Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic by James K. A. Smith ISBN: 0-8308-1574-0 Publisher: InterVarsity Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent Postmodern Theological Hermeneutic
Comment: This is a highly informative and engaging book that engages with evangelical theology and postmodern philosophy in an effort to lay the groundwork for a theological hermeneutic. Smith pays careful attention to the role of presuppositions and intersubjectivity in interpretation, showing how much of evangelical hermeneutics views this situatedness as a function of fallenness, rather than as simply part and parcel of what it means to be a finite creature of God.
Smith delineates three alternative "interpretations of interpretation" that he deems inadequate precisely because they fail to properly reckon with human situatedness and intersubjectivity as dimensions of authentic creaturely reality.
The first model that Smith presents and critiques is what he calls the "Present Immediacy Model." In this understanding, interpretation, situatedness and intersubjectivity are conditions brought on humanity by the fall. Thus interpretation, mediation or simply finitude are equated with fallenness. However, according to this model, subjectivity and mediation are overcome in the present. How this is done, it is not clear, proponents of this position strive for a fleeting objectivity in which meaning is no longer interpreted, but simply read off the pages of the text. This view corresponds to many in evangelical theology who view presuppositions as conditions to be overcome in the quest for interpretive objectivity. During my undergrad work in theology, I took a hermeneutics course from one of Smith's interlocutors in this group, and his critique is quite pertinent and persuasive.
The second model is what Smith calls the "Eschatological Immediacy Model." On this understanding, like the previous model, mediation and situadedness is the result of the fall. However, this model recognizes that mediation and intersubjectivity simply cannot be overcome. Thus, this view looks to the eschatological future in which mediation will be overcome and interpretation will no longer be necessary.
The third model that Smith presents is the model of Derrida and Heidegger, the "Violent Mediation Model." On this model, mediation is inescapably bound up with what it means to be human. Situatedness, intersubjectivity and the necessity of interpretation are constitutive of human be-ing. However, on this view, interpretation always does interpretive violence to that which is interpreted. Thus, while this view recognizes interpretation and constitutive of human be-ing, all interpretation is interpretive violence. Thus, this view in effect "ontologizes the fall", making fallenness constitutive of creaturely existence.
Smith ends with his own proposal which he calls a "Creational-Pneumatic" hermeneutic in which human finitude and subjectivity is embraced and thus interpretation is understood as part of the inherent creaturliness of humanity. However, given that for Christianity, there is no ontological violence (unlike Derrida and company), the "ubiquity of interpretation" does not necessitate violence, but rather is creational and good. Smith guards against the accusation that this model invites interpretive arbitrariness and relativism through emphasizing the reality, not only of the ubiquity of interpretation, but the reality of the presence of the thing interpreted which exerts itself on the interpreter, thus limiting the number of interpretations. Thus, Smith's model does not lead to rampant pluralism. While it embraces multiplicity, this multiplicity is limited by the "other" that is the subject of interpretation. Essentially, this model avoids the illusory determinism of the "Immediacy" models and the radical indeterminism of the "Violent Medation" for what could be called semi-determinism.
By way of evaluation, there is much to appreciate in Smith's book. Some of the shortcomings as I see them lie in the Smith's neglect of eschatology within the framework of his theology of creation. This is in part due to his reliance on Augustine. If his approach were supplemented by Irenaeus, who affirmed the goodness of creation, and yet also held that creation was created for eschatological perfecting, the insights of the Eschatological model could be integrated into a creational approach. Colin Gunton's works on the doctrine of creation exemplify this perspective nicely. Also, more attention to the issue of the "other" that is encountered in interpretation would be helpful. Although Smith engages with this helpfully, more attention to the divine Other that impinges on us as we attempt to interpret Scripture is necessary. In particular, Smith's pneumatological approach could do with supplementation from more Christological and Trinitarian insights to more fully develop the issue of how the "other" in the text impinges on the interpreter in the interpretive process. In this regard, Kevin Vanhoozer's work on Speech-Act philosophy wed to Trinitarian theology is very helpful as a complement to Smith's emphasis on the situatedness of the interpreter.
All in all, this is a very important work in Christian theology and philosophical hermeneutics that deserves are reading by all those interested in the interplay between theology, hermeneutics and postmodern thought. This book corrects many of the glaring problems in evangelical conceptions of hermeneutics and offers many major insights for constructing a theological hermeneutic that is attentive the postmodern concerns and takes seriously the Christian tradition. Highly recommended to all interested in theological hermeneutics and postmodern philosophy.
 |
Title: Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation (Radical Orthodoxy) by James K. A. Smith, James K.A. Smith ISBN: 0415276969 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
 |
Title: The Crossing of the Visible (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Jean-Luc Marion, James K. A. Smith ISBN: 0804733929 Publisher: Stanford University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Theopolitical Imagination by William T. Cavanaugh ISBN: 0567088774 Publisher: T. & T. Clark Publishers, Ltd. Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
 |
Title: Theological Perspectives on God and Beauty (Rockwell Lecture Series) by John Milbank, Graham Ward, Edith Wyschogrod ISBN: 1563384140 Publisher: Trinity Press International Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
 |
Title: The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (Cambridge Companions to Religion) by Kevin J. Vanhoozer ISBN: 0521793955 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
