Putting “Theological Interpretation” in Its Place: Three Models and Their Limits

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Advocacy for a “theological interpretation of Scripture” typically takes its starting point from the perceived inadequacies of “normal” biblical scholarship to measure up to the unique character of its subject matter (which is the Word of God, or at least the canonical Scriptures of the historic Christian community). Normal biblical scholarship is characterized as subservient to the dictates of the so-called “historical-critical method”—an awkward anglicization of German terminology, which (arguably) does scant justice to the rich diversity of interpretative aims and perspectives that the modern scholarly tradition has brought to bear on the biblical texts.1 It should not be forgotten that the most influential biblical scholar of the mid-twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann, was also an important theological voice whose legacy as a theologian continues to be discussed.2 Even the most conventional “historical-critical” commentary tacitly acknowledges the significance and value of the biblical text in its demand for patient attentiveness to multiple dimensions of the text’s existence.Nevertheless, perceived theological and textual priorities have often clashed and continue to do so. Exegetical results and hypotheses may be found disconcerting and indeed bewildering to those who expected a straightforward passage from biblical text to theological affirmation. A text may come to seem so implicated in its originating historical contexts that it has nothing left to say to our own times. The call for a “theological interpretation” is a reaction against the experience of disillusionment that the modern biblical scholarly tradition can engender. Even for those whose experience has been one of liberation and enrichment, disillusion and the desire to overcome it is a factor to be reckoned with. Theological interpretation is neither illegitimate nor obligatory, as its opponents and partisans sometimes respectively claim. There is and must be a place for it within a mature and pluralistic discipline. But what is “it,” and what is its “place”?The three papers to which I here respond propose different answers to the fundamental question of what theological interpretation is. As a personal complicating factor, I can see affinities with all three of them in my own work over the past thirty years or so.3Grant Macaskill addresses what he sees as the fragmentation of the traditional theological disciplines, the loss of overall coherence that occurs as specialization takes over and scholars become unwilling and unable to engage with their colleagues in cognate theological disciplines. Macaskill would resolve this problem by assigning primacy to the disciplines of systematic and practical theology. Systematic theologians aspire to speak not of this thing or that, but of everything: God and God’s relation to the world as understood within the perspective of Christian faith. Practical theologians are concerned with the consequences of this construal of the divine/human relation for the individual, church, and society. Practitioners of other disciplines—specifically the biblical ones—must reconnect with colleagues whose business is with matters rather more fundamental and pressing than, say, the truth or falsehood of the Q hypothesis or the identity of Paul’s opponents in Galatia.4Christian faith is articulated through different Christian traditions, and Macaskill signals his evangelical commitment to the Bible as “the Word of God” while acknowledging that that commitment must be located within a broader understanding of the divine economy of salvation. Nevertheless, his proposal is in essence not tradition-specific. His argument is that theological interpretation should be seen as an interdisciplinary practice. Good interdisciplinary work requires one to acquire a degree of competence in the other discipline and to bring one’s own disciplinary resources to bear on quite different agendas that might include—as in Macaskill’s case—such disparate topics as providence and autism. As biblical scholars we should converse with colleagues who are systematic or practical theologians (if we are fortunate enough to have them), and we should read ourselves into their fields. A model for theological interpretation that operates exclusively with biblical-scholarly resources, bypassing traditions of Christian theological reflection from Irenaeus to Barth to the present, will never be adequate. Macaskill finds this defective one- or two-dimensional theology exemplified in the much-publicized debate between Douglas Campbell and N. T. Wright. Somewhere in the background, no doubt, is a popular Protestant biblicism in which indifference to historic traditions of theological reflection and biblical interpretation is regarded as a virtue.On its own terms Macaskill’s position is both coherent and cogent. Theological interpretation will be credible if and only if the practitioner has acquired a “professional” level of competence as a theologian as well as a biblical scholar.5 My question is not whether the interpretative practice outlined by Macaskill is legitimate but whether and how far it is obligatory. The “fragmentation” of which he speaks implies that there has been an unfortunate breakage and that all concerned should work together to restore the shattered object (theology) to its former integrity. For Macaskill as a biblical scholar, the obligation to do so would follow from the fact that the Bible is the Word of God. Yet this equation is not self-evident to all.6 Neither the Bible itself nor the evangelical tradition can demonstrate that the Bible is, most fundamentally, Word-of-God rather than any of the other things it may be taken to be. Indeed, this non-transparency of the Bible as Word of God may actually be affirmed on theological grounds, at least within the Reformed strand of evangelicalism where eyes opened to see and ears to hear are the work of the Holy Spirit, which, like the wind, blows where it wills. Plural perspectives on the Bible are therefore inevitable, within and without the scholarly sphere. That plurality should not be reduced to a binary choice between a Word-of-God Bible on the one hand and a collection of ancient documents of merely historical interest on the other. (What does “historical” mean, and “interest”? Why “merely”?)7Wesley Hill’s paper overlaps at some points with