Hermeneutics: The Only Way to Transcendence.
To blame hermeneutics is to shoot the messenger. Hermeneutics does not prevent the revelation of transcendence from reaching us; it merely diagnoses a problem that was already there whether or not we were aware of it. This essay contends that the widespread disagreement among Christians today on the...
| Publicado en: | Modern Theology Vol. 42; no. 1; pp. 19 - 36 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jan2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189843545&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189843545 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02667177 MTH jtl: Modern Theology issn: 02667177 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jan2026 vid: 42 iid: 1 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 189843545 10.1111/moth.70001 ppf: 19 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 172KB tig: atl: Hermeneutics: The Only Way to Transcendence. aug: au: Aspray, Barnabas affil: St. Mary's Seminary and University, School of Theology, 5400 Roland Ave, Baltimore MD, 21210, , USA su: Hermeneutics Transcendence (Philosophy) Revelation Religious studies Phenomenology sug: subj: Hermeneutics Transcendence (Philosophy) Revelation Religious studies Phenomenology ab: To blame hermeneutics is to shoot the messenger. Hermeneutics does not prevent the revelation of transcendence from reaching us; it merely diagnoses a problem that was already there whether or not we were aware of it. This essay contends that the widespread disagreement among Christians today on the normative message of the Bible casts doubt on our ability to discern what God is saying to the church. Hermeneutics, far from causing the problem, is the only resource that can help us get back on track. It does this by confronting us with our finitude. Paul Ricœur's hermeneutics is ideally suited to this, because it is based on awareness of finitude as the source of its insights. For Ricœur, finitude means the limitations and particularity of our perspective that come from our historical and cultural situatedness. Transcendence becomes inaccessible when we implicitly deny our finitude by presuming that we can attain Godlike knowledge: certainty, absoluteness, totality. In other words, we cease to hear God's voice when we place ourselves in the position of God. We need to repent of our pride in construing our interpretation of scripture as total and absolute, recognising instead the multiplicity of interpretations as a diversity of valid perspectives on the same object. However, sometimes interpretations are incompatible, meaning that at least one must be wrong. In this case we must also repent of the sin that distorts our perspective, and the best means to do this, according to Ricœur, is to pass through the purifying fire of the Masters of Suspicion: Freud, Nietzsche, and Marx. These three help us to diagnose structural and institutional biases that unconsciously shape our interpretation of scripture. Only by repenting of these biases can we hope to recover access to transcendence and hear the voice of God in scripture again. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Modern Theology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Modern Theology holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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