd to traditional Christian readers coming to this type of scholarship for the first time, it must be noted that the author’s understanding of religion - a faith-based, scholarly enhanced devotional practice of Christianity - is related to what is commonly known as “radical theology” (e.g., Thomas J. J. Altizer), or what is expressed loosely in terms of “progressive Christianity.”
As stated, Westphal’s overall project is to inspire and enact, through the hermeneutic triad of interpretation, understanding, and by means of a sense of justice and equity (hermeneutic justice), the application of philosophical hermeneutics to practical ecclesiastical concerns of scholars, pastors, and general worshippers. The important question for readers to consider: What does it all mean to us in the here and now? “The double hermeneutics that takes the biblical mode of double discourse into account, first asks, “What did the human author say to the original audience?” and then “What is God saying to us here and now through those human speech acts inscribed in Scripture?” (p. 64). Application is essential for Westphal’s project, for it is “especially important for Christians interpreting the Bible because their vocation is to embody Scripture…Unless Christin communities are committed to embodying their Scriptural interpretation, the Bible loses its character as Scripture” (p. 108-109).
NB: Usually, readers of both phenomenological and hermeneutic texts shy away from the term “application,” because both phenomenology and hermeneutics are irreducible to definitive, technical, and trust-worthy systematized “methods” - and Westphal acknowledges this very fact in the book, acknowledging that Gadamer’s hermeneutics does not, because it cannot, function as would a scientific method - which is always highlighted by description, explanation, and, most importantly, prediction.
Westphal, in chapters 10-12, slaps the proverbial theological meat on the bones of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and offers a detailed analysis - which for lay readers will seem quite dense - relating directly to the issue of hermeneutics and the contemporary Church, a thriving community of interpreters. Here he introduces the idea of “Christian hermeneutics,” which extends far beyond the realm of strict biblical (literary/sacred text) interpretation. With Gadamer’s hermeneutics functioning as the ideal interpretive “method” or “structure,” as it were, Westphal includes the understanding of classical liberalism and communitarianism as models for the Christian community, a community bound together through a sense of justice: “This means that the Church is, among other things, a communal conversation [interpretive/engaged in translation] seeking to understand more deeply its founding ‘classic’ text, the Bible, and the traditions of interpretation that have developed through the centuries” (p. 120). The Church is the context (fusion of horizons) of interpretive activity, “the focus of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines,” a region of agreement amidst inevitable disagreement, with the potential for reaching agreement through ongoing, ever-renewed interpretation (p. 125).
Referencing communitarianism, Westphal emphasizes an account of virtues, which are, in an Aristotelian manner, essential for the “good” life, and the good Christian life, the religious life, “will be rooted in specific communities and their historical traditions [fusion of horizons]” (p. 131). Westphal links this idea with “virtue ethics, and the author is clear that “Churches derive their identity from their theologies, which are comprehensive doctrines with substantial metaphysical and moral dimensions,” and they are only made accessible only through interpretation, and so here we also encounter a shifting and crucial epistemological element at work in church communities, “so they are, from a communitarian perspective, well suited to be the moral teachers of their members and to bear moral witness to the larger society in which they find themselves [fusion of horizons]” (p. 132).
The single problem/issue with this book, and it is also common to the other fine texts in series, is that when presenting complex philosophical discussions to religious laypersons or even pastors (who are not trained or steeped in systematic philosophy), the all too real possibility exists that the issues discussed will be misunderstood; indeed, some readers will resist opening themselves up and dedicating themselves to the difficult work that such reading requires. However, if readers do find Westphal’s ideas intriguing and stimulating, I suggest, in addition to his book, seeking out Gadamer’s classic, Truth and Method (the main book discussed by Westphal). In addition, I suggest two excellent secondary studies, which would contribute to a deeper understanding of Gadamer’s original material: Davey’s Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Palmer’s seminal work, Hermeneutics, which covers similar ground to Westphal, but does so in greater detail.
Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy and Religious Studies/College of Dupage
If any reader of this review is interested in Gadamer’s hermeneutics as related to the Platonic dialogues, seek out my free PDF book: Socrates, Politics and Education in the Alcibiades I
https://www.academia.edu/106199948/So...
NB: Material from my book was featured in the popular Internet (YouTube) series, “After Socrates” (Prof. John Vervaeke).
The title, raising questions about community and interpretation, specifically relates to the tradition and heritage comprising our involvement with the Church and the various ways in which we attempt to understand, clarify, and validate our roles within that community through hermeneutic activity, for all “biblical interpretation is personal, pastoral, or scholarly” (p. 28). All this with the pre-understanding that our interpretive endeavors will never yield results that rise to the level of “objective” certainty but will rather offer conclusions through dialogic consensus that are legitimate enough to avoid the dreaded charges of “relativism” - the “anything goes” epistemological mindset.
Like Gadamer, Westphal eschews the view that all interpretation should culminate in “truth” expressive of propositional certainty (apodicticity), instead he embraces the notion that we are always left with an epistemological “excess” that haunts all modes of human interpretation and understanding. Westphal writes, “The multiplicity [and diversity] of interpretations stems not from the indeterminacy of the object but from the way it exceeds the ability of any limited perspective to grasp it in its totality” (p. 26; see also pp. 32, 75, and 83).
The bulk of the text, chapters 1-9, offers a detailed and solid historical, biblical, and philosophical overview of hermeneutic interpretation with the author’s focus on the careful exegesis of Gadamer’s view of philosophical, or what is often termed “moderate,” hermeneutics, whereas Westphal incorporates the term, “deregionalized” hermeneutics, which is quite correctly related to Socratic dialogue or dialectic, and indeed, Gadamer published much on Plato’s dialogues. The survey and explication of hermeneutics includes the usual suspects (familiar to all readers of Continental philosophy!) namely, Dilthey, Schleiermacher, Hirsch, Ricoeur, and Gadamer. Interestingly, most commentators ignore Hirsch, I note, in passing, that he is anathema to many educators embracing critical theory/social justice pedagogy.
Some key issues include the following: (1) The difference between hermeneutics seeking and claiming “objective” conclusions and those relegated to the pejorative status of “relativistic” in nature. (2) The issue of where the central emphasis in the interpretative process lies, whether it is the reader (interpreter), author (psychologism/authorial superiority), text (context of interpretation), or some interpretive combination thereof. In relation to these issues, against authorial superiority, Westphal contends, “Real authors do not create meaning in the way God created the world” (p. 58).
For Gadamer, author, text, and reader work as a collective interpretive unit, forming the context wherein hermeneutic understanding (phronesis/practical wisdom) develops, which is a process where Bildung is transpiring, and can be translated from the German as representing our educative (maieutic) “transformation” and “formation” as human learners. Here we encounter the crucial and somewhat controversial notion of “heritage,” “tradition,” or what might be understood as “pre-understanding” - the history and prejudice we all bring to the interpretive endeavor as “historical interpretive beings.”
The phenomenon of pre-understanding and meaning derived from our heritage is what allows us to enter the “hermeneutic circle,” to begin the interpretive process. The context within which text, heritage, and interpreters merge and coexist is referred to as the “fusion of horizons,” here the worlds opened through interpretive activity, “do not remain merely particular - alien, closed, eccentric to each other - but become part of a larger community [broken open via discourse] within which differences are not abolished but mediated by conversation that effects understanding” (p. 107). Traditional forms of our grounded historical understanding, and this again is the influence of Bildung at work, hold the potential to be re-formed and transformed, becoming open to re-interpretation - all of this made possible because of our grounding in history/tradition; as interpreters we all possess a “historical consciousness” (p. 74).
Throughout, Westphal stresses the “hermeneutics of facticity” (Gadamer via Heidegger), which is intimately bound up with the acceptance of human limitation and “finitude” (e.g., mortality as an inescapable “ontological category” of human existence – we are also limited in our potential for knowing). Although this might seem odd to traditional Christian readers coming to this type of scholarship for the first time, it must be noted that the author’s understanding of religion - a faith-based, scholarly enhanced devotional practice of Christianity - is related to what is commonly known as “radical theology” (e.g., Thomas J. J. Altizer), or what is expressed loosely in terms of “progressive Christianity.”
As stated, Westphal’s overall project is to inspire and enact, through the hermeneutic triad of interpretation, understanding, and by means of a sense of justice and equity (hermeneutic justice), the application of philosophical hermeneutics to practical ecclesiastical concerns of scholars, pastors, and general worshippers. The important question for readers to consider: What does it all mean to us in the here and now? “The double hermeneutics that takes the biblical mode of double discourse into account, first asks, “What did the human author say to the original audience?” and then “What is God saying to us here and now through those human speech acts inscribed in Scripture?” (p. 64). Application is essential for Westphal’s project, for it is “especially important for Christians interpreting the Bible because their vocation is to embody Scripture…Unless Christin communities are committed to embodying their Scriptural interpretation, the Bible loses its character as Scripture” (p. 108-109).
NB: Usually, readers of both phenomenological and hermeneutic texts shy away from the term “application,” because both phenomenology and hermeneutics are irreducible to definitive, technical, and trust-worthy systematized “methods” - and Westphal acknowledges this very fact in the book, acknowledging that Gadamer’s hermeneutics does not, because it cannot, function as would a scientific method - which is always highlighted by description, explanation, and, most importantly, prediction.
Westphal, in chapters 10-12, slaps the proverbial theological meat on the bones of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and offers a detailed analysis - which for lay readers will seem quite dense - relating directly to the issue of hermeneutics and the contemporary Church, a thriving community of interpreters. Here he introduces the idea of “Christian hermeneutics,” which extends far beyond the realm of strict biblical (literary/sacred text) interpretation. With Gadamer’s hermeneutics functioning as the ideal interpretive “method” or “structure,” as it were, Westphal includes the understanding of classical liberalism and communitarianism as models for the Christian community, a community bound together through a sense of justice: “This means that the Church is, among other things, a communal conversation [interpretive/engaged in translation] seeking to understand more deeply its founding ‘classic’ text, the Bible, and the traditions of interpretation that have developed through the centuries” (p. 120). The Church is the context (fusion of horizons) of interpretive activity, “the focus of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines,” a region of agreement amidst inevitable disagreement, with the potential for reaching agreement through ongoing, ever-renewed interpretation (p. 125).
