Reasonable Hermeneutics?

Reasonable Hermeneutics?

 George W. Bratcher III

 Dr. Douglas Welch
 Biblical Hermeneutics
 5 May 1993

                     REASONABLE HERMENEUTICS?

      At the beginning of the semester the issue was brought up 
 that hermeneutics, if pressed far enough, is essentially,  epis-
 temology and our interpretation of scripture based upon epis-
 temology.  Also the class dealt with the issue of confessional
 and pietistic communities and their interpretation of scripture 
 based upon their epistemology.  There is nothing wrong with 
 having presuppositions, for we all have them, but what is also 
 important is knowing what those presuppositions are and what 
 limitations they have.  Since epistemology is a form of philoso- 
 phy and involves philosophical presuppositions, I would like to 
 deal with in this paper some of the philosophical presuppositions 
 that lie beneath the epistemology of both the confessional and 
 pietistic communities.  Now one may ask, "How is philosophy rele-
 vant in any way to scripture?"  When one translates philosophy 
 from its Greek context, the definition simply means, "a love of 
 wisdom!"  Throughout Proverbs, we are admonished to acquire 
 wisdom at any cost.  In the epistle of James we are admonished in 
 this way:

           If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who
           gives generously to all without finding fault, and it
           will be given to him. (NIV 1880)

 But in seeking wisdom, we are dealing with a double edged sword.  
 Wenham is of help to us here:

           "Knowledge of good and evil" is wisdom . . . .  It
           offered "insight" . . . (3:16).  At first this inter-
           pretation appears unlikely as moral discernment.  It is
           easy to see that God has wisdom and that children lack
           it, but more difficult to see why it was forbidden to
           man.  The acquisition of wisdom is seen as one of the
           highest goals of the godly according to the Book of
           Proverbs.  But the wisdom literature also makes it
           plain that there is a wisdom that is God's sole pre-
           serve, which man should not aspire to attain (e.g., Job
           15:7-9,40; Prov 30:1-4), since a full understanding of
           God, the universe, and man's place in it is ultimately
           beyond human comprehension.  To pursue it without ref-
           erence to revelation is to assert human autonomy, and
           to neglect the fear of the Lord which is the beginning
           of knowledge (Prov 1:7). (Wenham 63)

 The Reformation was a response to the abuse and powerhold held on 
 the interpretation of scripture that was forced upon society.  
 Pietist communities were a response to the confessional communi- 
 ties of the Reformation.  The Enlightenment was a response to the 
 wars that existed between religious factions.  The presupposi- 
 tions of all of these communities have flowed over into our time 
 today and exist in one form or another.  In both the confessional
 and pietist communities, appeals to wisdom were based upon either 
 reason or a special Spiritual revelation.  I would like to
 respond to both of these presuppositions; however, beginning with 
 the Enlightenment, other people questioned more adequately the 
 presuppositions of reason within the context of the human mind 
 and human existence, and how one acquires special spiritual 
 revelation and what it entails to the life of both the individual 
 and the community; therefore, I shall let voices from the past do 
 my arguing since I feel that their arguments are adequate enough. 
 I will however, comment on my understanding and interpretations of 
 these comments.

                     THE LIMITS OF REASON?

      Beginning with Rene Descartes, we begin a new paradigm in 
 the interpretation of philosophy.  Of greatest concern to Rene 
 Descartes was the adequacy of reason and how he could overcome 
 doubt and if there was something above all else that he could not
 doubt:

           Thus it must be granted that, after weighing everything
           carefully and sufficiently, one must come to the con-
           sidered judgment that "I am, I exist" is necessarily
           true every time it is uttered by me or conceived in my
           mind (Descartes 17).

 Here there is an inherent danger because as philosophy develops, 
 it is the self which becomes the center of knowledge.  Appealing 
 once again to the Genesis account, we can once again see the 
 danger:

           The scene becomes a trial.  The Gardener becomes a
           questioner.  The pitiful answer must be given:  "I was
           afraid" (3:10).  It is the same answer that will be
           given by Abraham (20:11) and then by Isaac (26:9) and
           by all who cannot trust the goodness of God and submit
           to his wise passion.  The speech of the indicted couple
           is revealing, for it is all "I."  There lies the primal
           offense:  "I heard . . ., I was afraid . . ., I was
           naked; I hid . . . . I ate . . . . I ate" (3:10-13).
           Their own speech indicts them.  It makes clear that
           their preoccupation with the Gardener, with his voca-
           tion, his permission, his prohibition, has been given
           up.  Now the preoccupation is "I."  The fear and the
           hiding helped no more than the eating.  Life is turned
           back on self. (Brueggemann 49)

 Since I am a rational being, and I cannot be doubted, then my 
 reasoning becomes paramount in defining my world around me.  As I 
 stated in class, the appeal to reason on the part of the confes- 
 sional and pietistic communities would have at one time had a 
 strong appeal to me.  The educational system here in the United 
 States is so strongly governed by the scientific method, that we 
 here in the states can naturally, without really being fully 
 aware, accept appeals to reason without much questioning.  The 
 irony of it is that in looking at the enlightenment, appeals to 
 reason were challenged by the empiricists, from which the scien- 
 tific method eventually came.  The empiricists, rightly so, chal- 
 lenged the notion that reason was an end to itself.  Their big- 
 gest criticism was that since reason was based just upon theor- 
 ies in the mind, one could make rational the absurd, provided one 
 had the right reasonings.  This was not acceptable to the
 empiricists since their appeal was to experience and what the 
 mind could know using reason within the limits of day to day 
 observations.  Thus with a Wesleyan tradition which appeals to 
 tradition, reason, and experience (Dunning 77); we can see the 
 heavy influence of the modern mind that exits even today in the 
 later half of the twentieth century even within our own tradi- 
 tions.

      However, a certain man, by the name of David Hume challenged 
 the notion that any of our knowledge could be known with any cer- 
 tainty.  He thus shook the foundations of reason and experience, 
 by this view:

           The mind can never possibly find the effect in the sup-
           posed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and examina-
           tion.  For the effect is totally different from the
           cause and consequently can never be discovered in it.
           Motion in the second billiard ball is a quite distinct
           event from motion in the first:  nor is there anything
           in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other.
           (Hume 325)

 Hume believed that the reason we infer a cause that we cannot know 
 for certain, since it is capable of having a contrary, comes from 
 the principle of custom or habit:

           For wherever the repetition of any particular act or
           operation produces a propensity to renew the same act
           or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning
           or process of understanding, we always say, that this
           propensity is the effect of custom.  (Hume 336)

 This habit or custom is always understood to stand as a matter of 
 fact because of the feeling that we have for it being true (Keen, 
 CLASS NOTES).  Since for Hume, the basis of all knowledge claims 
 comes from cause and effect, and since we cannot get at the cause 
 but simply keep going from one conclusion to another on the basis 
 of feeling and custom, then all we have is phenomena that seems 
 true (Keen, CLASS NOTES).  From viewing all of creation and know- 
 ledge as phenomena, Hume thus makes the world as transcendent and 
 distant as any possible creator that it might have.

      Skepticism, such as that promoted by David Hume, caused much
 confusion in the world of philosophy over what, if anything could 
 be known.  However, we cannot stay stuck in skepticism.  Besides, 
 one can make an appeal to the progress we have made in the area 
 of physics and many other areas of science in the twentieth cen- 
 tury.  Certainly there must be some certainty to what we know.

      Rousseau was on the right track when he said that existence 
 is in feeling, for even our need for knowledge and order come 
 from desires which arise from our emotions and feelings. However 
 concerning Hume, Immanuel Kant said:

           I openly confess that my remembering David Hume was the
           very thing which many years ago first interrupted my
           dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the
           field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction.
           (Kant 5)

 Speculative seems to be the key and right word concerning the 
 philosophy Kant was investigating and especially concerning phi- 
 losophy in general after Hume's skepticism had left it generally
 in a state of chaos.  Kant followed wisely in the footsteps of 
 Rousseau in that he pointed out we were able to give meaning to 
 the word "is," in other words to make judgments about our exper- 
 iences (Rousseau 9).  However the problem was that Hume's skepti- 
 cism said that all we could know from experiences were effects 
 and that we could never get to causes or truly see connections.  
 Concerning this Kant said:

           The question was not whether the concept of cause was
           right, useful, and even indispensable for our knowledge
           of nature, for this Hume had never doubted; but whether
           that concept could be thought by reason a priori, and
           consequently whether it possessed an inner truth, inde-
           pendent of all experience, implying a more widely ex-
           tended usefulness, not limited merely to objects of ex-
           perience.  This was Hume's problem.  It was a question
           concerning the origin of the concept, not concerning
           its indispensability in use.  Were the former decided,
           the conditions of its use and the sphere of its valid
           application would have been determined as a matter of
           course.  (Kant 4)

 Kant decided to go searching to see first what we could know for 
 certain in the mind, and then later, if we could find certainty 
 there, see if we could begin to know anything about metaphysics.  
 Concerning this Jones explains in a more simpler way what Kant was 
 doing:

           Consider the process by which crude oil is refined into
           various petroleum products--kerosene, gasoline of
           various octane numbers, and so on.  The refining pro-
           cess corresponds, in this analogy, to the standard
           forms of judgment in terms of which, according to
           Kant's hypothesis, experience is organized.  If we know
           that such-and-such steps have been built into the re-
           fining process, we can say with confidence that gaso-
           line of such-and-such an octane will issue from the re-
           finery.  The "necessary connection" is not found in the
           crude oil.  It is supplied by the refining process.
           (Jones 21)

      Before going on into Kant's views on judgments, it is 
 important to understand how he saw the human mind within the 
 self.  He saw the mind under two spheres:  one the faculty of 
 the sensibility and two the faculty of the understanding.  
 Outside the faculties contained within the self are what are 
 called noumena which are the things in themselves, or what we do 
 not perceive.  What we do perceive is known as phenomena, or 
 appearances, which are not the things in themselves.  The 
 phenomena are chaotic.  They are received by the senses as 
 chaotic or unarranged data.  The faculty of the sensibilities 
 begins to arrange them and impress upon them intuitively, the 
 concepts of space and time (Keen, CLASS NOTES).  But to under- 
 stand how these are involved in helping us make judgments, we 
 must see what Kant meant by judgment:

           A judgment, according to Kant, is a movement of thought
           in which two items are brought together and combined. .
           . .  The mind brings the items together in judgment
           because it detects a connection between them.  It is
           this connection that is the warrant, or basis, for the
           judgment.  Now, the most obvious kind of evidence on
           which we base our judgments is experience:  It is sense
           experience, for instance, that warrants our judging
           that a particular house is large.  Such a judgment Kant
           called empirical, or "a posteriori."  In contrast,
           there is a kind of judgment that is "independent of all
           experience."  For instance, we do not have to measure
           the angles of a particular triangle to know that its
           interior angles equal two right angles; we know this as
           a result of a geometric proof--it follows from Euclid's
           definition of the nature of a triangle that the interi-
           or angles of any triangle equal two right angles.  This
           kind of judgment Kant called pure, or "a priori."
           (Jones 22)

 A posteriori means "after the fact" and a priori "before the 
 fact."  The concepts of time and space in the faculty of the 
 understanding are a priori.  Therefore, the new data are 
 conceived beforehand intuitively in forms of space and time.  
 Kant explains:

           Accordingly, it is only the form of sensuous intuition
           by which we can intuit things a priori, but by which we
           can know objects only as they appear to us (to our
           senses), not as they are in themselves; and this
           assumption is absolutely necessary if synthetic propo-
           sitions a priori be granted as possible or if, in case
           they actually occur, their possibility is to be con-
           ceived and determined beforehand.

                Now, the intuitions which pure mathematics lays at
           the foundation of all its cognitions and judgments
           which appear at one apodeictic and necessary are space
           and time.  For mathematics must first present all its
           concepts in intuition, and pure mathematics in pure in-
           tuition, i. e., it must construct them.  If it pro-
           ceeded in any other way, it would be impossible to make
           a single step; for mathematics proceeds, not analyti-
           cally by dissection of concepts, but synthetically, and
           if pure intuition be wanting there is nothing in which
           the matter for synthetic judgments a priori can be
           given.  Geometry is based upon the pure intuition of
           space.  Arithmetic attains its concepts of motion only
           by employing the representation of time.  Both repre-
           sensations, however, are merely intuitions of bodies
           and their alterations (motion) everything empirical, i.
           e., belonging to sensation, space and time still re-
           main, and are therefore pure intuitions that lie a pri-
           ori at the basis of the empirical.  Hence they can nev-
           er be omitted; but at the same time, by their being
           pure intuitions a priori, they prove that they are mere
           forms of our sensibility, which must precede all empir-
           ical intuition, i. e., perception of actual objects,
           and in conformity with which objects can be known a
           priori but only as they appear to us.  (Kant 27-28)

 Thus the phenomena, the chaos, the raw data, are perceived and 
 known immediately through the senses.  There are no real 
 conscious judgments made concerning them.  There are other 
 judgments we must look at in understanding how the mind 
 interprets phenomena, and to see if we can ever know noumena in 
 any sense:

           In addition to distinguishing between a posteriori and
           a priori judgments, Kant distinguished between analyt-
           ical and synthetical judgments.  In an analytical
           judgment the predicate is covertly contained in the
           subject and may be obtained by  by analysis of it.
           "Roses are flowers" is an example:  That roses are
           flowers is a part of the definition of roses.  In a
           synthetical judgment the predicate is not contained in
           its subject.  "Some roses are red" is an example:  Red
           is not a part of the definition of rose.  (Jones 22)

      There are three possible judgments yielded:  one is an ana- 
 lytical a priori judgment, which is involves the law of contra- 
 diction (Kant 12).  It would be foolish to say that a rose is not
 a flower because that is a contradiction.  Synthetic a posteriori 
 judgments are warranted by experience (Kant 13).  In these judg- 
 ments, an opposing statement can be just as true as a supporting 
 statement.  A rose may be red, but then again, it may not be red. 
 Synthetical a priori judgments involve both mathematics and ge- 
 ometry.  For instance, 7+5=12 may seem analytical, until you 
 realize that 12 contains that concepts both 7 and 5 and without a 
 concept of 12 one could never have as a reference or measurement
 to compare 5 and 7 to find that they are in 12 a priori (Kant 13
 -14).  Also concerning Geometry Kant best explains it when he 
 says:

           Any principle of geometry is no less synthetic.  That a
           straight line is the shortest path between two points
           in a synthetic proposition.  For my concept of straight
           contains nothing of quantity, but only of quality.  The
           concept of the shortest is therefore altogether addi-
           tional and cannot be obtained by any analysis of the
           concept of the straight line.  Here, too, intuition
           must come to aid us.  It alone makes the synthesis
           possible.  (Kant 14)

      Thus when the phenomena are conceived in terms of time and 
 space a priori and intuitively in the faculty of the sensibility 
 then are they thought about and judged in the faculty of the 
 understanding where the subject is given a predicate according 
 to one of the three methods of judgment just discussed.  So as 
 we move from simple judgments and perceptions, the question comes 
 up, how do we understand natural laws such as in science and 
 physics?  Kant says:

           Nature is the existence of things, so far as it is de-
           termined to universal laws.  Should nature signify the
           existence of things in themselves, we could never cog-
           nize it either a priori or a posteriori.  (Kant 38)

 Nature refers to a product of the mind.  It is chaotic, as raw 
 data, but the mind gives it order (Keen, CLASS NOTES).  How then 
 are natural laws universal and a priori since some experience is
 involved.  Kant states:

           In the first place we must state that while all judg-
           ments of experience are empirical (i. e. have their
           ground in immediate sense-perception), yet conversely,
           all empirical judgments are not therefore judgments of
           experience; but, besides the empirical, and in general
           besides what is given to sensuous intuition, special
           concepts must yet be superadded--concepts which have
           their origin quite a priori in the pure understanding,
           and under which every perception must be first of all
           subsumed and then by their means changed into exper-
           ience.

                Empirical judgments, so far as they have objective
           validity, are judgments of experience:  but those which
           are only subjectively valid I name mere judgments of
           perception.  The latter require no pure concept of un-
           derstanding, but only the logical connection of percep-
           tion in a thinking subject.  But the former always re-
           quire, besides the representation of the sensuous in-
           tuition, special concepts originally generated in the
           understanding, which make the judgment of experience
           objectively valid.  (Kant 41)

 When the sense data has been impressed with space and time, and a 
 judgment is made involving experience in the sensibility of the 
 understanding, it is subjected to the categories of the under- 
 standing in order to be a valid judgment of experience.  The 
 categories of the understanding which are a priori and come
 under pure concepts that are known to the mind intuitively.  The 
 catergories of the understanding as according to Kant are listed 
 below:

                    LOGICAL TABLE OF JUDGMENTS

                       1                    2

                 As to Quantity      As to Quality
                  Universal           Affirmative
                   Particular          Negative
                   Singular            Infinite

                       3                    4

                 As to Relation       As to Modality
                  Categorical          Problematic
                  Hypothetical         Assertoric
                  Disjunctive          Apodeictic

               TRANSCENDENTAL TABLE OF THE CONCEPTS
                        OF THE UNDERSTANDING

                       1                    2

                 As to Quantity      As to Quality
                Unity (Measure)        Reality
                Plurality (Quantity)   Negation
                Totality (Whole)       Limitation

                       3                    4

                 As to Relation       As to Modality
                  Substance            Possibility
                  Cause                Existence
                  Community            Necessity

             PURE PHYSIOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE UNIVERSAL
                   PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL SCIENCE

                       1                    2

                  Axioms of          Anticipations of
                   Intuition           Perception

                       3                    4

                  Analogies of       Postulates of
                   Experience          Empirical

                                       Thought in
                                       General
 (Kant 46-47)

      It is important to remember that these are not the origins 
 of experience, but what lies in our experiences (Kant 47).  Much 
 in the same way a program lies in a computer and helps define how 
 the computer will perform.  Kant says of these:

           Experience consists of intuitions, which belong to the
           sensibility, and of judgments, which are entirely a
           work of the understanding.  But the judgments which the
           understanding makes entirely out of sensuous intuitions
           are far from being judgments of experience.  For in one
           case the judgment connects only the perceptions as they
           are given in sensuous intuition, while the other judg-
           ments must express what experience in general and not
           what the mere perception (which possess only subjective
           validity) contains.  The judgment of experience must
           therefore add to the sensuous intuition of its logical
           connection in a judgment (after it has been rendered
           universal by comparison) something that determines the
           synthetic judgment as necessary and therefore as uni-
           versally valid.  This can be nothing but that concept
           which represents the intuition as determined in itself
           with regard to one form of judgment rather than
           another, viz., a concept of that synthetic unity of
           intuitions which can only be represented by a given
           logical function of judgments.  (Kant 47)

      This is very similar to Hume's concept of custom and habit. 
 By these we can see how natural laws of science can be 
 universal.  To sum it up quickly, the faculty of the sensibility 
 simply intuits and perceives and the faculty of the understanding 
 thinks.  Yet all that we know with certainty is only in our 
 minds, therefore, how do we get to the noumena, the things in 
 themselves.  How do we get to know the self, the universe, or 
 God?  Reason is our ticket out.  It is not satisfied until it has 
 formulated something transcendent.  The synthesizing process is   
 performed by the imagination.  Reason seeks to pass beyond exper- 
 ience and give to experience a unity not given by the sensibility 
 or the understanding.  Reason wants to conclude something about 
 the noumena that is transcendent.  Such a conclusion is an allu- 
 sion, and such an allusion is unavoidable (Keen, CLASS NOTES).  

 Kant says concerning this:

           Pure reason requires us to seek for every predicate of
           a thing its own subject, and for this subject, which is
           itself necessarily nothing but a predicate, its sub-
           ject, and so on indefinitely (or as far as we can
           reach).  But hence it follows that we must not hold
           anything at which we can arrive to be an ultimate sub-
           ject, and that substance itself never can be thought by
           our understanding, however deep we may penetrate, even
           if all nature were unveiled to us.  For the specific
           nature of our understanding consists in thinking every-
           thing discursively, i. e., by concepts, and so by mere
           predicates, to which therefore the absolute subject
           must always be wanting.  Hence all the real properties
           by which we cognize bodies are mere accidents, not even
           excepting impenetrability, which we can only represent
           to ourselves as the effect of a force for which the
           subject is unknown to us.  (Kant 75)

      Concerning ourselves, the universe, and God Kant replies:

           Whether the soul is or is not a simple substance is of
           no consequence to us in the explanation of its pheno-
           mena.  For we cannot render the concept of a simple be-
           ing understandable sensuously and concretely by any
           possible experience.  The concept is therefore quite
           void as regards all hoped for insight into the cause of
           appearances and cannot at all serve as a principle of
           the explanation of that which internal or external ex-
           periences supplies.  Likewise the cosmological ideas of
           the beginning of the world or of its eternity cannot be
           of any service to us for the explanation of any event
           in the world itself.  And finally we must, according to
           a right maxim of the philosophy of nature refrain from
           all explanation of the design of nature as being drawn
           from the will of a Supreme Being, because this would
           not be natural philosophy but an admission that we have
           come to the end of it. . . .  Yet there must be a
           harmony between the nature of reason and that of the
           understanding, and the former must contribute to the
           perfection of the latter and cannot possibly upset it.

