Table Of ContentHermeneutics at the Crossroads
Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion
Merold Westphal, general editor
Hermeneutics
at the Crossroads
Edited by
Kevin J. Vanhoozer,
James K. A. Smith, and
Bruce Ellis Benson
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hermeneutics at the crossroads / edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James
K.A. Smith, and Bruce Ellis Benson.
p. cm. — (Indiana series in the philosophy of religion)
Includes index.
ISBN 0-253-34746-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-253-21849-7
(pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Hermeneutics—Congresses. I. Vanhoozer,
Kevin J. II. Smith, James K.A., date III. Benson, Bruce Ellis, date
IV. Title. V. Series.
BD241.H368 2006
121'.686—dc22 2005031637
1 2 3 4 5 11 10 09 08 07 06
Contents
preface
Kevin J. Vanhoozer/vii
acknowledgments / xi
Introduction
Bruce Ellis Benson, James K. A. Smith,
and Kevin J. Vanhoozer/xiii
Part 1. Philosophical Hermeneutics Revisited: Miracles,
Resuscitation, Questions
1. Discourse on Matter: Hermeneutics and the “Miracle” of Understanding
Kevin J. Vanhoozer/3
2. Resuscitating the Author
Nicholas Wolterstorff/35
3. Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and the Question of Relativism
Eduardo J. Echeverria/51
4. “The Knowledge That One Does Not Know”: Gadamer, Levertov,
and the Hermeneutics of the Question
Christina Bieber Lake/82
Part 2. Derrida and Deconstruction: Haunted Hermeneutics
and Incarnational Iterability
5. Hauntological Hermeneutics and the Interpretation
of Christian Faith: On Being Dead Equal before God
John D. Caputo/95
6. Limited Inc/arnation: Revisiting the Searle/Derrida Debate
in Christian Context
James K. A. Smith/112
Part 3. Literature’s Contribution to Christian Understanding:
Pointing, Witnessing, Exchanging
7. Meeting at the Modern Crossroads: Fiction, History,
and Christian Understanding
Roger Lundin/133
8. The Hermeneutics of Deliverance: Robinson Crusoe
and the Problem of Witnessing
Brian McCrea/150
vi Contents
9. John Calvin’s Notion of “Exchange” and the Usefulness of Literature
Michael VanderWeele/164
Part 4. The Ethics of Interpretation: Improvisation, Participation, Authority
10. The Improvisation of Hermeneutics: Jazz Lessons for Interpreters
Bruce Ellis Benson/193
11. Ethical Hermeneutics and the Theater: Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice
Ben Faber/211
12. (Revelation, Interpretation) Authority: Kierkegaard’s Book on Adler
Norman Lillegard/225
contributors/241
index/243
preface
In the summer of 2002 fourteen pilgrims from across North America met at Calvin
College for an unusual five-week academic retreat. The occasion: a seminar on
the topic “Hermeneutics at the Crossroads: The Disciplines of Text Interpreta-
tion.” The following collection of essays had its genesis in that seminar, which I
directed under the auspices of the Calvin College Seminars in Christian Schol-
arship program. My primary task was to select the participants and the readings,
and to facilitate an interdisciplinary conversation. I selected the fourteen from a
pool of some forty-five applicants representing a number of academic disciplines,
including the natural sciences. The academic departments eventually repre-
sented in the seminar included philosophy, English, French, and biblical studies.
Each person had a tale to tell about why hermeneutics mattered to him or to her
and what problems came to the fore in one’s respective discipline.
Thanks to the generous support of the Fieldstead Corporation, we were able
to invite guest speakers to come and spend a day with our group, read a paper, and
field questions. One of Fieldstead’s explicit goals is to present a distinctly Christian
point of view on a given topic, in our case, hermeneutics: the discipline, and disci-
plines, of text interpretation. Another goal was to engage points of view that were
contrary to or critical of Christian perspectives. To that second end, I invited two
philosophers who I was sure would fit the bill. Given our topic—hermeneutics—
I wanted to hear challenges from both continental postmodern philosophy and
Anglo-American post-analytic philosophy. Accordingly, I invited John D. Caputo,
arguably Jacques Derrida’s most capable North American spokesman, and Richard
Rorty, the most prolific of the “neo-pragmatists” in America, who are calling for
an “end” to philosophy and to the typical Western preoccupation with questions
of meaning, knowledge, and truth. Two other witnesses were also invited as guest
speakers: Roger Lundin and Susan Felch, who interacted with the thought of
Gadamer and Mikhail Bakhtin, respectively.
A seminar, it has been said, is a species of coordinated action. Our group was
especially privileged to be coordinated by Felch, then the director of the Calvin
College Seminars in Christian Scholarship, and by her very capable team—Kara
Van Drie and Alysha Chadderdon—who deserve a special thanks. There was also
an order to our syllabus. As a way of providing some context and background for
this collection of studies, here, in brief narrative fashion, is a summary of what we
did during our summer vacation.
viii Preface
In the first week, we let the history of biblical interpretation throw out some
of the fundamental problems, such as the role of authorial intention. In the sec-
ond week, we focused on contemporary continental philosophy and the “univer-
salizing” of the hermeneutic problem by relating it to the nature of human being.
We looked at the dialogue between Gadamer and Derrida, and enjoyed hearing
from Caputo as our first visitor. In week three, we studied the work of Paul Ri-
coeur, a continental philosopher who interacts with Anglo-American philosophy
and literary criticism, develops a comprehensive interpretation theory, and, for
good measure, brings it to bear on the Bible. We also had our second guest lec-
turer, Roger Lundin. Our focus in week four turned from authors and texts to read-
ers and interpretative communities. Our guest that week was a philosopher who
has done as much as anyone else to construe philosophy as a local and practical
community enterprise: Richard Rorty. The subject of our fifth and final week was
Christian perspectives on hermeneutics, along with two hermeneutic hand-
maidens: speech act theory and Bakhtin’s dialogism. Susan Felch took time off
administrating and was kind enough to introduce us to Bakhtin.
A follow-up public conference, still entitled “Hermeneutics at the Crossroads,”
was held at Calvin College in May 2003. Early drafts of the papers in the present
volume were there delivered, digested, and debated. We were particularly pleased
to welcome Roger Lundin and John Caputo back, and to have a new presenta-
tion by Nicholas Wolterstorff, who had also been at Calvin in the summer of 2002,
though otherwise engaged.
To be understood is to be blessed. The summer saw its share of blessings, yet
it was not without its share of pain as well. For understanding others is hard work,
even when the “others” in question are one’s academic colleagues and brothers
and sisters in Christ. The facilities and personnel at Calvin College are wonder-
ful, yet Grand Rapids is not heaven. Ours was not always the ideal speech situa-
tion. To paraphrase a piece of urban graffiti wisdom: misunderstanding happens.
Our seminar was no exception. We had to work hard to fathom what was being
said by inhabitants of different disciplines. And often, the tensions and misappre-
hensions occurred not between English and philosophy, but between the philoso-
phers, some of whom enjoyed our “continental” breakfast readings (e.g., Gadamer,
Ricoeur, Derrida) more than others.
While hermeneutics may be the art and science of understanding, it should be
obvious that it is hardly an exact science! Understanding, whether of one’s parents,
the book of Ezekiel, a painting by Paul Klee, or a sonata by Scriabin, is often hard
work. Interdisciplinary understanding is even more difficult. The fact is that we often
come to the table to discuss texts—novels, poems, the book of nature—with en-
trenched positions. Interpretative disagreements over entrenched positions can eas-
ily escalate into trench warfare. The search for understanding is not only hard work,
then, but also virtuous endeavor. Understanding requires patience, carefulness, at-
tentiveness, humility—not always the first qualities that come to mind in describ-
ing academics. Understanding may be, in the final analysis, a spiritual exercise. In
this respect, the summer seminar was less a vacation than a vigorous workout.
Preface ix
What follows is the fruit of our pilgrim labors as we sought to walk the “Calv-
inbury” trail. The harvest is interdisciplinary and multifaceted. There are philo-
sophical engagements with the leading hermeneutical theorists as well as literary
applications of these same theorists to specific texts. Together, they comprise a
show-and-tell of the state of the contemporary hermeneutic art (and inexact sci-
ence). I offer my own contribution to the volume—“Discourse on Matter:
Hermeneutics and the ‘Miracle’ of Understanding”—as a tribute to the members
and guest speakers of our summer seminar. Though it was written in the quiet of
my individual closet, it is nevertheless suffused with the grateful afterglow of our
midsummer’s conversations.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer
