Contours of a Constructive Pentecostal Philosophical-Theological Hermeneutic

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
L. William Oliverio,
Keyword(s):  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Dialectical Structure ◽  
Theological Hermeneutics ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Human Understanding

Development of Pentecostal hermeneutics continues to benefit from further consideration of the roles general philosophical and theological hermeneutics play in the formation of Pentecostal hermeneutics of Scripture and life. This article pictures a Pentecostal philosophical-theological hermeneutical paradigm by sketching the contours of a broad hermeneutical realist program for Pentecostal interpretive structures. It commends a dialectical structure which recognizes the thoroughgoing contextuality of human understanding with attendant linguistic-symbolic encultured categories of knowing in interpretive relation with the ontic, which, for Pentecostal Christian hermeneutics especially, includes divine revelation. The article further commends a theological narrative of epochal moments in salvation history – Creation-Incarnation-Pentecost-Eschaton – to provide an overarching theological structure which is complementary with already prominent Pentecostal governing theological narrations.

IMAGINATION AND METAPHOR IN THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Svetlana A. Konacheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Western History ◽  
Theological Hermeneutics ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Theological Language

The paper investigates the religious language interpretation in the contemporary continental philosophic theology. The author presents the central role of the imagination and metaphor in theological language. The diacritical hermeneutics of Richard Kearney is analyzed as an example of the theological language transition from the theologics to theopoetics. Modifications in the theological language are associated with transformations in the understanding of theology itself, which becomes a topological and tropological study. It considers the interpretation of imagination in Kearney’s early works, his attempts to describe “paradigmatic shifts” in the human understanding of imagination in different epochs of Western history. The author highlights mimetic paradigm of the pre-modern imagination, productive paradigm of the modern imagination and parodic paradigm of the postmodern imagination. Analysis of Kearney’s “biblical” interpretation of imagination allows one to understand the imagination as the point of contact of God with humanity. She also considers how Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor influences the development of the poetic language in postmodern Christian theology and demonstrates that poetic and religious languages are brought together by an “imaginative variations”. The author argues that turning to imagination in religious language allows theological hermeneutics to move from the static to kinetic images of God.

The Hypostatic Union as Normative over the Relation of God’s Self-Revelation and Human Cognition in the Thought of T.F. Torrance

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-268
Author(s):  
Alexander J.D. Irving
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Rational Structure ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Material Content ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Hypostatic Union ◽  
Theological Realism

T.F. Torrance held the hypostatic union to be the normative instance of divine–human relationship. The structure of the relation between the divine nature and the human nature as delineated in the hypostatic union is the archetype to which all other theological loci must correspond. This essay argues that Torrance applied this Christocentric approach to formulate his own theological realism in which God’s self-revelation through the Son and by the Spirit both shapes and is cognized by the rational structure of human understanding, preserving the distinct integrity of human cognition and divine revelation in theological knowledge. This constitutes a conscious attempt on the part of Torrance to reverse the synthesis of rational structure and material content in Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism.

The sovereignty of revelation: On Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutics of revelation

2021 ◽  
pp. 000842982110448
Author(s):  
Balázs M Mezei
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
The One ◽  
Central Term

In this article I overview Paul Ricœur’s understanding of divine revelation on the basis of some of his relevant writings. I argue that Ricœur’s hermeneutics of revelation has two aspects: on the one hand Ricœur’s explains the complex ways of acquiring and interpreting divine revelation especially with respect to the Bible; on the other hand, he acknowledges that revelation, originating in God’s freedom, is immediately given. In Ricœur’s view, the understanding of this immediacy is tainted by the presence of evil in human understanding which hinders the realization of revelation itself. As a critique of this standpoint I argue that the immediate givenness of revelation is logically and phenomenologically presupposed in our interpretations. Any hermeneutics of revelation entails a phenomenology of revelation. This phenomenology contains both the self-founding of human beings and, at the same time, the recognition of the absoluteness of the divine. Husserl’s phenomenology offers a way to the understanding of the immediacy of revelation through his central term of Eigenheitlichkeit. Ricœur understands this term not as genuine reality but rather as appartenance, ‘belonging to’, and reshapes its meaning in line with a hermeneutical naturalism. This explains his difficulty to conceive properly the sovereignty of revelation and the importance of phenomenology in the understanding of its immediate character.

Philosophy and Theology in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

2019 ◽  
pp. 56-68
Author(s):  
Thomas Ahnert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
Theological Argument

Near the end of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding David Hume declared that the ‘best and most solid foundation’ of divinity and theology was ‘faith and divine revelation’. Many other passages can be found where Hume uses similar fideist arguments to criticize the application of philosophical reason to religious questions. The question addressed in this chapter is how Hume’s criticism of the use of philosophy in religious and theological argument compares to the beliefs of his contemporaries on the same subject. In particular, it examines his intellectual relationship with the two main groups within the mid-eighteenth-century Presbyterian Kirk, the ‘Orthodox’ and the ‘Moderates’. Claiming that the fideist language used by Hume was not as similar to the position of orthodox Presbyterians as has sometimes been suggested, the chapter also argues that Hume’s sceptical, fideist arguments about philosophy and religion were closer to the beliefs of these Moderates, including Hutcheson, Leechman, Robertson, and Blair, than has often been realized. Nevertheless, they and Hume differed significantly in their explanations for the emergence of religious belief in human societies.

Language Matters: ‘Counsel’ in Early Modern and Modern Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Sabroe ◽  
Phil Withington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Successful Scientist

Francis Bacon is famous today as one of the founding fathers of the so-called ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century. Although not an especially successful scientist himself, he was nevertheless the most eloquent and influential spokesperson for an approach to knowledge that promised to transform human understanding of both humanity and its relationship with the natural and social worlds. The central features of this approach, as they emerged in Bacon’s own writings and the work of his protégés and associates after 1605, are equally well known. They include the importance of experiment, observation, and a sceptical attitude towards inherited wisdom (from the ‘ancients’ in general and Aristotle in particular).

The Vocabulary of Revelation: Divine Intent and Self-Disclosure in the Qur'an

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-215
Author(s):  
Asma Afsaruddin
Keyword(s):  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Islamic Theology ◽  
Direct Communication ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Arabic Word ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Divine Mercy ◽  
Divine Truth

This article explores how the uniqueness of the Qur'anic revelation has been perceived by primarily Sunnī Muslim commentators through time in the context of four main analytical aspects of revelation: (i) revelation as communication between God and humans that links language to divine truth; (ii) revelation as both oral and written text that points to complementary modes of divine discourse; (iii) revelation as purposeful manifestation of divine mercy and justice; and finally (iv) the idea of revelation as beautiful and inimitable text that invites the human recipient to ponder the aesthetics of divine self-disclosure which becomes reflected in Islamic theology as the doctrine of iʿjāz al-Qurʾān. These aspects are indicated by certain key concepts and terms derived from the Qur'anic vocabulary itself and are discussed in detail in order to illuminate the nature of the Qur'anic revelation—as adumbrated within the Qur'an itself and as elaborated upon by its human exegetes. The Arabic word for the phenomenon of revelation is waḥy and is, strictly speaking, applied to the Qur'an alone. In the Qur'an, the term wahy and its derivatives frequently occur with reference to God and His communication with humankind, although exceptions exist. Tanzīl is another Qur'anic lexeme that refers uniquely to God's direct communication with humanity. In the understanding of a number of influential commentators, both these terms also imply linguistic and rhetorical excellence as a component of divine revelation recognisable in all four of the aspects identified here.

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