               The solution of this question is as follows.  Pure
           reason does not in its ideas point to particular ob-
           jects which lie beyond the field of experience, but
           only requires completeness of the use of the under-
           standing in the complex of experience.  But this com-
           pleteness can be a completeness of principle only, not
           of intuitions and of objects.  In order, however, to
           represent the ideas definitely, reason conceives them
           after the fashion of the cognition of an object.  This
           cognition is, as far as these rules are concerned, com-
           pletely determined; but the object is only an idea in-
           vented for the purpose of bringing the cognition of the
           understanding as near as possible to the completeness
           indicated by that idea.  (Kant 72-73)

 So concerning metaphysics what we are left with is speculative 
 philosophy which is based upon theoretical knowledge at best.  
 Our ability to make judgments that are accurate depend upon our 
 understanding of relations and to give "is" to the predicate of 
 the subject.  Reason is ultimately a matter of psychology.  Today 
 we accept psychology as speculative.  What seems the best 
 definition to us is.  Thus reason is not the end of wisdom, but 
 only the beginning.  Thus our appeals to reason as an end in her- 
 meneutics is invalid.  Our way of telling the sacred story may be 
 better evaluated by literary and narrative criticism in the con- 
 text of our communities.  However, our communities must realize 
 that these are extensions of reason and thus our task is never 
 ending.  One might speculate as to how the Divine fits into our 
 hermeneutics, since that is ultimately what we are concerned 
 with, since our perception of the Divine helps shape our communi- 
 ties.  We have many responses from scripture and tradition, how- 
 ever, Immanuel Kant's critique of reason showed us its limita- 
 tions.  We cannot even come before the Divine with any certainty 
 that is intrinsic to ourselves.  Many have attempted to respond 
 to Kant and they have some valid criticism on minor points, but 
 still his estimation of the limits of human wisdom has yet to be 
 adequately challenged.  I now turn to a philosopher who attempted 
 to speak to the Christian community in response to developments 
 of philosophy after Kant.

        As a side note before going into the next section, one 
 might say, what place has philosophy in the story?  If one looks 
 a little more closely to the Genesis account mentioned earlier, 
 and pays close attention to the commentaries of Brueggemann and 
 Wenham, then the answer becomes a little more clear.

                     LIMITED SPIRITUALITY?

      With Soren Kierkegaard we find someone who believes that 
 the noumena are outside of human experience, but yet he acknow-
 ledges at the same time that humans can possess wisdom in a
 form of truth which is from the Divine.  Kierkegaard starts out 
 in the PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS asking the question, can truth be 
 learned? (Kierkegaard 9)  To this Kierkegaard replies:

           . . . a person cannot possibly seek that he knows, and
           just as impossibly, he cannot seek what he does not
           know, for what he knows he cannot seek, since because
           he knows it, and what he does not know he cannot seek,
           because, after all, he does not even know what he is
           supposed to seek.  Socrates thinks through the diffi-
           culty by means [of the principle] that all learning and
           seeking are but recollecting. (Kierkegaard 9)

 With Socrates' view, he as a midwife, had to bring forth that 
 which the person did not remember by helping him recollect that 
 which he forgot.  He believed the truth to be in the individual.  
 Yet Kierkegaard disagrees with Socrates that truth is in the in- 
 dividual.  If that was the case, then man, being the center of 
 total truth, should have the truth before his eyes plain as day.  
 He should have no need of questioning and inquiring to find it.  
 Of this Kierkegaard says:

           . . . for the ultimate idea in all questioning is that
           the person asked must himself possess the truth and ac-
           quire it by himself.  The temporal point of departure
           is nothing, because in the same moment I discover that
           I have known the truth from eternity without knowing
           it, in the same instant that moment is hidden in the
           eternal, assimilated into it in such a way that I, so
           to speak, still I cannot find it even if I were to look
           for it . . . .  Now if the moment is to acquire deci-
           sive significance, then the seeker up until that moment
           must not have possessed the truth, not even in the form
           of ignorance, for in that case the moment becomes mere-
           ly moment of occasion; indeed, he must not even be a
           seeker.  This is the way we have to state the difficul-
           ty if we do not want to explain it Socratically.  Con-
           sequently, he has to be defined as being outside the
           truth (not coming toward it like a proselyte, but going
           away from it) or as untruth.  He is, the, untruth.
           (Kierkegaard 13)

 Even though Kierkegaard was in disagreement with Socrates that 
 man had the truth in himself since eternity, still he was not a 
 skeptic in saying that nothing whatsoever resembling truth could 
 be known.  For Kierkegaard, a teacher was still needed to bring 
 truth to man, however, Kierkegaard believed that the beginning of 
 wisdom for man was to realize that he was untruth, and not truth 
 itself (Kierkegaard 14).  But even this truth could not be 
 brought to one finite man by another finite man whose condition 
 is the same.  Therefore, the teacher of this truth must be divine 
 and come from the outside.  Of this Kierkegaard says:

           The teacher, then, is the god himself, who, acting as
           the occasion, prompts the learner to be reminded that
           he is untruth and is that through his own fault.  But
           to state--to be untruth and to be that through one's
           own fault--what can we call it?  Let us call it sin.
           (Kierkegaard 15)

 How then did man, fall into this condition?  Kierkegaard talks 
 about it somewhat in THE CONCEPT OF DREAD, but basically it is 
 the fact that in the Genesis account, mankind was given the 
 capacity for understanding the truth as God, but when mankind was 
 tempted with the notion that they could be truth for themselves 
 and fully understand and have knowledge of good and evil, it is 
 at that point that they fell away from the infinite truth, by 
 choosing to be their own truth, which is finite, and not being 
 fully truth, they became untruth.  It is this condition that has 
 been passed on through the ages.  Mankind has the condition to 
 understand the truth, but since he is untruth, and cannot see 
 truth, he looks to himself as the truth:

           If a person originally possesses the condition to
           understand the truth, he thinks that, since he himself
           is, God is. If he is untruth, then he must of course
           think this about himself, and recollection will be un-
           able to help him to think anything but this.  Whether
           or not he is to go any further, the moment must decide
           (although it already was active in making him perceive
           that he is untruth).  If he does not understand this,
           then he is to be referred to Socrates, even though his
           opinion that he has gone much further will cause that
           wise man a great deal of trouble, as did those who be-
           came so exasperated with him when he took away some
           foolish notion from them that they positively wanted to
           bite him. (Kierkegaard 20-21)

      Since man is untruth, he cannot comprehend truth, and is a
 slave to himself.  Originally, mankind was created free, but in 
 choosing to be truth for themselves, and this they did freely, 
 they chose to exist in untruth where they did not have the power 
 to grasp truth and became slaves to themselves.  In order for 
 them to leave this condition, as we said earlier, they need a 
 divine teacher.  A teacher who sets them free and allows them to 
 see themselves as untruth in relation to the truth.  Such a 
 teacher Kierkegaard called savior (Kierkegaard 17).

      So what does Kierkegaard call a person who has been set 
 free?  He calls that person a learner and follower.  In fact it 
 is not the same person as before:

           When the leaner is untruth (and otherwise we go back to
           the Socratic) but is nevertheless a human being, and he
           now receives the condition and the truth, he does not,
           of course, become a human being for the first time, for
           he already was that; but he becomes a different person,
           not in the jesting sense--as if he became someone else
           of the same quality as before--but he becomes a person
           of different quality or, as we call it, a new person.

                Inasmuch as he was untruth, he was continually in
           the process of departing from the truth; as a result of
           receiving the condition in the moment, his course took
           the opposite direction, or he was turned around.  Let
           us call this change conversion . . . . (Kierkegaard 18)

      When the new person or convert comes to see the truthfulness 
 of his or her condition, then they see themselves as untruth and 
 this awareness that they are responsible for their own condition 
 causes him or her to look back upon their former condition with 
 sorrow, and this sorrow causes them to quicken their pace toward 
 what lies ahead, not content to stay behind in a condition of 
 untruth in which they cannot see.  Such sorrow, Kierkegaard calls
 repentance (Kierkegaard 19).

      In the moment that one becomes aware of his or her sinful 
 condition and repents by following a new way of life, a new birth 
 takes place.  Of this Kierkegaard says:

           In the moment, a person becomes aware that he was born,
           for his previous state, to which he is not to appeal,
           was indeed of "not to be."  In the moment, he becomes
           aware of the rebirth, for his previous state was indeed
           one of "not to be."  If his previous state had been one
           of "to be," then under no circumstances would the mo-
           ment have acquired decisive significance for him, as
           explained above.  Whereas the Greek pathos focuses on
           recollection, the pathos of our project focuses on the
           moment, and no wonder, for is it not an exceedingly pa-
           thos-filled matter to come into existence from the
           state of "not to be?" (Kierkegaard 21)

      Yet one is left with questions concerning, how this appre- 
 hension of truth, by untruth, even with the aid of truth, comes 
 about and for what interest is there for that which is infinite 
 and divine, to bother to associate at all with that with is fi- 
 nite and incomplete in relation to the truth?  Further yet, how 
 is a relation with the divine even a possibility, if not some 
 conjecture of the imagination.  Kierkegaard begins to answer
 these questions by looking at the relation of God as teacher and 
 savior in relation to the pupil:

           Between one human being and another, this is the high-
           est:  the pupil is the occasion for the teacher to un-
           derstand himself; the teacher is the occasion for the
           pupil to understand himself; in death the teacher
           leaves no claim upon the pupil's soul, no more that the
           pupil can claim that the teacher owes him something. .
           . .  But the god needs no pupil in order to understand
           himself, and no occasion can act upon him in such a way
           that there is just as much in the occasion as in the
           resolution.  What then, moves him to make his 
           appearance?  He must move himself and continue to be
           what Aristotle says of him, unmoved, he moves all . . .
           .  But if he moves himself and is not moved by need,
           what moves him then but love, for love does not have
           the satisfaction of need outside itself but within.
           His resolution, which does not have an equal reciprocal
           relation to the occasion, must be from eternity, even
           though, fulfilled in time, it expressly becomes the
           moment, for where the occasion and what is occasioned
           correspond equally . . . .  Out of love, therefore, the
           god must be eternally resolved in this way, just as his
           love is the basis, so also must love be the goal, for
           it would indeed be a contradiction for the god to have
           a basis of movement and a goal that do not correspond
           to this.  The love, then, must be for the learner, and
           the goal must be to win him, for only in love is the
           different made equal, and only in equality or in unity
           is there understanding.  Without perfect understanding,
           the teacher is not the god, unless the basic reason is
           to be sought in the learner, who rejected what was made
           possible for him. (Kierkegaard 24-25)

      So here one can see that God's goal is to unite with man in 
 love, yet how is this possible?  Kierkegaard points to the 
 analogy of a high and lofty king who wishes to unite with a lowly 
 maiden, who in ignorance cannot even begin to fathom how a
 relationship and love with one so high and lofty is possible.  
 Yet Kierkegaard shows how God in love, reaches to the lowly who 
 is nothing, by way of becoming the lowly's servant:

           But the form of the servant was not something put on.
           Therefore the god must suffer all things, endure all
           things, be tried in all things, hunger in the desert,
           thirst in his agonies, be forsaken in death, absolutely
           the equal of the lowliest of human beings--look, behold
           the man!  The suffering of death is not his suffering,
           but his whole life is a story of suffering, and it is
           love that suffers, love that gives all and is itself
           destitute.  What wonderful self-denial to ask in con-
           cern, even though the learner is the lowliest of per-
           sons:  Do you really love me?  For he himself knows
           where the danger threatens, and yet he knows that for
           him any easier way would be a deception, even though
           the leaner would not understand it. (Kierkegaard 33)

 God became like the lowly in order for the lowly to understand 
 His love and realize that in the relationship of love he too can 
 share in the truth of God's reality.  Yet this too involves just 
 as much effort and suffering on the part of the lowly learner, 
 because equality with God is offered freely, but not something to 
 be grasped after reasonably:

           And the situation of understanding--how terrifying, for
           indeed it is less terrifying to fall upon one's face
           while the mountains tremble at the god's voice than to
           sit with him as his equal, and yet the god's concern is
           precisely to sit this way. (Kierkegaard 35)

      Thus is involved an absolute paradox.  The infinite God who 
 dwells in eternity has chosen to limit Himself in the form of a 
 servant in this present time to walk with man in his lowly 
 position.  This defies reason, and yet it is necessary if man is 
 to truly and freely exist as the individual that God created with 
 capacity to accept Him as truth.  But to untruth this does not 
 and cannot make sense.  It is what Kierkegaard in the following 
 selections on JOHANNES CLIMACUS, expresses as man's doubt which 
 is essential to his conscious way of looking at life and not 
 being able to assimilate reality and ideality adequately 
 (Kierkegaard 171-172).  This is the paradox of the incarnation, 
 that God in truth (ideality) has become incarnated in the flesh 
 as Jesus of Nazareth (reality).  Yet this is an offense to one's 
 senses.  So how does one grasp the paradox?  To Kierkegaard, it 
 is when one is faced with a reality that is beyond the believer's 
 untruth, and all of his objectivity, reason, and doubt are of no
 use to him.  So how does one leap into grasping what the paradox 
 is?  Kierkegaard sought to answer it in this way:

           How, then, does the leaner come to an understanding
           with this paradox, for we do not say that he is sup-
           posed to understand the paradox but is only to under-
           stand that this is the paradox.  We have already shown
           how this occurs.  It occurs when the understanding and
           the paradox happily encounter each other in the moment,
           when the understanding steps aside and the paradox
           gives itself, and the third something, the something in
           which it occurs (for it does not occur through the
           understanding, which is discharged, or through the
           paradox, which give itself--consequently in something),
           is that happy passion to which we shall now give a
           name, although for us it is not a matter of the name.
           We shall call it faith.  This passion, then, must be
           that above mentioned condition that the paradox pro-
           vides. (Kierkegaard, PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS 59)

      There is no understanding of an absolute paradox, but merely 
 an acceptance of what one has encountered as divinely real in 
 the present time.  It is the paradox that gives the condition for 
 faith to be available, and when one chooses to use that faith 
 there is a happy reconciliation.  Kierkegaard says it best in 
 this statement:

           If the paradox and the understanding meet in the mutual
           understanding of their difference, then the encounter
           is a happy one, like erotic love's understanding--happy
           in the passion . . . . (Kierkegaard 9)

      The encounter is for every believer at any time an eternal 
 one, since eternity has entered time, and God in the flesh, now 
 by his Spirit comes to live with mankind in the flesh, and it is 
 indeed a paradox, but there is no looking behind to see if it is 
 real, for it is beyond reality of which the human consciousness 
 can doubt, but that the subjective side can embrace because of 
 its overpowering reality.  Our existence is subjective, but that 
 does not advocate irrationality, rather, it is our limited 
 cognitions encountering something infinitely good in the form of 
 God and accepting suprarational instruction and guidance by way 
 of embracing faithfully, that eternal love.

