Christian Hermeneutical Reading

A Christian Hermeneutical Reading

By

John E. Shaffett

            Hermeneutical thinking was changed in the twentieth-century because of the failure of Romantic Hermeneutics (Lundin, Hermeneutics, 157). Romantic hermeneutics argued that to interpret a book, “we are facing a creative projection of truth that has arisen from within another human being. In understanding that creation, we cannot rely on our membership in a community or tradition to mediate its unique truth to us” (Lundin, 155). Basically, we need the “see the world” through the author’s eyes. Much of this theory was influenced by Rene Descartes who believed that to get “at the truth of things” required the thinker to set “aside all of his preconceptions about God, the world, and the self” (Lundin,158). This Cartesian tradition would be challenged by Martin Heidegger. He questioned Descartes’ claim “about our ability to cast aside our pre-understanding as we search for knowledge” (Lundin, 159).  He asserted that there was “no such thing as direct, unmediated perception. All of our judgements of things are informed by prior conceptions we hold” (Lundin, 159). This is the famous hermeneutical circle. Stanley Fish argued, “the text is accessible only through their interpretations of it, which determine what they see in the text” (Walhout, 274). In other words, the text is not separate from the reader’s personal beliefs. He does not see what is plainly there. The reader cannot understand or interpret without using his pre-understanding. Therefore, there is no escaping the fact that the reader is interpreting from some tradition. Since everyone reads or interprets from prejudices, according to Gadamer, what is the Christian reader to do? The reader should test their interpretation by the written text. Gadamer thought of understanding as a “form of dialogue in which the horizon of our prejudices is fused with that of the text we are reading or the individual with whom we are conversing, as we both attend to the object or truth in question” (162). For example, the author has certain ideas about a particular subject that he puts in a book. The reader has certain ideas and beliefs about the subject already. The reading of the book is a dynamic interaction between the reader and the book, a fusion of understanding. Different readers might draw different conclusions from the same book. What are the implications of the changes brought about by Heidegger and his followers for a Christian Hermeneutical reading?

            One implication is that there are more than “one legitimate way to read a text” (Lundin, 165).  Saint Augustine is an example of a person who practiced Christian hermeneutical reading. He thought that rival interpretations of a text could be true. Second, he believed there could be multiple meanings in a text. Augustine’s criteria required that each interpretation of Scripture should cultivate love of God and love of neighbor. He taught that certain virtues contributed to good interpretation and practicing charity in reading could develop particular virtues. For example, in his steps to wisdom, he names virtues like fear, piety, knowledge, and so on. Walhout thinks a Christian hermeneutical theory would seek to “discover what kind of critical practice advances shalom” (Walhout, 290). Shalom is human flourishing. A Christian hermeneutical theory would “recognize the role of the Christian virtues in critical orthopraxis” (290). For example, what does it mean to interpret a text with charity and justice? The work of Gadamer and others in his tradition can help Christians develop a Christian hermeneutic of reading from their own Christian tradition.