Referencing communitarianism, Westphal emphasizes an account of virtues, which are, in an Aristotelian manner, essential for the “good” life, and the good Christian life, the religious life, “will be rooted in specific communities and their historical traditions [fusion of horizons]” (p. 131). Westphal links this idea with “virtue ethics, and the author is clear that “Churches derive their identity from their theologies, which are comprehensive doctrines with substantial metaphysical and moral dimensions,” and they are only made accessible only through interpretation, and so here we also encounter a shifting and crucial epistemological element at work in church communities, “so they are, from a communitarian perspective, well suited to be the moral teachers of their members and to bear moral witness to the larger society in which they find themselves [fusion of horizons]” (p. 132).
The single problem/issue with this book, and it is also common to the other fine texts in series, is that when presenting complex philosophical discussions to religious laypersons or even pastors (who are not trained or steeped in systematic philosophy), the all too real possibility exists that the issues discussed will be misunderstood; indeed, some readers will resist opening themselves up and dedicating themselves to the difficult work that such reading requires. However, if readers do find Westphal’s ideas intriguing and stimulating, I suggest, in addition to his book, seeking out Gadamer’s classic, Truth and Method (the main book discussed by Westphal). In addition, I suggest two excellent secondary studies, which would contribute to a deeper understanding of Gadamer’s original material: Davey’s Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Palmer’s seminal work, Hermeneutics, which covers similar ground to Westphal, but does so in greater detail.
Dr. James M. Magrini
Former: Philosophy and Religious Studies/College of Dupage
If any reader of this review is interested in Gadamer’s hermeneutics as related to the Platonic dialogues, seek out my free PDF book: Socrates, Politics and Education in the Alcibiades I
https://www.academia.edu/106199948/So...
NB: Material from my book was featured in the popular Internet (YouTube) series, “After Socrates” (Prof. John Vervaeke).
September 2, 2023
The subtitle of this book could be called “taking Gadamer to church.” Westphal seeks to use the work of Gadamer as a tool to understand the problem of interpretation (Page 14-15).
Westphal seeks to find a way to understand how we interpret texts in light of the hermeneutical studies from modern and postmodern scholars. He is also concerned with how we interpret Scripture when there is a variety of interpretations within church history. He frequently references as an example the interpretations of different Christian groups: the Desert Fathers, Genevan Calvinists, American slaves, and modern day Amish. Multiple readings and interpretations of the Bible, but who is correct?
Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation that can be normative (the process of how we should go about interpreting) and descriptive (what happens whenever we actually interpret). (17)
What about those who say they don't interpret, do they just see the text objectively?
"In speaking of this direct rendezvous of subject and object, philosophers view the object as immediately given or present. The claim to immediacy is the claim that the object is given to the subject without any mediating input from the subject...Naive realists would say that they are “just looking at the text” with no presuppositions and that interpretation of any kind is subjective bias." (20)
When multiple communities appeal to naive realism, “there is a conflict of intuition just as much as there is a conflict of interpretation.” (22)
History of Hermeneutics:
Schleiermacher-- developed a general hermeneutic that would apply to culturally significant texts regardless of the subject. He looked for that what was common to rather than distinctive of the different disciplines. (28)
Schleiermacher also developed the hermeneutical circle-- The parts always have to be interpreted in terms of the whole and vice versa. (28)
Two major hermaneutical circles: (28)
1. Grammatical-linguistic-- movement from part to whole goes from sentence→ text (chapter, pericope) →genre →whole language shared by the author and original readers → history of the human language
2. Psychological-- moves from the work of the author →author’s entire body of writing →author’s whole life as known to us from sources → to the nation and era of the author's life.
The first circle is for the text, the second is for the author (28)
Psychologism-- language is the outer expression of the inner life. Also known as “Romantic hermeneutics." The goal is to reverse the process of writing: from the outer expression to recreate the inner experience. (29-30)
Dilthey: the goal of interpretation is to “feel the states of mind of others.” (30)
Ricoeur: Interpretation as “re-enactment in sympathetic imagination.” 30
To combat the Romantic hermeneutic, the “relativist hermeneutics” of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur appeared (35)
They share this understanding of the hermeneutic circle: “First, we are always somewhere (socially, historically, linguistically, etc) and never nowhere when we interpret. Interpretation is never without presuppositions…Second, we can never escape from the hermeneutical circularity in which we find ourselves already located.” (35)
Gadamer and Ricoeur seek a general theory of text interpretation, and they kept to the notion of the hermeneutical circle. But they rejected psychologism and the objectivism of romantic hermeneutic. (36)
Authorial Privilege: The author is saying something in his speech/text. Is the author the final word on meaning? Do we get to impress our own interpretation upon someone else's text?
The author is finite and is constrained by language. This is expressed in a "double relativity."
