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EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL FACULTY, LEUVEN
A SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING:
TOWARD A PNEUMATOLOGICAL PERMEATION OF
JAMES K.A. SMITH’S POSTMODERN HERMENEUTICS
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE ‘MASTER OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES’
IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
ADVISOR: PROF. DR. RONALD T. MICHENER
BY
EVERT LEEFLANG
HEVERLEE – LEUVEN, BELGIUM
SPRING, 2012
3
‘God gave us a mind
in order that we might learn and receive help from Him,
not in order that the mind should be self-sufficient.
Eyes are beautiful and useful,
but if they choose to see without light,
their beauty is useless and may even be harmful.
Likewise, if my soul chooses to see without the Spirit,
it becomes a danger to itself.’
– Chrysostom (347-407)
Homelies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 7.9
‘But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty,
that makes him understand.’
– Job 32:8 (ESV)
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Table of Contents
Abbreviations 7
Abstract 8
Chapter 1 | Introduction 9
1.1 Introduction 9
1.2 One Postmodern Perspective: James K.A. Smith 10
1.3 Methodology & Thesis Design 11
1.4 Rationale, Relevancy, and Limits of the Study 14
Part I: Analyzing the Role of the Spirit in James K.A. Smith 17
Chapter 2 | Mapping an Incarnational Theory 18
2.0.1 Introduction 18
2.0.2 The Religious Nature of Pretheoretical Foundations 19
2.1 ‘And God Saw That It Was Good’: Creational Affirmations 22
2.1.1 The Goodness of Finitude 22
2.1.2 The Goodness of Materiality 24
2.2 ‘The Word Became Flesh’: Incarnational (Re)Affirmations 26
2.2.1 From Creation to Incarnation: Re-creation? 26
2.2.2 Reaffirming the Goodness of Finitude & Materiality 27
2.2.3 The Goodness of Particularity 28
2.2.4 The Goodness of Participation 30
2.3 Narratival Epistemology 32
2.3.1 Introduction 32
2.3.2 The Myth of Modernity 33
2.3.3 Story-making: The Character of Knowing as Verstehen 35
2.3.4 Narrative Knowledge: The Contents of the Story 38
2.3.5 Conclusion 42
2.4 Sacramental Ontology 42
2.4.1 Introduction 42
2.4.2 A Third Way: Setting the Course for a Counterontology 43
2.4.3 Doing Justice to the Creator: Integrity, Meaning, and Enkapsis 45
2.4.4 Conclusion 49
2.5 Holistic Anthropology 50
2.5.1 Introduction 50
2.5.2 From Thinking Thing to Embodied Heart: Anthropological Holism 51
2.5.3 The Material Side of Humans: Revaluing Embodiment 54
5
2.5.4 The Effect of Sin: Misdirection 57
2.5.5 Conclusion 62
2.6 Incarnational Hermeneutical Theory 63
2.6.1 Recapitulating 63
2.6.2 The Triad of Understanding: An Incarnational Perspective 64
2.6.3 From Christmas to Pentecost: Conclusion 66
Chapter 3 | The Role of the Spirit in Smith’s Hermeneutical Theory 67
3.1 Introduction 67
3.2 Enchantment: The Immanence of the Spirit. 68
3.3 Regeneration: Conditioned by the Spirit 71
3.4 Trust in the Spirit: The ‘Pneumatic Pole’ of Smith’s Hermeneutical Model 75
3.5 Summary 77
3.6 Evaluation 78
3.7 Proceeding 83
Part II: Developing the Role of the Holy Spirit in James K.A. Smith 85
Chapter 4 | From Affirmation to Transformation 86
4.1 Old Light on Illumination: A Dogmatic Reconnaissance 87
4.1.1 Introduction 87
4.1.2 Augustine 89
4.1.3 The Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit in Reformed Thought 91
4.1.4 The Fuller-Erickson Debate 94
4.1.5 A Concluding Remark 97
4.2 A Presuppositional Critique from the Perspective of Smith 98
4.2.1 Introduction 98
4.2.2 Anthropological Presuppositions 99
4.2.3 Epistemological Presuppositions 100
4.2.4 Conclusion 105
4.3 Incarnated Illumination: Christomorphic Understanding 105
4.3.1 Introduction 105
4.3.2 Smith and Yong on Being Involved in the World 106
4.3.3 Radical Enlightenment: The Heart as Root of Understanding and Illumination 107
4.3.4 Seeking Anthropological and Epistemological Holism in Illumination 109
4.3.5 Illumination by Transformation 111
4.3.6 Conclusion: Christomorphic Understanding 117
4.4 Conclusion 118
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Chapter 5 | Double Incarnation: Sacramental Attunement 120
5.1 Introduction 120
5.2 Ontological Sacramentality: Meaning is the Being of All that is Created 121
5.3 Harmony as the Expression of Hermeneutical Congruency 125
5.4 Word and Spirit: A Pneumatological Criterion 129
5.5 Distinguishing Structure and Direction in Interpretation 134
5.6 Conclusion 138
Chapter 6 | Conclusions & Implications 140
6.1 Answer to the Main Research Question 140
6.2 Epilogue 142
Bibliography 145
Appendix I: Schematic Overview of Smith's Theoretical Framework 155
Appendix II: Schematic Illustration of the Constraints on Interpretation 156
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Abbreviations
The following frequently cited works of James K.A. Smith are abbreviated in the text:
DTK Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation
(Baker Academic, 2009).
FOI The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational
Hermeneutic (InterVarsity Press, 2000).
FOI2 The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational
Hermeneutic (Baker Academic, 2012).
IRO Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-Secular Theology
(Baker Academic, 2004).
ST Speech and Theology: Language and the Logic of Incarnation
(Routledge, 2002).
TT Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian
Philosophy (Eerdmans, 2010).
WAP Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and
Foucault to Church (Baker Academic, 2006).
8
Abstract
The main impetus for this study is the conviction that a critical yet welcoming Evangelical
response to upcoming postmodern hermeneutical theory provides a theoretical framework
within which a fruitful reconceptualization of the hermeneutical role of the Holy Spirit can be
argued for. The thought of James K.A. Smith is chosen here as representing one engaging
postmodern hermeneutic and will be used for a sympathetic-critical interaction to rethink the
role of the Spirit in the interpretive process. Two basic motives push forward the present
work: first the analysis of the hermeneutical theory of Smith in order to present a general
framework within which the hermeneutical role of the Spirit in Smith can be properly
understood; secondly a conceptually viable development of this role through further reflection
within the same hermeneutical framework. This study concludes that Smith is remarkably
concise in conceiving explicitly the hermeneutical role of the Spirit. His thought, however,
does provide points of departure to further develop this role. Conceptual steps forward in this
regard are suggested and tentatively designed. First the illuminative operation of the Spirit on
the subject is conceived as operating by means of a transformation into the image of Christ.
Anthropologically this is aimed at the subject’s heart as center of its fundamental affective
comportment to the world and epistemologically as influencing the narrative from which the
subject derives meaning. The result is a hermeneutical congruency or harmony between
subject and object enhancing the interpretive process. Additionally, by means of the image of
Christ, the Spirit constrains the subject in its interpretation and hence may function as
pneumatological criterion for interpretation.
9
Chapter 1 | Introduction
You will receive power when the Spirit comes on you. – Acts 1:8 (NIV)
He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the Churches. – Rev.2:7 (ESV)
1.1 Introduction
What do we have that is not given to us? What do we believe that is not revealed to us?
And what do we understand that God not brought to light for us? Christian existence rests
solely on God’s initiative and therefore our temporal being-in-the-world is always constituted
by a divine a priori. To know, therefore, ultimately is to first have received. To understand is
to be endowed. God in this sense is constitutive to what we know and how we know.
If then God’s movement to us founds our perception of the world, it is more than justified
to make the understanding of this theme central to our theological enterprise. Moreover, from
this conviction issues forth that if God is fundamentally involved in our interpretation of the
world then His presence should undeniably be part of our hermeneutical frame of thought.
This thesis is aimed at precisely this area of research and considers this divine involvement in
our interpretive processes to be a deep pneumatological reality. In our view, the Holy Spirit is
the primary way in which God actively aids us interpreters to engage the world around us.
The recognition of a pneumatological dimension to our interpretive activities is found
throughout church history when theologians considered God’s interference in what we know
and how we know it. This long tradition of reflection notwithstanding, recent developments in
hermeneutical theory seem to provide new perspectives on how to understand the interpretive
process and consequently might open possibilities for a reconsideration and
reconceptualization of the Spirit’s involvement herein. The present work is dedicated to
pursue this line of thought by means of inquiring and reconceiving the hermeneutical role of
the Holy Spirit from one perspective these recent developments brought to the fore. It
10
searches therefore not to break down, but to pneumatologically permeate – in the sense of
pervading – this perspective so that new viewpoints may emerge. Its main intention is not
only to listen to the present hermeneutical conversation but to actively contribute to it as well
through critical analysis and synthesis.
1.2 One Postmodern Perspective: James K.A. Smith
Despite many misunderstandings and caricaturizing of the term, the aforementioned recent
developments in hermeneutical theory are subsumed here under the denominator of
postmodernism.1 Hermeneutics took a so-called ‘postmodern turn’ somewhere during the
twentieth century and the gained insights are increasingly finding entrance in Evangelical
theology the past two decades. Although many Evangelical theologians in view of these
developments raise their voice together with the psalmist in lament, desperately questioning
one another that ‘if the foundations are destroyed; what can the righteous do?’ (Ps.11:3),
postmodern thought has received warmer responses as well. James K.A. Smith is one example
of an Evangelical philosopher/theologian critically yet constructively engaging postmodern
hermeneutics seeking to learn from what it denies and benefit from what it affirms. In our
quest to research the hermeneutical role of the Holy Spirit we chose Smith as the main voice
to interact with. Several reasons support the choice for one postmodern thinker.
First of all Evangelical postmodernism in general is a rather unreflected upon area and the
theological results that follow from its philosophical presuppositions are in many ways still
undeveloped. This certainly pertains to specific pneumatological topics such as the
hermeneutical role of the Spirit as well. Secondly, postmodern hermeneutical theory generally
develops a broader and thicker perspective on what is involved in human interpretation. While
1 To be more precise: ‘academic postmodernism’; cf. Ronald T. Michener, Engaging Deconstructive Theology
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006), 3-6.
11
modernistic models of interpretation compared to this reduce the interpretive process
ontologically, epistemologically, as well as anthropologically and oftentimes are therefore
merely postulating a hermeneutical role of the Spirit, instead of conceiving one, postmodern
approaches seem to provide more space (already in their presuppositions) to conceptualize the
working of the Spirit in interpretation. Thirdly, only one postmodern thinker is chosen in
order to keep things manageable since postmodern thought is variegated and multifaceted
(even in Evangelical circles) and the scope of a thesis fairly limited. Fourthly, Smith in
particular is a specific case since he embodies not only a positive stance over against
postmodern thought, but he combines this with a distinct pentecostal2 disposition so that his
thought already is aptly preconfigured to bring together the two fields of hermeneutics and
pneumatology of our research.
1.3 Methodology & Thesis Design
Our interaction with James K.A. Smith will depart from the following main research
question which lies at the basis of the entire work:
What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the hermeneutical theory of James K.A.
Smith and how can this role be further conceptualized?
Two distinct yet connected questions can be naturally abstracted from the above viz. one
question pertaining to the role of the Spirit in Smith and one question pertaining to further
developing this role. The design of this thesis is structured accordingly and hence falls apart
in two different main sections each focusing on one particular subquestion.
The main rationale behind the design of the different chapters of this work can be
summarized as following. Subsequent to the present chapter which introduces the entire work,
2 ‘Pentecostal’ as designation in this work is employed similarly to the nondenominational ‘small-p
pentecostalism’ roughly synonymous with ‘charismatic’ which Smith employs; cf. TT, xvii.
12
the second chapter sets out to outline and expound on the hermeneutical theory of Smith. This
chapter aims at creating a general understanding of his thought by exposing the two
paradigms of creation and incarnation which motivate the basic presuppositions behind his
theoretical assertions. Building upon these fundamental convictions we construe his particular
take on epistemology and ontology and from these two his anthropology. These three
fundamental philosophical areas finally form the stage on which we present Smith’s
hermeneutical theory. This chapter thus targets at creating an interpretive framework within
which we can (a) receive an embedded understanding of specific issues such as the role of the
Holy Spirit; (b) from which we can evaluate other hermeneutical-pneumatological viewpoints
as well and (c) are enabled to construe possible new perspectives. This chapter will
principally draw on primary resources of Smith and usually not consolidate or support his
position with other sources. Although these might at times even be manifold, in our view they
do not contribute to the aims of the chapter and hence are left out. We will also deliberately
avoid paying specific attention to the Spirit in chapter two but only address it when the
general theory requires it. Chapter three, however, does zoom in on the role of the Holy Spirit
in Smith by using the framework of chapter two and will bring to the fore three basic themes
of Smith’s thought in which the Spirit operates.
This analysis of the role of the Spirit in Smith is critically evaluated at the end of chapter
three. Two important remarks apply here: first our goal is a constructive adaptation and
development of Smith’s proposals so that our evaluation typically bears the character of a
sympathetic-critical approach primarily aimed at finding openings for further inquiry.
Secondly we limit our criticism to the pneumatological dimension of Smith’s thought.
Although he might be criticized on several other scores, in order to keep focus we narrowed
our critique to the central issues of our research. Moreover, broad fundamental critique would
counteract our just mentioned constructive purposes and conversely, more detailed (non-
13
pneumatological) critique would probably not significantly influence our final conclusions
and hence only distract.
From our evaluation at the end of the third chapter we will formulate three key questions
for further research posed to our findings thus far. These questions function as a bridge from
the more analytical-constitutive first part of the thesis to its more constructive-synthetic
second part. Our first key question pertains to how to conceive of the active working of the
Spirit on the knowing subject and will be dealt with in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter
subsequently will treat the second and third question which respectively focus on how this
work of the Spirit on the subject relates to the interpretation of the object (subject-object
relationship) and how the normative dimension of this relationship is to be thought of.
Our intention in responding to these three programmatic questions is to develop answers
which are possible within the hermeneutical framework described in chapter two and hence
are faithful to Smith’s own philosophical presuppositions. Besides this philosophical-
hermeneutical frame of reference two authors need particular mentioning as sources for our
own constructive proposals here. First of all Amos Yong and his early work Spirit-Word-
Community3 which has comparable viewpoints to Smith and emphasizes the hermeneutical
role of the Spirit as well. Secondly, Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) who as Reformational
philosopher not only has considerably influenced Smith’s thinking and thus can function as
viable source for new insights, but also himself in several respects anticipated in his
philosophy postmodern hermeneutical developments.4 In addition to these major voices, other
3 Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002).
4 Cf. Willem J. Ouweneel, “Theologische Hermeneutiek en de Postmoderne Uitdaging,” Acta Theologica 26:1
(2006): 95-111.
14
relevant authors will be consulted when appropriate and supportive to our argument in these
chapters.
The fourth and fifth chapter have elaborated on the programmatic questions formulated at
the end of chapter three, the sixth chapter finally outlines the major conclusions of the
foregoing and lists some implications that can be drawn from these conclusions.
1.4 Rationale, Relevancy, and Limits of the Study
It seems not only an understatement to say that postmodernism is a debated topic, by now
it even sounds almost clichéd to do so. Nevertheless, Evangelical hermeneutical machinery
goes at full speed to respond to its challenges and certainly not entirely unwarranted: many
bad forms of postmodernism show their ugly faces up to the present day. The main
Evangelical concern of the debate over postmodernism is the hermeneutical relativism it
potentially brings along. Unfortunately, Evangelical theologians oftentimes either forget or
stubbornly ignore the ‘potentially’–qualification of the previous sentence and in the
discussion throw out the baby with the bath water. Smith – particularly in WAP – seeks to
take the edges off this, usually modernistic, way of arguing and takes a more open stance
towards postmodern hermeneutics. The present work proceeds from a similar viewpoint but
additionally perceives a more thorough pneumatological reflection as a valuable aide in
forming a healthy view on these matters. It asks to modernism whether the whole idea of the
Spirit as active agent in interpretation not relativizes its rather high view on human
hermeneutical capacities and downplays its more autonomous view on interpretation
(especially ontologically). To relativistic postmodernism it asks whether the whole idea of the
Spirit present in the hermeneutical process not warrants the possibility of true understanding.
Or to put it in the words of Ronald T. Michener: might not the Spirit be the ‘chief executive
15
officer’ of our hermeneutical postal service?5 Whether these rhetorical questions are justified
by the present work is for the reader to decide.
Pneumatology is another area of theology receiving fresh attention lately. Propelled by the
vast influence of the charismatic movement the Spirit has been brought back into the center of
attention in many systematic theological treatises, not in the least because of the growing
pentecostal voice within academic theology of which Smith is just one example. This implies
that this work relates not only to the important debate over postmodernism, but touches upon
the much-discussed theme of pneumatology as well and thereby positions itself in a dynamic
and relevant area of research.
Before we proceed to the more substantive chapters some final words on the limits that
unavoidably accompany a thesis (as professors are always happy to point out). Besides the
already in the previous paragraph mentioned limiting choices we made, two important
cognate areas to our topic are not treated.
The first area is the specific subject of community. The role of the (interpretive)
community has become a highly appreciated hermeneutical factor in Evangelical
postmodernism specifically for two reasons: (1) emphasizing the community prevents the
individualizing of interpretation (typically a modernistic fallacy) and (2) it creates a
significant interpretive corrective to the individual interpreter.6 Both reasons reflect important
pneumatological themes as well such as unity in diversity and the church as dwelling place of
the Spirit. In spite of all this, space limits us to extensively deal with the issue.7 The
5 Michener, 74.
6 Perhaps a third, more general reason lies in the growing attention the past decade or so in theology on the
implications of a radical trinitarian framework (e.g. the work of Yong). Cf. Colin E. Gunton, The Promise of
Trinitarian Theology, 2nd ed. (London–New York: T&T Clark, 1997).
7 We only refer to it in §4.3.5 and §5.5.
16
community, albeit not explicitly dealt with, is implicitly present though as ‘context’ of the
subject.8
The second area is Scripture. Although the interpretation of Scripture was one of the main
impetuses for hermeneutical reflection in history and today still dominates Christian
hermeneutical theory, we chose not to deal with it here. This is a consequence first of all of
Smith’s hermeneutical theory not specifically being related to Scripture but to interpretation
in general. Secondly, engaging the complex theological area of the nature of Scripture,
revelation and so forth is simply undoable within the confines of this thesis study.
Consequently, for example, questions pertaining to general and special
revelation/hermeneutics, the Scripture-Spirit relationship, or the nature of Scripture are not
addressed. These areas certainly can be worthwhile to consider from the perspectives that will
be given below, but one study of course cannot cover everything (as students are always
happy to point out).
8 Cf. note 353 and 355.
17
Part I
Analyzing the Role of the Holy Spirit in James K.A. Smith
18
Chapter 2 | Mapping an Incarnational Theory
For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. – Mat.1:20 (NKJV)
The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be holy. – Lk.1:35 (NRSV)
2.0.1 Introduction
Theory starts somewhere. It presupposes a point of departure. Theory is not suddenly
‘there’, it is second-order, it is subsequent. Theoretical reflection assumes as a way of
justifying itself. It is never first, it always follows. Underneath every theorizing is a ‘bedrock’
on which our spade is turned, where justifications are exhausted and assuming is silenced.9
This bedrock constitutes both a true endpoint and a point of departure. It is the place of the
theorist’s ‘pretheoretical commitments’ (Smith), his ‘ground-motive’ (Dooyeweerd), his
‘control beliefs’ (Wolterstorff), his mythos (Milbank). Understanding a theory is therefore
ascending. It necessarily involves going upward from ‘bedrock’, travelling from
presupposition to proposition, from pre-theory to theory.
Our journey to expose the hermeneutical theory of James K.A. Smith in this chapter
follows similar pathways. Our starting-point is on the most fundamental level of his thought,
explicating his most basic commitments (his controlling beliefs) in order to understand the
basic affirmations which undergird his theory. From there on Smith’s theoretical
constructions of epistemology, ontology, and anthropology are explicated. These three pillars
finally support his hermeneutical theory as it now stands.
Two distinct yet (theologically) strongly connected events in salvation history form
Smith’s ‘bedrock’ of pretheoretical commitments: creation and incarnation. From his
9 Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (New York, NY: Macmillan,
1959), §217
19
interpretation of these two central events, Smith draws several basic assumptions (or rather:
affirmations) which play a central role in his development of a distinctively Christian
philosophy.10
We will first outline his understanding of these two events and how they
support his central affirmation of finitude, particularity, materiality, and participation.
Subsequently we will explicate how these four basic presuppositions influence his thought on
epistemology, ontology, and anthropology. Finally we will highlight how this theoretical
framework effectively construes the present form of his hermeneutical theory as an
incarnational theory. In so doing, we pave the way for an embedded understanding of the role
of the Holy Spirit in Smith’s hermeneutic which we will address in the next chapter.
2.0.2 The Religious Nature of Pretheoretical Foundations
The non-neutrality of theoretical thought is postulated by Smith throughout his works.11
This implies that the framework in which theoretical assertions are being done is always
somehow ‘colored’ by assumptions that form its backbone. These assumptions are neither
universal nor without content12
and function as the basis from which is argued. Although we
will pursue this central theme of non-neutrality in Smith’s thought elsewhere, it is important
to note that such a religious framework is also at work in Smith’s own thought (and he is glad
10 Smith is committed to give Christianity (and pentecostalism in particular) her own voice among ‘secular’
philosophies. Cf. TT ch.1; IRO ch.4; “The Art of Christian Atheism: Faith and Philosophy in Early Heidegger,”
Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997): 71-81.
11 WAP 54-5; TT 55-7, 107-9; IRO 73-4, ch.4; the postulation of the non-neutrality of theoretical thought is
parallel to the assertion of esp. FOI that interpretation is ubiquitous.
12 One of the rare criticisms of Smith on Dooyeweerd is on the very issue of the ‘substantive and contentful’
nature of this basic framework (for Dooyeweerd: the religious ‘groundmotive’). According to Smith this
framework is, albeit non-propositional, not devoid of religious content; cf. IRO 170-6 for the discussion.
20
to admit this). All theory is motivated by a particular confession (pace modernism), it forms
the basis of our knowledge.13
As noted above the two key ‘confessions’ of Smith are the doctrines of creation and
incarnation. It is important however to correctly understand the exact way in which these
theological concepts function as points of departure for his theoretical assertions. Creation and
incarnation are not employed by Smith as theology qua theology. Somewhat detached of their
theological function they serve as ‘analogical concepts’14
, as ‘metaphors’ to describe a state of
affairs.15
This means that they are not employed as theological concepts but as philosophical
religious motives; they illustrate – analogically – principles or structures in theory.16
Smith
uses them as ‘a way of construing’17
, an approach to aid his understanding (in the sense of
Heidegger’s verstehen) of the world. Therefore, when Smith points to an approach as, for
instance, ‘incarnational’, he does not indicate a dogmatic or theological relationship of that
approach with the incarnation, but he rather signifies an affinity with his theoretical
employment of the incarnation as philosophical ‘blueprint’.18
13 IRO, 74; WAP 120-1; “A Principle of Incarnation in Derrida’s (Theologische?) Jugendschriften. Towards a
Confessional Theology,” Modern Theology 18 (2002): 226-7.
14 FOI 32n33.
15 FOI 32-3. In Smith’s terms, they are part of his theology1 instead of his theology2 (cf. IRO, 177) and in that
sense ‘mythical’ FOI 103-4.
16 Smith’s usage of these theological concepts is not unlike the development theological ‘ideas’ in
Dooyeweerdian philosophy; cf. Willem J. Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I: The External Prolegomena (Leuven:
ETF publication, 2003-2004), 4.2.2.
17 FOI 32.
18 This analogical way of signifying allows Smith to make for instance the otherwise ridiculous claim that the
incarnation is the ‘paradigm and condition of possibility for the proper understanding of language’; ST 154. Cf.
for a similar ‘analogical’ use of the incarnation e.g. Jens Zimmermann, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics:
An Incarnational Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 274-84.
21
This ‘scandalous’ (a term used by Smith to indicate a bold commitment to particular
Christian [read: non-secular] assumptions19
) theorizing from decidedly Christian faith
commitments can be regarded as typical for Smith’s entire project. As we will see further on,
this should not, from Smith’s own point of view, be considered an a priori narrowing or
weakening of his argument. On the contrary, his approach assumes that inherent to every
theorizing is a structural moment of faith, an essential element of undecidability.20
As such it
is a typical postmodern (at least Smith’s version of it) movement to unapologetically start
from one’s faith commitments.
Having pointed out the philosophical status of Smith’s usage of creation and incarnation
we are now able to explicate the different affirmations that Smith draws from these
‘concepts’21
. Although space does not permit to give a comprehensive exposition of all the
theoretical ‘pieces’ working behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory, we will seek to uncover the
core of his thought relevant for the understanding of his basic hermeneutical position. What
follows could therefore be circumscribed as his hermeneutical ‘external prolegomena’; a
meta-hermeneutical theoretical framework.22
19 Cf. “Scandalizing Theology: A Pentecostal Response to Noll’s Scandal,” PNEUMA: The Journal of the
Society for Pentecostal Studies 19:2 (1997): 225-38.
20 FOI 157-9; “The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism,” in The Logic of Incarnation.
James K.A. Smith’s Critique of Postmodern Religion, ed. Neal DeRoo and Brian Lightbody (Eugene, OR:
Pickwick, 2009), 22-5.
21 That is: analogical concepts. For the difference between concepts and ‘concepts’ see ST 9-10, 68-70, 82-7.
22 Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 1.
22
2.1 ‘And God Saw That It Was Good’: Creational Affirmations
Already in his early writings Smith adapts an Augustinian framework in his understanding
of the central event of creation.23
This comes particularly to the fore in Smith’s insistence on
the essential goodness of all that is created as a central affirmation borrowed from Augustine:
ergo quaecumque sunt, bona sunt (‘therefore whatever exists, is good’).24
For Smith this
reading of creation (both as historical event and as contemporary given) necessarily points to
two key presuppositions which should function in our interpretation of reality: the affirmation
of finitude and the affirmation of materiality.
It is important to note that these affirmations pertain to different aspects of Smith’s view
on reality. The affirmation of finitude concerns the human subject as it is involved in the
world (man’s Da-sein). It functions as an epistemological qualifier signifying God’s
qualification (or rather: affirmation, embracing) of the finite epistemological potentiality of
the human subject and (thus) the quality of his knowledge. On the other hand, the affirmation
of materiality points to the created reality in its essence. It is therefore an ontological qualifier
signifying God’s qualification (affirmation, embracing) of materiality as good property or
aspect of reality.25
2.1.1 The Goodness of Finitude
To be human is to be finite. For Smith, the genealogy of this condition is to be traced back
to creation. Finitude is part and parcel of creation itself, not just of fallen creation. This is one
23 For an succinct overview of Augustine on creation: Simo Knuuttila, “Time and Creation in Augustine,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 101-15; cf. esp. FOI ch. 5.
24 Cf. Augustine, Confessiones, VII.11-15 (12); cf. Knuuttila, 105.
25 We will see later that both affirmations coalesce in Smith’s anthropology (§2.5) since the human being is both
an interpreting subject and a material (embodied) reality.
23
of the central claims of FOI: finitude is a property of a good creation and therefore itself
good.26
This notion of finitude is construed not in contrast to the notion of infinity as if it
implies a certain ‘lack’ or ‘missing’, rather it should be construed as a possibility.27
Created
finitude is a measure of capacity for knowledge and hence a positive aspect of reality; a gift to
be received with gratitude instead of the product of a distortion to be received with lament.
