Strangers and Pilgrims: On the Role of Aporiai in Theology

549 Pages·1997·19.55 MB·English

by  Douglas R. McGaughey

Douglas R. McGaughey
Strangers and Pilgrims
W
DE
G
Theologische Bibliothek
Töpelmann
Herausgegeben von
O. Bayer - W. Härle · H.-R Müller
Band 81
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1997
Douglas R. McGaughey
Strangers and Pilgrims
On the Role of Aporiai in Theology
Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York
1997
1 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI
to ensure permanence and durability.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McGaughey, Douglas R.:
Strangers and pilgrims : on the role of aporiai theology / Douglas R.
McGaughey. — Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1997
(Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann ; Bd. 81)
ISBN 3-11-015493-5
© Copyright 1997 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.
Printed in Germany
Printing: Werner Hildebrand, Berlin
Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer-GmbH, Berlin
Preface
The present project is indebted consciously and unconsciously to many. Any
attempt to speak only demonstrates that one is a mere midget standing on the
shoulders of the giants of a tradition that has gone before. I have been
blessed with rigorous conversation partners. Many of them I have not had
the pleasure of meeting in person, but their presence permeates what follows
and can be found documented in the footnotes. Others, such as those con-
stituting the breakfast sessions (which often lasted from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00
noon) in graduate school, the circle of friends in Tübingen from 1980 to
1983, colleagues, friends, and students at Greensboro College and Wil-
lamette University, have more personally influenced the content of this pro-
ject - although I hasten to add that none of them is to be held accountable for
my foibles. They are only responsible for whatever valuable insights are
found here. To all of these persons I express my deep gratitude and highest
respect.
Willamette University funded several summers of research through At-
kinson foundation grants, a faculty seminar on Ricoeur's Time and Narra-
tive, computers, and secretarial assistance without which this project would
still be a mere possibility. It was also assisted by a 1991 summer grant from
the Oregon Council for the Humanities and a year in Germany made pos-
sible by a Fulbright research grant.
Above all, I express my appreciation to Margit, Sarah, Hanna, and
Kerstin. They not only tolerated my disappearance early in the evening, but
they kept tugging me back to the real world, and have provided the experi-
ential richness that no words on a page can ever grasp.

Table of Contents
Preface V
Introduction 1
Why Aporiai? 1
Two Agendas 10
On the Crisis in Theology 16
An Experiential Faith 34
PART I: THE CONTEXT OF POST-METAPHYSICAL THEOLOGY
1. What is Theology? 43
On Paradox 45
Precedents for Paradox in Theology 51
Hegel's Double Negation Denying History 51
Tillich's One Absolute Paradox 54
Kierkegaard's Thought that Thought Cannot Think 55
Beyond Metaphysics 67
Materialism 69
Idealism 70
A Common Substance 73
Conditions of Possibility 73
Beyond Metaphysics to Faith 74
AFiniteGod? 78
Theology Alone Has No Object 79
Is Theology a Method? 83
Is the Focus of Theology the Call to Decision? 97
Theology and the Aporetic 104
2. Theology and Aporiai 105
Not Mere Astonishment 108
Contingent Necessity and More 110
Retrieval of Spirituality 112
Dialogue and Application: Listening 113
Dialogue and Application: Speaking 121
Dialogue and Application: Humility 125
Theology as the "Fusion of Horizons 126
3. After Heidegger and Derrida 129
Heidegger: On the Meaning of Being 129
On the Copula 131
Heidegger: Being as "World" 139
VIII Table of Contents
Derrida and Binary Thought 148
Derrida and Vulgar Skepticism 151
4. David Tracy: Theology as Correlation 157
Contingent versus Metaphysical Necessity 159
On the Role of Concealment in What is Manifest 161
5. On George Lindbeck's Cultural-Linguistic 172
Theological Model
Reality and Religion as a Social Construct: 175
Truth as Pragmatic Usage
Our Debt to Language: Rules Prior to Paradigms? 178
Faith Precedes Language: 187
But Certainty is the Pre-Condition of Doubt
A New Heteronomy 189
6. Theology as Inquiry into Paradox: Strangers and Pilgrims 195
Augustine? 196
Beyond Dualism 197
Unknowing is not Ignorance 199
Faith Seeking Understanding 201
Ogden's Reflective Faith 204
Second Naivete and Praxis 205
Beyond Reductionism 206
Theology as a Subversive Enterprise 208
PART II: ON THE ROLE OF APORIAI IN THEOLOGY
7. The Aporia of Spirit and Matter 213
The Aporia of Spirit and Matter 214
Matter in Contrast to Spirit 216
The Problem of Definition 219
Simile of the Sun 221
Simile of the Line 222
Everydayness and the Real 229
On Universals 233
The Aporia of Universals and Particulars 239
8. The Aporia of Logic and Praxis 241
Two Kinds of Paradigms 242
Sociological Paradigms and Understanding 244
The Subversion of Coherence as the 249
Consequence of Coherence
Table of Contents IX
The Non-Cumulative Character of Human Knowledge 250
Paradigm Revolutions and the Appria of Logic and Praxis 253
Religious Language and the Aporia of Logic and Praxis 256
Conclusion 259
9. The Aporiai of Language 263
Reality as Vitally Metaphoric 263
I.A. Richards: From Analogy to Tenor and Vehicle 266
Wheelwright: Metaphor and Tensive Reality 270
Metaphorical Tension at the Heart of Language 286
Metaphorical Tension at the Heart of Reality 297
Conclusion 324
10. The Aporiai of Truth 328
Truth as Correspondence: Verification and Falsification 331
Truth as Disclosure: Metaphorical Truth 338
On the Open-endedness of Understanding 346
On the Historicality of Understanding 352
Language as the Mediator of Possibility 357
Aletheia and Symbolic Reality 372
Conclusion 376
11. The Aporiai of Temporality 379
Clock Time and Eternity 379
Cosmological Time 384
Plato 384
Aristotle 387
Plotinus 391
Time and Not-Being 393
Anthropological Time 393
Augustine 393
Kant 395
Husserl 397
Ontological Time 401
Heidegger 403
Being as Time Unites the Unchanging and the Temporal 407
Conclusion 409
12. The Aporia of Self and Other 412
Defining the Self? 412
The Self: Beyond Actuality to the Dynamic Tension 417
of Possibilities Between Intellect and World
Beyond Heidegger's Logos to Nous 423
On the Unique and Unrepeatable Character 426
of Individual Consciousness
X Table of Contents
Levinas and Ricoeur on the Self 434
The Self as Ambiguous Dialectic: The "Structure of Selfhood" .. 438
Conclusion 441
13. Conclusion: Faith in a Post-Metaphysical Context 443
The Crisis of Reason: Two Kinds of Rationality 450
Beyond Critical Realism and Heidegger 453
Non-epistemic Faith and the Priority of Spirit 459
Beyond Self and Actuality to Concealed Possibility 461
The Correspondence Theory of Truth and αλήθεια 463
Sola scriptura and Protestant Theology 467
Beyond Plurivocity to Spirit and Faith 471
Two Models of the Faith 476
Faith in a Post-metaphysical Context 480
From Vulgar to Refined Skepticism: 483
Faith Seeking Understanding
Appendix: Division of the Task of Theology 490
Theology's Threefold Division 495
Philosophical Theology: The Aporetic 497
Systematic Theology: Diachronie and Synchronic 503
Diachronie and Synchronic 503
Descriptive Phenomenology 505
Practical Theology: Institutional Religion 507
Procedural Practical Theology 507
Instructional Practical Theology 508
Prophetic Practical Theology 509
Pastoral Practical Theology 509
Parenetic Practical Theology 510
Practical Theology 510
Works Cited 511
Index 531