Macaskill’s. Hill’s argument is that our understanding of the biblical texts will be enhanced by engaging with the work of theologians past or present as they engage in the task of doctrinal construction. Different construals of the Trinity can cause us to look back at the Fourth Gospel—always a key scriptural source for this doctrine—with new interpretative questions that can generate new interpretative insights. Hill’s position has affinities with Gadamer’s concept of Wirkungsgeschichte, according to which the object of interpretation is and can only be the text as transmitted by a tradition in which the interpreter too always already participates. From Gadamer’s phenomenological perspective, the assumption that an interpreter can gain direct access to original textual meaning by employing an appropriate historical method is illusory, abstracting from and misunderstanding the phenomenon of the text as it presents itself to us. Some such realization may be implied in Hill’s reference to his own training as a biblical scholar—initially assuming the adequacy of the standard set of linguistic, exegetical, and historical competences, later coming to realize that the limited horizons of historically oriented biblical scholarship need to expand to accommodate the engagement with the text of generations of its readers. A privileged place is assigned to those readers who have found in the text the building blocks for their work of theological construction.8 We are invited to consider apprenticing ourselves to one or other of those figures (or one or other of their works), living with them for long enough to acquire a sense for how Scripture looks when seen through their eyes. It is an excellent suggestion. If one were to follow it up, Augustine’s De doctrina christiana would be a good candidate for close acquaintance.9Where does that leave the historical knowledge and exegetical skills that have now come to seem insufficient? Clearly Hill continues to value them.10 There is in his paper no Gadamerian complaint about the illusions of “method.” His remarks about his initial scholarly training in no way suggest that he wishes to dispense with it—only that it did not prove adequate to the task of theological interpretation as he now conceives it. This reflects the experience of most advocates of theological interpretation; they (or we) received the conventional scholarly preparation, we were more or less successfully enculturated into the mainstream research paradigm in our field—but something was missing. It is that sense of lack that underlies the quest for a model of biblical interpretation in which theology, however understood, is restored to primacy. Hill does not name the site of that lack, but where it is named the preferred term is generally: history. With all due qualifications and nuances, theological interpretation proposes a move from history to theology, a prioritizing of theology over history. If I apprentice myself to the Augustine of the De doctrina christiana, I will learn from him both to value whatever exegetical skills and historical knowledge I may have acquired and also to subordinate them to a theological hermeneutic in which the telos of scriptural interpretation is to promote the love of God and neighbor.Yet there may be loss as well as gain in undertaking such a program of re-education, recalibrating the relationship of history and theology so as to prioritize the one at the expense of the other. This anxiety about history and historical study looks extremely odd in the context of a religious tradition (Christianity) that typically understands itself to be constituted by its originating history. How could that history be anything other than theologically relevant, whether or not theological relevance is intended by this or that historian? Whatever its limitations, modern critical New Testament scholarship everywhere assumes that the first-century origins of Christianity are important enough to require the closest attention and scrutiny from every possible angle. (The notion that these multiple perspectives can all be reduced to a single “method” is of course absurd.) How could an informed historical account of the interpretative processes by which the individual known as Jesus of Nazareth came to be viewed first as the Christ and then as the eternal divine Logos be anything other than theologically relevant? The point is made with admirable clarity by Paul Tillich (who may have learnt it from Bultmann): “The event on which Christianity is based has two sides: the fact which is called ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and the reception of this fact by those who received him as the Christ . . . Without this reception the Christ would not have been the Christ.”11Is this a “theological” or a “historical” claim? It is both simultaneously. Tillich goes on to state that the New Testament itself “is an integral part of the event which it documents.”12 If so, it is important to determine how this comes to be the case; how some early Christian writings but not others were gradually assembled into a collection with fixed limits, a clearly defined content, and a privileged status. That would require not a turn away from history but an enlarged view of the history relevant to the New Testament scholarly discipline as including the reception process that created its object of study.History and theology also converge to some degree in Richard Briggs’s paper, which explores the possibilities of “ascriptive realism” in dialogue with post-colonialist readings of the Book of Daniel. Like other concepts emanating from Hans Frei, “ascriptive realism” is both elusive and suggestive, so the initial question is what this expression would mean as a hermeneutical program (if that is what it is). The term “realism” represents a commitment to understand the text not as a self-contained linguistic artifact but in its relation to reality. The text is speaking about something, and its value for us must lie in its reference to that non-trivial something. The relation between text and reality is, however, indirect. When the Book of Daniel tells of the dramatic circumstances in which a Babylonian king named Belshazzar was punished for his blasphemous use of sacred vessels, losing his kingdom to Darius the Mede, it is not speaking of an event that ever actually took place. In Briggs’s terminology, an insistence on the historicity of this story would entail a commitment to a “descriptive” rather than “ascriptive” realism. In Frei’s earlier terminology, this is “ostensive reference.” Modern critical scholarship has shown how frequently the assumption of ostensive reference breaks down when confronted with historical evidence from beyond the scriptural narrative. Here for example is James Barr summarizing the historical errors of the Belshazzar story:There are faint echoes of “real” history here. There was once a Belshazzar and a Darius, and Babylon really did “fall.” Perhaps there was also a feast on the night of its fall, as Herodotus and Xenophon both claim.14 As it stands, however, the story is clearly legendary, and Barr does not need to pose the question whether its account of a sudden divine intervention in the form of supernatural handwriting is credible.Ascriptive realism accepts that ostensive reference is difficult or impossible to maintain, but it seeks a way out of the pure negation typified by Barr’s comments. The negation is a necessary moment in the interpretative process, but it should not be the end point. The purpose of the Danielic story is not to “describe” the fall of Babylon but rather to “ascribe” to this real-world event an evaluation or interpretation; the story must take legendary form if it is to present the fall of Babylon as an exemplary act of divine judgment on an oppressor and an oppressive regime. More important than the fluid identities of the human agencies involved is the identification of the divine agent who exposes human self-aggrandizement and self-divinization as idolatrous and, as such, inherently self-destructive. The story is exemplary because the author or editor is primarily concerned with an oppressive and idolatrous regime in his own time, the mid-second century BCE, long after the political map of the Near East had been redrawn by Alexander the Great and his successors. Thus the scriptural story of the fall of Babylon speaks not just of a singular event in the distant past (inaccurately at that), but of the inherent instability of empire. It is a counter-narrative to the triumphalist narratives of imperial power—a narrative from below that deconstructs every narrative from above.In the preceding paragraphs I have tried to reconstruct in my own terms Briggs’s appeal to “ascriptive realism” and postcolonial theory to develop a post-critical theological reading of the Book of Daniel. The crucial hermeneutical move is the uncovering of exemplary or typical significance in a narrative ostensibly concerned with a singular event, and the reality thereby disclosed and evaluated is one in which we too remain implicated. Thus Briggs can suggest that the Danielic portrayal of “larger-than-life self-obsessed tyrants causing social and political mayhem while playing fast and loose with God-talk” has particular resonance “in our present historical moment.” Ascriptive realism assumes that the particularities of biblical narrative have enduring exemplary significance, and that these can continue to motivate judgments, dispositions, and practices to this day.All three models discussed here are concerned with the scriptural text in its relation to reality. Macaskill’s call for the reintegration of the theological disciplines arises from the conviction that theology’s primary calling is to articulate the self-disclosure of the triune God and its implications for creaturely existence, on the basis of the inscribed Word of God. This is, one might say, a maximalist account of the reality to which the text bears witness. Hill practices a dialogue with the architects of Christian doctrine, medieval and modern, in the expectation that this will enhance his understanding not of the text alone but of the reality mediated through the text. In Briggs’s reading, the Danielic reality is that of idolatrous political power and its nemesis. In their concern with the text in relation to the real, the three authors are at one in practicing biblical interpretation from within the sphere of Christian faith. Each speaks from within a Christian view of reality and addresses those who share that view. In these models, the theological interpretation of Scripture requires an interpreter who speaks from faith to faith. As is often pointed out, this is an entirely defensible position to take. In the ecclesial contexts in which biblical interpretation has its natural habitat, it is not only defensible but more or less obligatory.In contrast and in conclusion, I would like to propose that a theological interpretation is no more and no less than an insightful interpretation of a text with significant theological content.15 The scriptural canon ascribes significant theological content to the texts it identifies, and theological interpretation will be attentive to the ecclesial processes that established that canonical status and the interpretative traditions that have brought that content to expression. On this definition, a biblical exegesis that engages only with relevant recent scholarship would not qualify as theological interpretation—nor should it aspire to do so. Equally, an exegesis concerned to establish a text’s context of origin would not qualify, since it would be oriented towards something other than the significant theological content ascribed to the text by virtue of its canonical status.On this account, theological interpretation would not be addressed from faith to faith. It would in no sense be “confessional.” The faith of the interpreter is not a prerequisite for an insightful reading of a theologically significant text, for the art of interpretation requires an imaginative sympathy with ideas and perspectives that may be far from coinciding with one’s own. Nevertheless, an insightful interpretation of a theologically significant text may be expected to show that the truth claim it implies and the form of life it mandates represent a live option for its readers and users.16 It cannot, however, do more than that—as though it could produce the truth asserted by the text, or validate the form of life.A theological interpretation can claim no special privileges. It is not inherently superior to other modes of interpretation, and it should refrain from criticizing them for their alleged theological insensitivity or irrelevance, but rather draw freely on the methodological resources they provide. There will, then, be no exclusively theological mode of interpretation, jealously guarding its ideological purity. Interpretation is a complex and demanding practice, and interpreters should be grateful for whatever help lies to hand.