First the human author “creates” meaning only in relation to the language available to them. They are cocreators of meaning since they did not create the language they used to create the text. Meaning is not created ex nihilo but is created under certain conditions. (59)
Second the relation of the authorial intent to the reader. The author's finitude is mirrored by the finitude of the reader who is not a pure origin of meaning but will be conditioned by prior meanings. Author and reader become cocreators of meaning. (59-61)
The author's intent is still important, but interpretation is not just deciphering a certain prior fixed meaning. There is a reproductive/performative aspect to interpretation. Per Gadamer: “The meaning of a text goes beyond its author. That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well.” (62)
Ricoeur: Since there are different readers in different contexts, there will be different meanings. There are “an unlimited series of readings.” 65
To Ricoeur, does the text mean anything we want? No, Ricoeur states the author's role is not “abolished”, but “complicated”. 67
Gadamer’s Hermeneutical response-- Tradition and belonging
“We belong to tradition by virtue of our thrownness into it, our immersion in it, and our formation by it...situated within traditions…history does not belong to us; we belong to it….we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family society, state in which we live.” 70
Three aspects of the traditions as belonging thesis: (71)
1. Traditions plays a double role: By giving us a place to stand, it is an enabling role. It is, in Kant's terms, “the condition of possible experience.” Our location also limits us to what we can see.
2. Traditions is plural. We are formed by multiple sources/streams of traditions., both secular and theological.
The result of our place in tradition creates an ingrained "prejudice." Prejudice meaning pre-judgement, that is, tradition produces a priori elements of interpretation. The result is that all interpretation is perspectival and no interpretation is without presuppositions but in every interpretation there is pre-understanding guiding us.
3. All interpretation is relative to traditions that have formed the perspectives that guide it.
Gadamer: the author alone cannot completely determinate the text because the author is not fully in charge of the creation of its meaning. “Works of art are detached from their origins and, just because of this, begin to speak-- perhaps surprising even the creators” (80)
Westphal's recommendation at the end of the book for how Christians operate within their inherited traditions:
“It is in the voice of Scripture in and through which God performs many other speech acts. Moreover, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to continually break through our complacent prejudices and shortages of wisdom in and through the words of the Bible…Word and Spirit. As this slogan becomes practice and not just theory, the divinely transcendent voice of Scripture will become incarnate in human language, and we will hear the very voice of God in our finite and fallen interpretations.” (155-156)
4/5 Good intro to hermeneutics and interesting discussion on the nature of interpretation.
Westphal seeks to find a way to understand how we interpret texts in light of the hermeneutical studies from modern and postmodern scholars. He is also concerned with how we interpret Scripture when there is a variety of interpretations within church history. He frequently references as an example the interpretations of different Christian groups: the Desert Fathers, Genevan Calvinists, American slaves, and modern day Amish. Multiple readings and interpretations of the Bible, but who is correct?
Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation that can be normative (the process of how we should go about interpreting) and descriptive (what happens whenever we actually interpret). (17)
What about those who say they don't interpret, do they just see the text objectively?
"In speaking of this direct rendezvous of subject and object, philosophers view the object as immediately given or present. The claim to immediacy is the claim that the object is given to the subject without any mediating input from the subject...Naive realists would say that they are “just looking at the text” with no presuppositions and that interpretation of any kind is subjective bias." (20)
When multiple communities appeal to naive realism, “there is a conflict of intuition just as much as there is a conflict of interpretation.” (22)
History of Hermeneutics:
Schleiermacher-- developed a general hermeneutic that would apply to culturally significant texts regardless of the subject. He looked for that what was common to rather than distinctive of the different disciplines. (28)
Schleiermacher also developed the hermeneutical circle-- The parts always have to be interpreted in terms of the whole and vice versa. (28)
Two major hermaneutical circles: (28)
1. Grammatical-linguistic-- movement from part to whole goes from sentence→ text (chapter, pericope) →genre →whole language shared by the author and original readers → history of the human language
2. Psychological-- moves from the work of the author →author’s entire body of writing →author’s whole life as known to us from sources → to the nation and era of the author's life.
The first circle is for the text, the second is for the author (28)
Psychologism-- language is the outer expression of the inner life. Also known as “Romantic hermeneutics." The goal is to reverse the process of writing: from the outer expression to recreate the inner experience. (29-30)
Dilthey: the goal of interpretation is to “feel the states of mind of others.” (30)
Ricoeur: Interpretation as “re-enactment in sympathetic imagination.” 30
To combat the Romantic hermeneutic, the “relativist hermeneutics” of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur appeared (35)
They share this understanding of the hermeneutic circle: “First, we are always somewhere (socially, historically, linguistically, etc) and never nowhere when we interpret. Interpretation is never without presuppositions…Second, we can never escape from the hermeneutical circularity in which we find ourselves already located.” (35)
Gadamer and Ricoeur seek a general theory of text interpretation, and they kept to the notion of the hermeneutical circle. But they rejected psychologism and the objectivism of romantic hermeneutic. (36)
Authorial Privilege: The author is saying something in his speech/text. Is the author the final word on meaning? Do we get to impress our own interpretation upon someone else's text?
The author is finite and is constrained by language. This is expressed in a "double relativity."
