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Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self : On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise PDF

194 Pages·1995·7.418 MB·English
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SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Current Issues in Theology Edited by ALASDAIR HERON IAIN TORRANCE SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Current Issues in Theology Edited by ALASDAIR HERON IAIN TORRANCE This is a series of short books specially commissioned by the editors of Scottish Journal of Theology. The aim is to commission books which stand between the static monograph genre and the more immediate statement of a journal article. Following the long tradition of the Journal, the editors will commission authors who are questioning existing paradigms or rethinking perspectives. It is hoped that the books will appeal to a wide range of readers. Believing that living theology needs an audience and thrives on debate, the editors will invite the authors to present the themes of their topics in four public lectures at the University of Aberdeen (The Scottish Journal of Theology Lectures), and the books, which will be published subsequently, will be developed from these. The Scottish Journal of Theology is an international refereed quarterly journal of systematic, historical and biblical theology published by T&T Clark Ltd, 59 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2.LQ, Scotland. Subscription details are available on request from the Publishers. INTERPRETING GOD AND THE POSTMODERN SELF INTERPRETING GOD AND THE POSTMODERN SELF On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise ANTHONY C. THISELTON T&T CLARK EDINBURGH T&T CLARK LTD 59 GEORGE STREET EDINBURGH EHi 2LQ SCOTLAND Copyright © T&T Clark Ltd, 1995 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of T&T Clark Ltd. First published 1995 Latest impression 1996 ISBN o 567 29302 5 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Waverley Typesetters, Galashiels Printed and bound in Great Britain by Page Bros, Norwich Contents Preface ix Parti MEANING, MANIPULATION AND TRUTH 1 God as Self-Affirming Illusion? Manipulation, Truth and Language 3 2 Postmodernism, Modernity and the Postmodern Self 11 3 Do All Controlling Models in Religion Serve Manipulative Purposes? 19 4 The Rhetoric of Theological Models and Currencies of Meaning 27 5 Language, Truth and Life in Theology and Postmodernity 33 6 Non-Manipulative Interpretation and Truth as Relational 41 Part II INTERPRETING TEXTS AND INTERPRETING THE SELF 7 Respecting the Other: Transcending Prior Categories and the Limits of Empirical Method 47 8 Biblical Texts and Pastoral Hermeneutics: History, Science and Personhood 5 3 9 A Temporal Hermeneutic of the Self Through the ‘Detour’ of Texts as ‘Other’ 59 10 Five Ways in which Textual Reading Interprets the Self 63 11 Self-Deception and Sub-Text: Psychoanalysis, Suspicion and Conversation 67 12 Self-Identity within the Temporal Logic of Narrative Plot 73 vii Part III POSTMODERN GOD? SEA OF FAITH OR ABYSS OF BABEL? 13 The Sea of Faith Network: Interpreting God as a Human Construct 81 14 Successive Stages in Cupitt’s Interpretations of God 87 15 ‘Taking leave of God’ as Internalizing, De-objectifying and Autonomy 93 16 Rehearsing an Over-played Script: ‘Facts’, World-Views and Divine Agency 99 17 ‘God’s Second Death’ in the Postmodern Self: An ‘Internalized’ God Now? 105 18 Pluralism or Propaganda? The Forked Rhetoric of Postmodern Interpretation in Part IV POSTMODERN SELF AND SOCIETY: TOWARDS A THEOLOGY OF PROMISE 19 The Collapse of the Hope of the ‘Modern’ Self: From Active Agency to Passive Situatedness izi 20 More Social Consequences of Postmodern Selfhood: Despair, Conflict and Manipulation 127 21 Corporate Power and Corporate Self-Deception 137 22 Present and Future: The Pluriform Grammar of Hope and the God of Promise 145 23 Further Issues on ‘Interpreting God’: Christology and Trinity 153 24 Will-to-Power De-centred, Transformed and Re-centred in Promise and Love 159 Select Bibliography 165 Index of Names and Subjects 173 Index of Biblical References 179 viii Preface ietzsche and Foucault, among others, argue that claims to truth often represent disguised attempts to legitimate uses of power. This study takes these arguments seriously. With the rise of post­ modern notions of the self, of language and meaning, and of society, this issue has become perhaps a more far-reaching cause for disbelief about claims to truth on the part of Christian theology than older, more tired appeals to materialist world-views as monolithic responses of secular modernity. We do not deny that certain forms of religion, even within Christian traditions, have often been reduced to instrumental devices to affirm the human self, or, worse, to seek to legitimate power over others. But can all Christian claims be interpreted in this way? Such a sweeping diagnosis, I argue, would fail to come to terms with substantial counter-arguments and counter-examples. Postmodernism also tells part of the story about the human self, but not the whole story. It takes account of imposed role-performances within society with a greater degree of realism than the partly illusory optimism of modernity. But an adequate account of the self and of personhood cannot stop with its situatedness in some instantaneous moment within processes of shifting flux. Selfhood discovers its identity and personhood within a larger purposive narrative which allows room for agency, responsibility and hope. Even if postmodernity fragments the self and society into multiple role-performances, and dissolves truth into the conventions or power-interests of different or competing communities, the future may nevertheless hold out the possibility of reintegration on the basis of promise. Here two major dialogue partners are Paul Ricoeur and Jurgen Moltmann. The notion that the self draws its full personhood from a dialectic of self-identity and relation to the ‘other’ rightly finds expression in their work. Moltmann, together with Pannenberg and others, also rightly grounds this principle in the personhood of God as Trinity. I introduce the heart of this argument in Part I, and expound it fully in more theological terms in Part IV. No more need be said about IX

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