Smith has to defend this claim of the goodness of finitude against two misidentifications,
viz. those who identify it either with fallenness or with violence.28
To start with the former,
every linking of human finitude to humanity’s fall amounts to ontologizing the Fall since it
locates a result of fallenness in a structural element of the human condition.29
For Smith this
is a confusion of the prelapsarian and the postlapsarian in the construction of reality: God
never intended human beings to be infinite and therefore everyone who deems this finite
creation structurally fallen because of its finitude has an argument with God Himself. It is a
typical example of the human ego trying to go beyond God’s intentions and a devaluing of
His good creation.30
The second misidentification of finitude is with violence and stems particularly from
Heidegger’s and Derrida’s constructions of reality.31
This identification pertains not so much
to finitude’s ontological status and origin, but with its moral-religious qualification. Although
both Heidegger and Derrida affirm the inevitability of finitude as such (and discarding the
overcoming of it in interpretation as a modern dream), they seem to estimate this situation still
according to modern standards (and thus remain haunted by modern ghosts that it ‘should’ be
26 FOI 22; passim.
27 Ibid., 31; cf. 113, 129, 152.
28 Ibid., 136.
29 Ibid., 88, 94, 112, 135; cf. ‘The Logic of Incarnation,’ 13-4; WAP 121-2.
30 Cf. FOI 40, 51, 88.
31 See esp. ibid., ch. 4.
24
different).32
Finitude can only be construed as inherently violent if one first assumes that
reality itself is a matter of violence and it is exactly here that Smith chooses otherwise:
stemming from his affirmation of the goodness of creation he assumes peace as the original
status quo and violence as accidental.33
As we will treat more extensively later on, the central affirmation of the goodness of
finitude enables Smith to develop a hermeneutical theory with an epistemology which allows
for plurality and subjective, or mediated knowledge. Since human beings are not infinite they
interpret, and since they interpret they have plural conceptions of reality.34
This all will
become more clear when we deal with Smith’s epistemology.
2.1.2 The Goodness of Materiality
Ontologically speaking, materiality is undeniably an essential element of large portions of
created reality. Obviously this is not a postlapsarian given as if materiality is occasioned by
the Fall and therefore it must be considered part of the original good creation. This leads
Smith to affirm materiality as good property of creation against the dualistic notions of
Platonism.35
32 “The Logic of Incarnation,”, 8-9; FOI 115-6, 127-9.
33 Cf. IRO 195-7; “The Logic of Incarnation,”, 11-17; FOI 95-104, 159-62; ST 154.
34 Cf. FOI 148.
35 IRO 219-23; TT 42. Smith disagrees with Radical Orthodoxy’s theurgical understanding of Plato which
emphasizes the non-dualistic notion of participation (methexis) over against the dualistic (neo)-Platonism of
Plotinus (which is the traditional understanding; cf. ST 171ff.; IRO 197-204; ‘Will the Real Plato Please Stand
Up? Participation versus Incarnation,’ in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant,
and Participation, ed. James K.A. Smith and James H. Olthuis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 61-
72).
25
We already find traces of this affirmation of materiality (and embodiment36
) in FOI, but
rather undeveloped and oftentimes in subordinate form next to the affirmation of the goodness
of creation in general.37
More substance is given in subsequent works when Smith develops a
more elaborate viewpoint on ontology and human being’s bodily presence in reality.38
The
‘stuff that Descartes (…) wrote off so quickly’39
is for Smith the material reality actually
desired by God to be – including all its nitty-gritty ‘stuff-ness’. Matter, therefore, matters, and
every estimation which counts materiality somehow inferior to other aspects of reality denies
God’s valuation that it all was good (Gen. 1:31).40
Smith’s emphasis on the goodness of materiality can be understood as a quest for holism in
his ontological picture of reality. While in our naive41
experience and understanding
(verstehen) the material dimension of reality is oftentimes primary, it is downplayed and often
neglected in the theoretical abstraction of ontology. Smith therefore explicitly seeks to
postulate a non-reductive, creational ontology which addresses the material instead of
reducing reality primarily to the immaterial.42
36 Embodiment signifies the material reality of human being and is therefore a derivative of the affirmation of
materiality. It will concern us primarily in our analysis of Smith’s anthropology (§2.5).
37 FOI 22-3, 138, 148, 159. To be more precise: in FOI Smith understands bodily presence in the world as the
spatial dimension of our finitude (68, 91, 91n10, 139) which on its turn is a condition for hermeneutics (150).
Consequently, in FOI embodiment functions as a mainly anthropological aspect of hermeneutics and not so
much as an ontological affirmation of materiality an sich as in subsequent works.
38 Cf. IRO ch. 6; DTK 46-7, 57-63; TT ch. 4.
39 WAP 136.
40 For the connection between the goodness of creation and the affirmation of materiality see esp. IRO 189-97,
219-220, 225-6; TT 42, 60-1, 100-1; ST 176; DTK 140-6.
41 Naive in the sense of non-theoretical. Cf. Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 75-6.
42 IRO 189-95; TT 89-99; DTK 143; cf. §2.4.
26
This affirmation of materiality is according to Smith emphatically echoed in the event of
the incarnation which will be subject of our analysis further below. For now we can
conclusively state that two basic notions are being affirmed by the goodness of Creation:
finitude and materiality.
2.2 ‘The Word Became Flesh’: Incarnational (Re)Affirmations
2.2.1 From Creation to Incarnation: Re-creation?
The second main event that distinctively shapes Smith’s theoretical framework is the
material –‘fleshy’– inhabitation of this reality by God through Jesus Christ. In a certain
respect the event of the incarnation goes beyond creation as a revelation of God’s heart for the
reality ‘down here’: while the creating act possibly could be construed as more or less
distantiated and impersonal, necessitating little personal, divine involvement, the act of
incarnation is an explicit and undeniable pointer to God’s personal attitude towards creation.
The central affirmations that are therefore drawn from the incarnation by Smith spring – so to
speak – from a richer soil and hence allow for more richer articulation of his theoretical
assumptions.43
This is illustrated in how Smith sees the incarnation reaffirming the two
affirmations drawn from creation and above that providing ground for the articulation of
another two central affirmations. Herein, therefore, lies also the reason for the choice of our
title ‘Mapping an Incarnational Theory’: the incarnation covers – to our opinion – the full
breadth of central presuppositions functioning in Smith’s theoretical framework.
43 Smith would reckon this a ‘thickening’ of the theoretical framework by which he means to communicate a
more confessional, ‘meaning-full’, set of presuppositions. DTK 82-3; cf. “Epistemology for the Rest of Us: Hints
of a Paradigm Shift in Abraham’s Crossing the Threshold,” Philosophia Christi 10 (2008): 358; WAP 28, 116-7.
27
We will first deal with how the incarnation reaffirms the goodness of finitude and
materiality and subsequently analyze how this event affirms particularity and participation as
two ensuing central affirmations behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory.
2.2.2 Reaffirming the Goodness of Finitude & Materiality
The incarnation makes no sense without a God caring about the world and therefore cannot
be properly understood apart from God’s commitment to His creation. Moreover, if God
entered this world and thereby chose to take on the human conditions of finitude and
materiality (embodiment) this implies His commitment to these very conditions. This is the
way in which Smith argues that in the incarnation we see a deep reaffirmation of His good
(though fallen) creation.44
Both finitude and materiality were conditions which Christ took upon Himself in the
incarnation. First of all His becoming human involved a step from infinity into the finite
realm of this earthly life. If finitude involves ‘being human, being here’45
this certainly
pertained to Jesus Christ. Therefore, by sending His Son into finitude God reaffirmed finitude,
not as necessary evil, but as a created good.46
Secondly, God literally in-carnated, took on
flesh. This ‘most unPlatonic moment’47
of salvation history speaks against all dualistic
notions which denigrate materiality. Smith therefore locates in the act of the incarnation a full
acceptance of materiality as creational good.48
44 “Staging the Incarnation: Revisioning Augustine’s Critique of the Theatre,” Literature & Theology 15.2
(2001): 131; ST 125n36.
45 FOI 31.
46 ST 125; cf. WAP 122.
47 Cf. “Between Predication and Silence: Augustine on How (Not) to Speak of God,” Heythrop Journal 41
(2000): 77n18.
48 WAP 138; TT 40, 62.
28
In the Second Adam God reaffirmed the First Adam in both his finitude and his
materiality. If these affirmations were still somehow dubious after creation, as Smith is
concerned they are definitively settled after Jesus Christ.
2.2.3 The Goodness of Particularity
In WAP Smith asserts:
Christian Confession begins from the scandalous reality that God became
flesh, and became flesh in a particular person, at a particular time, and in a
particular place. The affirmation of particularity is at the very heart of the
incarnation (…).’49
To understand what Smith means by particularity here it is crucial to first recognize it as an
epistemological assertion signifying the status of knowledge as such. Knowledge for Smith is
never universal in its scope (as modernism mistakenly claimed50
) but always a particular
matter. In contrast to modern notions of truth therefore, Smith agrees with postmodernism to
affirm the particularity of all human knowing,51
which is the same to say that understanding
always departs from a particular perspective; all knowers are interpreters. Although this latter
statement is one of the basic claims of FOI,52
we see the specific concept of particularity
receiving its distinctive53
nuances when Smith employs it against Heidegger’s and especially
49 WAP 122.
50 This is Smith’s main concern in “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion, and Postmodernism
Revisited,” Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001): 261-276; the issue of (meta)narratives and narratival knowledge
will be addressed in our analysis of Smith’s epistemology (§2.3).
51 WAP 25, 117-8; TT 57.
52 FOI 22 passim.
53 Cf. “The Logic of Incarnation,” 7.
29
Derrida/Caputo’s ‘violent’ construals of particularity drawing heavily on the incarnation as
philosophical paradigm.
The impetus for Smith’s emphasizing the goodness of particularity is primarily found in
Derrida’s equally empathic rejection of it. The latter’s eschewing of particularity is motivated
by its supposed violent character since only particular, determinate claims possess content
which can translate into violence.54
The solution for Derrida lies therefore in escaping every
form of particularity in order to avoid violent determination and to flee into abstract non-
determination or singularity. Smith contends however that this attitude of ‘desertification’ or
‘abstraction’55
remains haunted by modern ghosts since it seeks to escape violence by running
to abstract universality which itself is a modern dream.56
To be ‘truly postmodern’ then is
drive out the modern ghost by refusing to evaluate particularity as a necessary evil and instead
embrace it as an original aspect of a good creation.57
The difference, therefore, between
Derrida and Smith on this score lies not so much in their acknowledgment of the ubiquity of
particularity itself, but in their response to it: Derrida remains haunted in his flight to the
desert while Smith performs an exorcism. Smith indicates that two opposed ‘logics’ are
working here: his incarnational logic and Derrida’s logic of determination.58
The latter starts
from the assumption that particular, determined knowledge is inherently violent, while the
54 Ibid., 7-18; “Re-Kanting Postmodernism?: Derrida’s Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone,” Faith and
Philosophy 17 (2000): 563; “Determined Violence: Derrida’s Structural Religion,” The Journal of Religion 78.2
(April 1998): 207-10; a similar violence as we encountered while discussing the affirmation of finitude (§2.1.1).
55 Resp. “Determined Violence,” 199-200 and 203.
56 “The Logic of Incarnation,” 8-11, passim; “Re-Kanting,” 558-71.
57 WAP 116-27.
58 “The Logic of Incarnation,” 8-21 (esp. 10, 14).
30
former starts from the assumption that particular, determinate knowledge is inherently good as
has been illustrated and confirmed by the incarnation.59
Before we move on, it must be granted that there is no clear-cut distinction between
particularity and finitude as their difference lies primarily in their emphasis.60
Nevertheless,
the abovementioned allows us to explicate some of their different nuances. Particularity
primarily points to the specificity of our knowledge, to the fact that everyone perceives reality
from their ‘point of view’. Thus to speak of particular knowledge means that one’s knowledge
is somehow ‘tied’ to one’s situation (cf. Gadamer’s ‘tradition’) and that it necessarily departs
from there (il n’y a pas de hors-texte61
). Finitude, on the other hand, expresses the potentiality
of our knowledge, to the fact that there is a certain scope connected to what we know. It is
therefore a certain measure of capacity for knowledge. In short, particularity qualifies the
starting-point of knowledge while finitude qualifies what is in range; together they qualify the
mediated status of knowledge: within (finitude) a certain (particularity) horizon.62
2.2.4 The Goodness of Participation
The final affirmation that Smith’s draws from the event of the incarnation emphasizes its
revelational aspect: God became human in order to reveal Himself through the material
reality. This final affirmation undergirds therefore primarily Smith’s ontological assertions
59 WAP 122, 135; “The Logic of Incarnation,” 34-5, passim; ST ch. 5.
60 Throughout his corpus (and particularly in his early writings) Smith employs relatively freely several terms,
(e.g. ‘finitude’, ‘particularity’, ‘situatedness’, ‘traditionality’). Our use of ‘finitude’ and ‘particularity’ is
therefore mainly heuristic to cover the breadth of Smith’s pretheoretical commitments, not to ‘violently’
categorize his thought.
61 Cf. WAP 52.
62 TT 139. The reader should recall that by no means this situation is to be lamented according to Smith.
31
and pertains particularly to the way in which the divine participates in the material.63
Smith
develops this notion of participation parallel to Radical Orthodoxy’s (RO) participative
ontology but reformulates it from the perspective of the incarnation (without losing their
affinity64
).
The idea of participation entails the refusal to grant autonomy to the existence of the
material. Such ‘immanentism’65
reduces being to its material existence only, while
[r]ather, being is a gift from the transcendent Creator such that things
exist only insofar as they participate in the being of the Creator – whose
being is goodness. Within this framework, the vocation of things is both
imitation and reference (…).66
Since the incarnation involved the indwelling (participating) of the divine in the natural,
material realm, Smith sees the genius of participation reflected in the event of the
incarnation.67
This leads to two central thoughts: first of all the incarnation illustrated God’s
true goal with humanity, so that in a way it models to be ‘properly human’68
and expresses
true being. Secondly, the incarnation is the true self-revelation of God so that it illustrates that
God sees the material as a means to make Himself known. This latter aspect of the material as
63 Although this might sound panentheistic Smith is careful enough to guard himself against it; cf. IRO 191n17;
TT 102n38.
64 ST 173n70; 175-6; cf. IRO 197-204.
65 Ibid., 187.
66 Ibid., 191. Cf. TT 101: ‘The Christian doctrines of incarnation and creation stand opposed to closed,
immanentalist systems.’
67 Cf. ST 124-5.
68 Cf. “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament: A Response to Amos Yong’s Pneumatological
Assist,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 15 (2007): 257-8. Here, Smith contends that participating in the divine
is ‘the creational vocation of what it means to be human.’
32
‘site of revelation’69
receives two different emphases from Smith. In somewhat altered form
we first encounter it in ST (ch. 5) as basic paradigm for his philosophy of language on the
referential value of signs,70
but secondly – and more relevant for us now – we see it as a
central notion in Smith’s viewpoint on the referential nature of material reality.71
‘Meaning’,
as Smith echoes Dooyeweerd, ‘is the being of all that is created.’72
We conclude therefore that Smith’s affirmation of participation entails two statements
about created, material reality: first that it is inhered by its transcendent Creator and second
that it bears a revealing potential for its transcendent Creator.
2.3 Narratival Epistemology
2.3.1 Introduction
In the coming paragraphs we will explore Smith’s understanding of epistemology building
on the previous examination of his fundamental affirmations of reality. This will involve in
particular his affirming of finitude and particularity since these convictions shape his
epistemology most profoundly. Smith’s epistemology is to a considerable extent a
substantiation of a thorough critique of modern epistemologies and it is therefore illuminating
to start our description from there. This will then pave the way for highlighting Smith’s own
alternative postmodern proposal by first constructing his view on the way in which human’s
know and secondly constructing his view on what type of knowledge this results in.
69 IRO 76.
70 Cf. also “A Principle of Incarnation in Derrida’s (Theologische?) Jugendschriften,” Modern Theology 18
(2002): 217-230.
71 IRO 189-95, 222-23; WAP 136-40.
72 IRO, 220.
33
2.3.2 The Myth of Modernity
According to Jean-François Lyotard the problem which postmodernity points toward is a
‘legitimation crisis’73
of modernism. By this he means to indicate the acceptance by modern
epistemologies of reason as the universal basis for our knowledge without their being able to
justify this claim. Every theory then, according to Lyotard, which pretends to deserve
universal acceptance on the basis of its rational structure constitutes a metanarrative; a story
to be accepted universally on the basis of its supposed neutral and rational grounding. Since
postmodernism does not buy into this ‘auto-legitimation’ of metanarratives, Lyotard defines
the postmodern critique as ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’: the refusal to put faith in its
pretended autonomy and universality.74
As such, postmodernism exposes the mythical ground
underneath the story of the metanarrative and shows that the metanarrative in fact is just
another story among many.75
Every theory has a narrative underneath.
Smith concurs with this display of the narratival character of modernity’s truth-claims.
This not only becomes clear from his interaction with Lyotard, but also from his critique on
secularism in the footsteps of RO. Secularism, as another metanarrative, claims to be the
neutral sphere in which objective viewpoints can be established ‘untainted by faith
perspectives’.76
As Smith asserts however: ‘[s]ecular modernity, despite all its protests and
pretensions to the contrary, is deeply religious and fundamentally theological.’77
By naming
secular modernity both ‘religious’ and ‘theological’ Smith does not point to the nature of their
second-order, theoretical reflections but to the nature of their first-order pretheoretical
73 FOI 165; cf. WAP 65; “A Little Story,” 360.
74 Smith addresses this extensively in ibid., 353-83.
75 Ibid., 359; WAP 66-70; cf. TT 57.
76 IRO 74; cf. TT 55-6.
77 IRO 127.
34
commitments as directed to a certain ultimate goal similar to the controlling beliefs behind
religions.78
This critique of secularism not only pertains to modernity as such, but also to remaining
vestiges of theoretical autonomy within postmodern philosophy.79
To describe Smith (or RO
for that matter) as typical postmodern representative would be mistaken and miss his
fundamental disagreements on several scores with postmodernism. Although
postmodernism’s epistemological critique functions as a ‘catalyst’80
for the development of
new theory after modernity, in itself it remains committed to modern notions such as
secularity in several respects.81
RO and Smith therefore seek to continue what postmodernism
started and to develop in a sense a more persistent postmodernism.
The aforementioned critique of the neutral and universal pretensions of modern
epistemologies not only applies to the status of knowledge as such but is affiliated with the
way in which modernity construes the human being as knower. Modern notions of knowledge
assume reason to be neutral in its encountering of the world and therefore assume also that
human beings in a scientific (i.e. led by reason) approach to the world construe the world in a
neutral fashion. Reason opens the possibility of a direct, unmediated engagement with the
world from which consequently universal applicable theory can be distilled.82
This
rationalistic outlook of the knowing subject is critiqued by Smith by which he draws on a
78 Smith elaborates on the relationship between philosophy and theory (theology) in ibid., 166-79.
79 Cf. ibid., 139-41.
80 Ibid., 141.
81 E.g. within ontology, anthropology, political theory and philosophy of religion. It is – unfortunately – beyond
the scope of this work to give a detailed outline of all this. As we already have seen Smith differentiates himself
from postmodern thinkers as Derrida and Caputo on fundamental issues, it should therefore not surprise to see
his epistemology not only criticizing modernity, but also postmodernity.
82 FOI speaks of ‘models of immediacy’; FOI 23; cf. part I (37-83) for a critique.
35
postmodern understanding of the way in which humans encounter the world.83
The essential
difference of Smith’s epistemology vis-à-vis modern epistemologies in this respect is their
view on what is primary in encountering the world. For Smith this is a pretheoretical,
affective mode: the knowing subject understands the world biased by all of his subjective
conditions. On the other hand, modern epistemologies give primacy to the theoretical mode of
being in the world so that the knowing subject understands the world – supposedly – unbiased
by his subjective conditions. Smith (and postmodernity in general) critiques precisely the un-
tenability of this latter supposition.
As mentioned in the beginning of this section we discriminate between the way in which
knowledge is ‘processed’ by the knowing subject and the type or status of the knowledge
possessed once known.84
We have outlined Smith’s critique on both of these scores above and
now turn in the next two sections to the core of his thought and concentrate on his alternative
proposals for these two aspects of epistemology.
2.3.3 Story-making: The Character of Knowing as Verstehen
If Smith’s viewpoint on our basic comportment to the world stresses its pretheoretical
character, what is then the basis on which this is functioning? In speaking about our basic
orientation to the world Smith remarks that it is ‘an affective comportment to the world that
“construes” the world of experience on the basis of an “understanding” that is precognitive.’85
83 This critique is found throughout his works: FOI 89-94, 149-62; WAP 35-42; DTK 37-74; TT 50-62; “Staging
the Incarnation,”, 129-30.
84 This distinction is formulated as a heuristic means in an attempt to map Smith’s epistemology as clearly as
possible and should not be considered a formal distinction in general epistemology. Cf. TT 68 however for the
mentioning of the same distinction.
85 TT 58 emphasis added.
36
The “understanding” that Smith points to here is taken from Heidegger’s account of
verstehen and functions as the medium through which the knowing subject creates meaning.86
To understand the world in the sense of verstehen is to engage with the world primarily on a
precognitive level in which the knowledge of the subject’s surroundings is implicit in his
engagement.87
His encounter of the world is performed on the basis of a certain ‘know-how’,
it is directed not so much by propositional knowledge imported by our intellectual capacities,
but rather by a pretheoretical imagination.88
This implies for Smith that the resource for our
making sense of the world around us goes beyond just our propositional knowledge and
stretches itself to our entire human experience. As a result we understand not only with our
intellectual capacities, but with our entire being (intellect, emotions, body etc.) and our
affective faculties being primary in this. ‘[W]e feel our way around the world more than we
think our way through it.’89
This way of knowing forms therefore much more an integrated whole with the entirety of
our human being relative to the reductionist viewpoint that limits our comportment to the
world to our rational faculties. As a consequence, however, this also leads to the conclusion
that our encountering of the world does not take place in theoretical abstraction but in
pretheoretical involvement90
and thus is conditioned by our finitude and particularity. In
86 Ibid., 58n24.
87 DTK 65-6; ST 79-82.
88 DTK 67-8.
89 TT 78 emphasis original; cf. 72; DTK 47.
90 Cf. Heidegger’s ‘throwness’ of Dasein; FOI 89-104; ST 75-7.
37
short: we cannot avoid taking ourselves with us in our encounter of the world. The way we
know is necessarily mediated by our subjective conditions.91
Smith uses Charles Taylor’s concept of the ‘Social Imaginary’ to express this fact of our
knowledge being somehow always ‘tied’ to our pretheoretical involvement in the world. He
explains it as a result of our understanding (verstehen) of the world functioning as a ‘matrix
for our knowledge’, it forms the ‘background’ for our ‘being and doing’.92
The Social
Imaginary is the framework in which understanding takes place and meaning is given. Smith:
‘This understanding is not an implicit set of propositions; it is more like a story we know by
heart.’93
The latter insight opens the possibility to bring the different aspects that are mentioned
together in explaining the way in which Smith’s epistemology as a form of ‘story-making’.
The knowing subject construes his understanding of reality on the basis of his story. If
something is to be meaningful to him it needs to have a certain ‘embeddedness’ in this story,
it has somehow to be related to the context.94
Or to put it differently: the knowing subject
‘reads’ reality taking into account the story so far, as if life unfolds itself to him like a
narrative.95
We not so much think our way around the world but rather read ourselves into the
91 Smith regularly emphasizes the importance of our bodies in our understanding. We will give more detailed
attention to this aspect of his thought when we have considered his anthropology (§2.5). For now it should be
seen as encapsulated in the term subjectivity.
92 TT 29.
93 Ibid., 30; cf. 68-71.
94 Ibid., 55; cf. “narrative causality” (70).
95 This is akin to Derrida’s ‘there is nothing outside the text’ or ‘there are only contexts’: knowing occurs always
within a context and once understood the knowledge immediately becomes context itself (i.e. it becomes part of
the story). Cf. WAP 34-53; “Limited Inc/arnation: The Searle/Derrida Debate Revisited in Christian Context,” in
Hermeneutics at the Crossroads ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, James K.A. Smith, and Bruce Ellis Benson
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 116-23.
38
world. Life is like being sucked into your own story, being captivated by your own narrative
from which we cannot escape.96
While modernity supposed you could start a new book
whenever you wanted, Smith asserts that your being-in-the-world is the only book you’ll ever
read.97
Above notion of ‘story-making’ in the way we know the world is reflected in the type of
knowledge that Smith brings to the fore in his epistemology. This will be object of our
interest in the next paragraph.
2.3.4 Narrative Knowledge: The Contents of the Story
Since we depicted Smith’s construction of the way we know as a form of ‘story-making’ it
is not difficult to understand that the result type of knowledge can be described as ‘narrative
knowledge’.98
In this paragraph we will discuss two distinct yet related aspects of this type of
knowledge within the larger framework of Smith’s epistemology. Hopefully this will result in
a more pronounced articulation of the relationship between Smith’s affirmation of finitude
and particularity on the one hand, and his epistemology on the other hand. To be more
precise, we will argue that the affirmation of particularity undergirds the subjectivity of
narrative knowledge, while the affirmation of finitude undergirds the undecidability of
narrative knowledge.
The first aspect of narrative knowledge which we will highlight is connected to our earlier
discussion of the fact that knowledge is somehow tied to our pretheoretical involvement in the
96 Again, taking into consideration Smith’s affirmations of particularity and finitude, this is not something to be
lamented (just like the last thing you want is to be rudely awakened from the story of a captivating book by your
mother’s “dinner’s ready!”). To escape your own narrative would be to lose meaning.
97 This, of course, does not exclude major shifts in the story-line. Yet a complete disconnection from the
preceding narrative is not an option. Cf. the notion of ‘innovation’ in Paul Ricoeur.
98 TT 64ff.
39
world and thus necessarily is mediated by our subjective conditions. Our knowledge is
colored by our pretheoretical disposition, that is: what we ‘get’ from the story is determined
by the context: ‘what a text means depends upon the determination of a context.’99
or
elsewhere: ‘[c]ontext (…) determines the meaning of a text, the construal of a thing, or the
“reading” of an event.’100
As a result, the first aspect of narrative knowledge is its subjective status which results
from the particular situation in which it is known. Something is always understood from
somewhere, or rather: from a particular context. This ‘situatedness’ of our knowledge is
driven by Smith’s affirmation of particularity as a (good) aspect of reality.
The concept of ‘narrative knowledge’ takes into account the connection of knowledge to
its particular context and therefore articulates what Smith would call a ‘richer’101
understanding of the status of knowledge as ‘irreducible’102
. Narrative knowledge is therefore
situated knowledge, an understanding of something as embedded in a context.103
It is
irreducible since part of its meaning is determined by its context and therefore conveyed only
through the narrative. Take the narrative away and you lose the meaning.
The second aspect of narrative knowledge pertains to its being construed on the basis of
certain pretheoretical commitments and thus points to the fact that narrative knowledge is
indeed narrative knowledge and not metanarrative knowledge. This means that knowledge
99 “Limited Inc/arnation,”, 119 emphasis original.
100 WAP 52.
101 TT 62.
102 Ibid., 64, 67.
103 Smith points in this respect to the common habit of testimony in pentecostal circles which implicitly
understands that the story conveys the understanding much more adequate than just propositions; cf. TT 62-4.
40
cannot be ‘auto-legitimate’ and universal but always has to entrust itself to certain
commitments; knowledge is necessarily accompanied by a certain ‘faith’.104
As Smith puts it:
Before knowledge there is acknowledgement; before seeing there is
blindness; before questioning there is a commitment; before knowing there
is faith.105
This faith-commitment is an essential part of knowledge since our knowledge is bounded
to our context. In other words: the context which determinates the meaning of a knowable
object is always finite and therefore our determination of meaning is finite. There is therefore
a structural indeterminacy to our context since it never becomes the full context of the
knowable object (knowledge is always mediated) and hence the full meaning of an object is
never determined.106
This is a ‘structural blindness’107
– or as Derrida calls it a ‘structural
nonsaturation’108
of the context – and necessitates a commitment to something one does not
see, to the invisible.109
Since knowledge is therefore always founded on ‘faith’ and thus lives
with a certain ‘absence’110
as the object of her faith, the possibility of misunderstanding
becomes apparent.111
Misunderstanding is the necessary potential result of the structural
absence in our knowledge – we could be wrong because we have a different, finite context.
Our finitude therefore forms the impetus for the commitments we necessarily need to make in
104 FOI 157-9; WAP 71-3.
105 FOI 183; cf. “The Art of Christian Atheism,” 77-8.
106 Smith calls this the “problem of context’ in “Limited Inc/arnation,” 116-7. Cf. the notion of the ‘structural
inadequacy’ in ST 119-20.
107 FOI 181; cf. ST 24.
108 “Limited Inc/arnation,” 116, 120-1..
109 FOI 181-2.
110 “Limited Inc/arnation,” 118, 121; cf. “A Principle of Incarnation,” 221-2, 226.
111 This is also the background for Derrida/Smith’s notion of ‘undecidability’ FOI 157-9.
41
order to know. The possibility to understand opens simultaneously a possibility to
misunderstand; every presence brings an absence.112
What we see here is that the affirmation of finitude operates in the background of this
second aspect and runs parallel to what we earlier concluded about not construing the notion
of finitude as a lack but as a possibility.
Especially this second aspect of narrative knowledge is deeply incarnational for Smith. The
interplay of presence/absence, the possibility for understanding and misunderstanding, are
seen in the event of the incarnation:
The Incarnation is precisely an immanent sign of transcendence – God
appearing in the flesh. Thus it is a structure of both presence and absence:
present in the flesh, and yet referring beyond, the Incarnation – as the
signum exemplum – retains the structural incompleteness of the sign which
is constitutive of language (…). 113
Therefore, it is of vital importance to construe our finitude as a possibility in order not to
fall in the trap of denying knowledge altogether.114
God knew that the incarnation as a
possibility to know Him brought also the possibility to misconstrue Him, yet He nevertheless
came down.115
This incarnational paradigm lies at the heart of Smith’s epistemology.
112 “Limited Inc/arnation,” 120. The Searle/Derrida debate centered around the question whether Derrida’s
notion of absence a priori ruled out the possibility of understanding; cf. esp. ibid., 114-6.
113 ‘Between Predication and Silence,” 75.
114 This is one of the main aims of ST only approached from the notion of speaking (as an aspect of knowing in
general).
115 “Limited Inc/arnation,” 124.
42
2.3.5 Conclusion
Smith’s epistemology responds on several scores to modern epistemology regarding the
neutrality and universality of reason and reveals the mythos underlying its claims. Out of that
critique he formulates his own epistemology drawing on the fundamental affirmations of
finitude and particularity. The core of his epistemology consists of two dimensions. The first
dimension pertains to the way we know and can be circumscribed as a form of ‘story-making’
in which the knowing subject derives meaning from his subjectively conditioned perspective
and construes from this a narrative as framework to engage the world (a Social Imaginary).
The second dimension pertains to the type of knowledge this ‘story-making’ gives, which is
characterized as ‘narrative knowledge’. This narrative knowledge has two basic aspects: first
it takes into account the situatedness of our knowledge i.e. it is knowledge that is situated in a
specific context which determines its meaning (drawing on the affirmation of particularity),
secondly it has a faith-basis resulting from a structural absence of knowledge, i.e. the context
which determines meaning is finite and thus the status of knowledge is never absolute
(drawing on the affirmation of finitude).
In the next section we will deal with Smith’s ontology as resultant from his affirmation of
materiality and participation.
2.4 Sacramental Ontology
2.4.1 Introduction
The second ‘pillar’ supporting Smith’s hermeneutical theory is his theory of being i.e. his
ontology. Smith’s first substantiated remarks on ontology stem from his interaction with RO
especially in IRO; besides that one chapter of TT is also devoted to the formulation of a
pentecostal ontology. Similar to his epistemology, Smith’s theory of being is led by two of the
fundamental assumptions we have provided earlier viz. the affirmation of materiality and
43
participation. As with our treatment of Smith’s epistemology, we will begin our analysis of
his ontology with its reactionary (or contrasting) character vis-à-vis modern and postmodern
ontologies. Subsequently to that we will discuss three aspects of his alternative proposal for a
creational ontology following his sketch in IRO.116
We will close with bringing these different
aspects together in one description of his ontology as sacramental.
2.4.2 A Third Way: Setting the Course for a Counterontology
When discussing how his proposed pentecostal ontology relates to other ontologies, Smith
places the following remark:
because this ontology is walking a tightrope between naturalism and
supernaturalism, I suggest that the elucidation and articulation of this
implicit ontological aspect of the pentecostal social imaginary will find
assistance in the “participatory” ontology associated with the nouvelle
théologie and its contemporary rendition in “Radical orthodoxy”.117
Two things are important here: first the ‘tightrope’ which Smith sketches and second the
affiliation with RO’s ontology which we will both discuss here.118
To start with the former, in
IRO we find a similar balancing of Smith between two ‘extreme’ ontological positions in
which he tries to propose a ‘third way between autonomy and occasionalism.’119
Both
autonomy and the abovementioned naturalism are to some extent coincident in that they stress
116 Cf. IRO 218-23.
117 TT 98-9; cf. 88-9.
118 Space does not permit to discuss Smith’s affiliation with the nouvelle théologie in the wake of esp. Henri de
Lubac. Besides the lack of space, Smith primarily engages the thought of the nouvelle théologie via RO.
119 IRO 207; cf. ‘third way’ in TT 97; cf. also IRO 76: ‘materialism and spiritualism’.
44
being in its immanent appearance, while similarly occasionalism and supernaturalism are
more or less overlapping positions in their emphasis on the transcendent side of being.120
In his construction of a third way, Smith first shields his position from what he calls a
‘ontology of immanence’121
Such an ontology construes reality as
grounded in the univocity of being that grants an autonomy to things
such that it is supposed that the world can be properly understood in itself –
that is, without reference to its transcendent origin, the Creator.122
Denying the transcendent character inherent in (material) reality therefore amounts to a
‘flattening’123
of reality and ultimately idolizes nature by absolutizing space and time as the
only properties of reality that actually matter.124
Against these immanent ontologies Smith
(following RO) postulates the concept of participation as a way to overcome their idolatrous
and hence reductionist’ view on nature.125
The idea of participation allows for the
construction of material reality as ‘suspended’ from its transcendent origin i.e. taking into
account its dependent nature or ‘gift-character’.126
As a consequence of this notion of
participation, the autonomous character of immanent being is effectively contradicted and its
transcendent side ensured.
120 These two mutual relationships should not be pushed though. The naturalisms and supernaturalisms discussed
in TT are both refuted by Smith in view of their autonomous conception of immanent reality; cf. TT 97.
121 IRO 188.
122 Ibid., 185.
123 Ibid., 187-8.
124 Cf. ibid., 187, 215-8.
125 Participation is close to the notion of ‘enchantment’ or ‘en-Spirited’ employed in TT 89ff.; cf. ‘engraced’ in
IRO 192.
126 Ibid., 194; cf. 186-9; cf. 189n7, 191; TT 100-1.
45
The second ‘battlefront’ is against the Platonic dualistic ontologies which idolize the
transcendent side of being. As Smith asserts: ‘The first prayer of a creational ontology should
be, “Lead us not into dualism, but deliver us from Platonism.”’127
Against ontologies that
denigrate materiality Smith emphasizes its created nature and therefore its goodness.128
Since
the existence of immanent being is dependent on its transcendent Creator the ‘affirmat ion of
transcendence funds a proper valuation of immanence’129
; only by discarding the abstraction
of immanence from transcendence proposed by Platonic ontologies that defend the autonomy
of being, being itself is saved from losing its true being-ness.130
While RO also postulates the dependence of being on its transcendence Smith offers a
‘refinement’ of this position in order not to fall into occasionalism which would imply a
‘deficient creation’ that ‘requires the incessant activity of the Creator to uphold [it]’.131
Therefore Smith develops the notion of the ‘integrity of creation’ to safeguard material reality
against occasionalism. This central idea will be further exposed in the next paragraph when
we expound on Smith’s own creational ontology.
2.4.3 Doing Justice to the Creator: Integrity, Meaning, and Enkapsis
As we have seen the two affirmations of participation and materiality distinctively set the
direction for Smith’s ontological proposals. The affirmation of participation guards against
overly emphases on immanence while the affirmation of materiality guards against overly
127 IRO 219.
128 Ibid., 75-6; cf. TT 42.
129 IRO 76.
130 Ibid., 192-5.
131 Ibid., 204-5. Smith’s fear of occasionalism is somewhat akin to his concerns with the term supernaturalism in
TT which possibly can express a dualistic overemphasis on transcendence; TT 96.
46
emphases on transcendence (in either Platonism or occasionalism). These two sides return in
Smith’s sketch of his ‘creational ontology’ outlined in three distinctives in IRO.
The first central distinctive is a confirmation of the goodness of materiality as a result of
the goodness of creation itself by upholding the integrity of creation. Smith: ‘It is by affirming
the integrity of creation as a relatively independent structure that we do justice to the
Creator.’132
This distinctive therefore fundamentally affirms the immanent side of being and
neither grants it autonomy nor deficiency but rather grants it integrity.133
The integrity of
creation exists in its functioning discretely while remaining with a relative independence to its
Creator i.e. its existence and functioning is efficient and finished but simultaneously not in an
autonomous way but as granted by its Creator.134
As we see here, the concept of integrity is
employed by Smith as a means to keep the balance in his ontology and not to fall from the
‘tightrope’ into either immanentism or Platonism.
The integrity of creation is displayed in the second distinctive of Smith’s creational
ontology: immanence as the theatre of transcendence.135
Central in this distinctive is the idea
of reference as ontological function of the immanent plane: material reality functions as a
pointer to transcendence. As Smith asserts: ‘this ontology emphasizes the referential structure
of creational immanence – that meaning is the being of all that is created.’136
In this way the
transcendent side of reality is not denigrated (as in immanentism) but affirmed by means of
upholding the integrity of creation in its referential nature:
‘the affirmation of the integrity of creation (or the goodness of
materiality) contains within itself an affirmation of transcendence, not as
132 IRO 219.
133 Ibid., 219-20.
134 Ibid., 216-7.
135 Cf. “Staging the Incarnation,” 132-3; IRO 218, 220, 222.
136 Ibid., 220 emphasis original.
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another intelligible world (…) but rather as that which inheres in the
structure of creation insofar as it points to a Creator.’137
By conceiving immanent reality as referring to transcendence each immanent aspect of
creation is like a mirror reflecting its transcendent Origin.138
This reminds of course of the
incarnation as the means by which the transcendent Creator chose to reveal Himself to his
immanent creation. The integrity of creation (i.e. goodness of materiality) is therefore a strong
incarnational notion within Smith’s ontology.139
God accepted immanence as the ‘arena’140
for revelation; as the place where the transcendent is manifested and brought into our
perception and He uses its revelational potential to ‘unfold’ Himself.141
As we can see thus far, within Smith's ontology immanence and transcendence are highly
intertwined: immanence brings us to transcendence and vice versa. To effectively express the
relationship between these two he introduces the concept of ‘folding’ (Leibniz) or ‘enkapsis’
(Dooyeweerd) which we will treat as the third and final distinctive of Smith’s ontology.
Folding/enkapsis conveys the idea of change or alteration without violation of destruction
of the unique being-ness of that what is altered. It is a discontinuity within continuity, an
event of change which already potentially was present. Applied to Smith's ontology it
functions as a way for Smith conceive the interaction of transcendence within immanent
reality.142
When God intervenes within immanent reality it is actually not an ‘intervening’ at
all but an employing of what potentially was already there since true intervening would imply
a discontinuity between transcendence and immanence and hence grant too much autonomy
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid., 218.
139 Cf. WAP 136-40.
140 Ibid., 139-40; cf. ‘window to God’ (138); ‘all the world is a stage’ IRO 222; TT 101.
141 IRO 223.
142 Ibid., 221-2.
48
to immanence.143
This has to be understood therefore as a relative autonomy of the immanent
as a result of the affirmation of its integrity. Folding implies the possibility of unfolding.
The enfolding is an original enclosing that grants a relative autonomy to
the created order that now unfolds itself, disclosing the folds in the
“root”.144
Unfolding is therefore an employment of what was already there, it is occasioned by the
‘interlacements within the zone of immanence’145
, an unfolding of what is enfolded at
creation.
In TT Smith has a more pneumatological interpretation of this idea of the relationship
between transcendence and immanence as enkapsis. What we described above is there
explained in terms of the Spirit’s presence within creation i.e. by an emphasis on the
‘immanence’ of the Spirit.146
The created order is already primed for the Spirit’s action
because the Spirit is always already present within creation.147
Smith: ‘God doesn’t have to
“enter” nature as a visitor and alien; God is always already present in the world.’148
The
potentiality of creation we spoke about is here connected to the presence of the Spirit as the
active agent behind it and the participation of the immanent in the transcendent is also through
the Spirit.149
For Smith this potential should be thought of as a matter of degree or intensity. This means
that the measure in which the Spirit is present within creation is a gradual phenomenon, it can
143 This is also behind Smith’s search for a true ‘non-interventionist’ ontological model in TT. Cf. TT 93-105.
144 IRO 222.
145 Ibid.
146 TT 40, 88; cf. 97.
147 Ibid., 103.
148 Ibid.
149 “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,” 254.
49
be with a high intensity (e.g. in miracles150
or the sacraments151
) or a low intensity (e.g. in the
instance of natural ‘normal’ phenomena152
). This gradual model fits the continuity between
immanence and transcendence that is emphasized earlier in the concept of
enfolding/unfolding.
It has to be noted that when the continuity of immanence and transcendence is addressed
this is an emphasis of Smith in order not to fall into Platonic dualism. Smith does not seek to
blur the Creator/creature distinction (which would be falling into immanentism), but only
stresses the participation of the transcendent in the immanent. It is helpful to think of this in
terms of the sacrament: it is neither pure material immanence (as in the Zwinglian account of
the sacraments as pure symbolism153
) nor pure transcendence (as if sacraments are not even
material) and therefore the inhering to some extent of the transcendent in the immanent is to
be acknowledged. Consequently, when Smith speaks of e.g. ‘suspension’, ‘enchantment’,
‘participation’ or ‘en-Spirited’ it is to be understood in a sacramental sense. Smith therefore
pleads for a ‘sacramental imagination’154
when looking to the world based on the above
described ontological affirmations as a way to do justice to the Creator and hence His
creation. Seeing the world as a sacrament not only is a non-reductive way to construe the
world, it also affirms the referential structure of creation, just as the sacraments refer beyond
themselves. It is therefore a deeply incarnational strategy of Smith to engage the world with
this sacramental understanding building upon the affirmations of materiality and participation.
2.4.4 Conclusion
150 TT 104-5.
151 WAP 138-9; DTK 148-9.
152 TT 103-4.
153 Cf. WAP 139.
154 Ibid., 137-40; DTK 144-51; “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,” 260.
50
Smith’s ontology is in certain respects a true counterontology and is (partially) formulated
against prevailing ontologies (within modernism and postmodernism). The first extreme
which Smith wants to avoid is Platonism with its high view of transcendent reality as more
essential than material reality. Against this perspective Smith holds firmly to the affirmation
of materiality within creation and incarnation as counterweight. On the other hand Smith
eschews what he calls ‘immanentism’ which overestimates material reality as autonomous
from transcendence. Against this vision he emphasizes the affirmation of participation which
sees the transcendent inhering in the immanent and thus seeing the material as dependent
upon its transcendent Creator.
From these battlefronts Smith construes a sacramental ontology with three distinctives (1)
the affirmation of the integrity of creation as third way between immanentism and Platonism;
(2) the affirmation of the referential structure of immanence as her ‘vocation’155
; (3) an
interpretation of the interaction between immanence and transcendence as
enfolding/unfolding.
In the next section we will deal with the last pillar of Smith's hermeneutical theory namely
his anthropology.
2.5 Holistic Anthropology
2.5.1 Introduction
In our exposition of the theoretical background behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory we
have arrived at the last – but certainly not the least – of its main features: his anthropology.
Key to understanding a hermeneutic is an understanding of the picture of the human knowing
subject that is presupposed in its assertions. We already encountered some anthropological
notions when dealing with Smith’s epistemology as both, to a certain extent, rely on each
155 IRO 191.
51
other and will draw further on these lines in the coming paragraphs. We will first succinctly
recall some of Smith’s theory regarding the way in which is known and develop this further
into a more comprehensive picture of the human as a knower. Subsequently we will connect
this to some of Smith’s ontological assertions as it pertains to the human as being. Finally we
will take into consideration some of Smith's hamartiological concerns as related to the
capacity for knowing of the human being under the influence of sin.
2.5.2 From Thinking Thing to Embodied Heart: Anthropological Holism
Central to Smith’s epistemology is the claim that we cannot avoid taking ourselves along
in our encountering of the world and are therefore bound somehow to the entirety of our being
human in our understanding of the world. We have described this way of knowing as a
derivative of Heidegger’s notion of verstehen and explained as a way of story-making:
understanding takes place within a (i.e. your own) narrative. We pointed to this type of
understanding as a precognitive, pretheoretical undertaking; not something that is limited to
our rational faculties, but rather as a basic affective comportment to the world. We will now
seek to extend this picture by working out Smith’s anthropological picture behind this view of
understanding.
It should not surprise anymore that also Smith’s philosophical anthropology reacts to
modern equivalents. For Smith the theoretical constructions of the human being that
modernism brought up restricted in various ways the access roads of knowledge to the human
being.156
The modern picture reduced the human being, as a result from the viewpoint that
human’s primary comportment to the world is rational-cognitive, to a ‘thinking-thing’157
that
156 TT 57-8; DTK 40-7; WAP 136-7.
157 Cf. esp. DTK 41-3.
52
primarily ‘thinks its way around the world’,158
Smith’s anthropology, however, avoids such a
reductionism on the basis of its construal of the person as a primary affective being.
Reductionistic philosophical anthropologies ‘fail’ Smith remarks, ‘to honor the complexity
and richness of human persons and instead reduce us and our core identities to something less
than they should be.’159
Smith therefore, seeks a more holistic picture of the human being in
order to do justice to this model of an affective way of knowing.
This holism is found by shifting the core of the human being from the head to the heart.
For Smith a nonreductionistic understanding of the human being is established
‘by shifting the center of gravity of human identity, as it were, down
from the heady regions of mind closer to the central regions of our bodies,
in particular, our kardia – our gut or heart.’160
The heart is understood here as the central or core region of the human comportment to the
world, it is the basis from which we know: ‘knowledge is rooted in the heart’.161
This means
that the heart is not just an aspect of being human, besides e.g. rational or physical
involvement in the world, but the basis from which all the other faculties depart. Thus Smith’s
model is not in any way anti-rational or a form of emotionalism, but an attempt to recover the
fullness of the human person in its being-in-the-world.162
The holism that Smith seeks in his
philosophical model is therefore provided by this concept of the ‘heart’ in which the different
subjectivities of the person come together. To say therefore that persons always bring
158 TT 72, 78; DTK 50.
159 Ibid., 46.
160 Ibid., 47; cf. 64; TT 58.
161 Ibid., 43; cf. ST 80-1.
162 TT 58-9; Todd C. Ream et al., ‘Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation by
James K.A. Smith,’ Review Symposium Christian Scholar’s Review XXXIX:2 (2010): 230-1; ‘Two Cheers for
Worldview: A Response to Elmer John Thiessen,’ Journal of Education and Christian Belief 14 (2010): 57.
53
themselves along in their engagement with the world is to say that they always experience the
world from their heart. Or to put it differently: the act of story-making is an act of the heart.
Hence, our affective involvement in the world stems from our heart. Or – to put it more
sharply: it proceeds from the heart. From this formulation it becomes clear that our basic
comportment to the world is a movement; it is not static but ek-static i.e. it is directed towards
a certain goal, it is intentional.163
This element of intentionality in our involvement in the
world is the direction our heart takes towards the world and is expressed by love. We do not
live in distanced, dispassionate abstraction towards the world (like the ‘thinking-thing’), but
live with an affective involvement in the world in the form of love.164
This love should not be
understood as love in the daily usage of it but as a philosophical quantity (just as ‘heart’):
[w]e are talking about ultimate loves – that to which we are
fundamentally oriented, what ultimately governs our vision of the good life,
what shapes and molds our being-in-the-world – in other words, what we
desire above all else, the ultimate desire that shapes and positions and makes
sense of all our penultimate desires and actions.165
This fundamental love as ‘structural feature’166
of our being human expresses the
intentions behind our basic comportment to the world and proceeds from the heart towards a
certain goal (telos).167
To be in the world as a human person is therefore according to Smith to
love since our primary mode of engaging the world is affective and proceeds from the heart.
The philosophical anthropology that comes to the fore so far supports the epistemological
claims of pretheoretical, affective (narrative) knowing by construing the human being in
163 DTK 47-8.
164 Ibid., 50.
165 Ibid., 51.
166 Ibid.
167 Ibid., 52-5.
54
similar terms. This model seeks to be holistic by lowering the center of human identity to the
heart as the core where all aspects of human being-ness come together and from which our
involvement in the world proceeds. As such, the heart is the center of a person’s affective
comportment to the world and engages the world by means of ultimate love. This love is as
the paintbrush by which the story is painted while its telos functions as the final scene to
which the story/painting is directed.
2.5.3 The Material Side of Humans: Revaluing Embodiment
Having displayed the connection between Smith’s epistemology and anthropology it is
interesting to subsequently analyze the influence of Smith's ontological assertions on his
philosophical anthropology. We will see that his revaluing of materiality in his ontology leads
to a revaluing of the human body as fundamental element of being human. This is consistent
with Smith’s quest for holism in his anthropology vis-à-vis reductionistic anthropologies
since oftentimes the body is (almost) left out in their considerations.168
More in general we
may submit that it is part of his quest against Platonism in Christian philosophy, within
ontology as well as in anthropology. Indeed, emphasizing embodiment in anthropology is
‘undoing’ an ancient Platonic dualism.169
Smith defines embodiment as follows:
[E]ssential to being-human is being-in-the-world, inhabiting a material
environment as a body (not just in a body). I am my body (even if I am also
168 A rather frequently returning theme in Smith’s writings is the call for a revaluing of the body as basic aspect
of being human. See for instance his critique on contemporary anthropological theory and Philosophy of
Religion: TT ch. 5; DTK ch. 1-2; “Epistemology for the Rest of Us,” 353-61; “How Religious Practices Matter:
Peter Ochs’ ‘Alternative Nurturance of Religion,” Modern Theology 24 (2008): 469-78; ‘The (Re)Turn to the
Person in Contemporary Theory,” Christian Scholar’s Review XL:1 (2010): 79-84.
169 IRO 76.
55
more than my body), and as such my body is an essential aspect of my
identity. (…) To be embodied means that I reside in a time and a place –
that I am a person with a geography and a history that constitute who I
am.170
This emphasis on the body as essential aspect of the human person affirms the material
side of the human. It is not difficult to see how this stems from Smith’s ontological
affirmation of materiality in general; if stuff matters in general it should matter in specific
instances as well; if immanence and materiality are important ontological issues, this should
be reflected in the evaluation of the human being.
Since the (re)affirmation of materiality is demonstrated by creation and incarnation Smith
sees the affirmation of embodiment as a strategy which is faithful to these events.171
God
incarnated into our material world and thereby not only affirmed the goodness of materiality,
but even more forcefully affirmed the fleshiness of the body as a creational good. A
philosophical anthropology that wants to build on the paradigms of both creation and
incarnation – as Smith seeks to do – can therefore never ignore the body in its reflections on
the human person.
What is then the precise role of the body if it is to be addressed in anthropology?
According to the passage quoted above, Smith sees embodiment as the point of contact of the
human person with its particularity or situatedness. Unlike the dualistic abstraction of the
mind promoted in Platonism/modernism, to be human is to be embodied and therefore is to be
materially involved in the world.172
The affirmation of embodiment is consequently a way for
Smith to bring his ontology and epistemology together in his anthropology: the fact the
170 TT 60; cf. WAP 136.
171 ST ch. 5; TT 42, 60-1; WAP 122, 136-8; DTK 151.
172 TT 55-6.
56
human person is a material being makes him involved in the world in his knowing. Smith
connects knowing and being for instance in WAP:
Being embodied is an essential feature of being a human creature. As
such, we are not defined by thinking; rather, we are primarily affective: the
center of the person is not the mind, but the heart.173
Our embodied existence in the world functions as the context of our affective
understanding of the world. We construe the world mediated by our embodiment, we
understand as ‘embodied hearts’.174
The concept of embodiment creates therefore a bridge
between the subjective conditions of the person and his being in the world or rather, it
integrates these two sides so that the one holistic affirmation of the human person as a knower
can be construed.
Smith’s view that ‘ideas have arms and legs’175
makes it possible to understand the way in
which our affective comportment to the world (conceptualized above as a fundamental love)
is influenced viz. by ‘affective, embodied means’176
. This is one of the central viewpoints that
Smith argues for in DTK: the holistic, affective, embodied philosophical anthropology that he
suggest leads to a form of personal formation which is accesses the human person on the
embodied, affective level.177
Smith uses the image of a fulcrum here to depict the function of
our bodily habits towards our basic comportment to the world.178
Our habits form the basic,
precognitive disposition of our heart while our habits on their turn are formed by our
173 WAP 136-7 emphasis added; cf. IRO 76-7.
174 TT 62, 76; cf. 78 where Smith uncovers the ability of emotion to construe as even prior to cognition.
175 Cf. WAP 20.
176 TT 73; cf. the being ‘intertwined’ of affective experience and meaning in TT 74; cf. also 76.
177 DTK ch. 1-2 are devoted to the construction of such a philosophical anthropology, the subsequent chapters
(4-6) apply this to various aspects of church and culture (e.g. secular society, church, and university).
178 DTK 56.
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practices.179
Therefore, ‘the way to our hearts is through our bodies’180
and to be shaped in
our affective understanding of the world means that bodily, affective means must be
employed.
2.5.4 The Effect of Sin: Misdirection
A general description of Smith’s anthropology that undergirds his hermeneutical theory
would not be finished without paying attention to the effects of sin on the human person as a
knower. Although his hamartiological considerations are limited to a few instances and
oftentimes rather short, nonetheless it is important to give it some attention given the role that
Smith attributes to the Spirit in restoring what is marred by sin. Therefore, to be able to grasp
how and what the work of the Spirit is in the person according to Smith, it is necessary to
understand his perspective on what the distorting effects of sin actually are.
As we saw in our exposition of Smith’s epistemology, understanding always has the status
of a possibility and never of a certainty (there is a structural nonsaturation of the context
which determines the meaning) and consequently this necessitates a structural possibility of
misunderstanding. Now, for Smith misunderstanding itself is not a sin,181
but the effects of sin
should occasion a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’182
. The reason behind this is that sin has a
distorting influence on the ability for human persons to know. When Smith speaks of the topic
of natural theology he confirms this:
the effectiveness of (…) natural revelation is mitigated by the epistemic
effects of sin on the perceptual capacities of sinful perceivers. I want to
179 Ibid., 55-63.
180 Ibid., 58.
181 FOI, 157.
182 WAP 86n12.
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suggest that in the same way that there are cognitive of noetic effects of sin
upon “understanding,” there are also affective effects of sin upon aesthetic
“perception.”183
This means that the distortion of sin pertains to the side of the subject and not to the object
that is known as such; the possibility for understanding (here: perception) is qualified by
sin.184
In order therefore to know, a certain pre-disposition of the knowing subject is
necessary, a ‘condition for receiving’ the truth so that what is received as true is received
undistorted.185
The negation of the possibility of distortion in receiving a true understanding
and hence the denial of this ‘condition’, is a typical modern assumption based on the
proclaimed autonomy of reason. Smith sees such a postulation of the autonomy and neutrality
as ‘forfeited by the fall’186
and as having ‘failed to grasp the scope and ubiquity of the fall’187
and thus resting on an ‘insufficient radical hamartiology’.188
Above assertions might seem confusing given the already mentioned affirmations
regarding the goodness of finitude and particularity. How should we interpret Smith on this
point? In order to understand what kind of influence Smith gives to sin it is necessary to first
183 “Questions about the Perception of ‘Christian Truth’: On the Affective Effects of Sin,” New Blackfriars 88
(September 2007): 592.
184 Ibid., 590-1.
185 WAP 27n19; cf. 48:‘God’s provision of objective light (revelation) does not resolve the problem of subjective
darkness.’
186 IRO 180.
187 Ibid. cf. WAP 28.
188 IRO 179.
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grasp an important distinction which is used by Smith throughout his thought on several
occasions, namely the distinction between structure and direction.189
Already appearing in Augustine’s De civitate Dei it was especially the Dutch reformed
tradition via Kuyper and Dooyeweerd that integrated this distinction into their worldview.
The basic understanding behind the distinction is that a thing has both a created structure
which forms its essence and a direction which contains its purpose. Compare it to an arrow:
the ‘body’ of the arrow constitutes its structure, while its direction is determined by the
specific point towards it is aimed. Moreover, this also shows that the essential structure of an
arrow cannot be altered without getting a different arrow in return, while the direction of an
arrow can vary from time to time without altering the arrow itself. Our interpretation of a
certain aspect of reality, according to Smith, should be guided by this distinction. To give an
example: in his consideration of the role of theatre in Augustine Smith points exactly to this
distinction as a critique on the Church Father.190
For Augustine it follows from the fact that
the theatre stirs passions and emotions that the theatre itself is evil, but simultaneously
acknowledges elsewhere that his Confessions aims at a similar goal for his readers (only now
in a good way). Smith explains this tension (unfelt by Augustine) using the distinction
between the structural aspect of the human that it is an emotional and affective being and the
direction these emotions and affections can take. To declare the theatre as evil as a result of its
stirring of passions is therefore a confusion of structure and direction: the (stirring of the)
passions itself are not wrong (as in the case of the Confessions) but the specific direction that
they take.
189 The reason that we waited to deal with this important distinction is that it is a qualifying distinction, which
means that it qualifies earlier made assertions and thus makes the most sense after having laid out some
theoretical background of Smith’s thought. For a good exposition on this distinction cf. Albert M. Wolters,
Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 72-95.
190 “Staging the Incarnation,” 131ff.; cf. IRO 225-9.
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Smith applies this distinction to the human person in general: every human person
structurally has a heart (in the anthropological sense explained above; §2.5.2) and is therefore
structurally a lover while simultaneously the love of this heart can take different directions
(teloi).191
Based on the affirmations of goodness of materiality and embodiment Smith
perceives the structural properties of the human being as essentially good, but this does not
imply that he affirms every direction these structures may take. On the contrary, DTK’s third
chapter is primarily devoted to getting our attention to the dangerous times we as Christians
live in since our culture seeks to receive our fundamental love which should go to God and
his Kingdom alone. Consequently, when Smith explains the influence of sin on the human
person, this pertains to the direction of the human person and not his essential structure. Sin
does not make our fundamental love itself evil, but only directs it to an evil telos. Our ‘love
pump’ is not turned off by sin, but only ‘knocked of its kilter’ resulting in misdirection and
wrong aims.192
Back to our question: does Smith’s acknowledgement of the distorting influence of sin on
the human person in its understanding of the world contradicts his affirmation of biased,
subjective understanding in general? mē genoito! Biased, subjective understanding is part of
the good created structure of the human person but its direction can be distorted by sin.193
Smith: ‘This allows us to account for the way in which hermeneutics remains essentially (i.e.,
structurally) good but also potentially violent.’194
Describing the acknowledgement of the
noetic effects of sin as contradicting the affirmation of subjectivity is a confusion of structure
and direction.
191 Recall DTK 46-63.
192 Ibid., 52. Cf. Alvin Plantinga for more on sin as affective disorder: Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian
Belief (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), 208ff.
193 Cf. FOI 159.
194 Ibid. 159n31.
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The presence of sin in our reality therefore not so much effectuates the possibility of
misunderstanding (a possibility already available in Eden), it does open the possibility for
misdirection. Yet, while the results of this misdirection may be grotesque, the final word is
not given to sin, since the possibility for misdirection opens simultaneously the possibility for
redirection. According to Smith, the Holy Spirit is given a double function in this redirecting
of our hermeneutical structure.195
First and foremost the Spirit is active in this by providing
the ‘subjective condition of possibility’196
for perception. As part of regeneration the
possibility for redirection becomes available through the Spirit.197
We are not bound to a state
of sin in which our heart’s (as anthropological center) direction is necessarily improper, but
receive in regeneration freedom to be directed to something (someone) else. The second
function of the Spirit is this process of redirecting itself. Smith: ‘being properly directed to
our proper telos requires a regeneration and redirection of the heart by the Holy Spirit.’198
The
result is what Smith would call a counterformation vis-à-vis the surrounding world. In DTK
Smith construes a take on the world which sees the influence of culture as essentially
formative on our anthropological direction. Given the ‘secular’199
nature of the world this
direction is usually not to the proper telos according to the call of the Kingdom of God. This
process of redirecting by the Holy Spirit therefore truly is a counterformation, an
anthropological correction of the world’s ‘insidious’200
influences.201
195 Plantinga as well acknowledges the Spirit to be the active force countering the noetic effects of sin; cf.
Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, chs. 8-9.
196 “Questions,” 593; cf. IRO 166.
197 WAP 121.
198 Ibid., 107.
199 Cf. DTK 88n20.
200 Ibid., 93.
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Although not explicitly formulated as such (unwittingly?), Smith develops a quite different
incarnational notion here. By posing the Spirit’s regeneration as locus of redirection after
misdirection and given the incarnation as condition of possibility for the coming of the Spirit
(Lk.3:16; Jh.16:7; Ac.2:33), the incarnation (indirectly) is construed – this time not as
affirmation of God’s view on reality, but as God’s divine response to hermeneutical problems.
Construing the work of the Spirit to redirect the human being to its proper telos is therefore an
(albeit peculiar) incarnational strategy.
2.5.5 Conclusion
Smith’s anthropology seeks holism in its expression of the human being. Against modern
tendencies to create a reductionistic picture of the human being with an emphasis on his
rational faculties, Smith seeks to give an account of the human being – following his
epistemology – as completely involved in the world. Central in his anthropology is therefore
the revaluing of embodiment which is oftentimes left out of the anthropological
considerations.
To fruitfully be able to conceptualize this holistic character of his view on man, Smith
develops the concept of heart as the anthropological center of the human being from which his
basic comportment to the world proceeds as an affective involvement in the world. Smith
expresses this affective comportment as a fundamental love which is directed to a certain aim.
This direction of love is influenced by (bodily) practices and habits and can therefore be
altered. This alterability is particularly noticeable through the so-called ‘noetic effects of sin’
by which Smith points to the distortion effectuated by sin in human understanding. To be able
to remain faithful to his earlier appreciation of plurality and subjectivity as a created good,
201 Ibid., 88. The spiritual nature of this redirecting is by no means limited to the Spirit’s formation, but also
present in the world’s formation; cf. ibid., 93n5.
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Smith employs the distinction between the human structure and direction to plausibly
conceptualize these effects. Sin distorts the anthropological direction of the human being in
his understanding, but his (hermeneutical) structure remains good. The Holy Spirit is the
active agent in restoring this misdirecting by way of regenerating the fundamental direction of
human being unto its proper telos.
2.6 Incarnational Hermeneutical Theory
2.6.1 Recapitulating
Having explored the background of Smith’s hermeneutical theory we are now in a position
to bring everything that has been said together and from that formulate his understanding of
hermeneutics in general. Appendix I provides a schematic overview of the different elements
of Smith’s theoretical framework that we have established thus far. From the two central
events of creation and incarnation Smith derives four basic affirmations of reality which
support his assertions in epistemology, ontology, and anthropology. These latter three are on
their turn pillars underneath Smith’s hermeneutical theory.
In a certain sense there is little new that is left to say in this. In Derridean fashion we could
argue that the context – so to speak – of Smith’s hermeneutic is established and a fuller
determination of the thing itself is beyond reach. The thing itself, however, remains important
nonetheless since the background of Smith's hermeneutical assertions brings, hopefully, a
deeper and richer understanding of the assertions themselves (just as the hermeneutical circle
teaches us). What we provide therefore as exposition of Smith’s hermeneutical theory not
only is an attempt to a succinct statement of his hermeneutic in order to bring everything
together in one hermeneutical expression, but also will shed new light on what is already
understood earlier.
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2.6.2 The Triad of Understanding: An Incarnational Perspective
The process of hermeneutics – extremely simplified – can be understood as involving three
things: that which is interpreted (object), that which interprets (interpreter), and the process of
interpreting itself (interpretation). The theory of hermeneutics pertains therefore to these three
components both in their independence as well as in their interdependence. We see the
contours of this triad returning in the three pillars behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory: his
sacramental ontology pertaining to the object of the act of interpreting, his holistic
anthropology pertaining to the interpreter, and his narratival epistemology pertaining to the
process of interpretation itself. Each pillar informs Smith’s view on a particular element of the
hermeneutical process and simultaneously influences the other, an interdependence we
already encountered to some extent in our analysis of the three pillars.
The most central event which shapes Smith’s view on hermeneutics is the incarnation of
God in Christ and therefore it is illuminating to use it as a way to bring his hermeneutical
assertions into one expression. Our guide in this will be what may count as the most
‘incarnational’ verse of Scripture: John 1:14a: ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among
us, and we have seen his glory.’ (NRSV) The triad of understanding (object, interpreter and
interpretation) is discernible here as well (if some freedom is permitted) and resonates with
the different elements behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory. It is the Word that became flesh
as the divine object given to humankind to be interpreted and hence to give knowledge of God
(‘has made Him known’ 1:18). In this act God affirmed materiality as a good, God-given
aspect of reality and made it even a carrier of truth, of His self-revelation (affirmation of
participation). The Word ‘lived among us’, and thus became finite and particular, yet not
without losing His being the revelation of God. God did not avoid finitude and particularity,
but chose the Word as medium for His self-revelation and thus chose to mediate the
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knowledge of Him.202
‘And we have seen His glory’. The Word became flesh in order to be
seen by us. God made us interpreters by giving us His self-revelation in Christ so that we
through Him could start to know God. This is not a knowledge which remains at the cognitive
level but reaches to the heart level: ‘It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart,
who has made him known.’ (1:18, NRSV)203
God aimed for a relationship with the whole
person in the incarnation by becoming flesh, not just with the person’s head. Knowing the
Word is therefore much more on an affective level seeking to stir our love, than on a rational
level seeking to stir our minds.
This (admittedly frank) perspective on the passage in John shows its relatedness with
Smith’s theoretical assertions that we analyzed above and can function as a map for
understanding Smith’s hermeneutical position. Every act of interpretation of an object is like
the human being facing the incarnation. The object, like God, is transcendent to the
interpreter, but nonetheless revealing itself to the interpreter which receives mediated yet
truthful knowledge of the object.204
Truth from this viewpoint is therefore a process of
uncovering, an unveiling of the object that is interpreted.205
Simultaneously, just as the Christ
incarnated is only properly understood in His referring to the Father, objects are only
understood in their referential structure. As Smith follows Dooyeweerd: ‘Meaning is the
being of all that is created.’206
Objects are sacramentally understood, just as Christ is the true
sacrament of God. Moreover, sacraments are not just cognitive matters, but rather affective
202 This is underscored by the reality of four Gospels each portraying Jesus’ life from a different perspective.
203 Cf. Jh.20:30-1.
204 This revelation of the transcendent object to the interpreter is a central topic of ST. See esp. ch.5 for Smith’s
sketch of the incarnation as paradigm for this revelation.
205 Cf. FOI 170.
206 See note 72, 136.
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and embodied events. Indeed, just as God needed to be ‘embodied’ before we could truly
know Him, embodiment is also necessary to a true understanding of the world around us.
2.6.3 From Christmas to Pentecost: Conclusion
As we have seen, the incarnation provides a paradigm from which Smith’s hermeneutic
can be mapped out. We have tried to first expose the fundamental presuppositions that bear
his theoretical framework and elaborated these into the construction of his perspective on
ontology, epistemology, and anthropology. Finally we have sought to put these three elements
together in one expression of hermeneutics using the incarnation as basic paradigm.
Since therefore the groundwork has been laid we are now enabled to pursue our main
question concerning the role of the Holy Spirit in postmodern hermeneutics in a more solid
fashion by using above map of Smith’s hermeneutical theory, including its theoretical
background, as resource for our further pneumatological construction. Thus far we
deliberately have paid no particular attention to the role of the Spirit unless it was
appropriated in our mapping of Smith’s theoretical assertions,207
so that our subsequent
analysis of the role of the Holy Spirit in Smith is decently embedded in his broader theoretical
framework and consequently better suited for further construction.
Since we now have a map, the journey continues. And the path leads us – so to speak –
from Christmas to Pentecost, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from Logos to Pneuma, from God
among men to God in men.
207 Esp. the role of the Spirit’s presence in creation in Smith’s ontology (§2.4.3) and the Spirit as agent of
redirection in Smith’s anthropology (§2.5.4).
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Chapter 3 | The Role of the Spirit in Smith’s Hermeneutical Theory
But about the things of the Spirit, my brothers,
it is not right for you to be without teaching. – 1Cor.12:1 (BBE)
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. – Gal.5:25 (NIV)
3.1 Introduction
More than once the Holy Spirit has been described as the ‘Cinderella’ of the Trinity. While
the two sisters went to the theological ball, the Holy Spirit got left behind every time.208
Although not perhaps in the same measure, the Spirit had a kind of Cinderella-like status in
roughly the first decade of the philosophy/theology of Smith especially in light of his
pentecostal background.209
Albeit he ‘repented’ from this in a later stage of his writings210
and
developed a more explicit pneumatology in TT, the person and work of the Spirit is still in
certain respects a limited and relatively unexplored area in his thought in particular
concerning his hermeneutical assertions.
In this chapter our main goal is to give an outline of the pneumatological considerations
that are nonetheless present in his thought and to sketch them against the backdrop of the
theoretical framework we provided earlier. In this way an embedded understanding of the
theoretical role the Holy Spirit receives from Smith is established and the possibilities for
further theoretical construction of these ideas are exposed. Smith's thought on the Spirit is
largely covered by three central themes, namely enchantment, regeneration, and trust. In the
208 Cf. Willem J. Ouweneel, De Geest van God: Ontwerp van een Pneumatologie (Vaassen: Medema, 2007), 25
and references therein.
209 Amos Yong also points to a lack of Spirit in his critique of IRO: Amos Yong, “Radically Orthodox,
Reformed, and Pentecostal: Rethinking the Intersection of Post/Modernity and the Religions in Conversation
with James K.A. Smith,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 15:2 (2007): 233-50 (esp. 246-50).
210 “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,”, 252.
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coming paragraphs we will first set out to describe these three and subsequently critique them
with an emphasis on underdeveloped aspects concerning the Spirit and hermeneutics. Our
critique will bring up several hiatuses in Smith’s pneumatological considerations which we
will present at the end of the chapter as program for our theological construction of these
issues in subsequent chapters.
3.2 Enchantment: The Immanence of the Spirit.
The first theme that deserves our consideration is distinctively ontological. We already
touched upon it earlier in our exploration of Smith's sacramental ontology and will now more
fully expose his ideas in this regard. These pneumatological assertions stem mainly from
Smith’s later works since they a result from the ‘pneumatological assist’ that Amos Yong
gave to Smith in an article of 2007.211
In an article likeminded but prior to TT Smith
expresses the central thought here as he finds it in pentecostalism:
‘At the heart of Pentecostal theology is an ontological claim: that the
same Spirit who animated the apostles at Pentecost continues to be actively,
dynamically, and miraculously present both in the ecclesial community and
in creation.’212
We already encountered this ontological claim with regard to the concept of enkapsis in
Smith’s ontology namely that the Spirit is present within creation and functions as a kind of
‘bridge’ between the natural and the supernatural. The immanence of the Spirit was
emphasized there in order that the continuity between transcendence and immanence could be
retained. We will try to sketch Smith’s pneumatological assertions within his ontology more
extensively working from the concept of enchantment.
211 Cf. note 209. Smith’s responded in “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,”; cf. also TT 101-2.
212 “Thinking in Tongues,” First Things 182 (2008): 27.
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Enchantment points to the immanence of the Spirit within the created order.213
The Spirit is
present and active within the material so that it becomes ‘a good and necessary mediator of
the Spirit’s work and presence.’214
Smith even goes one step further and states that the Spirit
is the ‘agent of suspension’215
by which he refers to the concept of participation we already
discussed. This latter means that the way in which transcendence participates in immanence is
by means of the Holy Spirit. Smith (following Yong here) postulates therefore the Spirit as
the transcendent presence within immanence. The incarnational logic working behind this is
clear: God as transcendent Creator does not eschew immanence as shown in the incarnation
but chooses it to be the place of His presence through the Spirit.216
Immanence thus functions
as the playing-field for the Spirit, it’s the ‘arena of the Spirit’s unfolding.’217
This presence is not equally distributed but can vary in intensity.218
This follows from the
fact that, according to Smith, participation of creation by means of the Spirit not necessarily is
‘fully’ or ‘properly’ which results in participation functioning in intensities or degrees.219
The
fact that the Spirit is the divine participation in created reality does not deny the possibility of
this participation being not always in the same way or to the same degree. To successfully
conceptualize this difference in participation of the Spirit Smith distinguishes between two
213 TT 39-40, 88, 97, 103-5.
214 Ibid., 82; cf. ibid., 99; DTK 150: ‘the Spirit [works] through and in (…) material practices.’; emphasis
original.
215 TT 101.
216 This includes not only created material reality, but also the ‘human poiēsis’ within this creation. ‘[H]uman
cultural making (…) is an arena of the Spirit’s continued activity and revelation.’ WAP 130; cf. 131-2; ‘The
Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,”, 256-8.
217 WAP 132
218 TT 102, 104; “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,”, 255-6; DTK 148-9.
219 “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,’ 256.
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kinds: a structural (low-grade intensity) participation and a directional (high-grade)
participation.220
In so doing he answers to two (potentially) problematic questions: the first
forms the impetus for this distinction and was also posed by Yong, namely how Smith is able
to discriminate properly (i.e. equally radical) between Christian and non-Christian (or within
the Kingdom, outside the Kingdom) created realities just as Scripture if the Spirit inheres in
all of these. The second question is more ontological: if the Spirit participates in all created
material reality as a means by which immanence is for its being dependent upon the
transcendent and thus possesses a radical ‘gift-character’, and if simultaneously this
participation is gradual, does this not mean that material reality varies in their being or reality
(which would be a rather uncomfortable position)? Both questions are answered not only by
allowing for the Spirit to be present in a certain degree, but also by distinguishing between
structure and direction. Structurally, all material reality participates in an equal measure,
directionally however, this can vary. This is a ‘real and critical’221
distinction and thus
accounts for the fundamental difference within created reality which was raised by the first
question. Furthermore, it is impossible to qualify ‘beingness’ on the structural level of being
(it is to be or not to be and nothing in between) but on the directional level this however is
perfectly possible (even desirable) given the multiple teloi that being can have. As such the
possibility for proper and improper participation and hence being is made plausible.
The latter notion of a certain directionality inherent to being supports the sacramental
character that Smith allots to being in his ontology. As a sacrament, being itself points beyond
itself to a (transcendent) telos: the world as such offers ‘a sacramental window into
220 Ibid.
221 Ibid., 257.
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transcendent reality.’222
The sacramental nature of being therefore entails the directionality
that Smith constructs in his pneumatological view on participation.
Although Smith does not explicitly connects the sacramentality of being to the presence of
the Spirit, such an understanding of it seems to be implied in his statements. In his
development of a notion we already encountered viz. ‘sacramental imagination’ (i.e. looking
at the world as a sacrament), he perceives this as a way to avoid reductionism in his ontology
and as a third way between naturalism and supernaturalism.223
This clearly resonates with the
enchanted ontology of TT in which a similar third way is constructed by means of an ‘en-
Spirited’ nature.224
Moreover, in Smith’s main postulation of the sacramental imagination he
uses sacramentality and inhabitation by the Spirit almost interchangeably.225
Therefore it
seems justified to us to interpret Smith’s sacramental ontology pneumatologically and see the
Spirit’s presence intimately connected to the concept of participation. We will return to this
particular issue later on after we have discussed Smith's thoughts considering regeneration
and trust; the former being the theme we will turn to now.
3.3 Regeneration: Conditioned by the Spirit
While the first central pneumatological theme was typically ontological, the second is
much more anthropological and epistemological and focuses on the work of the Spirit in the
222 DTK 141; cf. “Between Predication and Silence,” 72-3.
223 DTK 143.
224 TT 96-103.
225 DTK 148-9: ‘I think we could (…) understand the enduring and unique significance of the sacraments and the
church’s worship life as sites of a special presence of the Spirit (…) While the whole world is a sacrament, we
might say that the sacraments and the liturgy are unique “hot spots” where God’s formative, illuminating
presence is particularly “intense.” While the Spirit inhabits all of creation, there is also a sense that the Spirit’s
presence is intensified in particular places things and actions.’ (emphasis added)
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human as being and in particular as perceiver. Similar to the ontological discussion above,
this particular function of the Spirit is already concisely dealt with earlier when we discussed
the Spirit as agent of the redirection of the human heart to its proper goal. We will seek to
extent this picture here by taking into consideration other pneumatological assertions of Smith
as well. First we will discuss the what of the Spirit’s work within regeneration and
subsequently turn to the description of the how of His activities.
Conceptually, regeneration is primarily employed as a regeneration of the heart. As Smith
submits: ‘being properly directed to our proper telos requires a regeneration and redirection of
the heart by the Holy Spirit.’226
Redirection and regeneration are intimately linked to each
other in Smith’s thought since regeneration pertains not to the ontological structure of the
heart itself – which is not subject to change, neither by sin nor by the Spirit – but to the moral-
religious direction of the heart demonstrated by the love that proceeds from it. Since love
functions within Smith’s anthropology as the expression of the fundamental affective
comportment of the human being to the world around him and is central to the human being’s
understanding of that world, the regeneration by the Holy Spirit is an epistemological
category as well. Understanding, therefore, is contingent upon regeneration.227
It is hence the
Holy Spirit that provides the ‘subjective condition of possibility’228
for perception and this is a
work on the subject-side of the interpretive activity. Understanding does not depend on the
object as such, but requires a proper subject i.e. the blame of misunderstanding is never to be
put on the side of the object but always on the subject’s side.229
Consequently, the Holy
Spirit’s hermeneutical work is always pertaining to the subject’s conditions.
226 WAP 107.
227 IRO 166; WAP 27n19, 48, 121; DTK 194; TT 77; cf. IRO 237.
228 “Questions,” 593.
229 Cf. IRO 83n80, WAP 51.
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What this conditioning work of the Spirit within regeneration of the subject exactly entails
is rarely addressed by Smith. In the brand-new edition of FOI Smith hints at the work of the
Spirit in giving clarity to the Biblical text as ‘a function of illumination by the Spirit, and thus
a matter of having adequate “background conditions” for understanding the text clearly
(…)’.230
The qualification ‘background’ captures our attention here since it seems to point to
an understanding of the subjective work of the Spirit as somehow ‘contextual’ i.e. focusing
indirectly on the understanding the interpreter. In a short concluding paragraph, Smith
moreover asserts:
[I]ncluded in the Spirit’s healing and renewing work is the very way in
which we perceive the world – the worldview that governs our perception,
the imagination that orients how we inhabit our world (…).231
This citation also points to an understanding by Smith of the regeneration of the Spirit as
affecting the subjective, contextual faculties that indirectly govern our understanding. A final
argument in this direction is provided in ‘Limited Inc/arnation’ (keeping in mind the
determinative function of ‘context’ for the meaning of a text) where Smith sees a
‘pneumatological hermeneutic’ as an ‘extension of the account of context provided above.’232
The context-ual nature of the work of the Holy Spirit seems implied here as well, be it in very
premature form. We will give our attention to this issue as well later on.
Having examined the what of the work of the Holy Spirit thus far, it is illuminating to now
turn to the how of this work and to see how Smith's conceives this process. We spoke above
about the connection between regeneration and redirection as a fundamental work of the Spirit
in the human being to influence his love and thus influence the affective, epistemic
230 FOI2 45n20.
231 TT 47; emphasis added.
232 ‘Limited Inc/arnation,’ 125; emphasis added.
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comportment of the human being to the world. The way Smith sees this happen is fully
coherent with his anthropology and emphasis therein on embodiment. Since ‘the way to our
hearts is through our bodies’233
it is the Spirit that needs to travel that same road in
regeneration. Smith: ‘[I]f our most basic comportment to the world is pre-cognitive and
affective, then such transformation has to be channeled through affective, embodied
means.’234
Hence, ‘the Spirit’s transformation must tap our emotional core (…) [and] must
reach us through our bodies.’235
The process (i.e. the how) of regeneration is a process of
affective, embodied transformation and as such lies close to the theological concept of
sanctification. Smith therefore pleads to not separate regeneration and sanctification since
they are necessarily connected within his anthropology.236
It is therefore not surprising that
Smith sees ‘embodied’ as central property of the activity of the Spirit in
regenerating/redirecting the person’s affective comportment to the world.
This embodied means of the Spirit is parallel to Smith’s ontological assertions regarding
the presence of the Spirit. Ontologically, Smith postulates the material as realm which is
inhabited by the Spirit’s presence. In similar vein it is the material side of the human being
which functions for Smith as the ‘vehicle’ for the Spirit’s working. Although this particular
resonance between ontology and anthropology is not explicitly mentioned by Smith (certainly
not from a pneumatological perspective) it is without doubt implied in particularly his
anthropological statements.237
Nevertheless, the connection between ontology and
anthropology (and epistemology as well as we will see) remains an important aspect of
233 DTK 58.
234 TT 72-3.
235 Ibid., 76.
236 IRO 166n72; cf. WAP 106-7: regeneration aims at becoming ‘a kind of person’ id est Christ.; cf. also DTK
162-5.
237 Cf. §2.5 on Smith’s ‘Holistic Anthropology’.
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Smith’s ontology to be considered more intensively; something we will deal with in our
evaluation below. Before that, we will summarize Smith’s pneumatological assertions to
further an embedded understanding of the role of the Spirit in Smith’s hermeneutical theory.
3.4 Trust in the Spirit: The ‘Pneumatic Pole’ of Smith’s Hermeneutical Model
In the final paragraph of FOI Smith endeavors to complete his creational-pneumatic model
which he developed throughout the book by ‘sketching a correlative hermeneutics of trust
grounded in the guidance of the Spirit.’238
By entitling this paragraph as the ‘pneumatic
pole’239
of his model Smith seems to indicate that it embodies the essential pneumatological
dimension of the hermeneutical model of FOI. Although the amount of material on this topic
– again – does not really meet our desire for it, we will try to present it as best as possible.
The key idea on which Smith’s assertions rest in this paragraph is what we earlier have
encountered as the fundamental narrative on which knowledge rest. We described it as the set
of pretheoretical commitments which form the basis for our narrative knowledge. This aspect
of knowledge runs parallel to what Smith sees as a fundamental trust in the Spirit: in the same
way as we entrust ourselves to these fundamental commitments, we also entrust ourselves to
the guidance of the Spirit.240
Since there is an unavoidable faith-aspect to our knowledge,
Smith urges to put our faith in the Spirit, to give our ‘pledge’ to the Spirit.
Smith sketches this trust in contrast to the attitude of suspicion which postmodernism with
Derrida et al. brought up in reaction to the discovery of the pretheoretical commitments
underneath all knowledge.241
Since Smith departs from the fundamental assumption of the
238 FOI, 149.
239 Ibid., 178.
240 Ibid., 180-183.
241 Ibid., 180.
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goodness of creation he argues that trust is a more appropriate response to this situation than
suspicion which can only arise when one understands reality as primordially ‘fallen’ i.e. as in
conflict from the beginning.
This faith or trust which Smith speaks of functions as a ‘check’ on the hermeneutical
process. While the first check or criterion lies in the object himself, this criterion of trust
functions more on the side of the subject in interpretation.242
In order to interpret correctly, the
subject needs to trust first.
Smith continues on this theme of trust:
Given this primordial trust, as the correlate of the goodness of creation,
space is made for a plurality of interpretations, a multiplicity of tongues,
which is also a very pneumatic-Pentecostal notion.243
Here, trust is correlated to the goodness of creation so that the two ‘poles’ of his creational-
pneumatic hermeneutical model are now explicitly next to one another.244
The creational
aspect pertaining to the ‘situationality of human be-ing’ while the pneumatic aspect pertains
to the ‘fundamental trust of human be-ing’.245
In their correlation they open ‘a hermeneutical
space’246
in which diversity and plurality in interpretation is allowed and even desired. From
this perspective the pneumatological dimension of Smith’s hermeneutical model opens the
242 Smith elaborates on the first check of interpretation using the concept of ‘empirical transcendentals’ which he
borrows from Dooyeweerd. These empirical transcendentals function as phenomenological criterion for
interpretation and are pertinently pertaining to the object. The key idea behind it is that the object itself restrains
or limits (passively) the interpretation of the subject, they set the hermeneutical boundaries or norms for
interpretation. Cf. ibid. 169-75.
243 Ibid., 183.
244 cf. above: ‘a correlative hermeneutics of trust’.
245 Ibid.
246 Ibid., 184.
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possibility for diversity and plurality. Trusting in the guidance of the Spirit will result,
according to Smith, to the discovery that God, in fact, ‘turns out to be a Pluralist’.247
When we
give our pledge to the Spirit, we get diversity in return.
It is unfortunate that Smith discusses this pneumatic dimension of his hermeneutical model
in just this paragraph since it leaves several aspects unclear.248
Also in subsequent works, the
notion of trust in the Spirit is left outside of consideration. We will come back to this in our
evaluation below. Before that, let us first summarize the pneumatology working in Smith’s
hermeneutical theory.
3.5 Summary
From a hermeneutical point of view, the Holy Spirit comes to the fore in all three areas of
ontology, epistemology, and anthropology which form the core of Smith’s hermeneutical
thought. Concerning the Spirit’s role we can draw some tentative lines:
Ontology. Participation is a pneumatological concept. The Spirit inhabits material reality
and can dynamically work through it. Reality, therefore, is sacramental; it not only ‘bears’ the
divine presence through the Spirit, but also points toward transcendence.
Anthropology. Human regeneration is performed by the Spirit. It entails a redirection of the
fundamental love of the human heart toward its proper telos. Since this redirection takes place
via embodied means, the Spirit works through the body to regenerate the person.
Through regeneration by the Spirit, true understanding becomes possible, since the human
being’s basic epistemic comportment to the world is affective by nature. The Spirit’s work is
therefore conceived as an operation on the human being which enables him to understand.
247 Ibid., 59.
248 This includes the second edition of FOI which is unaltered with regard to this paragraph.
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Epistemology. Smith interprets his perspective that prior to every knowledge there is a
certain commitment as the pneumatological dimension of his hermeneutical proposal in FOI.
Entrusting oneself to the guidance of the Spirit forms a second criterion for knowledge and
makes possible a plural notion of truth.
We will now turn to our evaluation of what has been said until now concerning the role of
the Spirit in Smith.
3.6 Evaluation
Above statements in the three fields of ontology, anthropology, and epistemology are quite
broad and unclear in several respects. One of the reasons for this general character of above
summary comes from the fact that certain statements are primarily derived from only one or
two instances in which Smith refers to the subject, and usually not in an elaborate way. To
avoid therefore the pitfall of reading too much into Smith’s own words we deliberately chose
not to be too conclusive but to draw certain tentative lines which are open to receive further
construction. Although we hinted at certain possibilities for pneumatological connections at
the end of some paragraphs, these need further substantiation and back-up to be workable and
even then they should not be considered as constructions made by Smith himself since he
evidently does not state them. They might be construed by means of his thought, but not
simply attributed to his thought.
The three central themes of enchantment, regeneration, and trust cover most of Smith’s
pneumatological assertions in his works until today. In this paragraph we will evaluate the
role that Smith assigns to the Holy Spirit within his hermeneutical thought.
The hermeneutical import of these themes are significant in the sense that they touch on
three fundamental concepts working behind Smith’s hermeneutical theory. First of all the
ontological status of the object that is interpreted is – among other things – a participative
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status which pneumatologically interpreted is a function of the Spirit. Secondly the status of
the interpreter, construed by Smith as a fundamental lover, is conditioned by the working of
the Spirit since the Spirit is the agent of (re)direction. Thirdly, interpretation has a
pneumatological criterion in the form of trust. This is underscored by the radical noetic
dimension of sin that Smith acknowledges is primary and primarily countered by the working
of the Spirit. Therefore it cannot but be concluded that the role of the Spirit in Smith is not
sufficiently understood when it remains at the surface of his thought. On the contrary, such a
superficial conception of the pneumatological dimension would ignore the essential nature of
the themes of enchantment, regeneration, and trust within his theory. Given, however, this
essential nature of the themes, it is not entirely unjustified to attribute to Smith a certain lack
in the amount of theoretical reflection on the hermeneutical role of the Spirit. If the Spirit
indeed receives a fundamental position within ontology and anthropology/epistemology it
seems peculiar why Smith’s reflections are not accordingly elaborate on His exact function.249
Despite the fundamental nature of the three themes described above, they by no means can be
called comprehensive statements nor form an integrated whole with other hermeneutical
assertions given by Smith. Our first critical remark is therefore that the amount of material on
the Spirit seems a little limited vis-à-vis the basic character it bears.
Drawing further on this, our second critical remark pertains to the pneumatological
designation Smith attributes to his hermeneutical model. In FOI Smith proposes a ‘creational-
pneumatic hermeneutic’250
yet when the actual pneumatic dimension of this model is
established it happens in just seven pages in which only one reference (and not even a
249 To mention just one example: it is quite remarkable to find in Smith’s construction of a philosophical
anthropology in DTK no substantive reflection on the Spirit’s role (in particular concerning something as
‘spiritual’ as behavioral changes).
250 FOI 22.
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constructive one) is being made to the Holy Spirit.251
This seems hardly reason enough to
entitle his hermeneutical model as ‘pneumatic’. This pneumatic pole of his model remains
undeveloped since the first more or less substantial systematic engagement with the Holy
Spirit has to wait until Smith’s response on Yong’s article and concerns only ontological
issues. Also in TT it is primarily the ontological function of the Spirit that is emphasized,
although the amount of references to the Spirit increase and more hermeneutical assertions are
connected to the work of the Spirit. Yet, as it stands today, the pneumatic pole of Smith’s
hermeneutical model is only dealt with very shortly in FOI and marginally addressed in
subsequent works.
Above two critical remarks point to the fact that many questions remain unanswered
regarding the pneumatological dimension of Smith’s thought. Now granted, a fool can ask
more questions than a wise man can answer and to pose only remaining questions is not to
indicate mistakes and therefore these questions should not be considered de facto weaknesses
in his hermeneutical thought. They do, however, point to undeveloped aspects and hence to
areas which form hiatuses in the pneumatological dimension of his work.
Concerning the role of the Holy Spirit in Smith’s hermeneutic these questions are broad
and multi-faceted given the limited reflection on pneumatology in Smith. They concern the
very nature of the work of the Spirit in the hermeneutical process. What kind of work is the
Spirit doing in the process of interpretation? Surely this is not just on a cognitive level but
will reflect the holistic anthropology Smith stands for. But how is this then conceptualized?
And how does this relate to the heart as anthropological center for the person’s affective
comportment to the world given the redirecting/regenerating function of the Spirit in Smith?
These questions point to a deficit in Smith’s anthropology in the extent to which it reflects on
the inhering or residing of the Spirit in the human being. It is surprising not to find any
251 Ibid., 178-84.
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substantial reflection on the indwelling Spirit, especially from a pentecostal scholar as Smith.
His presence, at least in the believer, is presupposed, but not conceptualized relative to his
assertions on regeneration. This raises difficulties if one seeks to find out the exact nature of
the Spirit’s working inside the person to enable him to understand. And complementary to
this, if the Spirit employs embodied means to redirect the heart as Smith seems to suggest,
what is then a proper understanding of this enabling in the process of interpretation?
Another set of questions can be raised when we consider the ontological role of the Spirit
in Smith’s thought. What does it matter to interpreting and understanding the world in light of
the Spirit’s presence in the world? Is there a relationship between the world being ‘en-
Spirited’ and the function of the Spirit in the interpreter who tries to interpret the world?
Smith pneumatological interpretation of participation leads him to the concept of
enchantment, but this concept seems to function in his theory only as sort of defense of his
pentecostal ontology as a ‘third way’ between naturalism and supernaturalism. Smith seems
to use the Spirit therefore primarily as a way to construct an ontology in which immanence is
open to transcendent ‘intervention’ by means of his pneumatological interpretation of
participation. But given the fact that participation and the Spirit are related ideas, should this
perspective not decisively alter our fundamental understanding of immanent creation?
Participation, as we have seen, is essentially a revelational aspect of immanence and thus is
significantly tied to what immanence ‘means’.252
If Smith then pneumatologically interprets
this revelational or ‘meaning-full’ property of immanence, why then does he not connects this
pneumatological view on immanence to his pneumatological view on the human
understanding of immanence where the Spirit, according to him, is the condition of possibility
for perception? Is it not fair to ask what the relationship is between the working of the Spirit
252 Cf. Dooyeweerd’s ‘meaning is the being of all that is created’.
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as fundamental agent in the revelational character of immanence and the working of the Spirit
which enables us to understand this revelation of immanence?
As we can see, enough questions are open for further consideration. This, of course, does
not immediately mean that Smith can be blamed for not having answered all of them but it
does indicate that his hermeneutical theory is open to further construction.
A final critical remark needs to be placed towards his conception of the fundamental trust
in the guidance of the Spirit as underscoring his hermeneutical model. Besides the limited
attention it receives in FOI and the silence in his other works on this ‘pneumatic pole’, we
need to question the plausibility of his pneumatological interpretation of the faith-aspect
working in his epistemology as it now stands. Although the basic goal of Smith in his
postulation of this fundamental trust seems right and congruent with his creational model, it
should be safeguarded against misconceptions. To perceive reality possessing an a priori
goodness received at creation for the process of interpretation and to pose the trust that
interpretation will be guided by the Spirit as correlative element is one thing, but to construe
the latter as ‘second criterion’253
for interpretation is another thing. To interpret the
pretheoretical commitments in our knowledge as pertaining to the Spirit is coherent with his
construal of reality, but this does not make it ipso facto a criterion for this knowledge. While
Smith rightly rejects suspicion as unfitted for his hermeneutical model, he needs to take care
not to fall in naivety instead of trust. Committing oneself to the guidance of the Spirit
certainly produces diversity, but certainly not every species in the diversity of interpretation is
from the Spirit. The line is narrow here and it is not said that Smith surely went astray, but
given the limited reflection on this his ‘pneumatic pole’ is prone to misconception and hence
seems guilty of a certain carelessness in this regard. Surely Smith would not seek to open the
door for relativism through acknowledging a certain trust in the Spirit, however, this trust
253 FOI 178.
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needs further qualification in order to keep the door closed. Just by posing a fundamental trust
in the guidance of the Spirit is not enough to make it a criterion for interpretation.
3.7 Proceeding
Given the above it seems clear that the pneumatology of Smith's hermeneutical model is
open for further development and this is exactly what the second part of the main research
question aims at. We were able to identify three central aspects of the hermeneutical role of
the Spirit in Smith’s thought and will now seek to fill in gaps that are left open and try to
further construct this role within and by means of Smith’s hermeneutical framework. We will
do this by formulating several main questions that each deals with a different aspect of the
role of the Spirit in Smith’s hermeneutics. Although we in no account pretend to be able to be
comprehensive on the topic here, we will seek to cover some central elements of the
hermeneutical role of the Holy Spirit in order to sketch the contours of a theological
construction of the role of the Holy Spirit within the hermeneutical theory of Smith.
The first question pertains to the general work of the Spirit on the interpreter so that he
receives understanding as it is generally understood in the concept of illumination. This basic
influence of the Spirit on the interpreting subject needs more extensive conceptualization to
be understood. Smith hints at a certain contextual working of the Spirit in this regard, but does
not explain how this exactly takes place. How should what is normally dubbed illumination
be conceived within Smith’s hermeneutical theory? Our first central question therefore would
be How can this contextual nature of the work of the Spirit on the interpreter within the
hermeneutical process as Smith describes it be further deepened?
The second question pertains to the interplay between Smith’s ontology and hermeneutics.
Smith pneumatologically interprets participation as connected to the presence of the Spirit and
thus develops a sacramental understanding of the world. This sacramentality, however, is
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barely connected to the human being’s understanding of the world and it is therefore unclear
what it means to interpret the world as a sacrament. Moreover, the significance of the Spirit’s
presence in the world relative to His active role in understanding the world lacks clarity. Our
second question seeks therefore to find out how this connection between the Spirit’s
ontological role and His epistemological role can be conceptualized and hence would be: How
does Smith’s notion of the sacramental nature of the world connect to the hermeneutical role
of the Spirit?
The third question deals with the topic of normativity relative to the hermeneutical role of
the Spirit. Smith develops the notion of fundamental trust in the guidance of the Spirit as
criterion for interpretation yet without sufficient warrant. When dealing with the normative
dimension of the hermeneutical role of the Spirit in this regard it is necessary to develop a
more extensive understanding of the relationship between Word and Spirit. Our third question
endeavors to rethink this relationship from the perspective of Smith’s hermeneutical theory in
order to be able to better establish his pneumatological criterion and hence will be: How can
Smith’s pneumatological criterion readily be improved within the framework of his
hermeneutical theory?
The second part of this work will be devoted to answer the programmatic questions
formulated above. The next chapter will focus on the first question, while the chapter
thereafter will deal with the latter two questions.
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Part II
Developing the Role of the Holy Spirit in James K.A. Smith
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Chapter 4 | From Affirmation to Transformation
But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,
he will bear witness about me. – Jh.15:26 (ESV)
We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God,
that we may understand what God has freely given us. (…)
The spiritual man makes judgments about all things. (…)
We have the mind of Christ. – 1Cor.2:12,15-6 (NIV)
Seeking to give expression to the nature of the work of the Spirit is far from being a plain
and self-evident task. ‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you
do not know where it comes from or where it goes.’ (John 3:8) With reference to this text
Anthony C. Thiselton – in the context of hermeneutics – warns therefore to not too
emphatically investigate the exact how of the work of the Spirit but rather focus on the that of
His work and on what He effectuates.254
Although his comment is meant well it should not
undermine the central task of this chapter, namely to conceptualize the work of the Spirit in
interpretation since such an endeavor might as well bring to light our own position towards
the Spirit’s actions. To increase in awareness and understanding of God’s gracious workings
in creation in general and the believer in particular paves the way for a more truthful and
fruitful positioning of the believer in his responsibility towards this grace. Although Thiselton
may be right in reckoning the reality of grace preeminent relative to our understanding of the
reality of grace, this should never rob us of the search for a proper attitude and response
towards this reality.
This chapter is the first chapter of the second part of this thesis and builds upon the first
central question which arose from our evaluation of the pneumatological dimension of
254 Anthony C. Thiselton, Hermeneutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 349-50.
87
Smith’s hermeneutical theory (§3.6-7). It is therefore also the first step in our development of
his hermeneutical theory with regard to the role of the Spirit. The basic inquiry which
undergirds this chapter is: How can the contextual nature of the work of the Spirit on the
interpreter within the hermeneutical process as Smith describes it be further deepened?
Our approach in this chapter will consist of two sections. The first section will be a
dogmatic exploration of the doctrine of illumination in which we will analyze and evaluate
several traditional understandings throughout Protestant theology of illumination given the
fact that regularly within this tradition ‘the role of the Spirit in interpretation has been
subsumed under discussions of the doctrine of illumination.’255
This will provide a fruitful
starting-point to address the same issue only from the perspective of Smith. Against this
backdrop, the aim of the second section is therefore, after having critiqued the foregoing
positions, to sketch an alternative position on the doctrine of illumination by means of
Smith’s hermeneutical framework and pneumatological assertions presented in the previous
two chapters. This, hopefully, will give insight in how the unique hermeneutical position of
Smith opens the possibility to give a more comprehensive formulation of the work of the
Spirit within the hermeneutical process.
4.1 Old Light on Illumination: A Dogmatic Reconnaissance
4.1.1 Introduction
A theological perspective on the doctrine of illumination necessarily entails a variety of
other doctrinal concerns. Besides several issues usually dealt with in the internal prolegomena
of theology such as revelation and the possibility of knowledge of God, its precise
formulation requires anthropological, pneumatological, and usually also bibliological
255 Gary L. Nebeker, “The Holy Spirit, Hermeneutics, and Transformation: From Present to Future Glory,”
Evangelical Review of Theology 27:1 (2003): 47.
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considerations. This implies that illumination can be regarded as a ‘contextual’ doctrine; its
definition is in strong dependence on other – more fundamental – doctrinal issues. As a result
of this we find a diverse treatment the doctrine throughout Protestant theology while each
theologian locates it somewhere in the wide array of the abovementioned dogmatic loci of
prolegomena, anthropology, pneumatology or bibliology. This variety certainly did not
enhance the depth of analysis nor the weight or attention given to this particular doctrine.
Oftentimes one encounters either the use of illumination-terminology without further
explanation or a superficial treatment of the concept in which little more is said than to
specify it to a working of the Spirit in which He enables the human to understand (Scripture).
This hiatus in understanding the nature of the hermeneutical role of the Spirit did not go
unnoticed by scholars.256
Nevertheless it is surprising to find a doctrine, while broadly being
acknowledged a part of systematic theology, treated as if its understanding without much
difficulties can be presupposed. Or is there more going on here? Could it be that present
theological frameworks perhaps lack concepts in this matter? Our exposition hopefully will
give some insight into this question.
The aforementioned gap in reflection of course does not mean that the scholarly
discussion thus far is entirely devoid of any reflection on the doctrine of illumination.
Although it is beyond the scope of the present work to map out every distinct position within
the field, several major positions can be discerned and are enough to provide a decent
entrance into the debate so that a clear background can be sketched against which the position
of Smith fruitfully can be developed.
256 See e.g. the comments of John Christopher Thomas, “Holy Spirit and Interpretation,” in Dictionary of
Biblical Criticism and Interpretation, ed. Stanley E. Porter (London–New York: Routledge, 2007); 165-6, Roy
B. Zuck, “The Role of the Holy Spirit in Hermeneutics,” Bibliotheca Sacra 141:562 (1984): 120; and Clark H.
Pinnock, “The Role of the Spirit in Interpretation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 36:4 (1993):
491-3.
89
4.1.2 Augustine
Augustine was the first (could it be different?) to contribute significantly to a Christian
understanding of illumination.257
While the exact nature of the concept of illumination in
Augustine’s thought remains a matter of debate up until the present day,258
it is beyond
question that to him illumination is a sine qua non for knowledge in general. Indeed,
knowledge of any kind and not just a certain particular knowledge as some have argued.259
In
his early work de Magistro Augustine submits:
But as for all those things which we “understand,” it is not the outward
sound of the speaker’s words that we consult, but the truth which presides
over the mind itself from within, (…) Now He who is consulted and who is
said to “dwell in the inner man,” He it is who teaches us, namely, Christ,
that is to say, “the unchangeable Power of God and everlasting wisdom.”260
To understand truth, for Augustine, is to be taught – and the teacher is Christ.261
With
Christ as our ‘Inner Teacher’262
illumination is truly divine illumination and receives a
257 Carl R. Trueman, “Illumination,” Dictionary of Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J.
Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 316-7. For a comprehensive overview and critique of
the historical origin and reception of Augustine’s doctrine of illumination see Lydia Schumacher, Divine
Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell,
2011).
258 Ibid., 7-8.
259Cf. Gareth B. Matthews, “Knowledge and Illumination,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed.
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 180. The
relevance of this general scope of illumination will become clear when we touch upon this later on.
260 Augustine, De Magistro 11.38, trans. Robert P. Russell, The Fathers of the Church 59 (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1968), 51.
261 Cf. Augustine, Confessiones IV.15; V.6.
262 Matthews, 181.
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distinctly Christological shape. Understanding is therefore received and gives man the
capacity to gain knowledge. This is either by giving the content of this knowledge (as e.g. in
Scripture) or by providing the ‘insight into the truth’ so that we are enabled to understand it.
The latter working seems in general more appropriate to describe the essence of Augustine’s
doctrine of illumination.263
God provides insight by clearing the way for the human mind to
access the truth in the Divine Mind so the human mind can understand and evaluate the object
of his understanding.264
The (neo)-Platonism working behind this perspective is clear: while
Plato would argue for understanding as a recognition of the Forms impressed on the
(preexistent) soul of the human subject, Augustine postulates that God impresses the truth of
an object in a continuous fashion on the human mind.265
This implies that illumination, for
Augustine, is God performing a mediating role between the object known and the knower by
constantly creating the connection between the two.266
In other words: God teaches us the
truth of what we seek to know. Therefore, Augustine confers a substantial significance to
illumination since from his perspective to speak of certainty in knowledge it is impossible to
avoid divine assistance in order to achieve it.
Augustine’s legacy on divine illumination would form the impetus for considerable debate
between his scholastic descendants in Medieval times. Yet during this time illumination as
divine working became increasingly under suspicion and gradually was rejected as
263 Cf. Robert Pasnau, “Divine Illumination,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition),
ed. Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/illumination/ (accessed March, 15
2012).
264 Trueman, 316, Matthews, 181.
265 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985), 254; Trueman, 316;
Matthews, 179-80.
266 Erickson, Christian Theology, 254.
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implausible especially in Duns Scotus.267
This situation altered dramatically during the
Reformation when the operation of divine illumination reappeared on the theological stage
and came to its height in Calvin, which delivered its most profound theological expression in
the Testimonium Spiritus Sancti Internum which would stamp Reformed thought for the
coming centuries. We will now turn to this second major view on the doctrine of illumination.
4.1.3 The Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit in Reformed Thought
Early Protestantism understood the illumining work of the Holy Spirit quite different than
before. Of major influence in this regard is the development of the doctrine of the internal
testimony or witness of the Holy Spirit by John Calvin which led to a massive alteration in
subsequent Reformed thought ‘with theologians on the whole identifying illumination with
the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.’268
As a result of this, the doctrine of illumination
began to lose its hermeneutical character and became much more subsumed under
bibliological considerations within theology. Consistent with the Reformed emphasis on the
centrality of the Word, illumination became defined relative to the properties of Scripture and
found its significance only in connection to the Word.
The main impetus for this change lies in the theological work of Calvin which treats the
Testimonium at the beginning of his Institutes.269
Particularly against Roman Catholicism
which advocated the view that the Church provides reliability to the Scripture, Calvin posits
the Testimonium of the Spirit as a solid ground for the trustworthiness of Scripture.270
The
central function of the Testimonium is therefore to ensure to the believer that ‘God speaks in
267 Pasnau, “Divine Illumination,”; cf. Trueman, 317.
268 Ibid.
269 Esp. Calvin, Inst. I.vii.
270 Calvin, Inst. I.vii.1-3.
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Scripture’271
or to put it differently: that the Word is ‘of God’.272
Illumination, thus conceived,
becomes a realization of the believer concerning the authority of Scripture which paves the
way for her true understanding.
The exact nature of the Testimonium is a debated theme in Reformed thought but again
and again it is stressed that only in connection to the Word the witness of the Spirit functions
properly; they go together.273
The importance of defending the Testimonium against any
separation from the Word into a formalized position lies according to Reformed dogmatician
G.C. Berkouwer in the authority of Scripture itself.274
If Scripture’s authenticity can only be
maintained by an external witness, its self-authenticity (autopiston275
) becomes no longer
credible. Moreover, if a separate witness is allowed, the door to spiritualism is opened since
the subjective conviction of the believer can bypass the objective Word resulting in a very un-
Reformed competition between Word and Spirit.276
In similar vein, Reformed thought sought
to empty the Testimonium of any material content whatsoever in order to preserve the
sufficiency of Scripture. While the term ‘testimony’ seems to imply a certain content,277
by no
271 Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 253.
272 Robert L. Reymond, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of Holy Scripture,’ in A Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institutes, ed.
David W. Hall and Peter A. Lillback (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 49; cf. Otto Weber, Foundations
of Dogmatics, vol. I, transl. Darrell L. Guder (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 241-2.
273 Calvin, Inst. I.ix.3; Reymond, 54-5; Weber, 242; Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics:
The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. II (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2003), 266; Charles Partee, The Theology of John Calvin (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2008), 59-61.
274 G.C. Berkouwer, Dogmatische Studiën: De Heilige Schrift I (Kampen: Kok, 1966), 41-82.
275 Calvin, Inst. I.vii.5.
276 Berkouwer, 45. Cf. Weber, 244.
277 Berkouwer, 53-55.
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means it expresses an additional revelation next to the revelation in Scripture.278
Rather, the
Testimonium is conceived of being within the one movement of God in His revelation to the
believer, as Partee submits: ‘Word and Spirit are two complementary aspects of God’s
revelation.’279
Both Scripture and the Testimonium are seen as being part of this movement as
both are also produced by the Holy Spirit, viz. in inspiration and illumination.280
The relationship of Word and Spirit is therefore of decisive influence on the essential shape
of the doctrine of the Testimonium in Reformed thought. It points to the unity in witness of
both Scripture and the Testimonium and results in the one address of God to the believer. It is
important to recognize the essential personal character of this divine address also in the
Testimonium.281
Berkouwer, following Bavinck and Kuyper here, emphasizes the working of
the Testimonium as binding the believer to the message of Scripture which finds its center in
Christ.282
The believer receives in the divine witness of the Spirit the certainty that God
speaks to him; the Testimonium thus positions the believer to receive the Word as pertaining
to himself.283
In this regard, Berkouwer finds it appropriate to speak of faith in Scripture, not
because of the Testimonium, but through the Testimonium; the doctrine of the Testimonium
278 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. I, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2003), 587-8, 594; Partee, 59; Reymond, 53; Muller, 266; Berkouwer, 51-54.
279 Partee, 59.
280 Muller (267) speaks of the ‘external means’ (Scripture) and ‘internal means’ (Testimonium). Cf. Calvin, Inst.
I.vii.4. Reformed theologian Ben Wentsel stresses this unity by making illumination part of the theopneustia of
Scripture i.e. the ‘actual-graphic theopneustia’ (Dutch: ‘actueel-grafische theopneustie’); B. Wentsel, Het
Woord, de Zoon en de Dienst, Dogmatiek deel 1 (Kampen: Kok, 1981), 198-99; cf. Weber, 245.
281 Partee, 61.
282 Berkouwer, 45-9; cf. Bavinck, 593-600.
283 Trueman (317) describes it as the ‘mode’ of receiving the Word which is radically changed by the Spirit; cf.
Weber, 243-5.
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is confessed, not postulated.284
The fact that the Testimonium points to a personal address of
Christ to the believer and receives the status of a confession brings to the fore its deep faith-
character. Since the Testimonium binds the believer to the message of Scripture, which is
Christ, faith in Scripture is parallel to faith unto salvation.285
In the Testimonium therefore,
the Spirit reaches to the heart of the believer so that he turns in faith to the Word.
Within Reformed thought the influence of the concept of the Testimonium on the doctrine
of illumination remains dominant, especially within more traditional Calvinist circles.
Nevertheless, over the past decades other Protestant thinkers brought up different statements
of illumination beyond the notion of the Testimonium. Exemplary for the central positions in
this regard is the debate between the Evangelical theologians Daniel P. Fuller and Millard J.
Erickson. The final paragraph of our doctrinal exploration is therefore devoted to this
discussion.
4.1.4 The Fuller-Erickson Debate
David J. KcKinley published in 1997 an article in which he explores and critiques the
discussion between Fuller and Erickson concerning the hermeneutical role of the Spirit.286
Our analysis will make use of the clear outline he gave of the three main issues of the debate.
The first issue raised in the debate is the question whether the Spirit’s illumination
effectuates understanding on the volitional or the notional level. The first position is held by
Fuller and is primarily based on his exegesis of I Cor. 2:14 in which he reads the (not)
receiving of the things of the Spirit of God by unbelievers as a (not) welcoming of these
284 Berkouwer, 60, 73-6.
285 This is also the character of Rom. 8:26 as the origin of the idea of the Testimonium. Bavinck, 593-5;
Berkouwer, 66-9.
286 David J. KcKinley, “John Owen’s View of Illumination: An Alternative to the Fuller-Erickson Dialogue,”
Bibliotheca Sacra 154 (1997): 93-104.
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things and their (in)ability to know them as an (in)ability to embrace them.287
The
illuminating work of the Spirit is therefore ‘to change the heart of the interpreter, so that he
loves the message’288
and thus to Fuller a matter of reception: a change in the will of the
reader to appropriate the meaning of the text and not an increased capacity to have cognition
of it.289
Sin hinders understanding through engendering pride in the interpreter so that he does
not receive the message. Erickson, however, besides an exegetical protest, dismisses such a
volitional understanding of illumination on the basis that it denies the thoroughness of the
noetic effects of sin on reason which needs correction by the Spirit.290
Fuller promotes,
according to him, ‘epistemological Pelagianism’ by excluding the person’s ability to know
from the distorting effect of sin so that he only needs help on the volitional level and not the
notional level.291
Erickson, therefore, postulates a notional understanding of illumination in
which the Spirit aids the reader to grasp the meaning of a text in a richer and deeper way.292
To Erickson, the illuminating work of the Spirit pertains not so much to the reception, but to
the perception of the truth.293
The second point of the debate pertains to the question of exegesis vis-à-vis the working of
the Holy Spirit and the degree in which the one rules out the need for the other. Fuller
emphasizes the importance of the text as the carrier of the true meaning over against
287 Daniel P. Fuller, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in Biblical Interpretation,” in Scripture, Tradition, and
Interpretation, ed. W. Ward Gasque and William Sanford LaSor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 190-1.
288 Fuller, 192.
289 McKinley, 94.
290 Erickson, Christian Theology, 255; idem, Evangelical Interpretation: Perspectives on Hermeneutical Issues
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), 44-5.
291 Ibid., 45.
292 He speaks of ‘spiritual organs’ which enhance and enrich the capacity to understand a text; ibid., 52.
293 McKinley, 94.
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perspectives that downplay the need for exegesis in light of the illumination of the Spirit.294
He pleads for the development of exegetical skills in order to truly understand the meaning of
a text since in his view ‘the biblical interpreter does not look to the Holy Spirit to give him the
meaning of a biblical text.’295
So while he certainly advocates an ‘utter dependence on the
Holy Spirit’296
this is not in the process of exegesis, but for the reception of the meaning into
the life of the interpreter. Erickson argues against this viewpoint in particular because of its
radical negation of any interference of the Spirit in the exegetical process which seems to him
an ‘overreacted’ response.297
While it is wrong to attribute growing understanding solely to
the Spirit, it is the opposite mistake to attribute nothing to the Spirit.298
Erickson therefore
proposes what McKinley calls a ‘conjunctive relationship’ between the Spirit and exegesis:
the Spirit does not oppose the Biblical text, but works through it.299
Exegesis, according to
Erickson, may bring deeper understanding of the text and provides – through illumination –
greater insight; in short: good exegesis pays off, but remains dependent on the Spirit.
The final major difference between Fuller and Erickson is on the exact nature of the
understanding that results from the encounter with the text. McKinley distinguishes here
between a ‘one-level’ understanding and a ‘two-level’ understanding of the text with the
former applying to Fuller and the latter to Erickson.300
The basic idea behind this follows
from what previously has been said, namely that to Fuller interpretation is a matter of working
with the grammatical-historical dimension of the text in exegesis which results in an one-layer
294 Fuller, 189-90; McKinley, 94-5.
295 Fuller, 192.
296 Ibid., 197.
297 Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 46; McKinley, 95.
298 Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 46-7.
299 McKinley, 95; Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 54.
300 McKinley, 95-6.
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cognitive conception of the nature of its understanding, while on the other hand Erickson
allows for a deeper understanding of this cognitive layer by means of the Spirit’s illuminating
work. Albeit Erickson remains dedicated to an objective meaning fully present in the text, he
does creates space for a multi-dimensional understanding of this meaning.301
Hence he is able
to speak of a certain ‘disclosure of meaning’ implicit in illumination since the Spirit does not
create new information, but does open new insight into the meaning of text.302
We can summarize the Fuller-Erickson debate as centering around three key issues: 1) the
exact point of connection to which the Holy Spirit targets in his illuminating work (reason or
will); 2) the relationship between exegesis of the biblical text and the work of the Spirit
(disjunctive or conjunctive); 3) the nature of the understanding which results from a text (one-
level or two-level).
After placing one necessary remark we will further analyze and critique these two
positions together with the already treated viewpoints on illumination and similar perspectives
from other sources.
4.1.5 A Concluding Remark
Before we enter into conversation with the more traditional understandings of the doctrine
of illumination let us first place one important preliminary remark.
Any traditional understanding of illumination is almost always situated within the
theological context of a biblical hermeneutic. This results in a discussion of the doctrine as
functioning towards the understanding of the biblical text while leaving aside any reflection
301 Erickson, Evangelical Interpretation, 52-4.
302 Millard J. Erickson, “Language: Human Vehicle for Divine Truth,” in Biblical Hermeneutics: A
Comprehensive Introduction to Interpreting Scripture, ed. Bruce Corley, Steve W. Lemke, and Grant I. Lovejoy
(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 214.
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on its proper place within a general hermeneutic.303
This should be kept in mind when
considering the hermeneutical role of the Spirit in Smith as we seek to develop it here since
Smith’s hermeneutical theory aims at understanding in general. Although we find enough
reason to postulate an illuminating operation of the Spirit in general understanding (cf.
chapter 5), nevertheless the background against which we have sketched this position
necessarily is limited to a more ‘narrow’ position on illumination. For our purposes, we
believe, this is not a serious hindrance.304
4.2 A Presuppositional Critique from the Perspective of Smith
4.2.1 Introduction
As chapter two shows, behind all the peculiarities of Smith’s hermeneutical theory
operates an undergirding philosophical framework which informs each of his hermeneutical
assertions. Obviously, Smith’s hermeneutic is not unique in this, rather every hermeneutical
perspective is founded on certain philosophical commitments. Consequently every viewpoint
on the doctrine of illumination is informed on a deeper philosophical and theological level, in
particular given its ‘contextual’ nature as we asserted at the start of the previous paragraph. In
light of the above, a critique of the foregoing positions from Smith’s perspective seeks to
303 This is understandable given the hermeneutical importance of Scripture already since Augustine’s de
Doctrina Christiana (with its immense influence for centuries) and the emphasis of the Reformation on
Scripture. Although in modernity hermeneutics broadened to general understanding (especially in
Schleiermacher; cf. Thiselton, Introduction, 149, 153) and theology increasingly followed this tendency, the
doctrine of illumination is up to today usually only considered in biblical hermeneutics. Exceptions to this are –
remarkably – Augustine and more recent works such as e.g. Amos Yong (which we will consider later on).
304 Whether this difference seriously would affect our view probably circles around the issue to what extent
illumination (in a Biblical hermeneutic) depends on certain unique properties of Scripture as interpretive object.
We will not engage these issues here for it would bring us into bibliological details beyond our research area.
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question the foundations on which is asserted. If Smith’s hermeneutical perspective is
determinatively shaped by his philosophical commitments, a critique from this perspective
necessarily departs there.
4.2.2 Anthropological Presuppositions
One of the decisive differences between Erickson and Fuller’s positions is, as we have
seen, the exact point of connection for the Spirit to illuminate the reader so that he comes to
understanding. While Fuller asserts that this is the human will and hence constructs a
volitional understanding of illumination, Erickson opts for the human reason and argues for a
notional understanding.
Interestingly, Erickson critiques implicitly the anthropology working behind Fuller’s
position by pointing to the radical character of sin working on the human will which Fuller
seems to deny. The problem, he points out, pertains to the insufficient holistic character of
Fuller’s view on the effect of sin on the interpreter. In similar vein however, Erickson can be
critiqued since he argues from an emphasis on the radical depravity of the human being by sin
while undervaluing the radical character of the interpretative process. The central point here is
the type of anthropology working behind both positions which results in problems on both
sides. From the perspective of Smith the dialectic of volitional and notional is a false
dichotomy since it is contrary to his radical holistic anthropology. While the anthropological
presuppositions working behind both perspectives are partitioning the hermeneutical endeavor
to either the human reason or will, Smith’s perspective opens up the possibility to overcome
this either/or choice and introduces a holistic involvement of the human person in the
hermeneutical process. Therefore the working of the Spirit necessarily is to be conceptualized
in a similar holistic manner. The question of the point of connection of the Spirit in the
interpretive process, as a consequence, needs to be answered in such a way that it reflects this
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radical character. Smith’s hermeneutical theory seems to point here to the human heart as
anthropological center of human understanding from which both reason and will proceed.
McKinley also seeks to overcome the abovementioned dialectic using John Owen’s
thought on illumination and certainly makes a step in the good direction, yet since his
approach also lacks a holistic understanding of the human person in the process of
interpretation he needs to extend his concept of illumination to non-hermeneutical categories
in order to be able to include the will as object of illumination.305
In so doing he effectively
discards a holistic involvement of the human person in the hermeneutical process. What we
need to avoid at all cost if we want to further develop Smith’s assertions is any form of
dualistic Platonism in our anthropological conception of illumination.
In similar vein, William J. Larkin Jr. also mistakenly claims that illumination has no
cognitive element but only effects the reader’s evaluation (i.e. appropriating and applying) of
the text by removing ‘the veil that is over the heart’ because this presupposes that one’s
understanding of a text involves only one’s cognition instead of the entire person.306
From
Smith's perspective this is untenable since it is impossible to disconnect one’s understanding
from one’s heart’s attitude (irrespective of what Larkin exactly means by it – which is
unclear) and restrict it to a pure cognitive affair.
4.2.3 Epistemological Presuppositions
The above anthropological issues are avoided by Calvin and his adherents in their
development of illumination as the Testimonium Spiritus Sancti Internum as this working is
305 McKinley, 97ff.
306 William J. Larkin Jr., Culture and Biblical Hermeneutics: Interpreting and Applying the Authoritative Word
in a Relativistic Age (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 288-9.
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always conceived as reaching to the entire person through his heart.307
Another difficulty
emerges however, when the epistemological character of the Testimonium is taken into
consideration. Herman Bavinck already commented that the Testimonium ‘has been all too
one-sidedly applied, by Calvin and the later Reformed theologians, to the authority of Holy
Scripture.’308
Parallel to this critique we might add that one-sidedness in general may be the
case here given the almost complete identification of the Testimonium and the illuminating
work of the Spirit.309
In this light, we might even question whether the Testimonium can be
considered a hermeneutical work at all since it pertains not so much to understanding of
Scripture but rather to an entrusting of oneself to it. Naturally, Calvin’s emphasis on the
authority and trustworthiness of Scripture largely explains his interpretation of the illumining
work of the Spirit, yet it seems that working behind this viewpoint is the assumption that once
someone has arrived at Scripture in faith it ‘speaks directly to the human soul’310
and further
assistance of the Spirit is superfluous. Such a position, akin to what Smith calls a
hermeneutical immediacy,311
seems from the perspective of Smith rather problematic since it
suppresses what Smith would call the ubiquity of interpretation; the fact that knowledge is
always mediated. If the Testimonium becomes identified with the complete illuminating work
of the Spirit this seems to imply that hermeneutically speaking, Scripture is accessible without
307 Calvin, Inst. I.vii.4; Bavinck, 588, 597; Berkouwer, 67-8; René van Woudenberg, Filosofische Gedachten
over Godsgeloof (Kampen: Kok, 1993), 129-30.
308 Bavinck, 593; for a discussion cf. Berkouwer, 45ff.
309 To be sure, Calvin succinctly deals with a general enlightening work of the Spirit in the third book of his
Institutes which hints at being hermeneutical (cf. Inst. III.ii.34) but this remains without much explication and
the tradition in his footsteps (e.g. Bavinck, Berkouwer, Grudem) barely seems able to go beyond the
Testimonium.
310 Partee, 53.
311 Cf. FOI, 23.
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further assistance. As a consequence, the abovementioned interpretive distance is being
pushed away from the operating work of the Spirit in illumination resulting in a unwanted
narrowing down of its actual scope and a robbing of its hermeneutical character. If we
therefore assume on the contrary that once someone arrives at Scripture he subsequently
needs to interpret it this opens a hermeneutical space which requires the ongoing activity of
the Spirit beyond the Testimonium.
It is to be emphasized here that Smith’s hermeneutical framework points in this respect to
the positive outlook of this hermeneutical space and hence at the working of the Spirit in this
area. Albeit it is essential to understand the noetic effects of sin (apart from the
counterworking of the Spirit) as a negative working in this regard, it is similarly crucial for
Smith to understand the effects of the Spirit as a positive operation of opening a creational
diversity within interpretation.312
Where Calvin only seems to conceive the working of the
Spirit negatively as a removing of blindness,313
Smith goes further by describing His activity
as positively engendering plurality.
Connected to this plural conception of truth314
is a second epistemological presupposition
found in traditional positions on illumination which needs to be addressed here. This is well
illustrated by the remarks of Fred. H. Klooster on pre-understanding and the role of the Spirit:
[O]ne’s preunderstanding must be wholly conformed to the Word of
God. A “fusion of horizons” in Gadamer’s sense is unacceptable since it
means that the understanding of the Bible results from a synthesis between
Scripture’s horizon and the interpreter’s horizon. (…) Every interpreter,
312 The fact that the Spirit is the ‘agent of diversity’ is also the main thesis in the work of Marco Herr on Smith.
Cf. Marco Herr, “Unity Through Diversity: The Holy Spirit’s Role as the Agent of a Diverse Unity in James
K.A. Smith’s and Carl Raschke’s Proposals,” MA Thesis, Evangelical Theological Faculty, 2011.
313 Calvin, Inst. I.iv.1; III.ii.34.
314 Smith places this position over against a ‘monologic’ conception of truth, FOI, 56ff.
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including the true Christian, must be alert, however, to the constant danger
of a “fusion of horizons”…315
As becomes clear, understanding for Klooster is and should be a one-dimensional event
proceeding from the text to the reader without involvement of the interpreter’s horizon to
constitute its meaning. As a consequence, illumination is a matter of the enlightenment of the
text’s horizon so that it can be understood and not an illuminating of the reader’s horizon.
True meaning is consequently exclusively tied to the horizon of the text and should not be
‘contaminated’ by the readers presuppositions. Fuller, in a different fashion, presupposes also
that the meaning of Scripture is tied to Scripture alone since in his view it is open to the
cognition of everyone, illuminated or not.316
What is working behind these views is an
assumption about the nature of understanding which perceives it as a one-dimensional event
in which meaning resides in the text alone and only needs to be abstracted from it. In so doing
it seems to fail to take into account one of the central statements of Smith regarding
knowledge viz. that it is narrative by nature and hence that understanding is necessarily
narrative understanding. From the viewpoint of Smith’s narrative epistemology an entire
different perspective on the process of understanding arises in which meaning is not just
limited to the text, but results from both reader and the text. We recall that Smith approaches
understanding as a way of ‘story-making’ in which the (narratival) context of the reader
greatly influences the understanding that takes place. Meaning, therefore, is not only tied to
the text but is just as well tied to the context of the interpreter (i.e. his horizon). To perceive
understanding therefore as pertaining to just one horizon and hence likewise for the
315 Fred H. Klooster, “The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Hermeneutic Process: The Relationship of the Spirit’s
Illumination to Biblical Interpretation,” in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible: Papers from ICBI Summit II,
ed. Earl D. Radmacher and Robert D. Preus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 465.
316 Fuller, 192-3; similarly also: Zuck, 123-4; Larkin, 288-9.
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illuminating work of the Spirit is from Smith’s perspective a reductionism since it limits the
working field of the Spirit to just one aspect of the interpretative process.
A typical result of above reductionism comes to the fore in the difficulties which foster
discussion on illumination. Specifically the question how to deal with interpretive diversity
among enlightened readers since this would be irreconcilable with the Spirit’s work. For
Douglas Kennard this tension even leads to a complete denial of the illuminating work of the
Spirit.317
These problems, however, arise only when one considers meaning to be one-
dimensionally on the side of Scripture. From the perspective of Smith to encounter diversity
among Spirit-enlightened interpreters of Scripture is a natural outflow of his conviction that
meaning is not only tied to Scripture, but to the (narratival) context of the reader as well
(which is necessarily unique). Diversity therefore points not to the impossibility of the
working of the Spirit within the reader’s horizon, but precisely to the incorporation of this
dimension of understanding in His illuminating work.
A similar issue in this regard is the question as to what extent non-illuminated readers can
interpret the true meaning of Scripture. Given their assumption on the nature of
understanding, the upshot for both Fuller and Zuck is a forced allowing for a true
understanding regardless of illumination and to reduce it to enabling a positive appropriation
of Scripture. From Smith’s perspective this partitioning of illumination is inconceivable since
the meaning of a text cannot be divorced from the entire person of the interpreter.
What we encountered in our critique of the anthropological presuppositions therefore
proves to be valid here as well: it is of the utmost importance to holistically assess the
interpretive process when speaking of illumination in order to be able to give full account of
this divine work.
317 Douglas Kennard, “Evangelical Views on Illumination of Scripture and Critique,” Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 49:4 (2006): 803-4.
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4.2.4 Conclusion
All of the above comments seem to boil down to what one fundamentally assumes as being
part of the interpretive process both anthropologically and epistemologically. In certain
central respects, Smith clearly develops other presuppositions regarding these issues which
inevitably leads to a fundamental different perspective on the doctrine of illumination. The
remaining portion of this chapter is therefore devoted to elicit what could be considered the
illuminating work of the Spirit from the perspective of Smith.
4.3 Incarnated Illumination: Christomorphic Understanding
4.3.1 Introduction
Needless to say, rethinking the concept of illumination involves several a priori
philosophical presuppositions which form and shape one’s expression of its precise content.
Since we already extensively dealt with Smith’s philosophical presuppositions regarding his
hermeneutical theory we are greatly enabled to use this as a resource for developing the
doctrine of illumination from his perspective. This is therefore also exactly the purpose of this
final paragraph: to alter the traditional understandings of illumination by implementing our
previous critique into an alternative conceptualization of the illuminating work of the Spirit in
the person. This will happen in constructive dialogue with especially Amos Yong’s proposals.
We will first recapture the central place Smith gives to our pretheoretical commitments in
being involved in the world. Subsequently we will develop the heart as central-religious core
of the human being from which this involvement holistically proceeds and hence needs to
function as point of connection for the Spirit to illuminate the interpreter. After this we will
connect this more extensively to Smith’s anthropology in order to find out how and which
means the Spirit employs in His illuminating work. We will finally bring this together in an
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expression of illumination which understands it as a ‘continued incarnation’ through the Spirit
and aiming at transformation to the image of Christ.
4.3.2 Smith and Yong on Being Involved in the World
As should be clear from our exposure of his hermeneutical theory of the second chapter,
Smith sees our engagement with the world not disinterested and disconnected as a thinking
thing, but with a fundamental, pretheoretical involvement as a passionate lover (§2.5.2).
Given the weight therefore of our pretheoretical posture in our encounter of the world, the
influence of presuppositions and our pretheoretical commitments in Smith’s perspective on
how we understand the things around us is hard to overstate. In similar vein, Amos Yong in
his development of a trinitarian-pneumatological hermeneutic points to what he calls the
‘perichoretic bond’ between subject, object, and context.318
By this he means the
interrelatedness that exists on the interpretive level between the interpreter (including his
context) and what is interpreted. In order to achieve a proper understanding, all three
dimensions need to be taken into account in their interrelatedness.319
For him this implies that
to be able to properly describe the hermeneutical process, the subjective moment of the
interpreter toward its object is of great significance since it constitutes the fundamental
relationality proper to the interpretive endeavor.320
On this score, Smith and Yong seem to
coalesce in their opinion how the human person as interpreter needs to be conceived of in his
subjective posture towards the world. For Smith, as we have regularly highlighted, the
subjective attitude of the person proceeds from the heart as the central anthropological core of
318 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 18, 147, 219-20.
319 Ibid., 311-6; cf. L. William Oliverio Jr., “An Interpretive Essay on Amos Yong’s Spirit-Word-Community:
Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18 (2009): 303-5.
320 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 28-34; 84ff.; 136-9; 175.
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the human self in the form of a fundamental love. Yong, on the other hand, brings to the fore
his central notion of the pneumatological imagination as the anthropological faculty which
‘functions relationally’ in the sense that it ‘mediates the human engagement with the external
world’.321
Yong construes this as a holistic center in which all the human functions are
integrated so that the entire person is holistically involved in the interpretive process.322
This
holism is akin to what we described as Smith’s holistic anthropology as a central pillar
underneath his hermeneutical theory.
4.3.3 Radical Enlightenment: The Heart as Root of Understanding and Illumination
In light of the above radical (i.e. root-targeted) character of interpretation it is impossible to
construe the working of the Holy Spirit on a less fundamental level in the interpretive process
since this would downplay His primordial role in our understanding. This leads us to postulate
the heart as fundamental point of contact for the Spirit to introduce His illuminating work
since only then it receives a radicality parallel to the source and functioning of our
understanding as employed in Smith’s epistemology.
Such a conceptualization strikingly resembles some considerations of the philosophical
background of Smith’s concept of the heart, which finds its origin in the Reformational
Philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. Dooyeweerd circumscribes the heart as following:
Het hart is de in waarheid transcendente wortel van het menschelijk
bestaan, het eenige punt, waarin wij de tijdelijke zin-verscheidenheid in den
samenhang des tijds te boven gaan. (…) Het hart is de volheid onzer
321 Ibid., 128.
322 Ibid., 129ff.; 137; 238-9.
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zelfheid, het waarlijk transcendente concentratiepunt onzer existentie,
waarin alle tijdelijke zin-functies tezamen treffen.323
It is this heart as concentration point of our existence which forms the ‘source’ for our
entire engagement with the world.324
As the ‘driving force of the human heart’, the religious
ground-motive is the determinative commitment in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy akin to what
Smith’s calls one’s ‘pretheoretical commitments’ (or e.g. Kuhn’s concept of ‘paradigm’).325
This ground-motive serves as the fundamental paradigm from which understanding proceeds
just as to Smith understanding results from one’s pretheoretical commitments.326
Having said
this, the point we want to make is: within Dooyeweerdian philosophy it is the Holy Spirit that
carries out the implementing and positioning of the religious ground-motive in the heart and
hence produces the fundamental point of departure of understanding of the human being.327
To locate therefore the anthropological point of connection of the illuminating work of the
Spirit in the heart not only accounts for a proper radicality but seems also justified from the
323 Herman Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee. Boek I: De Wetsidee als Grondlegging der
Wijsbegeerte (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris, 1935), 30 emphasis original. Available through:
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dooy002wijs01_01/downloads.php (accessed April 3, 2012).
324 Cf. William Young, “The Nature of Man in the Amsterdam Philosophy,” Westminster Theological Journal
22:1 (1959): 8-9.
325 Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 187, 194-7; René van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken: Inleiding tot een
Christelijke Filosofie (Amsterdam: Buijten & Schipperheijn, 1992), 25-7.
326 Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 250-1; cf. G. Glas, “Filosofische Antropologie,” in Kennis en Werkelijkheid:
Tweede Inleiding tot een Christelijke Filosofie, ed. René van Woudenberg (Amsterdam: Buijten &
Schipperheijn, 1996), 109: ‘De term hart (…) [ligt] volgens Dooyeweerd aan iedere begripsvorming ten
grondslag’ emphasis original.
327 Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought: Studies in the Pretended Autonomy of Theoretical
Thought (Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1960), 185-88; Young, 8; Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 191, 197,
233; van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken, 25. Cf. IRO 174n94 and 178n105!
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role of the Spirit in the philosophical structures on which Smith draws in his anthropological
assertions.
4.3.4 Seeking Anthropological and Epistemological Holism in Illumination
The centrality we above give to the heart in the process of illumination also resonates with
the desire for anthropological holism in the hermeneutical process which our critique of
foregoing positions on illumination brought up. Both in Dooyeweerd and in broader
Reformational philosophy and theology, the way the concept of the heart functions is the
example par excellence for anthropological holism and seeks to express the fundamental unity
of the human being.328
In this way the heart as point of connection for the work of the Spirit is
aptly appropriate for the anthropological holism working behind Smith’s hermeneutical
theory.
Taken the above into consideration leads to an understanding of illumination as aiming at
the heart and – in view of its hermeneutical character – hence affecting the fundamental love,
essential to understanding according to Smith, that proceeds from the heart.329
Yong, in this
respect, points to Rom. 5:5 where he perceives the love poured out in the heart by the Spirit
not only or even primarily as representing an ‘emotional experience’, but rather understands it
328 For a full defense see: Gordon J. Spykman, Reformational Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 217-23; cf. Willem J. Ouweneel, De Schepping van God: Ontwerp van
een Scheppings-, Mens-, en Zondeleer (Vaassen: Medema, 2008), 117, 142-5. This holism we also encountered
in our reflection on the Calvinistic doctrine of the Testimonium.
329 Note the notion of movement entailed by the term ‘proceeding’ of the love, which is also found in
Dooyeweerd’s notion of ground-motive. Cf. Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 194-7; van Woudenberg, Gelovend
Denken, 56; Glas, 109.
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as effecting more holistically ‘affective, cognitive, and materially embodied responses’.330
In
similar vein we may connect Smith’s hermeneutical notion of love to the illuminating work of
the Spirit.
In several instances Smith interprets the work of the Spirit as a redirection of the human
love towards its proper telos, which we in chapter three have subsumed under the
pneumatological theme of regeneration in Smith (§3.3).331
Given the epistemological nature
of this fundamental love, the working of the Spirit in the human person assumes from the
perspective of Smith a hermeneutical status through His reordering of this love. Smith’s
conception of love reverberates here with the subjective, narrative epistemology in which the
person comes to understanding while being ‘tied’ to his own narrative. A similar perspective
is distinguishable in Yong’s hermeneutical theory where the pneumatological imagination on
the one hand is ‘tied’ to the hermeneutical tradition and as such re-produces knowledge which
it has received (parallel to the epistemological narrative we encountered in Smith which forms
the basis of knowledge), while on the other hand functioning as a producing faculty in which
creative, innovations are made possible (parallel to the idea of ‘story-making’ in Smith).332
Yong conceives the role of the Spirit in this process of reproducing and producing as ‘a type
of “creative fidelity” or habitus whereby theological reflection proceeds responsibly vis-à-vis
what is handed down or inherited’333
Although this quote points to the connection between
epistemology and ontology which is subject of the next chapter, it is important here to note
the intrinsic and embedded functioning of the Spirit (forming a ‘habitus’) in understanding as
parallel to being conceived as aiming at the heart and affecting the fundamental love which
330 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 31. For a critique of such a reading cf. Anders Nygren, Commentary on
Romans, transl. Carl C. Rasmussen (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1967), 196-202.
331 Cf. IRO, 237; DTK 71-3; TT 77; “Questions,” 592-3.
332 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 123, 126ff.; 222-4
333 Ibid., 224.
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proceeds from it. Such an intrinsic functioning does justice to the anthropological and
epistemological holism of Smith’s hermeneutical theory while eschewing the anthropological
and epistemological partitioning we addressed in our critique of foregoing positions above. It
also runs parallel to Dooyeweerdian philosophy which emphasizes that reality is only
understood fully when grasped in the heart as transcendent point of engagement with the
world.334
The illuminating work of the Spirit therefore needs to pertain to the heart to reach
this fullness.
Hence, in our development of the role of the Spirit in Smith, He is utterly involved in the
hermeneutical involvement in the world of the knowing subject. In this light it also becomes
understandable why many of the epistemological assertions of Smith on the Spirit lean against
the topic of regeneration, since the concept of regeneration reflects the holism that
accompanies Smith hermeneutics and thus is to be attributed to the work of the Spirit in
illumination as well.
We will proceed by reflecting on how and which means are employed by the Spirit in His
illuminating work on the human person.
4.3.5 Illumination by Transformation
The holism we constantly seek in our conceptualization of the hermeneutical role of the
Spirit in illumination pushes us to further reflect on the exact reason why regeneration is
pneumatologically so prominent in Smith. At this juncture, Yong’s development of the
pneumatological imagination is informative in how to proceed here. For Yong, the ‘ontology
334 Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, 31-2; idem, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee. Boek II: De
Functioneele Zin-Structuur der Tijdelijke Werkelijkheid en het Probleem der Kennis (Amsterdam: H.J. Paris,
1935), 503-4; Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 131, 262, passim.
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of spirit (…) is relational through and through’335
and brings about the integrative aspect of
the pneumatological imagination.336
In so doing, He is central as mediator between the
ontological dimensions (relationality, rationality, and dynamic)337
of reality and the
pneumatological imagination so that it becomes properly attuned to that reality.338
The Spirit,
as it were, makes the subject hermeneutically ‘fitted’ for the object. Here we finally can refer
back to Augustine’s view on illumination which essentially (although with a different
philosophical backdrop) assigns a similar mediating role of the Spirit in illumination; bringing
together both subject and object by creating a connection between them.
The transformative (attuning) facet of the Spirit’s work in Yong (and to some extent in
Augustine) can be illuminating for our considering of Smith in view of his emphasis on
regeneration. Concerning this Smith asserts:
Insofar as the Spirit indwells believers, they are being conformed into the
image of Christ to the extent that they learn to walk in the Spirit and in the
Spirit’s power.339
Strongly connected therefore to regeneration is becoming ‘a certain kind of person’340
namely becoming like Jesus Christ, which is a process univocally attributed to the Spirit in
(contemporary) pneumatology.341
Obviously, nothing of the human being is exempted in the
335 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 136.
336 Ibid., 136-7.
337 Ibid., 83ff.
338 Ibid., 222-4; in the interplay between Spirit (which is analogous to the subject), Word (analogous to the object
in Yong), and community (context) Yong highlights the mediating role of the Spirit; cf. also ibid.,18, 28ff.
339 WAP 107.
340 Ibid., 106; cf. DTK 162-3.
341 To give three examples: Ouweneel, De Geest van God, 234; Thomas C. Oden, Life in the Spirit: Systematic
Theology Volume Three (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1992), 229ff.; H. Berkhof, De Leer van de Heilige
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process of regeneration, it is focused on the entire being and life of the person. The holism
here in regeneration as transformation is significant since it can be correlated to our
understanding of illumination developed above. We saw that illumination from the
perspective of Smith connects to the heart as anthropological center and the fundamental love
that proceeds from it. The means by which the Spirit is able to operate in this way is precisely
the process of transformation into the image of Christ. The reason that this is the case rests on
the anthropological model of the human person Smith works with. In order to be able to affect
the fundamental love of the person, the Spirit needs to use the ‘fulcrum’342
of the human’s
love: his bodily habits. Here the central theme of embodiment in Smith is the bridge or means
the Spirit ‘uses’ to reach the person in His illuminating work. As we asserted in our analysis
of embodiment in Smith: ‘our embodied existence in the world functions as the context of our
understanding of the world’343
and hence ‘the way to our hearts is through our bodies.’344
These consideration are consistent with Smith’s own thoughts on the topic:
If we are oriented by a kind of affective “engine,” then the Spirit’s
transformation must tap our emotional core. And if our emotional and
affective life is tethered to our embodiment, then the Spirit, in incarnational
logic, must reach us through our bodies.345
The means therefore employed by the Spirit are bodily means. The term ‘bodily’ in Smith,
however, should be rightly understood here. It does not mean that that the Spirit can only
Geest (Nijkerk: G.F. Callenbach, 1965), 75. The theme of transformation of the person (esp. the mind as the
location of the pneumatological imagination) is also of central importance in Yong’s depiction of the working of
the Spirit. Cf. Yong, 136ff., 236-8; passim.
342 DTK 56.
343 §2.5.3.
344 DTK 58.
345 TT 76; cf. 72.
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employ physical means to reach into the human heart, rather it points to the bodily senses
which function as the primary (not only!) entrances to the human heart. To make it concrete: a
stirring, intimate movie of the final hours of the Jesus’ life, or a splendid performance of the
Matthäus-Passion probably convey the story much more directly to the heart than a well-
written doctoral dissertation giving a Christological exposition of the cross-event.346
Therefore, seeing the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit using the means of the person’s
transformation to the image of Christ reverberates with Smith’s anthropological perspective
on how the human being’s fundamental affective way of knowing is influenced and is parallel
to Yong’s attunement by the Spirit of the pneumatological imagination to reality. We will
return to this theme of attunement in the next chapter.
In a somewhat different fashion, Gary L. Nebeker conceives illumination as a
transformative activity of the Spirit. In an article focusing on the hermeneutical role of the
Spirit he submits:
The Spirit’s role – or goal – in interpretation is to allow the reader to
understand the text in such a way that the text transforms the interpreter into
the image of Christ.347
Somewhat further he states conclusively that the hermeneutical role of the Spirit is twofold
in this: aiding our understanding and effecting the transformation.348
Although this seems like
a step in the good direction with regard to the weight given to transformation, our proposal
from the perspective of Smith functions differently. Nebeker argues primarily for a
teleological function of transformation in the work of the Spirit, i.e. the ultimate goal of His
hermeneutical work is transformation. In view of our proposal, although this is certainly part
346 Cf. ibid., 71-85.
347 Nebeker, 47.
348 Ibid., 51.
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of the more broader regenerating and sanctifying work of the Spirit, Nebeker seems to forget
to finish the hermeneutical circle here. While he understands transformation as the aim of
illumination (a perspective we certainly concede) for him it is not part of the hermeneutical
process so that the interpreter is enabled to understand. This is the major difference between
Nebeker’s and our position: whereas Nebeker sees illumination working toward
transformation, we see illumination working through transformation. His concept of
transformation is teleological, ours is primarily instrumental.349
The fact that the Spirit in His transformative activity effectuates His illumination of the
human being gives us the possibility to deepen Smith’s hints at a contextual working of the
Spirit in the hermeneutical process we encountered in the third chapter (§3.6). Needless to
say, the Spirit works in numerous ways in the human life to bring the image of Christ to the
fore. Now all these ways He employs are part of the narrative context from which the human
being as interpreter draws in order to understand. Hence when Smith seems to point to a
contextual working of the Spirit,350
the best way to develop this notion is through the
epistemological notion of the narrative context which determines meaning for the interpreter.
The narrative context is therefore the epistemological habitus for the transformative working
of the Spirit which is the means for His illumination.351
This does therefore not entail, as
Robert L. Thomas mistakenly claims, a ‘neutral objectivity (…) available through the
349 An allocation of transformation in the hermeneutical process similar to Nebeker is found in the thought of
Pinnock: Clark H. Pinnock, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Interpretation of Holy Scripture from the
Perspective of a Charismatic Biblical Theologian,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 18 (2009): 163, 170. Cf.
Yong on this point: ‘[T]ransformation should be understood both as a moment in the hermeneutical spiral and as
the telos of interpretation.’ Yong, 238.
350 Cf. “Limited Inc/arnation,” 125.
351 Cf. the ‘Spirit’s world-creating act’ in Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism:
Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 75-78.
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illumination of the Holy Spirit’352
but rather a narratival subjectivity through the operation of
the Spirit.
Although this narrative context entails the entire life of the interpreter, one particular
aspect of it should be highlighted here and that is what is commonly dubbed the ‘interpretive
community’. The community is widely recognized of preeminent relevance to the subjectivity
(what we here call the narrative context) of the interpreter in postmodern thought.353
Hence,
when Smith considers a ‘pneumatological hermeneutic’ he asserts that in such a case ‘our
hermeneutics of Scripture will require, first and foremost, an ecclesiology.’354
This points to
the working of the Spirit through the interpretive community as one particular dimension of
the interpreter’s narrative context.355
In retrospect, for the sake of clarity, we should distinguish now between an anthropological
and an epistemological dimension to transformation. Anthropologically the Spirit aims at the
heart in His transformative work using embodied means as entrances to the fundamental love
that proceeds from the heart. Epistemologically, the Spirit’s transformative work is part of the
narrative context of the interpreter from which he derives meaning. Together they form the
352 Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics: The New Versus the Old (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel
Publications, 2002), 53.
353 Cf. Yong, 275-310; Grenz and Franke, 68, 203-38; Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?
The Bible, the Reader and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Leicester: Apollos, 1998), 168-74; 295-7; 378-
80; 410-12; Merold Westphal, Whose Community, Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the
Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 107-56; Carl Raschke, The Next Reformation. Why
Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 145-58.
354 “Limited Inc/arnation,” 125; cf. WAP 57: ‘[T]here is no proper understanding of the Text [here: Bible] apart
from the Spirit-governed community of the church.’
355 Although the notion of community has central importance space limits us here to a mere mentioning of it. It
is, however, continuously included in the narrative of the knowing subject in what follows.
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one unified work of the Spirit in transforming the interpreter to the image of Christ as the
means of His illumination.
4.3.6 Conclusion: Christomorphic Understanding
The incarnation is in our view probably the most basic paradigm working underneath
Smith’s hermeneutical theory. Interestingly, Yong connects the work of the Spirit to this
typical Christological subject by stating: ‘[t]he Spirit is central to the mediatorial function of
the incarnation.’356
In so doing, Yong brings together what we are after as well. In the second
chapter we expressed the process of interpretation in Smith as an analogous instantiation of
the incarnation (§2.6). In the final section of this chapter we sought to conceptualize the role
of the Spirit in this process of interpretation. What we found out was not only that the Spirit,
in order to be able to forcefully affect the interpretation, necessarily needs to connect to the
interpreter’s heart and influence his fundamental love, but also that the means by which this
illuminating work takes place is through transformation of the person to the image of Christ.
Anthropologically speaking, this is an embodied means which reaches to the heart;
epistemologically speaking it is more fitted to perceive it as the narrative context of the
interpreter from which this transformation takes place.
Illumination working through transformation can be described as another instantiation of
the incarnation but now on the interpreter’s side.357
We might speak of an ‘ongoing’ or
‘continued’ incarnation in the interpreter through the transformative work of the Spirit making
him as Christ. The Spirit, as in Yong’s thought, mediates the incarnation to the interpreter
356 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 32, 102.
357 A similar incarnational perspective of the Spirit’s work with respect to the author and inspiration (over
against our interpreter and illumination) can be found in Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals
and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005).
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transforming him into the image of Christ, just as God’s light shines in our hearts from the
face of Jesus Christ (II Cor. 4:6) by which we are transformed through the Spirit into the
Christ’s likeness (II Cor. 3:18). As a result, both subject and object have in a certain way an
incarnational, i.e. Christomorphic dimension.358
Yong stresses the mediating role of both in
this regard and states that if Christ is the mediator, ‘then the means through which such
mediation is brought about is the Holy Spirit.’359
Both therefore have in a certain sense a
mediating role. From Smith’s perspective it is more apt to speak of an incarnational role. This
implies that both subject and object in some way – through the illuminating work of the Spirit
– receive an incarnated status. What this exactly entails is subject-matter of our next chapter.
Before that, however, we will first conclude this entire chapter in the coming paragraph.
4.4 Conclusion
What seems to be the problem of most treatises on the hermeneutical role of the Spirit is
that they downplayed the fundamental role of our pretheoretical commitments working behind
every hermeneutical conception of reality and our holistic-anthropological participation in
understanding. As a result, they misconceived the (holistic) working of the Spirit oftentimes
as working at a second-order (in one part of the human being, e.g. reason or will) or even
third-order level (our resulting actions) in our engagement with reality. By recognizing the
dominating aspect of what Dooyeweerd calls our religious ground-motives within our
conceiving of reality, it becomes clear that the illumination of the Spirit enters our
understanding at the first-order level which is at the heart as anthropological center of the
human being. Traditional conceptualizations of the illumination, from our perspective, give a
role to the Spirit which would actually detour the normal process of our understanding of the
358 Cf. Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 422-9.
359 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 30.
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world by entering in a later stage of interpretation resulting in a partitioning of illumination.
Instead we postulate a holistic working of the Spirit through and hence by means of the
created reality of the human understanding from the outset by construing His operation
entering in the first-order aspects of our understanding of the world. At this heart-level, the
Spirit influences the fundamental affective comportment of the person to the world. The
means by which the Spirit affects this fundamental love is (holistic) transformation of the
person into the image of Christ. In so doing, from an anthropological perspective the Spirit
uses embodied means to reach to the heart of the person, while from an epistemological
perspective the Spirit works through the narrative context of the interpreter to affect his
interpretation.
The central question from the outset of this chapter was how the contextual nature of the
work of the Spirit to the interpreter within the hermeneutical process as Smith describes it can
be further deepened. Above description seems to us a valid possibility how to answer this
question while trying to remain faithful to Smith’s own hermeneutical and pneumatological
assertions.
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Chapter 5 | Double Incarnation: Sacramental Attunement
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. – Ps.19:2 (NIV)
All things were created through Him and for Him.
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. – Col.1:16-7 (NKJV)
5.1 Introduction
While the previous chapter dealt with the role of the Holy Spirit on the subject-side of the
interpretive process, this chapter aims to extend this picture by including the object-side of
hermeneutics. Not only is this desirable since it gives our pneumatological assessment a more
complete character, its main impetus forms the felt lack from our evaluation of Smith’s
pneumatology in chapter three concerning the connection between his epistemological and
ontological assertions on the role of the Spirit. While the previous chapter focused more on
the pneumatological theme of regeneration in Smith, this chapter will give particular attention
to the theme of enchantment and as a result of both analyses provide a basis for an
engagement with the third and final pneumatological theme in Smith, namely the normative
dimension of hermeneutics as trust in the Spirit. These aspects are important since from the
previous chapter one might raise the question why transformation into the image of Christ
enhances a person’s understanding of reality i.e. why Christomorphic understanding is a
desired epistemic status at all. Answering this means that we need to establish first a right
understanding of the object in interpretation in its relationship with the knowing subject after
which we can deal with the normative aspects of this relationship.
We summarized the above focus in two main inquiries which we repeat here from §3.7: (1)
How does Smith’s notion of the sacramental nature of the world connect to the hermeneutical
role of the Spirit? This question pertains to the pneumatological connection between object
and subject in Smith’s hermeneutical theory. Our second inquiry will be: (2) How can Smith’s
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pneumatological criterion be readily improved within the framework of his hermeneutical
theory? This question seeks to highlight the norming of this pneumatological connection and
will also touch upon the relationship between Word and Spirit as this is usually connected to
that issue.
The first section of this chapter will be a reiteration of certain ontological concepts from
Smith’s sacramental ontology in dialogue with other thinkers and in particular Dooyeweerd to
show the intrinsic character of meaning to being. The next section then builds upon the
previous by relating its results to our considerations of the fourth chapter, hence in this section
we will effectively connect Smith’s epistemology to his ontology from a pneumatological
perspective. The third section will engage with the theme of normativity in Smith and
illuminate how the established relationship between epistemology and ontology informs our
perspective on interpretive right and wrong. Finally we will set our considerations in the right
perspective in the final section by distinguishing between structure and direction in
interpretation.
5.2 Ontological Sacramentality: Meaning is the Being of All that is Created
As we have seen, two basic affirmations support Smith’s sacramental ontology, namely the
affirmation of materiality and the affirmation of participation (cf. §2.1.2; §2.2.4). Both
affirmations are necessary to uphold a sacramental understanding of being. On the one hand
materiality is a necessary property of a sacrament and thus is to be affirmed by God in order
to be used as means to reveal Himself and to refer to Himself, on the other hand participation
accounts for the referential nature of being which is inherent to the sacrament as well. Basic to
Smith’s sacramental understanding of being is that it forms the theatre of transcendence.360
God uses (material) creation to make Himself known; a strategy which finds its culmination
360 Cf. “Staging the Incarnation,” 132-3; IRO 218, 220, 222.
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point in the incarnation. Being, therefore, points beyond itself and consequently exists as
meaning.
One of the most forceful statements of above ontological conception is found in Herman
Dooyeweerd whose philosophical paradigm perceives ‘meaning as the being of all that is
created.’361
Although Smith derives the affirmation of participation primarily from his
engagement with RO,362
his position is highly influenced by Dooyeweerd. This is clearly seen
from the fact that what we described as three key features of Smith’s ontology, viz. integrity,
meaning and enkapsis (cf. §2.4.3) are found throughout Dooyeweerd’s works.363
We will
develop this understanding of Dooyeweerd a bit further here after which we will return to
Smith again to develop his understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in his ontology.
René van Woudenberg considers meaning (Dutch: ‘zin’) as the main theme of the entire
Dooyeweerdian philosophy since it considers nothing in reality to be detached from meaning
in any way.364
The radicality of the notion of meaning in Dooyeweerd indeed is striking:
reality, as such, does not have meaning, it is meaning.365
As Dooyeweerd asserts:
Het wijsgeerig denken in zijn eigenlijk, nimmer straffeloos te
miskennen, karakter is: op de zin-totaliteit van onzen kosmos gericht,
theoretisch denken.366
361 ‘De zin is het zijn van alle creatuurlijk zijnde’; Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, 6; often quoted
by Smith.
362 Cf. IRO, ch. 6.
363 Already visible in the opening paragraphs of the Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, Dooyeweerd’s magnum opus.
364 Van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken, 197-8.
365 Ibid., 202; L. Kalsbeek, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee: Proeve van een Christelijke Filosofie (Amsterdam:
Buijten & Schipperheijn, 1974), 77; cf. Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee: Boek II, 27-30.
366 Dooyeweerd, Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, 6; emphasis original; cf. 10.
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Dooyeweerd’s understanding that it is impossible to abstract meaning from being itself;
that the meaning-fullness is intrinsic to being, originates from the high view of God’s
sovereignty also central in this type of Reformed philosophy.367
The reason for this for
Dooyeweerd is that meaning can only arise from a larger framework in which something is
granted meaning, i.e. meaning implies that there is a larger context or reality within which
something can be meaningful.368
The meaning of something is therefore in dependence upon
this larger framework. For reality this dependence lies in God since its origin (ontstaan),
existence (bestaan), and purpose (bestemming)369
express dependence upon God and His
provision.370
The sovereign Creator-God upholds and sustains therefore His creation and in so
doing functions as the anchor point of its meaningfulness. Dooyeweerd:
De zin is universeel aan alle creatuurlijke werkelijkheid als haar on-
rustige zijns-wijze eigen, want als zin wijst die werkelijkheid heen naar haar
Schepper-oorsprong, zonder wien het creatuur in het niets terug-zinkt.371
Being would not be apart from God. To be is therefore to be dependent upon God and
hence meaning and being are intrinsically related since being cannot be without meaning. The
only being logically exempted from this rule is God’s being since He exist by and through
Himself.372
367 This sovereignty-motive is reflected in the concept of law and subject which is fundamental to Dooyeweerd
(his philosophy is also names Philosophy of Law-Idea and partly based on the sovereignty in own circle
principle of Abraham Kuyper). Here, law expresses God’s sovereign and upholding hand or activity continually
structuring and ordering temporal reality.
368 Van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken, 185-9, 198.
369 cf. Kalsbeek 76-7.
370 Ibid., 77.
371 Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, 62; emphasis original.
372 Ibid. Dooyeweerd would contend that God is the only One not under His own law.
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The significance of the meaningfulness of being as discussed above lies in the referential
nature that as a result necessarily accompanies being. Already in above quotation this comes
to the fore in the assertion that reality points (wijst) to her Creator-origin. Furthermore,
Dooyeweerd stamps the entire cosmos as ‘pointing-towards and referring’ (heen-wijzend en
uit-drukkend)373
and Ouweneel in this respect asserts that ‘the unity and identity of things are
properly seen in their orientation upon the Creator.’374
This latter citation introduces what we
are really after here, namely that being as such can only be rightly understood taking into
account its fundamental referential nature i.e. when its meaningfulness is properly grasped.375
In this sense, our ontological considerations thus far are deeply hermeneutical since they
involve essentially the meaningfulness of reality in its dependence and orientation upon its
Creator. The Dooyeweerdian account of being underscores that this meaningful/hermeneutical
dimension of being is essential to her understanding and hence assures us that the referential
nature of being in Smith’s sacramental ontology justifiably should be connected to his
epistemology.
This conviction is supported by Smith’s own construction of what he dubs the ‘sacramental
imagination’ (cf. §2.4.3; §3.2).376
Perceiving the world through the sacramental imagination
means approaching (material) reality as capable to convey God’s revelation and hence taking
into account the meaningfulness of created reality we encountered above in Dooyeweerd.
Smith, by postulating the sacramental imagination, thus connects epistemology and ontology
already to some extent. This also is visible from his thoughts on the (liturgical) prayer for
illumination:
373 Ibid., 6.
374 Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 131; cf. 66.
375 Cf. for a Dooyeweerdian understanding of truth along similar lines: Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 260-8.
376 DTK 139-51; WAP 136-40.
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[W]hen we acquire the habit of praying for illumination (…) we are
training ourselves in a stance of reception and dependence, an epistemic
humility. This position recognizes that in order to see things for what they
really are – to understand the world as ordered to the Creator – we are
dependent on a teacher outside of ourselves (1 John 2:27).377
As it pertains to the role of the Spirit in his sacramental ontology, however, this
pneumatological dimension is not addressed by Smith when speaking of the above connection
between ontology and epistemology. Our next paragraph sets out to construe this
pneumatological relationship between the meaningfulness of reality, so intrinsically related to
being as we have seen, and our findings of the previous chapter on the pneumatological
dimension of Smith’s epistemology.
5.3 Harmony as the Expression of Hermeneutical Congruency
The theme of enchantment expresses the immanence of the Spirit in Smith’s thought
(§3.2). The Spirit affirms in His working materiality as such and functions as ‘the agent of
suspension’ and hence is the active divine agent in the participation that is central to Smith’s
understanding of being. The outflow of this activity of the Spirit for Smith, however, is
conceptually mostly the overcoming of the nature-supernature distinction so that creation is
always already primed for God’s activity in the world.378
This means that, although Smith
acknowledges the Spirit to be fundamental to the participatory ontology he adheres to, he
nonetheless remains largely silent about how this affects the referential structure inherent to
his concept of participation and hence how this affects the sacramental imagination he
proposes. Our goal now is to develop the latter issue here.
377 DTK 194; emphasis added.
378 TT 101ff.; cf. §3.2.
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Of special interest in this regard is Amos Yong’s construction of the pneumatological
imagination since he develops not only a pneumatological perspective on ontology and
epistemology, but also brings these together in the pneumatological imagination. In Yong, the
Spirit is the mediator between the ontological reality and the pneumatological imagination so
that it becomes attuned to that reality (§4.3.5).379
This attunement is possible since He is both
actively involved in creation as well as in the human person.380
In similar fashion we may
construe the role of the Holy Spirit in His correlating work within Smith’s hermeneutical
framework as building an attunement between the knowing subject and the known object.
For such a construal to be viable it needs to conceive of a certain congruence between the
meaningfulness of being and the transformative work of the Spirit in illumination as described
in the previous chapter. In our view, the sacramental dimension of being in Smith’s ontology
on the one hand, and the incarnational work (‘continued incarnation’ cf. §4.3.6) of the Spirit
on the knowing subject on the other hand provides this congruence. The key for
understanding this lies in how the incarnation expresses the self-revelatory desire and activity
of God towards creation.381
Christ is the ultimate sign and revelation of God (Heb. 1:1-3) and
in this sense the ultimate sacrament of God.382
Since illumination is effectuated by means of
the transformative working of the Spirit directed towards conformation of the person to the
379 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 222-4.
380 Cf. Amos Yong, “Ruach, the Primordial Chaos, and the Breath of Life: Emergence Theory and the Creation
Narratives in Pneumatological Perspective,” in The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism, ed.
Michael Welker (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 183-204; cf. idem, Spirit-Word-Community, ch. 1;
Ouweneel, De Geest van God, 116ff.
381 Cf. § 2.2.4 for this dimension also working behind Smith’s affirmation on participation; also the central
concept here as we will see.
382 My thanks to prof. Gie Vleugels for pointing me to this in a conversation. For more on this cf. Edward
Schillebeeckx, Christus: Sacrament van de Godsontmoeting (Bilthoven: H. Nelissen, 1964), esp. 17-45.
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image of Christ, we conform to the ultimate sacrament of God and thus are directed upon him
in our being-in-the-world.383
This implies that through illumination we become sacramentally
attuned to reality which itself is sacramentally understood in Smith’s ontology. The
congruence we sought above is therefore to be understood sacramentally.
The Holy Spirit is the agent par excellence to mediate and perform this attuning work (as
Yong contends as well) since He, through illumination, is the driving force of transformation,
while in being He is the divine participation of God in the material as agent of suspension. In
this work He directs the entire person upon God by making him as Christ and hereby creates a
direction congruent to the referential structure of created reality. In so doing He attunes the
knowing subject to what we described in the previous paragraph as the meaningfulness of the
object and creates what we would call harmony between subject and object.384
This can only
be possible in the type of hermeneutic Smith advances since subject and object necessarily
need to be related in order for one can speak of any congruency or harmony between them.
Since, however, Smith’s incarnational hermeneutic rejects the modern, disinterested, neutral
interpreter and embraces the subjective moment in interpretation, abovementioned harmony is
surely conceivable. It expresses the end-goal of what Smith calls the ‘Spirit-induced paradigm
shift’ in which the Spirit locates the interpreter in the right narrative so that proper
understanding becomes possible.385
To conceptualize the role of the Holy Spirit as one of pointing towards Christ (either in
being or in a person) is not uncommon within pneumatology, rather it is generally emphasized
that the Spirit is always pointing beyond Himself to either God or Christ (sometimes referred
383 Cf. the (re)directing work of the Spirit in Smith in §2.5.4; §3.3.
384 Cf. Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’; Alexander S. Jensen, Theological Hermeneutics, SCM Core Text
(London: SCM Press, 2007), 141-2; Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1980,
304ff.
385 TT 68-9, 30; cf. chapter four.
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to as the kenosis of the Spirit)386
. As Hendrikus Berkhof puts it: ‘De Geest leidt onze aandacht
steeds weer af van zichzelf, naar Christus toe.’387
Yong in similar vein construes the Spirit’s
functioning throughout Spirit-Word-Community as mediating both the horizontal and the
vertical relationality that constitutes our being-in-the-world. The role of the Spirit we propose
here therefore matches this characterization of the Spirit’s work by harmonizing subject and
object in their directing upon the Creator.