First the human author “creates” meaning only in relation to the language available to them. They are cocreators of meaning since they did not create the language they used to create the text. Meaning is not created ex nihilo but is created under certain conditions. (59)
Second the relation of the authorial intent to the reader. The author's finitude is mirrored by the finitude of the reader who is not a pure origin of meaning but will be conditioned by prior meanings. Author and reader become cocreators of meaning. (59-61)
The author's intent is still important, but interpretation is not just deciphering a certain prior fixed meaning. There is a reproductive/performative aspect to interpretation. Per Gadamer: “The meaning of a text goes beyond its author. That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well.” (62)
Ricoeur: Since there are different readers in different contexts, there will be different meanings. There are “an unlimited series of readings.” 65
To Ricoeur, does the text mean anything we want? No, Ricoeur states the author's role is not “abolished”, but “complicated”. 67
Gadamer’s Hermeneutical response-- Tradition and belonging
“We belong to tradition by virtue of our thrownness into it, our immersion in it, and our formation by it...situated within traditions…history does not belong to us; we belong to it….we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family society, state in which we live.” 70
Three aspects of the traditions as belonging thesis: (71)
1. Traditions plays a double role: By giving us a place to stand, it is an enabling role. It is, in Kant's terms, “the condition of possible experience.” Our location also limits us to what we can see.
2. Traditions is plural. We are formed by multiple sources/streams of traditions., both secular and theological.
The result of our place in tradition creates an ingrained "prejudice." Prejudice meaning pre-judgement, that is, tradition produces a priori elements of interpretation. The result is that all interpretation is perspectival and no interpretation is without presuppositions but in every interpretation there is pre-understanding guiding us.
3. All interpretation is relative to traditions that have formed the perspectives that guide it.
Gadamer: the author alone cannot completely determinate the text because the author is not fully in charge of the creation of its meaning. “Works of art are detached from their origins and, just because of this, begin to speak-- perhaps surprising even the creators” (80)
Westphal's recommendation at the end of the book for how Christians operate within their inherited traditions:
“It is in the voice of Scripture in and through which God performs many other speech acts. Moreover, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to continually break through our complacent prejudices and shortages of wisdom in and through the words of the Bible…Word and Spirit. As this slogan becomes practice and not just theory, the divinely transcendent voice of Scripture will become incarnate in human language, and we will hear the very voice of God in our finite and fallen interpretations.” (155-156)
4/5 Good intro to hermeneutics and interesting discussion on the nature of interpretation.
August 12, 2022
Westphal is one of the preliminary scholars on interpretation and hermeneutical methods. His books have become important to several religious thinkers that are trying to understand sacred texts, classic texts, and other texts within a framework that goes beyond the grammatical/historical interpretive identity of many Christian scholars. Westphal is often brought into postmodern circles because of his critique of objectivity. It isn't something Westphal asked for but his scholarship is so strong and his ability to synthesize the work of Gadamer, Ponty, Lakoff, and others while respecting a notable dialogue with more conservative voices. This book is important, academic but readable, short, and part of the church and postmodernism series which is one of the better scholarship series I've read in a long time.
November 8, 2022
You won't find a clearer explanation of Gadamer hermeneutics than this book, with added to it a possible application of his hermeneutics for the church. It reads well, with a few jokes scattered throughout the book. He writes clearly and goes in depth, which is something not many theologians can achieve.
Though I give it four stars, because of the lack of its interaction with theology, which only occurs occasionally in the book. Which i believe is a loss. especially when the goal of the book is that it is 'for the church'. More theological sources would maybe have brought more of a discussion on a possible special hermeneutics for Scripture, the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation and the role of ecclesiology.
Though I give it four stars, because of the lack of its interaction with theology, which only occurs occasionally in the book. Which i believe is a loss. especially when the goal of the book is that it is 'for the church'. More theological sources would maybe have brought more of a discussion on a possible special hermeneutics for Scripture, the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation and the role of ecclesiology.
Read
January 19, 2020This is the second book I've read from the series, and the series (so far) is great. This book focuses in on Gadamer's hermeneutic, the emerging tradition it responded to, and its relevance to the church. It is quite accessible if this is of interest. I found Wolterstorff's theory a bit of an awkward insertion in the early part of the book and yet missing in the later part of the book (when Westphal was dealing with Rawls). Still, a really great work which should be read if you are interested in the topic.
June 28, 2017
In Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Westphal explores how Gadamer can be of help to the Church. In a postmodern world, questions of subjectivity and biblical interpretation are ever present. How can the church understand the Bible while at the same time acknowledging cultural and historical rootedness? Westphal thinks Gadamerian hermeneutics can help.
October 3, 2019
I will have to revisit this book. It was a helpful introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. It’s not easy to come to agreements about things we disagree on, especially when they are so intrinsic to our faith. Westphal gives some helpful advice on how we might have better conversations as a church on matters we disagree about.
June 9, 2020
Very eloquently written book, with far more contents than the number of pages would make you believe.
December 16, 2020
This view radically changed my outlook on life. After reading this I now am reconsidering my entire outlook on life. Great read!
March 8, 2022
A helpful primer on philosophical hermeneutics. Recommended for MDiv students or pastors wrestling with how to think about the process of interpreting sacred text.
February 15, 2017
accessible and thorough. very glad i picked it up.
"It is dangerous for Jerusalem (theology) to turn to Athens (philosophy) for guidance. The word of the cross does not conform to the wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 1: 18-2: 13). But there are two reasons why the risk is worth taking, especially when one is conscious of the danger. First, theologies that pride themselves on being free of contamination by philosophy are often, even usually, shaped by philosophical traditions that have become part of the culture to which these theologies belong and that operate without us being consciously aware of them. So an explicit reflection on philosophical issues in hermeneutics can be an aid to critical self-understanding. The point is not to be uncritical of some philosophical tradition (a genuine danger) but to be willing to be self-critical as theologians. Second, we just might learn something about interpretation that applies as much to biblical interpretation as to legal or literary interpretation."
"The hermeneutic tradition whose founding fathers are Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur has no neat name. So I will bite the bullet and give it a name, an ugly name that will scare some readers: relativist hermeneutics. This trio shares the following interpretation of the hermeneutical circle: First, we are always somewhere (socially, culturally, historically, linguistically) and never nowhere when we interpret. Interpretation is never without presuppositions. It is always relative to the particular and contingent “location” of the interpreter. Of course, we can always seek, as individuals or communities, to become aware of our presuppositions and to subject them to scrutiny and critique. But we are always somewhere and never nowhere in doing this, that is, evaluating a tradition of interpretation to which we belong in the light of some other tradition to which we also belong or to which we have been willing to listen seriously. So, second, we never escape from the hermeneutical circularity in which we always find ourselves already located. Of course, we can move from one circle to another, like the racist who becomes converted to one of the various language games of equal respect, but we never escape all somewheres to arrive at nowhere. We are like snakes that slough off one skin only to inhabit another."
"What we must keep in mind is that to say that certain ideas, beliefs, practices, or interpretations are relative to this cultural or historical horizon is to say that they are conditioned by that context and would be different, or even impossible, in other contexts. Thus the biblical interpretations of the desert fathers are relative to their mode of monastic life. Since only God is absolute and we are relative, this kind of relativity shows up all over the place. But it is not at all the same as the relativism that says “Anything goes,” every interpretation is as good as every other one. To equate the two is to succumb to sloppy thinking."
"It is dangerous for Jerusalem (theology) to turn to Athens (philosophy) for guidance. The word of the cross does not conform to the wisdom of the world (1 Cor. 1: 18-2: 13). But there are two reasons why the risk is worth taking, especially when one is conscious of the danger. First, theologies that pride themselves on being free of contamination by philosophy are often, even usually, shaped by philosophical traditions that have become part of the culture to which these theologies belong and that operate without us being consciously aware of them. So an explicit reflection on philosophical issues in hermeneutics can be an aid to critical self-understanding. The point is not to be uncritical of some philosophical tradition (a genuine danger) but to be willing to be self-critical as theologians. Second, we just might learn something about interpretation that applies as much to biblical interpretation as to legal or literary interpretation."
"The hermeneutic tradition whose founding fathers are Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur has no neat name. So I will bite the bullet and give it a name, an ugly name that will scare some readers: relativist hermeneutics. This trio shares the following interpretation of the hermeneutical circle: First, we are always somewhere (socially, culturally, historically, linguistically) and never nowhere when we interpret. Interpretation is never without presuppositions. It is always relative to the particular and contingent “location” of the interpreter. Of course, we can always seek, as individuals or communities, to become aware of our presuppositions and to subject them to scrutiny and critique. But we are always somewhere and never nowhere in doing this, that is, evaluating a tradition of interpretation to which we belong in the light of some other tradition to which we also belong or to which we have been willing to listen seriously. So, second, we never escape from the hermeneutical circularity in which we always find ourselves already located. Of course, we can move from one circle to another, like the racist who becomes converted to one of the various language games of equal respect, but we never escape all somewheres to arrive at nowhere. We are like snakes that slough off one skin only to inhabit another."
"What we must keep in mind is that to say that certain ideas, beliefs, practices, or interpretations are relative to this cultural or historical horizon is to say that they are conditioned by that context and would be different, or even impossible, in other contexts. Thus the biblical interpretations of the desert fathers are relative to their mode of monastic life. Since only God is absolute and we are relative, this kind of relativity shows up all over the place. But it is not at all the same as the relativism that says “Anything goes,” every interpretation is as good as every other one. To equate the two is to succumb to sloppy thinking."
November 17, 2015
Westphal's book is helpful in many ways. It is a good and -- in my opinion -- accessible introduction to the difficult task of interpretation. He rightly situates this task as central and necessary in all aspects of Christian life, which he glosses as theological, pastoral, and lay, or written, spoken, and private. No matter how our lives weave in and out of these modes of Christian reflection, we encounter the need to interpret, and so our lives are necessarily hermeneutical.
I also appreciated the non-polemical tone of the book. Westphal is clearly staking a particular position and choosing one philosophical hero over others, but he approaches this choice in a largely irenic manner, seeking to draw somewhat divergent perspectives into harmonizing conversation. For example, although Nicholas Wolterstorff's approach is different from Westphal's in both form and content, Westphal has many complementary things to say of Wolterstorff and even incorporates the latter's insights at key points.
The reason I finally chose to give a three-star rating, however, is due to the odd concluding chapters. Chapters 10-12, especially 10-11, serve as something of a test-case to demonstrate how the community for whom Scriptural interpretation is its primary task is to actually act as interpreters and be shaped by interpretation of the Bible. However, it is, in my opinion, largely discontinuous with the former chapters. Whereas the central three chapters of the book herald Gadamer's hermeneutics, the insights of that discussion served little material role in Westphal's discussion of the church as community of interpretation. Rather, a new hero emerges: John Rawls and his liberal conception of justice.
