About the Hermeneutical
Function of Dogma in Vattimo and Noordmans
Prof. Dr. Gerrit Neven
In
this article I want to examine the significance of ¡®kenosis¡¯ (emptying) for a
hermeneutical dogmatics. Contrary to a metaphysical dogmatics, hermeneutical
dogmatics functions as a guide. For the latter does not derive its principles
from a purported divine reality which coercively imposes itself on it, but
takes its bearings from traces or words of divine transcendence, the meaning of
which does not come to light but as one feels one's way. In the Christian
tradition this strangeness of God particularly shows up in the notion of
kenosis. In the Christian tradition the word kenosis refers to the destruction
and humiliation of God in Jesus Christ who gives up his divine privileges on
behalf of humankind. I will return to this at length later. Here I will limit
myself to the remark that this destruction does not mean the annihilation of
self, but the complete surrender to love.[1]
It is this absolutely anti-metaphysical fact in particular that prompts
hermeneutical dogmatics to reflect upon the biblical language of transcendence
again.
The
notion of kenosis imparts to dogma and dogmatics a connotation that differs
quite a bit from what these words are usually understood to mean. Dogma is
associated with an authoritarian church, a centralist authority, rigid rules,
and an inflexible attitude toward all that deviates from the doctrine of the
church. In this contribution I want to show that dogma is not the objectionable
ecclesiastical decision that puts us under tutelage, and that its content has
rules for a language in which the generous in particular can be articulated in
speaking about God. As the notion of kenosis already indicates, ¡®language of
transcendence¡¯ refers to a language in which God completely gives himself. This
gift of God already resounds in the first verses of Genesis; one hears them
again in John¡¯s prologue, and once again in the gift of Pentecost. As it
appears, God completely empties himself in various ways in his speaking.
For
this view I appeal to two renowned thinkers. I will be speaking of the Dutch
theologian Oepke Noordmans (1871-1956). In his time - the period between the
two great wars – he was the hermeneutician among Dutch dogmaticists. Alongside
him I call attention to Gianni Vattimo (1936-). He is a professor of philosophy
and aesthetics at the University of Turin. In my opinion he is the greatest
hermeneutician among the so-called post-metaphysical (or post-modernist)
thinkers. Vattimo and Noordmans can legitimately be connected, because they
have a lot in common. They share Augustin and the late idealism of the
nineteenth century as their background; both think in terms of language, both
think ¡®weak¡¯, both think anti-metaphysically, anti-speculatively, and
anti-transcendentally.
What
particularly interests me about these thinkers is their insight that from the
outset the tradition of faith is itself attracted to the need for transfer,
communication, transmission. One can say that this was no different for the
period in which that tradition arose than it is in our time. In the discussion
about the language of faith, its ¡®logic of transcendence¡¯ is what demands
attention. This logic expresses the mysterious ability to convey exactly those
things of God that elude description or definition: ¡®Das Wort Gottes ist
niemals definierbar, sondern es ist die Gegenwart Gottes, die praesentia Dei.
Es ist die Rettung, es ist das Heil, es ist das Leben und die Vergebung.¡¯ [2]
At heart the tradition of faith is
transmission, not the depiction of facts or ideas, concepts or mythologies.
Its motive is the love for a communication that does not seek itself, but puts
itself at the service of others. Both Noordmans and Vattimo recognise the
conception they have of it they in the song of the Son of Man in Phil. 2: Jesus
as the human being from God, whose action is a unique and one-time revelation
in which every temptation to obtain the position of god in a high-handed manner
is consumed by the love of God. In this hymn kenosis relates to no one other
but Jesus.[3]
Yet it is not only in the language of this primitive Christian hymn about Jesus
that there is talk of kenosis. According to Scripture the God of Israel is a
God who speaks, a God, who always works and thus shares his nature. Therefore
God is sometimes also compared to an author who completely expresses himself in
what he ¡®writes¡¯. Correctly John Milbank says that this is a ¡®kenotic¡¯
authorship: ¡®By his kenotic act of writing, [God] creates the world and human history
as a present sign whose concealment-revealment of the absent God is the
philosophy of man¡¯s free creative response which unravels gradually through
time.¡¯[4]
The picture of God who makes himself small as it were (or keeps quiet), in
order to thus allow the creatures to share in his nature, is a familiar one. I
particularly recognise that motif in the tradition of Jewish mysticism.[5]
What I¡¯m particularly interested in here is the nature of this divine
authorship, which gives people of all ages the power and motivation to become
interpreters and explicators of truth themselves in their own time and manner.
I ¡®m also hearing this in the words that immediately precede the Christ hymn of
Phil. 2: ¡®Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus¡¯. (Phil.
2:5; NIV)
Both
in its expression of the Trinitarian in God as Father, Son, and Spirit as in
its articulation of the more sharply focussed incarnational of God in Jesus
Christ, dogma is aiming at helping people – also people that are barely aware
any more of their tradition or Christianity - to discern the biblical language
of transcendence as an element of modern culture itself.
Vattimo and Noordmans
In the
following I want to show what role the notion of kenosis plays in all this. I
start with some more information about Noordmans and Vattimo. After that I will
compare them under the headings of 1) religion, 2) hermeneutics and 3) the
notions confession and conversion. The result of the comparison is that they
are searching in their own way for a grammar of love over against the nature of
western metaphysics, which is violent according to them. In this grammar it is
not the desire to be ¡®like god¡¯ that governs but love.
