Speech act theory and the bible
Posted on: October 15, 2007
- In: hermeneutics | theology
- 8 Comments
I’ve blogged before about the limitations of the grammatical-historical methods of exegesis.
But I was struck last week in my History of Interpretation class by Augustine’s approach to the problem of interpretation. He is almost entirely goal-centred. For him, the purpose of the scriptures is to engender love for God and love for one’s neighbour.
So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them. Anyone who derives from them an idea which is useful for supporting this love but fails to say what the writers demonstrably meant in the passage has not made a fatal error, and is certainly not a liar.
And a bit later on:
If… he is misled by an idea of the kind that builds up love, which is the end of the commandment, he is misled in the same way as a walker who leaves his path by mistake but reaches the destination to which the path leads by going through a field. But he must be put right and shown how it is more useful not to leave the path, in case the habit of deviating should force him to go astray or even adrift.
So, the most important thing for Augustine is that love is built up. It’s better to get what the authors actually intended, but only because if you get into the habit of misreading them, you might eventually end up not going in the direction of love at all.
It seems to me that what Augustine is saying is that the perlocutionary speech act of scripture is more important than its locutionary act. What is communicated is less important than what is achieved by that communication. Might this not be a useful hermeneutical principle? Especially when coupled with Augustine’s warning that to keep ignoring the author’s intended meaning is dangerous.
What does God intend to accomplish by the bible? To tell us things? Yes, certainly and Augustine is right that we should try to stick to this path as much as possible. But God knows how we are liable to misinterpret the bible, even sometimes the whole church, for centuries at a time. Might it not be the case that even during these times, his word is accomplishing the purpose for which he sent it? Which is to say, building up the church. And if so how ‘wrong’ are those ‘wrong interpretations’? The locutionary act may have failed, but the perlocutionary act is achieved.
How would this work in practice? Well, it would mean that faithful Christians who open their bibles and find encouragement in a particular passage to love God or to love their neighbour in specific ways, could claim legitimacy for their interpretations, even if the GHE would suggest otherwise. For example, take Jer 29:11, a verse which was important to me as an undergraduate. It was a great encouragement to put my trust in God who loved me: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” A strict GHE reading would point out that this verse is addressed to Israel in exile, and that its meaning must be applied to that situation. The Augustinian method might agree that Jeremiah’s prophecy wasn’t intended to be directly for me, but since that interpretation clearly builds my love for God, it is legitimate.
So it would free us from the idea that we have to find ‘the’ meaning of a passage, as if it could have only one. Any interpretation that served the goals of love would be legitimate.
And it would remind us that God, in giving us the bible, wants to do much more than tell us information, he wants to change our hearts and lives towards him.
Hmm. A little bit too crazy?
8 Responses to "Speech act theory and the bible"
November 1, 2007 at 1:10 am
Michael, you could try Richard Hays/Ellen Davies’ volume, ‘The Art of Reading Scripture’. And the Steinmetz article I link here:http://conversationaltheology.wordpress.com/2007/10/17/if-you-havent-read/
November 2, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Grammatical-historical exegesis. The aim of it is to uncover the intended meaning of the original human author, by means of linguistic analysis of the text in the context of its original historical setting. It’s what most biblical scholars of the last 150 years or so have done or thought they were doing.
November 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm
What about applying this idea to textual criticism? I was really helped once by a talk on the woman caught in adultery in Jn’s Gos. Now I’ve learned that the passage may not even be inspired, canonical scripture. Could you used a per-locution based model of interpretation to say this doesn’t matter? If yes, how do you prevent anything (pop songs, the Koran) being used as a source of doctrine if they happen to seem helpful. This is what is making me suspicious of agreeing with Augustine too much.
November 20, 2007 at 2:06 am
Michael, I’m not sure that textual criticism is really relevant – that’s simply the discipline of establishing the original text, not a matter of authority.
I think also that one could distinguish different kinds of usefulness. ‘Useful for godliness’, for example, is a category that certainly extends beyond authoritative scripture – probably not to many pop songs or the Koran, but the works of John Stott could be included here! So yes, if you found Jn 8 or Mk 16 useful – that’s great.
‘Useful for establishing doctrine’ is, however, a category where one would want a more stringent test. I wouldn’t want to include the non-canonical texts here, and I might not want to apply a perlocutionary model either. I’d be more concerned with the locutionary force of the text – what does it say, not what does it do or what effects does it have.
June 5, 2008 at 11:28 am
“…Anyone who derives from them an idea which is useful for supporting this love but fails to say what the writers demonstrably meant in the passage has not made a fatal error, and is certainly not a liar”
To this I would say… he may not be a liar.. but certainly not a person who is wrestling with the word… to try to love God with all his mind….
Also, doesn’t it mean ignoring the whole cannon where individual books speaks so powerfully especially in all its historical particularity and specificity? And wouldn’t that kind of relaxed attitude, expecting to find some edifying messages and then satisfied – work well done- found some edifying messages – encourage what the NT writers called “metanoia” -”change of mind” — I personally think , it would be hard for people to have a complet U-turn in one’s worldview… unless at some point of time (with the power of the Holy Spirit), we are confronted at seeing texts in a fresh, yet challenging and uncomfortable ways…
just some thoughts below to reflect in this regard…
The phrase “Jesus is Lord….” as we see in Acts.. when read in this edifying message means He is Lord in every area of MY life. But properly seen in its context…. it calls and challenges for a discipleship at all levels of life…. not just an individual spiriutal-personal level…. because if Jesus is Lord.. “Tiberius Caeser is not”……”Saddam Hussein is not” or still “America is not”.. which may even be uncomfortable for us conservative christians…
June 5, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Well, I’m pretty comfortable saying that ‘America is not Lord’, ;).
I don’t think I was arguing for this as the only hermeneutical principle we need, and I’m sure that Augustine isn’t either. He says quite clearly that one ought to “be put right and shown how it is more useful not to leave the path, in case the habit of deviating should force him to go astray or even adrift.” I just think that often we’re so caught up in being ‘right’ that we forget how important it is to be loving.
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October 31, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Thank you Ros for your fascinating post.
Being mid-way through my first term at the Cornhill Training course, such issues have been much in my mind.
Perhaps an even better example than your Jer text is 2 Tim 2:22 (“flee the evil desires of youth…”, unles I’ve got the reference wrong). In his book “Not even a hint”, Joshua Harris recommends this as a memory verse about lust, reading it as about (among other things) the evil sexual desires of youth. A more GHE method of interpretation can lead to a different reading: for example, in Ash’s lecture on the passage, as I remember, he argued that since the context is about false teaching, the evil desires in view is loss of temper and anger, rather than grace and gentleness in the face of false teaching. The problem with this interpretation is that it is arguably hard to rejoice with those of Harris’ readers who have used the verse as a memory text against lust and, by God’s grace, known success in fighting this temptation, since, if you follow Ash, you surely think this is at best a secondary application.
On the other hand, Augustine and his contemporaries have a sometimes sloppy attitude to reading texts in context. The only Augustine I know is Confessions (and that only books 1-9), but he seems always to be quoting the Old Testament, lifting odd verses here and there and apparently ignoring either their book context or the whole Bible context. Without wishing to seem irreverent, perhaps a year at Cornhill would have done him good.
Are there any scholars who currently advocate a more per-locution focussed model of interpretive model or commentaries/sermons which use it?
Thanks again for a great post.