      In regard to our hermeneutical endeavors, one might say that 
 because I have chosen to use Kierkegaard, my hermeneutic is sole- 
 ly an existential one.  However, the concept of the Divine in 
 Kierkegaard comes from eternity.  In dealing with epistemology in 
 regards to hermeneutics, we as Christians affirm that our meta- 
 physical foundation is in the person of Jesus Christ and that 
 that foundation lies beyond that concepts of time and space in 
 the future.  In Exodus 33:18-23 we have the account of Moses 
 wishing to see the glory of God.  In verse 19 God says to Moses:

           I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you,
           and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your
           presence . . . (NIV 140).

 God tells Moses that he cannot see His face and live, then He  
 puts Moses in the cleft of the rock and Moses sees God's back.  
 Commenting on this passage Dunning says:

           Using the vivid pictorial language of God's "face," His
           "hand," and his "back," the passage suggests that men
           may only see where God has passed by, and so know Him
           by His past doing and acts.  God as He is in himself
           cannot be known or comprehended. (Dunning 103)

 At most we might be able to see glimpses of God in the present.  
 But God exists in beyond our future in eternity where our time 
 has yet to be literally "filled full."  Concerning this 
 particular metaphysical stance I must now appeal to Pannenberg 
 who says:

           In reflection on the most comprehensive whole of all
           finite reality, each particular finite thing in its
           concrete, individual definiteness is mediated with God.
           For this reason, religion as a vivid and deeper appre-
           hension of reality consists, as Schleiermacher saw, in
           the becoming conscious of the infinite and whole in the
           individual and finite, a whole out of which each indi-
           vidual thing is, as it were, carved by means of its
           definition and its determination . . . .  This applies
           also to christology:  Only through the relation to the
           whole of humanity in its history, only through the
           eschatological import of his appearing and his history,
           can the unity of Jesus with God be expressed.  This
           unity announces conversely (from God's perspective)
           that God was incarnate in this person.  Through this
           relation to the whole of humanity in its history, the
           relation of each human life to God revealed in Jesus is
           disclosed in the light of the history of Jesus as the
           new Adam.  No objection to this position can be based
           upon the observation that history is not present as a
           completed whole, that its process is, on the contrary,
           incomplete.  Moreover, it remains true that the actual
           process of history devours individuals and empires
           rather than bringing them to harmonious completion as
           parts of a meaning-whole.  We already saw that histor-
           ical hermeneutics diverges from that of literature in
           this respect.  Individuals are caught up and snatched
           away in the process of their history; but Jesus, in
           bringing close to them the meaning that is tied up with
           their wholeness, discloses to them their salvation
           within a history that is not yet complete. (Pannenberg
           146)

      A history that is not yet complete is important to remember.  
 Although there is an appeal to some idealism here, it is not out 
 of the context of our experience.  I know that a chiliagon is a 
 thousand sided object.  I can say it, but cannot conceive of it 
 as a picture in my head.  So I have an idea perhaps, a theory, a 
 relative understanding of infinity as being great in number, 
 although I cannot conceive infinity as a picture.  The fact is 
 that all Christians, whatever their eschatological views are, 
 acknowledge that this creation is not yet complete, therefore, 
 God does exist in the future, but because in Jesus Christ he has 
 broken into our time from eternity, we can be hopeful that the 
 God who created time, will bring those who have the Spirit of
 Christ to completion with time at the end of the age.  Concerning 
 this Pannenberg says:

           The connection of the Old Testament concept of the
           Divine Word with the Greek notion of logos means noth-
           ing less than that the context of meaning which encom-
           passes the entire creation and its history up through
           the eschatological completion that has been made 
           manifest in Jesus Christ. (Pannenberg 170)

 Our theology informs our understanding of scripture and scripture 
 our understanding of theology.  Scripture however, echoes.  Hays 
 comments on this concerning the epistles of Paul:

           Although the foregoing test are serviceable rules of
           thumb to guide our interpretive work, we must acknow-
           ledge that there will be exceptional occasions when the
           tests fail to account for the spontaneous power of
           particular intertextual conjunctions.  Despite all the
           careful hedges that we plant around texts, meaning has
           a way of leaping over, like sparks.  Texts are not
           inert; they burn and throw fragments of flame on their
           rising heat.  Often we succeed in containing the ener-
           gy, but sometimes the sparks escape and kindle new
           blazes, reprises of the original fire. (Hays 32-33)

 Philosophy, epistemology, theology, have come from sparks of the 
 original fires of understanding the Divine.  The professor may 
 wish to use some of the arguments against reason and special 
 Spiritual revelation as an end in an appendix to the end of his 
 book.  He suggested that our paper deal with further defining a
 part of hermeneutics.  It would be my proposal from the end of 
 this paper that another hermeneutical consideration would be from 
 a metaphysical viewpoint that the fulfillment of our witness to 
 the Divine Word or Truth be viewed in an eschatological sense.  
 This will allow for deconstruction of the texts, but in such a  
 way as to place them within the contexts within the whole of his- 
 tory.  This will embrace all the different criticisms and help to 
 give them focus whether it be from a historical, literary, narra- 
 tive or various liberation views.  Since history is not yet com- 
 plete, this should be an ongoing process, challenge, and respon-
 sibility to those of us who still wait for the parousia on this   
 side of eternity.  The question is whether we are going to be or 
 not going to be, not only now, but at the end of time.

                         BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Works Cited

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 DESCARTES, RENE

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 DUNNING, H. RAY

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  1985     PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS.  Princeton:  Princeton
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 PANNENBERG, WOLFHART

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  _______________

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