To conceive of the connection between Smith’s epistemology and ontology as a
harmonizing work of the Spirit not only aptly depicts how one add new things to his narrative
epistemologically (Smith’s ‘narrative knowledge’ is meaningful to the extent it ‘fits’ in the
context; cf. the above narratival ‘[al]location’ of the Spirit; §2.3.3; §2.3.4), it also leaves open
the possibility of hermeneutical diversity since multiple types of tones (subjects) can
harmonize with the same sound (the object).388
Therefore space is permitted for a plurality of
interpretations of the one object. This, however, is not without boundaries since not only the
object constrains the possible consonant tones,389
but also the types of subjects that are
possibly consonant is limited (e.g. instruments may be diverse but limited in their
harmonizing capacities i.e. to be like Christ is different per person, but still constrained in
how this would look like).
Once we have expressed the correlation between subject and object and in particular
acknowledged it to be somehow constrained, immediately the question of normativity arises.
Similarly, Yong discusses directly after having established the attunement of the
386 Ouweneel, De Geest van God, 27.
387 Berkhof, De Leer van de Heilige Geest, 10.
388 Cf. the ‘multivalent chorus of tongues’ FOI 184.
389 Cf. ibid., 169-75.
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pneumatological imagination its ‘normative engagement’ with the world.390
Therefore, our
next paragraph will be dedicated to this very issue.
5.4 Word and Spirit: A Pneumatological Criterion
In this paragraph we want to reflect on the question of normativity in hermeneutics in light
of our previous thoughts with special focus on our critique of the ‘pneumatic pole’ of Smith’s
hermeneutical model (§3.6). Our critique addressed primarily the problem how Smith would
safeguard the ‘fundamental trust in the Spirit’391
as criterion for interpretation against a
naivety in danger of falling into relativism. We hope to provide here a more forceful
statement of this hermeneutical criterion aided by the pneumatological insights we gained
thus far.
Again and again theologians have emphasized the mutual relationship of Word and Spirit
in order to protect against either objectivism or subjectivism.392
Irrespective of whether they
generally succeeded in finding the right balance, it seems to us precisely the issue which can
contribute in a constructive manner to Smith’s pneumatological interpretive criterion. Smith
does not address the connection to the Word in establishing this pneumatological check on
interpretation while this is exactly what in our view would provide the normativity every
criterion needs in order to function properly.
We encountered two constraints on interpretation in our exposition of the concept of
harmony above: one from the side of the interpreted object more or less parallel to what Smith
390 Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, ch. 6.
391 FOI 149, 178ff.
392 Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christelijk Geloof, 9th print (Kampen: Kok, 2007), 60-3; Clark H. Pinnock and Barry
L. Callen, The Scripture Principle: Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2006), 181-200; Berkouwer, De Heilige Schrift I, 41-82.
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in FOI calls the ‘phenomenological criterion’393
and secondly one from the subject-side of
interpretation parallel to his pneumatological criterion. Since harmony expresses the
fundamental congruency from a referential perspective between subject and object intrinsic to
a right interpretation, it becomes plausible that both sides are able to constrain interpretation.
Because we deal here with the pneumatological criterion our concern is how the subjective
dimension constrains interpretation. We saw earlier that the Spirit operates a (re)directive
work transforming the person into the image of Christ in illumination. This implies that the
image of Christ is to be regarded as the ‘blueprint’ for the knowing subject from which
follows that the subjective constraints on interpretation originate from the image of Christ as
objective criterion. To be sure, this does not mean that interpretive objectivity is within reach
for the interpretation or even ‘haunting’ our perspective as if it is a desirable state394
since
application of the criterion is always already subjective. Nor does it mean that only one right
interpreter (and hence interpretation) exists since every person exhibits the image of Christ in
a unique way. It does mean however that through illumination the Spirit is able to subjectively
constrain the interpreter by means of the objective criterion He has at His disposal.395
Yong
speaks in this regard of the Word of God396
as the object that constrains the pneumatological
393 FOI 169ff.
394 Surely this is would not be in accordance with Smith’s own viewpoint; cf. e.g. FOI 127-9; “The Logic of
Incarnation,” 8-21. To pursue objectivity would in this regard amount to blasphemy: we are called to
‘subjectively’ be like Christ, not to ‘objectively’ be Christ. The Spirit, however, constrains interpretation relative
to the ‘objective’ Christ.
395 Cf. Ouweneel’s discussion of the distinction between ontic and epistemic truth for how to maintain both an
objective (to the Spirit) and subjective criterion (to us); Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 229.
396 The Word of God is in Yong a broad term to incorporate the fullness of God’s self-revelation through the
spoken, lived, and written Word of God (with Christ as its culmination point) which will be followed here; cf.
Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 15-6; 253-65.
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imagination.397
In Christ the Word of God is perfect and hence ‘this person is the
inexhaustible way, truth, and life that serves as the concrete and material norm for all
theological interpretation.’398
Therefore, what the phenomenon (object) is to the
phenomenological criterion, the image of Christ is to the pneumatological criterion (cf.
Appendix II for a schematic illustration).
Does postulating the image of Christ as objective criterion mean that we invite a camel’s
nose of modern, neutral objectivity into our hermeneutical tent?399
By no means! We pointed
out that the image of Christ functions parallel to the phenomenon as source for the constraints
on interpretation. Smith, in particular in ST, goes at great length to make clear next to the
objectivity of the phenomenon its transcendence vis-à-vis our knowledge of it. Smith, here
and elsewhere, certainly acknowledges that the object really is (objectively) ‘out there’, but he
simultaneously emphasizes continuously that our apprehension of the object is subjective and
radically biased (a structural absence on our part or nonsaturation of the context400
). So on the
one hand the object is objective reality, on the other hand it is exclusively subjectively
approached by us and hence never objective reality to us (cf. note 395 for the same
distinction). When we therefore pose an objective ‘image of Christ’ this is not as if we are
able to objectively apprehend it, nor objectively apply it somehow, but it does mean that it
exist objectively just as the phenomenon and as such is available to the Spirit. Moreover, we
argue here, by means of the image of Christ, the Spirit constrains the subject’s interpretation
by illumination. The Spirit takes the blueprint’, applies it to the subject, and hence influences
the possibilities of the subject’s interpretation.401
This does not imply that interpretation
397 Ibid., 245ff.
398 Ibid., 258.
399 Cf. Westphal, 43, 52-3.
400 Cf. §2.3.4; esp. on this score: “Limited Inc/arnation,” 112-129.
401 Pinnock speaks in this regard of a ‘controlled liberty’ cf. Pinnock, “The Work of the Spirit,” 165.
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becomes objective through illumination, it does mean that it is constrained via the subject-side
as well. To give an example: just as the image of Wittgenstein’s ‘duck-rabbit’ as object
constrains interpretation (nobody thinks it is a rhino) without making it purely objective (to
the one it is a duck, to the other a rabbit), so does the image of Christ constrain interpretation
through illumination as well (the bread never refers to the bakery around the corner but to the
body). Yet this does not make it purely objective (cf. the Reformation for a painful illustration
of the lack of objectivity in the sacrament’s interpretation). Therefore, just as Smith’s
phenomenological criterion does not invite a modern camel’s nose into the tent, nor the
pneumatological criterion we propose here does so.
Already the recognition of the image of Christ as subjective check on interpretation is very
beneficial in advancing Smith’s pneumatological criterion since it provides a backdrop against
which it really can function as criterion. We now not just have to postulate like Smith a
fundamental trust in the guidance of the Spirit, we also are able to warrant this through the
image of Christ as focal point of the Spirit’s illumination. Christology informs pneumatology,
Word and Spirit go together. In addition to this we also want to note the holism that
accompanies this criterion: the Word is in this Word-Spirit relationship not just a text or a
cognitive principle, but a person. We have continuously emphasized the complete
involvement of the person in interpretation and hence the only appropriate criterion for the
interpreter is a person as well. If embodiment is crucial to interpretation according to Smith,
then our criterion needs to be embodied as well.
We touch here again upon the deep incarnational reality of interpretation which is so
characteristic of Smith’s hermeneutical theory. Interpretation, we concluded, is an
incarnational event in which the interpreted object parallels the incarnated Word of God
(§2.6.2). Similarly, we may add to Smith’s position, in order to harmonize subject and object,
the Spirit transforms us to the image of Christ so that the Word of God is incarnated in the
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interpreter as well (cf. §4.3.6). Word and Spirit therefore come together within the person
(with the heart as anthropological center) as a result of the incarnational work of the Spirit.
The interesting conclusion that follows from the above construction of the pneumatological
criterion is that, because of its pertaining to the subject-side of interpretation, an interpretation
is not only to be evaluated vis-à-vis the interpreted object, but also with respect to the
interpreting subject. The extent to which the image of Christ becomes incarnate in the
interpreter informs our evaluation of his interpretation.402
This is analogous what in Scripture
is considered the ‘fruit’ of a certain cause:403
the image that the interpreter exhibits as fruit of
the interpretation reflects the understanding he/she arrived at.404
This is also akin to what e.g.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer perceives as the perlocutionary moment of interpretation as a result of the
Spirit’s work.405
Just as Vanhoozer acknowledges the Spirit to render the Word effective in
the interpreter we would express it that the Spirit harmonizes subject and object so that the
interpreter exhibits the fruit that accompanies the image of Christ.
The interpreter, therefore, ‘performs’ his interpretation, or rather: demonstrates the fruit of
what he has understood in his entire person. As such it becomes possible to evaluate his
interpretation based on this demonstration with reference to the image of Christ. Again, this is
402 How this exactly would look is not appropriate to address here. We only note that (1) the image of Christ may
be exhibited in a wide diversity of expressions and (2) that again becomes clear that themes such as regeneration
and sanctification have deep hermeneutical significance (the Anabaptists were right after all!).
403 Cf. e.g. Mt 3:8; 12:33; Lk 6:43-4; Jh 15:2-8; Rm 6:21-2; Gl 5:22.
404 Cf. Nebeker’s proposals in this regard in §4.3.5. The difference here, however, is that transformation is not
only result but also effectively the origin of good interpretation. Cf. also Pinnock, “The Work of the Spirit,” 168.
405 Cf. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Spirit of Understanding: Special Revelation and General Hermeneutics,” in
Disciplining Hermeneutics: Interpretation in Christian Perspective, ed. Roger Lundin (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1997), 155-7; idem, First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2002), 154-6, 162-3; idem, Is There A Meaning, 410, 428-9; cf. also Grenz and Franke, 75.
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not an objective evaluation (just as the phenomenological criterion is not objectively applied
by us). While both the phenomenon and the image of Christ exist as objective realities
constraining interpretation, our insight in this process (our take on the constraints) is
subjective.406
5.5 Distinguishing Structure and Direction in Interpretation
In itself is may seem rather implausible, or even nonsensical, to take the image of Christ as
a ‘check’ on interpretation. One could wonder how the aforementioned things are of any
significance with regard to the everyday interpretation of books, persons, or the tree in front
of the house. Moreover, many Christians and non-Christians would consider our argument for
the crucial role of the Spirit in interpretation as impossible to maintain in view of all the right
interpretations of non-believers that happen everywhere around us as we speak.407
How to
explain those in light of the Spirit’s hermeneutical role? This final paragraph seeks to address
these pertinent questions.
The question of the extent in which truthful understanding is possible by non-believers is
almost always only addressed with regard to the understanding of Scripture and thus in the
context of a special hermeneutic.408
This discussion over what Gerhard Maier calls a
theologia regenitorum, nonetheless might be broadened to the field of general hermeneutics
given the significance of the Spirit’s work in our general understanding as well. But then
again: how should this be conceived since non-believers undeniably are capable of
406 Despite our pneumatological criterion being subjective, it does guard interpretation from an anything-goes
relativism since it functions independent of our subjective understanding of it; Cf. FOI 169ff; Westphal, 17-26.
407 Recall Kennard’s position in §4.2.3.
408 Cf. Gerhard Maier, Biblical Hermeneutics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 47-50 for a historical
overview of the different positions.
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understanding? To explain this we would argue for a distinction between structure and
direction in interpretation (cf. §2.5.4).
Thus far we have argued in our conceptualization of the hermeneutical role of the Spirit on
the basis of Smith’s hermeneutical theory making use of Smith’s sacramental ontology
emphasizing the referential nature of being. Our analysis of Dooyeweerd moreover made
clear how intrinsic this referential dimension is to being. Yet, it would go too far to reduce
being only to its referential aspect. Albeit referring is inseparable from being, next to its
transcendent-referential dimension we maintain its structural-immanent dimension as well.409
We therefore argue that, given the sacramental nature of being, interpretation involves both
the directional side (e.g. the body and blood of Christ) as well as the structural side (e.g. the
bread and wine). This proposal does not seek to express an ontological dichotomy but seeks to
distinguish in theoretical abstraction (cf. the Gegenstand-relationship in Dooyeweerd410
)
between two sides of the same coin. What we here distinguish in theoretical abstraction
therefore is not differentiated, let alone separated, in naive experience, but experienced as a
unity.411
This distinction helps to understand why non-believers are on the one hand quite capable
of understanding (not seldom exceeding believers’ understanding) and on the other hand lack
understanding as ‘unilluminated’ persons. To their immanent-created structure, objects are
understood by unbelievers in a similar fashion as believers, but to their transcendent-religious
409 Smith tried to capture this balance in the concept of ‘integrity’; IRO 204ff. (esp. 220-1); cf. §2.4.3.
410 Dooyeweerd, De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, 47-9; Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 67-70.
411 For keeping the distinction Dooyeweerdian this is essential. Meaning is the being of all that is created;
direction is intrinsic to being. Arrows without a direction do not exist. Cf. van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken,
197ff.; Alvin Plantinga, “Dooyeweerd on Meaning and Being,” Reformed Journal 8 (October 1958): 10-15.
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direction objects are understood radically different412
by non-believers vis-à-vis believers.
Directionally, through illumination, the interpreter is aided to establish the right (i.e. anastate)
interpretation over against the unilluminated interpreter necessarily establishing a wrong (i.e.
apostate) interpretation. Although this might be the other way around regarding the object’s
immanent-created structure it does imply that to rightly understand reality ‘in its orientation to
the Creator’413
and ‘as ordered to the Creator’414
illumination is the sine qua non for rightly
and fully (that is both structure and direction being included) understanding reality in general.
The distinction between structure and direction in interpretation, therefore, outlines in our
opinion a basic defense of a theologia regenitorum and sketches the answer to how the image
of Christ and its fruitfulness may provide a workable criterion for interpretation.415
It is appropriate to mention here, as we already covered in §2.5.4, the distorting effect of
sin on interpretation as well. While the Spirit operates through illumination a redirecting work
on the interpreter, the interpreter does not become immune on this side of eternity to possible
412 Please note: not ‘directionally not understood at all.’ Recall that Smith (and Dooyeweerd) deny the purely
neutral, secular perspective on reality. Cf. IRO 73-4; 125-41; ST 155n7. Although not pursued here, the question
whether this structural understanding can be correlated to the doctrine of the Imago Dei is interesting to consider.
(e.g. IRO 218; DTK 162-6).
413 Ouweneel, Christian Doctrine I, 131.
414 DTK 194.
415 Although space limits us to elaborate on this distinction here, one thing need to be underscored: as Smith sees
it, sacramentality is always to a certain degree. Cf. §3.2; “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament,”
252-8; DTK 148-9; TT 102, 104. This implies that directionality is a gradual phenomenon, always there but in
various measures. Comparable, perhaps, with the openness and closed-ness of a text in Umberto Eco’s thought:
Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical
Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 524-9. To discern an object’s referential nature is probably best
highlighted by asking ultimate questions (e.g. of origin or purpose) to it to elicit its religious dimension (cf.
Berkhof, Christelijk Geloof, 6: ‘Religie is de relatie tot het Absolute’).
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distortion of this redirecting work. This means that, although believers may trust in the
illumination of the Spirit, they should not overlook their God-given personal responsibility to
stay alert to sin’s distortion (with a significant appreciation of the supportive community
here). Even when it pertains to the directional dimension of interpretation the believer remains
open to misdirection, albeit not in the necessary fashion as the non-believer.416
To recall our
analogy of sound: when we conceive of the possibility of harmony this implies the possibility
of dissonance, which is caused by sin.417
Misdirection in this sense, is interpretive dissonance;
it dampens the harmony. As Calvin puts it:
Wij verstoren zowel de hemel als de aarde door onze zonden. Want als
wij recht geoefend zouden zijn in de gehoorzaamheid aan God, zouden
zeker alle elementen ons toezingen en zo zouden wij in de wereld als het
ware iets van een engelenzang horen.418
It behooves us as believers therefore to remain humble interpreters even though we may
expect the Spirit’s illumination supporting our interpretations; anthropologically through our
affective center (the heart) and epistemologically through our narrative (e.g. the community).
416 The radicality of this assertion is a result of the radical (i.e. root-targeted casu quo aimed at the human heart)
influence of sin on the human person. Cf. Ouweneel, De Schepping van God, 210-4.
417 John Calvin saw confusion, mixture, and chaos as the characteristic effects of sin: William J. Bouwsma, John
Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), 34ff.; van Woudenberg,
Gelovend Denken, 35-6.
418 Calvin quoted in van Woudenberg, Gelovend Denken, 34; emphasis added. The English edition of Calvin’s
commentary on Jer. 5:25 speaks of the observation of an ‘angelic harmony.’ John Calvin, Commentaries on the
Book of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Lamentations, transl. and ed. John Owen, vol. 9 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book House, 1984), 301.
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5.6 Conclusion
Having established an understanding of the hermeneutical role of the Spirit regarding the
knowing subject in the fourth chapter, our primary goal in this chapter was to expound on the
Spirit’s role in the relationship between the knowing subject and the object of his
interpretation.
Smith’s sacramental ontology – with its emphasis on the referential dimension of being –
created opportunities to conceptualize the role of the Spirit in this regard since He is
considered to be the agent of participation which lies as fundamental concept behind this
sacramentality of being. Aided by Dooyeweerd’s fundamental assertion that meaning is the
being of all that is created we underscored how intrinsic being’s pointing beyond herself is to
her understanding. Given the pneumatological dimension of this referential nature we were
able to connect this understanding of being to earlier epistemological assertions in the
previous chapter. Through the illumination of the Spirit, which we conceptualized as a
transformative work into the image of Christ, we construed a hermeneutical congruency
between subject and object based on their mutual sacramental nature. Since Christ is the
ultimate sacrament in His referring and directing toward God, the illuminating work of the
Spirit operates what we have called a harmonizing work between the knowing subject and the
object so that they become sacramentally attuned to one another. In becoming like Christ the
interpreter is enabled to grasp the sacramental meaning (i.e. pertaining to the referential
nature) of being and hence is aided to a fuller understanding of its total meaning.
At the start of this chapter we asked: How does Smith’s notion of the sacramental nature of
the world connect to the hermeneutical role of the Spirit? Based on our previous
considerations we may now answer this by pointing to the incarnational work of the Spirit in
the human person which creates harmony by transforming him into the image of Christ.
139
By further reflecting from this perspective we were also able to respond to our second
research question: How can Smith’s pneumatological criterion be readily improved within the
framework of his hermeneutical theory? Since growing into the image of Christ enhances
understanding – as we have pointed out above – this may function as background against
which Smith’s pneumatological criterion can function properly. The Spirit effectively
constrains interpretation through illumination. This means that next to Smith’s
phenomenological criterion, based on the constraints of the object, his pneumatological
criterion is based on the subject-side of interpretation. This implies that how an interpretation
is held by the subject forms a check on the truthfulness of that interpretation. The biblical
concept of fruit(fullness) may aptly be applicable here since the subject demonstrates the
result of the interpretive process. We argue therefore that the naivety of which Smith’s
pneumatological criterion was in danger is removed by providing the image of Christ as an
evaluative backdrop.
By distinguishing between structure and direction in interpretation possible difficulties
such as regarding the status of knowledge and interpretation by non-believers can be made
insightful and provides a framework in which these things can be further thought through.
140
Chapter 6 | Conclusions & Implications
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding. – Is. 11:2 (ESV)
The Father of Glory may give to you the Spirit of
Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Him. – Eph.1:17 (NKJV)
Final chapters usually bear both the character of an end point as well as a beginning point.
Our purpose here is alike, both trying to bring together what preceded and to outline what
may proceed from it.
6.1 Answer to the Main Research Question
As common thread the basic motive behind this thesis was the main research question we
formulated in chapter one:
What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the hermeneutical theory of James K.A.
Smith and how can this role be further conceptualized?
Consistent with earlier considerations (§1.3) our answer to this basic inquiry has various
elements which we will succinctly outline here. (1) Theologically, the Holy Spirit assumes
mainly three different roles in Smith’s thought: He is present in created, material reality as
captured by the concept of participation and described under the theme of ‘enchantment’, He
is the active driving force of regeneration with an emphasis on His redirecting work of the
human fundamental love, and finally He functions as anchor point in whose guidance the
interpreter may trust. (2) Hermeneutically, these three roles roughly correlate with
respectively Smith’s ontology, anthropology, and epistemology (cf. §.3.5) as the three
‘pillars’ underneath his hermeneutical theory. Yet the precise hermeneutical role of the Spirit
in Smith is not easy to pin down on the basis of Smith’s present works. The theological roles
we just described only indirectly influence how the Spirit functions in his interpretive model.
141
(3) Three starting points, however, are identifiable from the above as to how the
hermeneutical role of the Spirit it established in Smith: first the Spirit operates a contextual
working on the knowing subject in aiding his interpretation; second, He participates in created
reality which means that He is both actively present in subject and object; third, through His
guidance interpretation is constrained in a certain measure. These three points, however, are
left undeveloped by Smith himself.
(4) The question how this hermeneutical role can be further conceptualized is answered by
pursuing these three starting points and conceptually develop them within Smith’s
hermeneutical framework in the following way: (a) the operation of the Spirit on the subject
can be conceived of as illuminating his interpretation by transforming him into the image of
Christ. Anthropologically perceived, this work is directed upon the heart as anthropological
core of the human being and aimed at directing his fundamental affective comportment to the
world to its proper telos. As such it involves a holistic picture of the interpreter as human
being. Epistemologically this operation reaches through the interpreter’s narrative and hence
in this way fundamentally influences his understanding. Such an interpretation of the Spirit’s
work resonates with what we encountered in Smith as His ‘contextual’ working. (b) Due to
His presence in both subject and object the Spirit is able to create through His transformative
working on the subject a hermeneutical congruence or harmony between subject and object.
As a result, the sacramental dimension of being is fuller understood and its referential nature
more properly grasped. The interpreter accesses what Dooyeweerd defines as the
meaningfulness of being. Important here is to distinguish between structure and direction in
interpretation so that the illuminative work of the Spirit is put in right perspective as it
pertains to (unilluminated) interpretation in general. (c) This leads finally then to the
formulation of a pneumatological criterion from which the guidance of the Spirit by which He
constrains interpretation is better understood. The Spirit, through the image of Christ as
142
objective criterion at His disposal, limits and directs the illuminated interpreter’s
understanding of the object. The interpreter on his turn exhibits the fruit of this operation of
the Spirit in his entire being.
6.2 Epilogue
If one thing is both presupposed and argued for in this thesis it is God’s involvement in our
interpretative activities. Hermeneutical deism, we argue, is to be avoided at all costs.419
Not
only in the strict ‘atheistic’ sense, but also in the more hidden form of God distancing Himself
from our finite nitty-gritty flesh-and-blood type of interpretations. Too often theories of
illumination and the like act as if God is somehow scared of us being human. The reality,
however, we contend, is God’s embracing of who we are and how we do things, also in
interpretive matters. This embracement culminated in the incarnation which as salvation-
historical event again and again removes our doubt that God really did not backed off, but
showed Himself willing and capable of being intimately near to us.
When we conceive of God aiding our interpretation we should refrain therefore from
becoming uncomfortable of His nearness. In embracing us He is not operating out of duty or
mere charity, but out of real and upright desire for us. The holistic affirmation of our simple,
common and ordinary us-ness that is inherent in His attitude, should be reflected in our
theology of His hermeneutical role. Moreover, it invites us to stand in this grace and boast
(Rom. 5:2) in the certainty that God is with us in our interpretations.
God’s participation in our interpretative activities, we argue as well, is not limited to
cleaning the mess we make of it. It is a modernistic fallacy to perceive hermeneutics as solely
removing interpretive obstacles, rather hermeneutics is more like an art (Schleiermacher)
419 Cf. Mark Alan Bowald, “Rendering Mute the Word: Overcoming Deistic Tendencies in Modern
Hermeneutics; Kevin Vanhoozer as a Test Case,” Westminster Theological Journal 69 (2007): 367-81.
143
expressing the fullness and diversity of life. From this follows that God’s divine
hermeneutical operations in our lives is not despite our human and finite subjective
conditions, but much more works by means of these conditions. God does not shun what He
created. The Spirit does not walk around our interpretive faculties and magically creates the
right interpretation, His hermeneutical aid is adjusted and adaptive to us; He puts us to work.
The utter dependence on the Spirit that thus should accompany interpretation first of all
makes us thankful for every good interpretation we arrive at. Not because we thereby
somehow arrived at unbiased, neutral objectivity, but because we are enabled to glimpse at
something He created from a subjective perspective He helped establishing; to taste and see
something of the riches of meaning He brought into being. Besides gratefulness, our
dependence engenders humility as we come to understand that we are not in the position to
raise our interpretation beyond others imputing to ourselves a God’s-point-of-view. Atheistic
postmodern hermeneutics already taught us this, but the pneumatological hermeneutical
perspective put forward here confirms this – in our view even more fundamentally: we are not
God, we are dependent on God.
Lastly, the fact that God is so closely involved in our hermeneutics points to the
importance He attaches to our interpretation. When we suggest a more ‘postmodern’ outlook
of our hermeneutical theory we do not downplay the weight that should be given to right
interpretation over against wrong interpretation. We do not contend for an ‘anything-goes
relativism’ as if God would not matter about what we think. For God it does matter! That is
exactly why He is so active in our interpretations! We plead for a more postmodern outlook in
order to protect the richness of what can be understood of creation and to do interpretive
justice to God and the other. Our plea therefore also aims at awakening hermeneutical fervour
in unfolding the created diversity. God’s grace in aiding our interpretations points to our
responsibility to diligently seek understanding and apply ourselves in the challenge and
144
adventure interpretation is.420
From what we have said follows that fervour for good
interpretation significantly exceeds mere ‘brain-training’ and that our responsibility goes
beyond orthodox doctrines. Our fervour should be aimed at radical devotion to become like
our Teacher in every respect of our lives (Mat.10:25) while continuously being humble and
dependent on God in our discipleship. Then, our eyes increasingly are opened and the Spirit
of wisdom and understanding freely operates to make us faithful interpreters.
It is in the spirit of the gratefulness, humility, and fervour we spoke of we sought to write
and submit this thesis. May the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us in all the interpretive
steps we make.
420 Cf. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, prologue 4-8; XVI.33.
145
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Appendix I: Schematic overview of Smith’s Theoretical Framework
CREATION
INCARNATION
AFFIRMATION
FINITUDE AFFIRMATION
MATERIALITY AFFIRMATION
PARTICIPATION
SACRAMENTAL
ONTOLOGY
NARRATIVAL
EPISTEMOLOGY
HOLISTIC
ANTHROPOLOGY
INCARNATIONAL
HERMENEUTIC
AFFIRMATION
PARTICULARITY
156
Appendix II: Schematic Illustration of the Constraints on Interpretation
Clarification
Since interpretation arises out of the interaction of both subject and object (‘fusion of
horizons’) it is constrained by both. The object’s constraints are derived from the object itself
(phenomenological criterion). The subject’s constraints are derived from the image of Christ
(pneumatological criterion) which is effectuated through illumination.
INTERPRETATION
SUBJECT OBJECT
‘PNEUMATOLOGICAL’
CONSTRAINT ‘PHENOMENOLOGICAL’
CONSTRAINT
ILLUMINATION