I
present Vattimo and Noordmans as thinkers who have both – one with regard to theology,
the other with regard to philosophical tradition – turned around the famous
dictum ascribed to Aristotle. This dictum runs as follows: Plato is my friend,
but even more is the truth [derived by way of intellectual contemplation] my
friend.[6]
For Noordmans and Vattimo the order is reversed. According to both of them the
truth content in a motivated personal choice is much higher than in a distant
intellectual contemplation. Converted into the language of the Christian
tradition both Vattimo and Noordmans prefer the sentence: ¡®the truth is our
friend, but even more than this truth Jesus is our friend¡¯.[7]
Vattimo
Vattimo
is an Italian philosopher; he teaches philosophy and aesthetics in Turin. He
especially gained a following through his publication on ¡®weak thinking¡¯
(1980). In addition he made a striking contribution at a symposium about
religion (1994). His ¡®Credere di credere¡¯ (1996) can be read as the confessions
of a 'halfway believer¡¯, a title, which Vattimo now uses with fervour and with
which he is paying back a debt from his youth, in which he had learned to
exclude just those ¡®halfway believers¡¯ that don¡¯t quite belong. Vattimo sees
the systems of church and science, dogmatics and ideology break down, wear
away. They are replaced by modern, open communication. A culture in which there
is room for differences, for diversity is starting to take the place of a
culture of uniformity. This opens up the possibility of breaking through the
taboo on sexuality, e.g., and opening up the way for a free discussion about
culture, morality, and religion. It promotes ¡®weak¡¯ thinking. It is weak in the
sense that thinking permits a unique and differentiated stream of information,
which causes it to rethink the existing traditions of church and science,
metaphysics and morality. Vattimo emphasises, it is often said, the bright side
of the modern information culture. He is also called a cheerful nihilist. I
think this is true. But this does in no way need to detract from the
radicalness ascribed in this weak thinking to the ¡®otherness¡¯ of what is called
transcendence in the Jewish-Christian tradition, and from the radically ¡®other¡¯
of the love in the first command, and second that is equal to it. The radically
other refers to the fact that Vattimo brings down any grounding in a being that
is in any way within reach of human thinking and action. [8]
In his opinion the early dialectical theology of Karl Barth & co. has not
or not sufficiently overcome metaphysical foundational thinking. Hence in his
discussion with Barth it is not the radicalness of transcendence, of the
¡®entirely other¡¯ as such that is questioned, but rather the way in which this
transcendence is envisioned.[9]
According to Vattimo, Nietzsche and Heidegger are the philosophers who have
changed switches in the area of philosophically thinking through the issue of
hermeneutics and transfer. But in my opinion one must not overestimate their
influence on Vattimo¡¯s own views about weak thinking and the essential
religious issues. Their significance is that they are spokesmen of a culture.
They expressed what was happening or was going to happen in the consciousness
of many people. Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God. According to Vattimo,
Nietzsche meant with this that the God who functioned as the tailpiece in a
Christian worldview is dead. Vattimo feels there is no need to mourn this. For
Vattimo Heidegger was the one for whom thinking no longer meant classifying and
directing, measuring and organising, but 'Andenken' as Heidegger says.[10]
It is a thinking of whatever one poetically or philosophically keeps an Andenken of – up to the very fibres of
one¡¯s existence. It is something that one has lost for good that nevertheless
intrudes itself into one¡¯s thoughts: as a trail of a trail. In his student
years Vattimo reads the writings of Mao and becomes active as a leftist
radical. He leaves this political environment as soon as he realises that
political radicalism is no less rigid and dogmatic than is the moralism and
legalism of the church. In the mean time he keeps talking with representatives
of church and faith on an intellectual level. He particularly discusses
Christian ethics. He probingly questions grounding church ethics in natural
law. The notion of nature as it is used in words like natural law, etc., he now
knows – certainly after Nietzsche – is a construction and the so-called
Christian world view is a mythology that arises in a certain era and disappears
in another. In addition studying Nietzsche and Heidegger teaches him something
else as well. It teaches him that the spirit of the gospel is not exhausted in
the historical form of the church or in so-called Christian thought, because
the language and the thought of Scripture have shaped our entire European
culture. In Nietzsche¡¯s proclamation of the death of God he also hears a
legitimate protest against a tyrannical Father-god, and in Heidegger¡¯s late
¡®Andenken' the outlook of someone shows through, who once started his career as
a theologian and rose up against the metaphysics of the ancient faith.[11]
He sees a ¡®sign of the times¡¯, a portent of things to come (Math. 16) in what
these thinkers are on to. A question that comes to mind is what exactly is the
force of these signs. Do they have the force of revelation of God? I don¡¯t
think Vattimo wants to go that far. To him Heidegger and Nietzsche are rather
prophets of ¡®this¡¯ reality conceived differently. Their nihilism makes him feel
hopeful. Their trail is a true trail, and to the extent that it points to
something, one should certainly not refrain from following them there
seriously.[12]
Noordmans
Noordmans
is a Dutch theologian of Protestant origins. From 1903 to 1944 he was a
minister in the Dutch Reformed Church [Nederlands Hervormde Kerk]. His great
strength lies in the fact that like few others from his generation he foresaw,
or rather intuitively sensed in advance that the 20th century would
bring a fundamental turn in all areas of society. Not only in religion, art,
organisation, but also and particularly in the (natural) sciences and its
applications. The technology applied to warfare in the period of 1914-1918
revealed what modern science is capable of, if it becomes a tool to the will to
power. He is sensitive to the apocalyptic fear that the world of human beings
will be swallowed up by infinite space. However, he is not carried away by
this, but concentrates all his mental powers on human opportunities, which
appear to arise especially during periods of crisis. To this extent the
Hölderlin verse cited by Heidegger and fondly quoted by Vattimo "But where
danger is, grows the saving power also,¡±[13]
also applies to Noordmans. A large responsibility is attributed to faith and
theology with regard to the reflection on morality (ethics) and science. In his
programmatic article ¡®Geloven op gezag¡¯ [Believing based on Authority] of 1921,
Noordmans argues for a modest kind of thinking that shows striking similarities
with the kind of weak thinking that Vattimo is defending. Weak here means:
modest, because it is willing to listen. Hence the word ¡®authority¡¯ in the
title of the essay. Listening refers to both written texts as well as to the
unwritten stories of the living and the dead. Modest thinking connects the
ability to listen with prophetic power, because by listening attention is drawn
to what is new, to what has not been heard before. The words ¡®weak¡¯ (Vattimo)
and ¡®modest¡¯ (Noordmans) touch each other in the fact that both abandon any
sort of foundational thinking and radically open themselves up for
possibilities that present themselves in time. As early as Noordmans¡¯ first
essay – still strongly marked by intra-ecclesiastical discussions – he uses the
Christian, in this case dogmatic tradition of the church in a hermeneutical
way, which may be called striking at least. Not the unchangeable fundamental
principles that always and everywhere presuppose the reality of being - as in
Aristotle¡¯s thinking - are meant with dogma and dogmatic, resp. Dogmatic
thinking does not reflect what exists, but is open for a quality that is thrown
into one¡¯s lap as if from beyond. Illustrative for what Noordmans means with
the openness of dogmatic thinking is his report of a gathering of people that
had survived the concentration camps. ¡®A palpable silence fell in the bustle of
the hall when the witness said that the spirit was stronger than the
destructive power of the intellect. That spirit caused the starving to give up
their last crust of bread to a dying person. The spirit–said he – remained
alive in the camp and the carriers of the spirit recognised each other. They
were not all Christians. They were nowhere near all Christians and also nowhere
near all Christians were carriers of that spirit under all circumstances. But
this spirit has a name in Christendom: agapè is the name of the Spirit in the
New Testament, Caritas in the language of Saint Augustin, Love in our
language.¡¯[14]
Well then, dogmatic thinking frees the thoughts we have in our heads up for
such words. For the sake of being open to such things, dogmatic thinking limits
itself to a few critical notions - critical principles – which keep the horizon
open for whatever announces itself from yonder side. Dogmatic rules are
presented and elaborated in extremely restrained form, for the sake of the
necessary observational acumen. In all this great emphasis is laid on the fact
that language is the only medium in
which such critical thoughts can be expressed.
Noordmans
presents to his readers that theology seeks to connect with the future. People
must be mentally [in their imagination] and socially [in their ecclesiastical and
political work] prepared not for what once was but for what is coming.
During
all of his life (he died in 1956) Noordmans kept drawing attention to limits in
the presence of the natural sciences and technology that should not be crossed
in developing and applying scientific insights. In his opinion practitioners of
modern science themselves are the first that have the opportunities in-house to
initiate the proper political and moral instructional apparatus for their
science.
But
unlike Heidegger, who is commended by Vattimo, Noordmans did not see any signs
of a breakthrough. The threat of atomic weapons, ¡®cold war¡¯ and the like, so
very palpable in the years after World War II, led to sharp images of the
'condition humaine' with him, preferably using biblical and literary
characters. He shares the view with Vattimo that we can say little else about
humankind but that it is ¡®but a creature¡¯, through which time passes like a
stream. He also shares the realisation with Vattimo that precisely this human
being, in its being in time, is radically dependent on transcendence: on more
than human love that comes to him from beyond the boundaries of human knowledge
and ability.
To get
a better view of the relationship between hermeneutics and kenosis with Vattimo
and Noordmans I will now carry out a comparison under the headings religion,
hermeneutics, and confession.
Religion with Vattimo
With
Vattimo the most important document for this is to be found in the symposium
contribution ¡®Trace of the Trace¡¯ (1994). This contribution is an engagé
commentary on the revival of interest in religion. Of course there are numerous
explanations that would make this revival plausible. Vattimo does not push them
aside, but ignores them for the time being in order to be able to fully
concentrate on the phenomenon of religion itself. His question is: are we
witnessing one of those rare moments in which a human being is not sleeping but
awake, because he is – speaking with the poet Hölderlin – experiencing the
fullness of the divine? Are we thus going through a moment of ¡®revelation¡¯ in
religion? [15]
Is there any reason to return to the
Judeo-Christian religion by some detour instead of radically criticising it? This brings us to the core. This
religion contains elements that have led a retired existence for a very long
time, but that now in a moment of ¡®illumination¡¯ rise from the grave. As
examples Vattimo mentions the need for forgiveness, experience with one¡¯s own
death and that of others, the pain people – always personally – suffer.[16]
About the themes of sin and guilt and also about the origins of evil he wishes
to say little. Probably because he believes that its sharp and special meaning
has worn away within the older ecclesiastical doctrinal systems and theological
thinking. What is important for us are the matters that show what position
Vattimo takes regarding religion. I distinguish four of those.
(1) Not the facts of salvation in
Scripture are decisive but the ¡®primitive story¡¯ that arose on account of Jesus
of Nazareth. Better still than ¡®primitive story¡¯ is the term ¡®original text¡¯,
or, referring to Schelling, ¡®original myth¡¯, as long as one maintains a clear
distinction between the words myth and mythology. Vattimo reconsiders the words
myth and mythology against the background of post-modernity. He argues that
modernity has not overcome the mythology preceding it but repeated it in terms
of rationality and transparency. Thus one could say that at the end of
modernity mythology perishes together with the subsequent Enlightenment
thinking. Vattimo emphatically declares that this is not the case with myth as
a unique and unrepeatable primitive story.[17]
In the myth actually - in this case the myth of the son of man – every
all-encompassing explanation of the world is ironised.[18]
There is no room for indubitable evidences in the song of the Son of man. The I
is being dethroned. In it humanity is reminded of its finiteness, i.e., of its
creatureliness and at the same time of a radical event that points out a
direction to it in al its finiteness and frailty[19]
Thus the hymn says in original-mythical terms that Jesus receives the name
above all names, and thus is once and for all removed from anonymity. Thus in
Phil. 2 the horizon is marked out within which the utterly own of Jesus can be
interpreted.
(2)
Nietzsche has rightly said that there are no facts but only interpretations,
only perspectives or points of view that people entertain regarding something
or somebody.[20]
But this does not lead to the removal of special religion from universal
reason, as has long been asserted following the philosopher Hegel. No, there
can be talk of removal only after the wounds have been healed, the pain has
been soothed, death is no longer a horror, prayer is answered. Only then will
the programme be realised that Hegel prematurely and forcibly proclaimed to
have been concluded. ¡®When will that be? That is a question to which Vattimo
neither can nor wants to give the answer. After all, no human being – thank
god, one can surely say – has the last word. The last perspective is he who
became a human being, who as son, as friend naturally appeals to human beings.
(3) An
essential element in Vattimo¡¯s argument is man as believer: the paradoxical
realisation that humanity precisely in its being-in-time is purely dependent on something that is
not controlled by time, is fundamental. Only in its complete (thus unbound)
dependence is man truly religious. The special thing is that humanity finds the
reasons precisely in that pure, complete dependence to liberate itself from a
past that binds it and keeps persecuting it.
(4) As
longs as the need for religion lasts, myth as the language of creative
imagination has priority over the logos, who wants to understand and control
everything.
Religion with Noordmans
The Easter
meditation of 1933 is a document comparable to ¡®Trace of the Trace¡¯ with Noordmans. The context of this piece is
the pastorate of a ¡®village pastor¡¯. So it is not a philosophical discourse but
a meditative assessment of a biblical story: Matt. 28:1-10. It is about the
Angel appearing to the women at the grave and their encounter with Jesus the
crucified. Nonetheless the thoughts Noordmans expresses here seem no less
groundbreaking than those of Vattimo in ¡®Trace¡¯.
For a
correct understanding one must know that Noordmans distinguishes three episodes
in this text: 1) the earthquake with its effect of rolling the stone away from
Jesus¡¯ grave, 2) the Angel who is introduced speaking and who averts the fear
of the dismayed women – the only witnesses – and sends them on their way to a
place where they will meet Jesus the crucified, 3) the encounter itself, the
salutation, the warding off of any form of worship and the command to go tell
the brothers that they will see him in Galilee. In his commentary Noordmans
immediately notes that these women are in the process of becoming conformed to
their Lord in their way.
I give
a short summary of Noordmans¡¯ commentary.
It¡¯s a
story that is not based on ¡®supernatural¡¯ facts of salvation. It is a story in
which the power of the Spirit, of the ¡®transmission¡¯ of the ¡®earth-shattering¡¯
message already shows through. As a powerful story in a terrible hurry Easter
already runs ahead of Pentecost. Yet the story begins with death and thoughts
about death. The God of Israel appears to have withdrawn. Suddenly there is
that unexpected event. An earthquake as a sign that the graves are opening! An
angel appears that deals with the fear of the women and proclaims the coming of
Jesus. Behind this action lies the motive of love that drives out fear. In the
place of the invisible God comes Jesus – the crucified – and his word to the
women is a ¡®mission¡¯ into life to become conformed to him there in their way. One sees this entire
Easter story resounding with the tone of Phil. 2: ¡®Your attitude should be that
of Christ Jesus¡¯ (NIV): the unique human being who did not desire the direct
vicinity to God.
From
Noordmans¡¯ entire description it is clear that the dogma of Father, Son, and
Spirit underscores the ¡®kenotic¡¯ character of this story. It does not take the
form of a truth that leads beyond this narrative, but of an introduction which
presents the internal dynamics of this story. The entire dogma of Trinity and
Christology is contained in it. The Father, who seems to be withdrawing; the
Son – he, who is crucified - who appears; the witnesses who, compelled by the
Spirit of the Lord, receive the commandment to follow this Jesus, who broke
through the barriers of death and horror.
The
women are as in a vacuum: ¡®immediately¡¯ they start off as they were told. They
already carry within them the ¡®momentum¡¯, the special instant of their future
encounter with Jesus. Their feet are lead in the way to peace ¡®in spite of
themselves¡¯. They must still learn to find/taste the nature of this way, which
will be in accordance with the way of their Lord.
They
only develop the knowledge of this way of peace after they have received the
salutation of peace and are sent away. In Noordmans¡¯ interpretation this
¡®sending away¡¯ ushers in a certain secularisation, because the love that leads
them on their way, is no longer marred by an irrational fear. What we do have
on the way of the women is pure dependence. Here this dependence is called
grace, ¡®being graced¡¯. It is a source of new strength, which leads them right
past death, so to speak.
Hermeneutics with Vattimo
From
religion to hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation. Of this
interpretation the technique of scriptural exegesis is but a subdivision. With
both Vattimo and Noordmans it becomes apparent that the interpreter¡¯s exegesis
portrays the truth from an extremely personal angle.
In his
hermeneutics Vattimo distances himself in a sharp way from a kind of thinking
that conceives of truth solely intellectually. He chooses for Plato as his
friend in stead of truth [as his girl friend – zie boven]. His choice is for
Plato and not for the intellectual contemplation of Plato¡¯s idea. With a
similar sharpness Vattimo distances himself from the pure form of the Trinity,
which arose when an abstract Trinity of being was constructed behind the
so-called Trinity of revelation. Vattimo does not give priority to - in the end
- impersonal intellectual truth, but to ttruth which one chooses because it is
personally appealing. He recognises this preference for the personal with
Augustin, Pascal, Nietzsche and Dilthey. I¡¯m not going to explain here how
Vattimo comes to his selection of this company. In all he recognises something
of what Pascal articulated with his famous Penseé when he wrote that ¡®the
heart has its reasons that reason
does not know at all. [21]
In
Dostoyevski he detects a corresponding preference. Dostoyevski has one of his
characters say: given the choice: Christ or truth, I choose Christ [22].
Vattimo shows in his hermeneutics that this personal relationship to truth
already starts in Scripture itself, and stands at the cradle of the apostolic
tradition.[23]
According to the text of the Vulgate, Hebr. 1:1 reads: 'Multifariam multisque
modis olim loquens Deus patribus in prophetis...¡¯(¡®In the past God spoke to our
forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways¡¯ [NIV]), and
he will keep doing that as long as the last word hasn¡¯t been spoken. In that
speaking in various ways, among those many human voices the one voice of the Lord
sounds. That speaking is an expression of a multiplicity of perspectives, which
are able to arise precisely because of ¡®kenosis¡¯! After all God does not
prescribe anything in a coercive manner but gives his creatures space to find
their own relationship to truth. In reflecting on these implications of
kenosis, Nietzsche¡¯s words on the death of God play an important part. In this
case the word ¡®God¡¯ expresses an existence that is, in and of itself,
self-satisfied. The God, whose name is connected with this substance, is dead.