At this point, I wonder if there is an underlying polemic at play: to describe what the moral shape of the Church as the community of interpretation is, Westphal is defending a liberal (politically liberal, not theologically) vision of community in contrast to a communitarian/MacIntyrean view like that of Stanley Hauerwas. Though Westphal does not criticize Hauerwas by name, and even concedes some space to Hauerwas in a footnote, it seems that Westphal might be intentionally offering a corrective to Hauerwas who constructs a view of the church precisely by criticizing John Rawls' liberalism.
Now, I'm getting dangerously close to claiming to know Westphal's "authorial intention" which is a poor hermeneutical practice. My main dissatisfaction with the final three chapters (esp 10-11) is not that he relies on Rawls (though I am not as sympathetic with Rawls) but that it does not seem as closely connected to the substantive central chapters on Gadamer as it should be. Were the dependence on Gadamer along with the logical connections between chapters 6-9 and 10-12 more clear, the conclusions would be more satisfying, or at least more compelling.
I also appreciated the non-polemical tone of the book. Westphal is clearly staking a particular position and choosing one philosophical hero over others, but he approaches this choice in a largely irenic manner, seeking to draw somewhat divergent perspectives into harmonizing conversation. For example, although Nicholas Wolterstorff's approach is different from Westphal's in both form and content, Westphal has many complementary things to say of Wolterstorff and even incorporates the latter's insights at key points.
The reason I finally chose to give a three-star rating, however, is due to the odd concluding chapters. Chapters 10-12, especially 10-11, serve as something of a test-case to demonstrate how the community for whom Scriptural interpretation is its primary task is to actually act as interpreters and be shaped by interpretation of the Bible. However, it is, in my opinion, largely discontinuous with the former chapters. Whereas the central three chapters of the book herald Gadamer's hermeneutics, the insights of that discussion served little material role in Westphal's discussion of the church as community of interpretation. Rather, a new hero emerges: John Rawls and his liberal conception of justice.
At this point, I wonder if there is an underlying polemic at play: to describe what the moral shape of the Church as the community of interpretation is, Westphal is defending a liberal (politically liberal, not theologically) vision of community in contrast to a communitarian/MacIntyrean view like that of Stanley Hauerwas. Though Westphal does not criticize Hauerwas by name, and even concedes some space to Hauerwas in a footnote, it seems that Westphal might be intentionally offering a corrective to Hauerwas who constructs a view of the church precisely by criticizing John Rawls' liberalism.
Now, I'm getting dangerously close to claiming to know Westphal's "authorial intention" which is a poor hermeneutical practice. My main dissatisfaction with the final three chapters (esp 10-11) is not that he relies on Rawls (though I am not as sympathetic with Rawls) but that it does not seem as closely connected to the substantive central chapters on Gadamer as it should be. Were the dependence on Gadamer along with the logical connections between chapters 6-9 and 10-12 more clear, the conclusions would be more satisfying, or at least more compelling.
October 6, 2011
You have to like a book when one of its major catch-phrases is wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein (aka 'historically effected consciousness').
Well, perhaps that's not the only reason.
Merold Westphal has written a book on interpretation. He's most interested in interpreting the Bible, but places Bible reading in the context of reading in general. Westphal spends a few chapters setting the topic in its current intellectual climate. Then the main part of the work is a presentation of hermeneutics directly drawing on the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer.
These chapters (6 to 9) are the working heart of the book, as well as providing a summary of Gadamer's thoughts on interpretation. Here we read that no readers are objective, and that there's no objective method guaranteed to produce 'meaning' for any text - yet that interpretation is not thereby rendered totally subjective and anarchic.
The final three chapters were a touch suprising to me, though I can see how they flow from the earliuer part of the book. In these, Westphal considers - if I have understood correctly - how it is possible for many people and groups to read the Bible, and to do so productively despite differences in perspective. Westphal uses Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue as a case in point.
This surprised me, I think, because I am less interested in a philisophical framework for respectful ecumenical dialogue (though not against this!). I am more interested in how groups of people can to rightly, though contingently, understand the Bible. At risk of simplifying, I think Westphal's book is about how to read the scriptures and have (true, Christian) dialogue, while my interest is how to read the scriptures and come to a common (true, Christian) understanding.
Nonetheless, I recommend this book. The chapters are short and lucid, though involving some technical terms. It makes me want to read more of Gadamer. It opened my eyes to previously-undervalued applications of hermeneutics (ecumenical situations). Most importantly, it strengthened my attitude that the Bible is not only great because it's God's word, and that the way to approach the Bible is as a humble reader ready to learn.
Well, perhaps that's not the only reason.
Merold Westphal has written a book on interpretation. He's most interested in interpreting the Bible, but places Bible reading in the context of reading in general. Westphal spends a few chapters setting the topic in its current intellectual climate. Then the main part of the work is a presentation of hermeneutics directly drawing on the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer.
These chapters (6 to 9) are the working heart of the book, as well as providing a summary of Gadamer's thoughts on interpretation. Here we read that no readers are objective, and that there's no objective method guaranteed to produce 'meaning' for any text - yet that interpretation is not thereby rendered totally subjective and anarchic.
The final three chapters were a touch suprising to me, though I can see how they flow from the earliuer part of the book. In these, Westphal considers - if I have understood correctly - how it is possible for many people and groups to read the Bible, and to do so productively despite differences in perspective. Westphal uses Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue as a case in point.
This surprised me, I think, because I am less interested in a philisophical framework for respectful ecumenical dialogue (though not against this!). I am more interested in how groups of people can to rightly, though contingently, understand the Bible. At risk of simplifying, I think Westphal's book is about how to read the scriptures and have (true, Christian) dialogue, while my interest is how to read the scriptures and come to a common (true, Christian) understanding.
Nonetheless, I recommend this book. The chapters are short and lucid, though involving some technical terms. It makes me want to read more of Gadamer. It opened my eyes to previously-undervalued applications of hermeneutics (ecumenical situations). Most importantly, it strengthened my attitude that the Bible is not only great because it's God's word, and that the way to approach the Bible is as a humble reader ready to learn.
May 27, 2015
Authors and Readers: Allies or Opponents?
Whose Community? Which Interpretation is an excellent primer in Christian / Biblical hermeneutics. It explores the relationship between author, text, and reader by demonstrating that the text is much more than a mere medium for carrying information from one mind to another. In fact, this cannot be achieved, even by the best writer or the most efficient, observant reader. The text itself, embedded, as are both authors and readers, in a language, am era of time and even a format, communicates something that both restricts and expands the author's intention.
Applying these lessons to the text of scripture, a believer becomes aware that the intent human author of a passage in question, the context of that passage within the Christian canon, the history of refection on that passage by other believers, the fact that believers accept the text as having in some sense Divine authorship, the use of the passage in worship or prayer -- all of these factors are present as the reader, herself embedded in a specific language, era of time, and religious community opens the book.
This is a book that leads to a degree of reasonable humility in conversations about and applications of Holy Scripture.
Whose Community? Which Interpretation is an excellent primer in Christian / Biblical hermeneutics. It explores the relationship between author, text, and reader by demonstrating that the text is much more than a mere medium for carrying information from one mind to another. In fact, this cannot be achieved, even by the best writer or the most efficient, observant reader. The text itself, embedded, as are both authors and readers, in a language, am era of time and even a format, communicates something that both restricts and expands the author's intention.
Applying these lessons to the text of scripture, a believer becomes aware that the intent human author of a passage in question, the context of that passage within the Christian canon, the history of refection on that passage by other believers, the fact that believers accept the text as having in some sense Divine authorship, the use of the passage in worship or prayer -- all of these factors are present as the reader, herself embedded in a specific language, era of time, and religious community opens the book.
This is a book that leads to a degree of reasonable humility in conversations about and applications of Holy Scripture.
March 6, 2013
I only read chapter 1, but this quote from the end of the chapter sticks with me.
"Here the hermeneutical question arises whether some texts, including biblical texts, are like the elephant: rich enough to require, not merely to permit, a multitude of different readings just because human readings are always partial and perspectival and because no single reading is able to capture and express the overflow of meaning these texts contain. We think this way about Shakespeare. Why not think this way about the Bible?Once again the possibility of necessary multiplicity does not open the door to just anything. None of the six blind men had warrant to say that the elephant was like a keyboard or a file cabinet."
"Here the hermeneutical question arises whether some texts, including biblical texts, are like the elephant: rich enough to require, not merely to permit, a multitude of different readings just because human readings are always partial and perspectival and because no single reading is able to capture and express the overflow of meaning these texts contain. We think this way about Shakespeare. Why not think this way about the Bible?Once again the possibility of necessary multiplicity does not open the door to just anything. None of the six blind men had warrant to say that the elephant was like a keyboard or a file cabinet."
October 31, 2011
I suppose that my three star rating has more to do with my lack of background in philosophical hermeneutics than the book itself. I didn't catch a lot of the fine points but did come away with at least an appreciation that everyone comes to the text through a perspective, with a preunderstanding and yet need not fear absolute relativism. I particularly appreciated the author's emphasis in the Spirit's role in interpretation and his community hermeneutic.
November 1, 2014
Enjoyed reading--helped me improve my understanding of the background to the debates, the exaggerated rhetoric of some realists, New Criticism, 'death of the author,' the world 'in front of' the text, and interpretation as performance. Introduced me to Gadamer, hugely helpful drawing from/overviewing T&M. I'd recommend the series to people like myself, just thinking on the fringes of these philosophical/linguistic questions, trying to learn more.
August 10, 2013
I have used this book for my MA dissertation on biblical hermeneutics and I can highly recommend it. Westphal offers a lucid interpretation Gadamer's relativst hermeneutics — still cutting edge in this academic discipline. Though he sometimes uses heavy theoretical language and discussion, which is pretty much avoidable in this subject area, I still think he does a good job at making Gadamer accessible for Christian intellectuals from various disciplines.
August 19, 2013
My favorite part about the book was not the abstract philosophizing (while that was terrific). Rather, it was the constructive exhortation for the church to listen to the Word and to each other! A great work of philosophy and a pastoral final chapter.
September 12, 2014
A nice introduction to Gadamerian hermeneutics. Much good to chew on, even with some disagreements here and there.
October 2, 2014
This entire series have a problem with hermeneutics and theology.
October 23, 2015
It had some very interesting ideas, but it was a bit technical for the casual, armchair hermeneutics fan.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews