Testimony and the knowledge of God: Sounding biblical and phenomenological motifs of witness for their contribution to theological epistemology
Keywords: Gospel of John
Fourth Gospel
Jean-Luc Marion
Witness
Paul Ricoeur
Theological Epistemology
Jean-Louis Chrétien
Testimony

The question driving the research behind this thesis has been: what might motifs of witness, in their biblical and contemporary philosophical manifestations, have to contribute toward constructive development within contemporary theological epistemology? The thesis argues that sounding biblical and phenomenological motifs of witness for their contribution to theological epistemology reveals that the motif of testimony commends viewing well worn debates within the field through the phenomena of witness taken as an analogical meta-lens through which a variety of epistemic stances can be assessed.
After an introduction, the first chapter sets out the stance that the thesis takes amidst the varieties of ways that theologians and philosophers relate the theological and the epistemological aspects within the combined discussion that seeks to relate the two, known as theological epistemology. Having clarified the stance this thesis launches from, I then establish four touchstones which I argue should characterise contribution toward the field from the integrity of that outlined stance. From that perspective, I note an increasing prevalence of thematic approaches to the field of theological epistemology, where a given motif or theme is selected and then made central within one’s overall approach to the discourse. I assess two examples of the thematic approach, and find that the strategy has merit but can be subject to its epistemic connections being tenuous or to losing its Christological focus if a robust enough theme is not selected. I conclude the first chapter by commending witness / testimony as a superior central motif through which to develop constructive contribution for the discipline.
From this introductory chapter, the argument proceeds through three stages - the biblical, the philosophical/phenomenological, and the theo-constructive. The biblical stage of the argument focuses on the Gospel according to John, understood as containing the highest and most sophisticated expression of a biblical motif of witness. Whereas New Testament scholarship has long recognised the vital importance of the motif of witness for the Fourth Gospel, it has tended to not treat the motif beyond recognising a multiplicity of witnesses operative throughout the narrative of the text. I take the examination of the motif further, and recognise a testimonial-logic at play behind and through the gospel’s presentation of witnesses, and demonstrate how the Logos incarnate at times honours this testimonial logic as it pertains him, and at other times insists that it cannot constrain him. I conclude the second chapter by examining the contested function of the witness motif within the Gospel of John and identify two functions.
I then turn toward philosophical uses of the motif of witness within modern phenomenology, with examples examined in the works of Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Louis Chrétien, and Jean-Luc Marion, which demonstrate uses where the motif of witness is taken as a central analogical meta-lens through which these thinkers examine the fundamental relation between finite human consciousness and absolute infinite reality, when working in a phenomenological mode, and explicitly between God and humanity when they are working within a theological mode.
Before a brief conclusion which summarises the argument of the thesis as a whole, in the final chapter I demonstrate how adopting the motif of witness as a meta-lens through which to approach central matters of theological epistemology enables development of an epistemic posture that has strong theological, ontological, contextual, and ethical resonance - as promised in the first chapter. I develop a profile of the epistemic stance of the witness by drawing on the second and third chapter, and by pulling together their biblical and phenomenological insights to build the final chapter’s constructive conclusion.