Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2006 The presence of God and authority : divine revelation and human interpretation Schneider, Christoph Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-163736 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Schneider, Christoph. The presence of God and authority : divine revelation and human interpretation. 2006, University of Zurich, Faculty of Theology. THE PRESENCE OF GOD AND AUTHORITY DIVINE REVELATION AND HUMAN INTERPRETATION INAUGURAL – DISSERTATION ZUR ERLANGUNG DER DOKTORWÜRDE DER THEOLOGISCHEN FAKULTÄT DER UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH IN THEOLOGIE VORGELEGT VON CHRISTOPH SCHNEIDER VON RORBAS (ZH) 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... IV INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 PART I: THE ART OF SIGN-MAKING .....................................................................8 1 DIACHRONY AND SYNCHRONY, REALISM AND PLURALISM ..........................................8 A) Diachrony...........................................................................................................10 a) Renaissance Hermetism and Deconstruction........................................................................... 10 b) Different readings of C.S. Peirce............................................................................................. 15 B) Günter Abel’s internal pluralism........................................................................20 C) Klaus Oehler’s unity of our ‘world of action’....................................................23 a) Community .............................................................................................................................. 24 b) Method .................................................................................................................................... 25 c) Object ...................................................................................................................................... 25 D) A pluralist reading of Peirce..............................................................................26 E) Conclusions ........................................................................................................29 F) Synchrony ...........................................................................................................30 2 THE INTERPRETANT ...................................................................................................32 A) Types of interpretants.........................................................................................33 B) The final interpretant or habit............................................................................35 C) The destructuralization and restructuralization of semiotic systems.................37 3 INTERPRETATIVE PERSPECTIVES – WORLDS OF INTERPRETATION...............................39 A) Levels of generality.............................................................................................39 B) The relationship between different interpretative perspectives..........................41 PART II: DIVINE SPEECH IN KARL BARTH: THE ‘LITERAL UNDERSTANDING’ .........................................................................................................................................45 1 SPEECH AND AUTHORITY ...........................................................................................49 A) J.L. Austin’s speech-act theory...........................................................................49 B) Archetypical performatives ................................................................................50 C) Tautegoric speech ..............................................................................................52 D) Two types of authority........................................................................................54 E) Definition of ‘literal speech’ and ‘concrete act of interpretation’.....................55 2 THE ‘VOLUNTARISTIC APPROACH’: EMPHASISING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIVINE AND HUMAN SPEECH ............................................................................................................56 A) A diachronic-pneumatological or an actualistic-theocentric eschatology? ......56 B) Religious speech and worldly speech.................................................................58 C) Divine confirmation............................................................................................59 3 THE ‘SOTERIOLOGICAL APPROACH’: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DIVINE AND HUMAN SPEECH .........................................................................................................................66 A) A ‘bottom-up’ approach to divine speech ..........................................................67 a) The noetic aspect and pragmatics ............................................................................................ 67 b) Semantics ................................................................................................................................71 c) Syntactics................................................................................................................................. 85 B) A ‘top-down’ approach to divine speech............................................................88 a) The sender ............................................................................................................................... 88 b) The addressee ........................................................................................................................ 110 c) Divine presence and authority ............................................................................................... 125 4 AN ALTERNATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF AUTHORITY ................................................131 A) From monologue to dialogue ...........................................................................131 a) Beyond Husserl...................................................................................................................... 131 ii b) Beyond Derrida ..................................................................................................................... 135 c) Terminating the chain of signifiers........................................................................................ 137 B) Fields of authority ............................................................................................139 a) Competence and authority ..................................................................................................... 139 b) Synchronic contingency ........................................................................................................ 141 c) Innovation.............................................................................................................................. 142 d) Synchronic and diachronic competence ................................................................................ 142 e) Interpretative perspective....................................................................................................... 143 C) The attunement of the interpreter.....................................................................143 D) The one authority and the many authorities ....................................................148 a) The Radical Orthodoxy Project ............................................................................................. 148 b) The Neocalvinist contribution ............................................................................................... 160 PART III: DIVINE SPEECH: THE ‘NON-LITERAL’ UNDERSTANDING......165 1 THE ‘EXPERIENCE WITH EXPERIENCE’: EBERHARD JÜNGEL .....................................167 A) The ontological basis........................................................................................167 B) Parables as ‘narrative metaphors’...................................................................169 a) The relationship with the rhetorical tradition......................................................................... 170 b) The aesthetics of metaphor and parable................................................................................. 171 c) Passivity and activity in the act of reception ......................................................................... 172 d) Immediacy, Evidence and Innovation ................................................................................... 176 e) Esse and Venire: nature and grace, activity and passivity ..................................................... 184 f) The question of anthropomorphism ....................................................................................... 195 2 MYSTAGOGY ...........................................................................................................199 A) Reiteration and the acquisition of an (interpretative) habit.............................199 B) The Incarnation of the Logos, orality and the..................................................204 ‘material continuum’.............................................................................................204 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................216