He turns out to be no more than a component of a worldview. And that worldview
is in the process of coming to an end. For biblical hermeneutics this can only
be gain. Vattimo explains this using the ¡®multifariam multisque modis¡¯ from Hebrews
1:1. One can read the ¡®multifariam¡¯ in a ¡®platonic¡¯ way and one can read it
biblically. Reading it biblically means: learning to understand that within
that multiplicity of voices the voice of the Lord is sounding without feeling
the compulsion to reduce this voice to something. This leads to great freedom
in interpretation. Every voice represents a point of view; every word depicts a
perspective. This entire multilingualness is the outcome of that single
primitive story (original text) of God¡¯s incarnation. Reading ¡®platonically¡¯
follows a rule that strongly resembles the ¡®multiplicity¡¯, to be sure, but yet
differs from it radically. It is a rule one comes across with Aristotle and it
says that being, i.e., the self-satisfied but unreachable ground of things can
be said in a number of ways. It runs: ¡®Being is said in many ways¡¯. [24]
This rule fits with a kind of thinking that has an overview of the entire world
as an objective panorama. It has made itself felt from Aristotle to Hegel.
Where we are dealing with the one, self-satisfied being with Aristotle, with
Hegel we are dealing with being as a process that goes through modifications in
the course of time until it is understood in all its aspects and possibilities.
This philosophical attitude toward the being of things has had a strong
influence on theologically/philosophically thinking through the Christian
tradition. Vattimo wants to get rid of this. He wants to read the ¡®multifariam
multisque modis¡¯ biblically. The fundamental error is that the pure logos as
the producer of sheer thoughts was given primacy over personal language as the
source of creative imagination with al its sensoriness and corporeality.
Vattimo argues that we must relearn what ¡®hermeneutics of religious experience¡¯
is about. In the chapter ¡®Religion¡¯ in Beyond
Interpretation I read: ¡®Hermeneutics can be what it is - a non-metaphysical
philosophy with an essentially interpretative attitude towards truth, and thus
a nihilistic ontology - only as heir to the Christian myth of the incarnation
of God.¡¯[25]
So the point is the word that became flesh. The fact that Vattimo calls the
incarnation a myth underscores again that it is not possible to reduce it to a
ground or principle of being. The story is the expression of boundless love.
And the explanation of this story will consist of a number of perspectives in
which interested readers interpret this love. In any case such a hermeneutics
will display the following characteristics. 1) An ¡®ontological¡¯ nihilism.
According to Vattimo historical data do not exist apart from interpretation. It
is impossible to look for a reality behind this interpretation that might form
the basis for it. 2) The interpreter himself takes part in the process of
transmission. Assuming that the usual technique of interpretation doesn¡¯t raise
special questions, this hermeneutics draws up rules for the interpreter: about
how s/he is a participant in the process that is called interpretation. 3) This
hermeneutic anticipates the fact that the transmission (=interpretation) of the
text will retain the distinguishing kenotic feature in future contexts as well.
Hermeneutics with Noordmans
What
is ¡®an essentially interpretative attitude¡¯? I pass this question on to
Noordmans and I take a meditative contemplation on Phil. 2:5 as an example.
¡®Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus [NIV]¡¯. The context
is the period right after World War I. It is a time in which the influence of
Eastern religiosity is being felt – one thinks of Tagore – and stirs up all
kinds of discussions about Christian fundamentals.[26] Noordmans realises that it is important
during this period to work on a hermeneutical theory that is geared to his own
time and future. Noordmans talks about this in a meditation on Phil. 2:5. I
here summarise his thought and draw a number of hermeneutical conclusions.
(1)
The horizon, within which he works, is determined by what he calls the ¡®the
great drama of destruction¡¯ depicted in Phil. 2. ¡®...he humbled himself and
became obedient to death – even death on a cross.¡¯ (Phil. 2:8 ff.) That word is
like a hammer strike, like fire from heaven. But, says Noordmans, ¡®the burning
heart that glows behind this drama of destruction renders us just as speechless
and silent as Moses with the burning bush¡¯. (443) Pointing to the attitude
within Christ Jesus overrides any political, economical and religious fixation.
It cannot be a matter of foundation on any party or church political
principles. Over against the radicalness of kenosis all points of view as an
expression of conservatism are criticised. Any principle contrasts sharply with
Paul¡¯s interpretation of this self-emptying of God in Jesus. He speaks of the
¡®reckless folly of the Son of God, who became poor while he was rich. Who laid
down everything he owned piece by piece, relinquished his divine prerogatives¡¯.
¡¯Don¡¯t we get the impression time and again¡¯ he says ¡®that Christ is being
buried in our dogmatics and in our churches?...Buried in a respectable life,
yes even in philanthropy?¡¯ (445)
(2)
Paul is an interpreter. When he addresses his hearer with the words: ¡®Your
attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus [NIV]¡¯, he first applies
these words to himself. That attitude that Paul wants to rouse (touto froneite)
has nothing to with a religion of feelings or religion as a stream of
experiences. After the depiction of the ¡®Song of the Son of God¡¯ in Phil. 2,
Paul first points to his own apostolic existence, according to Noordmans. He
says, he does not have the desire to imitate Jesus, but ¡®wishes to practice the
righteousness, which is from God on the basis of faith, through faith in
Christ.¡¯ From that position Paul has and finds room to be ¡®of one attitude¡¯
with Christ in different moods, with different insights and expectations. That
relationship to Jesus - as one of attitude – makes him the great radical among
the apostles.
(3)
Noordmans also devotes an interesting contemplation to the effective history,
the interpretation that Paul already gives of this destruction and humiliation
of God. I give a short summary of what Noordmans says about Paul on this
subject:[27]
After Paul has first talked about his own existence, he says: the same is not
expected of you. In other words: just like I am not a copy or double of Jesus,
you cannot be a copy of Paul. In Phil. 3:15 he first points to Jesus himself.
He is and remains the one that attracts. Then he says: ¡®And if on some point
you think differently (heterós froneite), that too God will make clear to you.
[NIV]¡¯[28]
¡®If I understand the apostle correctly, he wants to say that in the attitude
that was in Jesus, there is enough room for different attitudes to life¡¯. ¡®The
apostle does not require them to imitate him exactly. The phrase: ¡®if ¡¦you
think differently¡¯ holds quite a bit
of diversity. But what Paul wants is that the attitude that will carry and
compel them ¡®be of one quality with what was in Jesus and what is in himself¡¯ [29]
Like that of Vattimo, Noordmans¡¯ hermeneutics is focussed on what is to come
and not on what used to be. The point is to find a quality of life, which one
knows has always been lost anyway, but which for that reason is sought with all
the more fervour. See Phil. 3:14: ¡®Forgetting what is behind and straining
toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God
has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.¡¯
I
believe that Vattimo and Noordmans find important clues for their kenotic and
future oriented hermeneutics in the peculiar language of the dogma. Regarding
this peculiar language of the dogma both also refer to the work of the
Schleiermacher-biographer and founder of the ¡®Geisteswissenschaften¡¯, Wilhelm
Dilthey. His account of the history of the humanities shows that for him the
inner will to know takes precedence over the pure rationality of scientific
knowledge. It is the purified will, the ¡®inner light¡¯ that in his understanding
has the ability to penetrate to the truth beyond all particular truths
interpretations (Beyond Interpretation).
The religious knowledge one finds in church dogma, in the symbols of creation
and incarnation etc. supply a ¡®grammar¡¯ in a nutshell of religious language,
which is the language of love.[30]
That view can already be found with Augustin. The true mark of dogma is its
distinctive language, which by definition is the language of love. A will to know
is expressed here that has, however, barely been able to hold its own against
the violence of the concept-formation of science. Not the harsh categories of
Kant that must keep empiricism under control, rule in dogma, but critical
thoughts that help people on account of their power of discernment to apply the
language of tradition to what benefits them: the need for forgiveness, coping
with death, suffering, prayer. Vattimo can imagine a Trinitarian symbolism in
which the suffering of humanity finds resonance. That language will always be
the language of love, which is not blind but distinguishing, subtle in its
criticism according to an ¡®esprit de finesse¡¯. Its sharpness is shaped in the
language of prayer and confession.
Confession with Vattimo
In his
Belief Vattimo, in a relatively small
document, gives an account of his faith. It is a confession similar to that of
Augustin: It is a personal account given publicly. It is a confession that
elicits recognition and response, because it articulates something that lives
among many people. For many – Christians and non-Christians – experience the
church as an institution with a number of mechanisms that exclude people
because they are different: homosexuals, women, the underprivileged. The motive
or the ¡®drive¡¯ of the entire confession is the friendship of God.[31]
That God is a friend and is close by and not an omnipotent authority at a
distance, is a discovery that marks the beginning of a ¡®return¡¯: a way to turn
back from an artificial sham religion to a mature faith. It is a faith that
takes on the adventure to shape the essential content of religion in a
new/fresh way. It is a faith that leaves behind a world of criticism and
scepticism and spontaneously accommodates itself to the friendliness of God as
he speaks in Jesus, or in the saints, or in a person that asks for my love.
Tradition or culture or any kind of principle or law as such can never be the
basis of faith. He knows one cannot find truth by revitalising the past –
tradition. The reality that humanity ¡®originally¡¯ belonged to and is at times
has pursued as in a dream is unattainable. So one should not try to retrieve
this world through memory. Ontologically speaking Vattimo is a nihilist: there
is no being one can fall back on. But Vattimo is a ¡®nihilist in hope¡¯: he
searches all over for signs that point to the world he yearns for. In this he
does not hesitate to use mytho-poetic terms like creation, kenosis etc. These
words stimulate the imagination. They invite to the game of the imagination. Thus
creation points to a meaningful and salutary event, which one comes in touch
with ¡®ex nihilo¡¯, so to speak, though the void. In 21 fragments in his
confession Vattimo indicates how this return through the void comes about. His
views, discussed earlier, about how modern information society promotes such a
return rather than obstructing it, I will not consider here now. I will
restrict myself to three points here. The notion of creation, which Vattimo
speaks of[32]
– in most cases appealing to Schleiermacher – assumes an interpretation of
scripture that – as Vattimo points out himself - is risky, personal, and
cheerful.[33]
¡®Creation¡¯ leads to a risky
interpretation.[34]
This one can imagine when one realises that the kind of believer Vattimo wants
to be has made a break with the sacral order. This break with the sacral, this
demythologising, as he sometimes calls it too, does not leave objectifying
scientific reason undisturbed either. To the extent that reason lends itself to
give proofs of God or the reasonableness of faith, it serves a religious
worldview that is no longer valid. This reason, too, he says, must be
secularised.[35]
For a long time it has been equally as violent as the imposed religion was,
because it did not allow to shape their existence on the basis of their
particularity – formulated abstractly, on the basis of their being-in-time. The
time of this coercion is over. If Vattimo argues for a faith that has its own
reasons that the head does not know, this is not a proposal to sacrifice
rationality as such, on the contrary. Only, Vattimo doesn¡¯t bet all his chips
on what has already been proven, but what is to come, on that for which there
are no exact proofs. If reason wants to supply faith with arguments, it will
have to empty itself until it speaks the language of the heart, of creative
imagination.
The
notion of creation leads to an interpretation that is personal. In his accounting for his faith Vattimo argues for a
church that is friendly, like the face of God. He is aware of the unfriendly.
He knows how people can suffer under the mechanism of exclusion because they
are ¡®different¡¯. He cannot confess to a faith in which this being ¡®different¡¯
is suppressed. I can only have a mature relationship with a religious text, if
the interpretation itself leads me into it. Text and content only become
significant if I can handle them with my own individuality.[36]
Only then does the Jesus of the gospel come within reach for me.[37]
This means that after reason the holy texts - sacra scriptura – also reveal an
earthly Jesus to me who is contemporaneous to me and my being.
The
notion of creation leads to an interpretation that is cheerful. Among others I point to the 20th and one
before last fragment of Vattimo¡¯s confession. The title of this fragment is:
¡®Che peccato!¡¯, ¡®What a pity! (literally: what sin)¡¯[38]
In this piece Vattimo points to the possibility of a dogmatic way of thinking
in which the confession is not in the way but is rather a joyful sign of
recognition. Dogmatic thinking cannot be retrieving what is over and done with
nor confirming what is established and dominant. This inevitably results in
retaliation, revenge, and manipulation by people who have an interest in
history accusing us. The dogma of the church only fulfils its purpose if it
makes rules that help point a way past the injuries, loss, and destruction
brought about in the past. What a pity? ¡®Che Peccato!¡¯ it says at the head of
the one before last fragment. The superscription sounds like a cheerful call
causing a crack in moral or dogmatic systems. The word has an ironic ring to
it. It belongs to no scientia at all except to reason that plays. It aims to
lighten the system that morally pegs people down on their shortcomings. Sin is
what God, to speak classically with Karl Barth, passed over. It is actually out
of place to use this word in any other sense than in the ironical sense of
¡®what a pity!¡¯
It is
much better to pass over sin and to concentrate on the need for forgiveness:
because time and again we abandon others to their fate; on the experience of
death, which I experience with myself and particularly with others; on
suffering that I cannot abolish, but that perhaps I can help articulate; on
prayer in which the calm of surrender and the passion for the wholly other go
hand in hand. In all this - in all these forms of confession, contemplation,
and prayer, a kenosis takes place that finds its fulcrum in the song of the Son
of man, who passed over sin in order to be a companion of human beings to the
extreme.
Confession with Noordmans
I choose
a meditation on Mark 1:15. ¡®Repent and believe the good news [NIV]¡¯.[39]
One of the first sentences runs: ¡®We do not live by a ¡®status quo¡¯, by fixed
circumstances. The nature of our knowledge of God is not natural. The miracle
is ¡°the sweetest child of faith¡±(Goethe). It cannot be derived from what is
known. It comes in the full sense of
the word.¡¯ This coming here of course refers to the preaching of the kingdom of
heaven. This coming includes a turn-about. The turn-about is an exodus out of
the ¡®status quo¡¯. As such it does not come to us from the past at all. As with
Vattimo this turn-about does not come about unthinkingly but observes the signs
of the times (Math. 16:3), that are the prelude to the breaking of a day. (252)
It points to the event that eludes the grasp of one-dimensional reason. This
event is expressed as follows:
¡®There
is something particularly delicate about daybreak. First it creates a suspicion
of light. Then there is twilight. First it colours the horizon a soft red,
before it sets it off with stronger pigments. – The way the gospel reveals
itself to us in no different. It makes delicate and very fragile agreements
with us, like Eliezer, Abram¡¯s servant, did with God. If the girl that he met
at the well would say: "Drink, lord, and I will also give your camels to
drink ", then that would be the wife intended for Isaac (Gen. 24: 14).
(...)¡© Surmises count for more than exact proofs in God¡¯s kingdom¡¯. What
Noordmans is expressing here is intimately related to an aspect of the
¡®self-emptying of God¡¯, that is, with a God, who does not reign as the
almighty, but who makes things happen in hiddenness. The response a person can
give and gives to this is more akin to conjectures than to giving exact proofs.
In this meditation there is not a trace of the world perishing. It is indeed as
if the writer reads the ¡®repent¡¯ as a call to return to and to be ready for a
place beyond the fall: to a world to which we belong ¡®by nature¡¯ and which is
announced to us here in the message of Jesus himself.
The
quote more or less speaks for itself. If one compares it to Vattimo it is
striking that with Noordmans the emphasis on the language of friendship and
love is at least equally strong: a language that reveals the secret: ¡®as which
someone whispers in the ear of his friend¡¯. It is primarily risky: it is in no way based on the
status quo; it relinquishes the security that comes with established positions.
It chances it with the play of language. In the second place it is extremely critical. The meditation betrays a keen
ability to listen. It hears a new creation beginning in the words of Jesus and
also sees this in the signs round about. The criticism is particularly
articulated in the subtleness of love that does not take, but gives. In the
third place it is playful and associative,
which is shown by the playing with language and the many references to
Scripture, tradition, and culture that are effortlessly, it seems, inserted
into the meditation.
A Summary
In
this study I have examined the place and the function of church dogma. My
thought was and is that dogma has a guiding function in interpreting Scripture.
The notion of kenosis draws attention to a boundless divine love: it is this
love that is breathing in the texts of Scripture and wants to be passed on time
and time again.
I
worked out this thought by comparing Noordmans and Vattimo under the headings
of religion, hermeneutics, and confession. I believe that this comparison
yielded a number of convergences that merit further examination. I will briefly
summarise them here.
In a
hermeneutical dogmatics the notion of kenosis, i.e., of the self-destruction of
God in Jesus Christ, is central. It makes possible an interpretation guided by
charity. This language of love has its own kind of ¡®logic of transcendence¡¯. It
is filled with an unequalled divine love.
It
turned out to be well worth the trouble to compare Noordmans and Vattimo
thoroughly. After all both are interested in the transmission of Christian
tradition in today¡¯s culture. Both are searching for an exegetical theory. In
the plan of both the notion of kenosis plays a key part. Noordmans puts all the
emphasis on theological aspects: the emptying originates with God himself.
Vattimo puts all the emphasis on the philosophical and cultural aspects. The
focus is on human beings, for whom the actual practice of divine love functions
as a guide within their own historical context. Over against a strained
metaphysics both might be able to find each other in a ¡®grammar¡¯, in rules for
the personal language of faith: the language of love.[40]
In
comparing the two under the heading of religion, the idea of pure dependence
emerged, a dependence that is pure to such an extent that it is a source of
emancipation and far-reaching moral choices. The reason for this pure
dependence lies in God¡¯s kindness to humanity, in the human being who comes
from God, who is ¡®the son by nature¡¯.
In
comparing them under the heading of hermeneutics
the need for a theory of religious experience emerged. This theory consists of
the personal participation of the interpreter in the process of transmission.
It takes its cues from the one voice among the many voices. This hermeneutic (=
theory of religious experience) can only be succesful if it lends its ear to a
multitude of interpretations. Not the impersonal logos is dominant in listening
to and weighing these, but rather the personal responsibility of the
interpreter is decisive.
Under
the heading of confession the motif
emerged that faith personally/publicly compels to a confession: it is to be
found in the friendship of God. Discovering this God is the beginning of a
return. This return is not going to be an actualisation of the ancient doctrine
of the fathers with all its violent and hurtful moments. Rather it is going to
be a ¡®turning toward¡¯ what is ¡®coming¡¯, toward what the past can not take
possession of. A ¡®self-emptying¡¯ is required for this from closed reason to
creative reason; from the categorical judgements of reason, because they
accuse, to the creative and transforming categories of the Spirit called love.
[1]I
agree with the way Simone Weil articulates this, who, as quoted by Rowan
Williams, speaks of ¡®the supreme integrity of divine self-effacement as the
only way in which love can be received by us¡¯, Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology, Oxford 2000,
217v.
[2]H.J.
Iwand, Nachgelassene Werke 5, 225:
[3]What
God does in Jesus is ¡®intransitive¡¯.
[4]John
Milbank, The Word Made Strange. Theology,
Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, 1997), 78
[5]Cf.
G.W Neven, Schepping als profetie : over
de betekenis van het denken van Franz Rosenzweig voor de christelijke theologie,
Kampen 1989
[6]Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics I, 4, [p.1096a pag in Engelse editie opzoeken] . The quote
is found in Vattimo, Waarheid, vrijheid en emancipatie: christendom voorbij de
metafysica, in Ger Groot a.o., Een zwak geloof. Christendom voorbij de
metafysica, Kampen 2000, p.17.
Cf.
also Vattimo¡¯s reference to Sjatow and Stawogrin from Dostoyevsky, The Possessed: ¡®But didn¡¯t you tell me
that if it was mathematically proved
to you that the truth excludes Christ, you¡¯d prefer to stick to Christ
rather than to the truth? Did you say that? Did you?¡¯ (New York 1966, p.247)
[8]Cf.
Vattimo in his introduction to the 2nd edition of his
Schleiermacher, Filosofo dell¡¯ Interpretazione, Turin 1985, 3; also Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation, p.91.
[9] Cf.
the postscript of Belief, p.94.
Vattimo there promises to return to dialectical theology at some future time.
To my knowledge that has not happened so far. One could easily devote an entire
paper to Vattimo¡¯s criticism of Barth.
[10]In the
English translations of his work the word is sometimes left untranslated. Most
of the time it is rendered ¡®recollecting¡¯ (= ¡®keeping in mind¡¯). E.g. in
Vattimo, The End of Modernity, p.115.
[11]See
¡®Waarheid, vrijheid en emancipatie¡¯, in Ger Groot a.o., op. cit., p. 24.
[13] First
line of Hymne Patmos, in Jochen
Schmidt, Friedrich Hölderlin, Sämtliche
Werke und Briefe, vol. I, 350. The hymn starts out with: ¡®Nah ist /Und
schwer zu fassen der Gott./ Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst/ das Rettende auch.¡¯
Quoted by Heidegger in his famous essay on technology, see Martin Heidegger,
Vorträge und Aufsätze, vol. III, 28 and 35, translated in Heidegger, Martin, The Question Concerning Technology and Other
Essays, trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row 1977: ¡®But where
danger is, grows The saving power also, (...)¡¯
[14]O.
Noordmans, VW.5, 544.
[15]Thus
Christine Bernier in a personal report of Vattimo¡¯s symposium contribution. She
points to Hölderlin, Brot und Wein,
and to the autobiographical significance that the quoted words have for
Vattimo. See Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke
und Briefe, vol. 1, 289. ¡®Nur zu Zeiten erträgt die göttliche Fülle der
Mensch.Traum von ihnen ist drauf das Leben.¡¯
[16]
¡®Trace of the Trace¡¯, p.87.
[17]See,
e.g., The Transparent Society about
¡®the recovered myth¡¯.
[18]Op.
cit., 59
[19]¡®Trace
of the Trace¡¯, p.85-87.
[20]See
Vattimo, Beyond Hermeneutics, Ch I:
The Nihilistic Vocation of Hermeneutics, p.5-14.
[21] Blaise Pascal, Pensées et
Opuscules, ed. Brunschvicg,
Paris, n.d., Pensée 277
[22]See
note 7
[23]This
is elaborated in the chapter ¡®Religion¡¯ of Beyond
Hermeneutics. See also Belief,
p.78 ff.
[24]¡®to on
légethai pollachôs¡¯
[25]Vattimo,
Beyond Interpretation, p.54
[26]VW 7,
441.
[27]O.
Noordmans, VW.7, 446f.
[28]Le Bible de Jerusalem: et si...vous
pensez autrement, là encore Dieu vous eclairera¡¯. Revelation passes from van
Jesus to Paul and from Paul to the church.
[29] O.
Noordmans, VW7, 447.
[30]Dilthey,
Gesammelte Schriften II, p.137.
¡®Religion als Lebendigkeit schafft sich eine Sprache in den Dogmen ersten
Grades. Solche bestehen in gro©¬en, gleichsam bildlichen Symbolen......Wie es
ein Wörterbuch dieser religiösen Sprachezeichen gibt, so gibt es auch eine
Grammatik desselben: Regeln ihrer Beugung und ihrer Verknüpfung. Diese
Sprachzeichen und Regeln gehören einer ganz anderen Region als der des
Verstandes an.¡¯
[31]Belief, passim.
[32]See
Vattimo, Religion, 84, 85. About
¡®Createdness constitutive of the essential content of religious experience¡¯.
With an explicit appeal to Schleiermacher: ¡®religion depends on an originary
factuality that happens to be legible as createdness and dependence (in
Schleiermacher¡¯s sense, perhaps).¡¯
[33]Belief, passim.
[34]A
risky interpretation, Belief, 44, cf.
46, 86
[35]Belief, 92.
[36]For
his hermeneutical theory I refer to Vattimo¡¯s work on Schleiermacher referred
to in note 8.
[37]Cf. Belief, 61 where Vattimo speaks ¡®of the
necessity of a personal interpretation of Scripture without which Jesus and
salvation would remain inaccessible to me¡¯.
[38]Unfortunately,
the English translation: ¡®What a pity!¡¯ does not convey the irony or even the
joy that rings through in the Italian ¡®Che peccato!¡¯.
[39]O.
Noordmans, VW.8, 251.
[40]O.
Noordmans speaks VW. 9. 608 of a
¡®syntaxis charitatis¡¯ [syntax of charity].