Interpreting God and the postmodern self : on meaning, manipulation and promise

194 Pages·1996·7.255 MB·English

by  Thiselton, Anthony C.

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