Book Review: Whose Community? Which Interpretation?
In Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Merold Westphal addresses the value of philosophical hermeneutics for the church. Westphal reminds the (presumably Christian) audience that no one is “safe” from the influence of postmodern philosophy in the church; contemporary philosophy influences popular culture and renders the notion of detached interpretation impossible. Westphal explores how an embedded person, never epistemically nowhere, how does the practicing theologian—whether academic, pastoral, or lay—can approach reading and interpreting the Bible. To examine this question, he employs the help of hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Westphal assesses how the hermeneutic approach of philosophy applies to the church at hand but shows how it can enrich a multi-denominational, often disagreeing, but ultimately God-seeking church community.
He begins by situating his argument for the twenty-first-century church. A popular stance the western church has taken when approaching the Bible is that its meaning is evident. The mindset, whether stated or not, is that the Bible needs no interpretation. While many Christian traditions tend to espouse this notion of “just seeing” what is written in the text, Westphal reveals the presumptuous nature of this belief: to hold that one’s own denomination as the possessing the lone “correct” understanding of the Bible while every other denomination misunderstands would be strange to say the least[1]. Using the classic example of the Hindustan Elephant and the blind men, Westphal reminds the reader that while an interpreter may be partially right, she is almost always limited in her perspective. While this approach explains the misguided understanding of pure objectivity, Westphal does not suggest that any interpretation is as correct as another for an elephant is not a keyboard[2]. In other words, there can be (and often are) wrong interpretations when approaching the text of the Bible.
Westphal then turns to philosophy. Precursors to Gadamer, like the present-day Christian, had difficulties maneuvering the extremes of interpretation objectivity and “anarchical relativity” or “anything goes” attitude when it came to interpretation. Westphal emphasizes that non-dogmatic, but still truth-seeking, readers must navigate between the two. Scripture should not be forced into a method, as William Dilthey had done, or opening it too widely through subjectivity, which he argues Friedrich Schleiermacher was prone to embrace. He explores questions raised by the objectivism of E. D. Hirsch, who, in his determination to find the one true interpretation, is seemingly willing to “kill the patients (texts) in order to save them (from multiple interpretations)”[3]. He turns instead to the perspective of what he labels the “relativist hermeneutics”[4] of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur who did not approach interpretation from either extreme but saw the hermeneutical approach as requiring personal involvement.
Westphal turns to Gadamer’s Truth and Method, reminding the reader that it is not a “how-to” book, but a more descriptive exploration of understanding. From Gadamer, Westphal encourages the reader to “reclaim” tradition and to see our belonging in it. As Gadamer said, “History does not belong to us, we belong it.”[5] Traditions will naturally be both limiting and enabling, as well as plural, but are fundamentally inevitable; we cannot approach the Bible without what Gadamer calls a historically-effected consciousness; again, we never interpret from nowhere. Westphal also highlights Gadamer’s point that tradition leads to prejudice but that this prejudice is not something to be feared; when prejudice and historically-effected consciousness are properly acknowledged we can learn to see truth through how it speaks in the text. A far cry from “autopsying” the bodies of dead texts, the hope of Gadamer is that the reader of a written work (or watcher of a play or viewer of art) experiences the work as if for the first time in its “(re)presentation”[6] or “re-presencing,” and therefore see a truth beyond method. And because our positions—our horizons—constantly shift, this interpretation is an ongoing process. Westphal reminds the reader that she must, “Revise. Revise. Replace.”[7] We are constantly adjusting.
Westphal asks how, then, Christians can approach the Bible with a possibility of plural correct interpretations. As Gadamer shows, the process of interpretation and new understanding must also imply application, specifically in the context of Christian community. Westphal highlights Christian training through Gadamer’s notion of Bildung, or formation. This is done in the church through conversation. This conversation, however, must also be reexamined for far too often the goal of conversation in Christian tradition is to be right. Westphal proposes a different approach by examining the benefits the liberal and communitarian traditions of Christian community. While the do perspectives do not necessarily agree, both can be useful in forming a model for the church. The liberal model, when implemented in the political sense, typically aims at an orderly coexistence. Within the context of church, liberalism is helpful for the church conversation in promoting belonging to one another in peaceful cooperation. It should not model after the individualistic societies of the west, but instead, seek out what can be found as an overlapping consensus out of differing denominational views. Supplemented by the communitarian perspective, the church need not rely only on the lowest common denominator…but instead may ascribe to virtues determined through community… Westphal shows this perspective as operative in the church with the example of the Joint Declaration of Justification of the World Lutheran Federation and Roman Catholic Church[8]. This declaration encourages hermeneutic humility by embracing the similarities that both traditions hold.
Westphal also encourages the church to bring hermeneutics to daily life. One approach he recommends is that of lectio divina to help promote a listening in scripture. He furthermore suggests a possibility for the church that might be as simple as gathering before a Sunday service to discuss the scripture reading of that week prior so the pastor might be more aware of the conversation and understanding of the church body. When the conversation is opened, we allow God to speak to us through revelation as well, for, crucially, Westphal reminds the Christian reader that alongside the importance of hermeneutic philosophy, we believe that God as a person can often break through commonly held tradition to speak to us. The Bible is a book, but for Christians it is also more. We might do well to learn from the reformed church, “Always reformed always reforming.” Where there is a tension between the text that exists and ongoing interpretation, it allows us to look to God. Westphal asks, “What did humans write?” alongside “What action does God perform?”[9]
Westphal’s presentation is pertinent to the church specifically in exposing how Biblical interpretation has been shaped by western culture at large. The need to find ridged truth in the form of verifiable fact has seeped into Christian culture from the influence of science. As Michael Polanyi argues in Meaning, the Enlightenment suspicion of authority that resulted in the quest for verifiable truth is problematic; but this notion of truth as self-evident fact is not even plausible. He exposes it as self-deception, showing science is not, “the simon-pure, crystal-clear fount of all reliable knowledge and coherence, as it has for so long been presumed to be. Its method is not of detachment but one of involvement.”[10] Gadamer would agree: when we interpret, we must involve ourselves.
One key aspect that Westphal could have considered at greater length—in light of the presentation that postmodern philosophy that is so pressing on our current culture—is that the reading of scripture. Scripture reading overall is no longer seen as crucial in many church congregations, or—at least—not outside of a Sunday gathering. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer demonstrates in Life Together, adopting an interpretive approach to the scriptures requires the realization of why scripture reading matters in Christian community at all. Perhaps it would benefit the church to be reminded that to hear God speak, we must make scripture reading a practice; to enter into conversation about what the Bible means requires that we read it. Pure agreement may not result but, as Gadamer shows, it is not the aim: “the miracle of understanding consists in the fact that no like-mindedness is necessary to recognize what is really significant and fundamentally meaningful in tradition.”[11]
Can the wisdom of Athens help Jerusalem? Westphal shows that it can. His book, concise but by no means shallow, opens up new streams in which the church must wade. In a culture deeply influenced by postmodernism, he shows a possible way of seeking real truth and maintaining Christian community even if interpretation differs. He encourages the reader to listen to the text, for he who has ears may, in fact, hear.
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Westphal, Merold. Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church. Baker Academic, 74.
[2] Ibid., 26.
[3] Ibid., 51.
[4] Ibid., 35.
[5] Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 288.
[6] Westphal, Merold. Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church. Baker Academic, 97.
[7] Ibid., 76.
[8] Westphal, Merold. Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church. Baker Academic, 148.
[9] Ibid., 135.
[10] Polanyi, Michael, and Harry Prosch. Meaning. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 63.
[11] Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 322.
