Hermeneutics A Pentecostal Option

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HERMENEUTICS:

A PENTECOSTAL OPTION

by

Howard M. Ervin

Fundamental to the

study

of hermeneutics, as to

any

academic disci- plines,

is the

question

of epistemology. What are the

grounds

of know- ledge ?

How does one determine the limits and

validity

of knowledge? It is not our

purpose

to discuss the

subject

in any detail but

simply

to note basic

assumptions

that affect our

approach

to hermeneutics.

Two

ways

of

knowing

are so much a

part

of our Western

ways

of thinking

that

they

are received as axiomatic viz.

sensory experience

and reason.

Any theology

that limits itself

only

to these two

ways

of knowing is locked into the

perennial dichotomy

between faith and reason to which the so-called New Hermeneutic1 seeks to speak,

however,

without much success for reasons to be discussed later.

Howard M. Ervin, (Th.D., Princeton Theological Seminary), is professor of old Testament at the School of Theology, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

lJames

McConkey Robinson, The New Hermeneutic, ed. by James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr. (New York

Harper & Row, 1964).

_

11

1

The resolution

tional hermeneutics

commitment to a critical-historical has

opted

for an

epistemology

of the

dichotomy

between faith and reason

by

tradi-

has been no less

unsatisfactory.

exegesis,

traditional

With its

strong hermeneutics

theology. Pietism,l

that either abdicated faith for

reason,

or conversely sought

to validate faith

epistemologically by

a

category

of

of a propositional

l

of sola

fidei

has tended to abdicate the role of reason in favor of faith in terms of the

immediacy

of subjective

personal

special pleading

in the interests as a

logical

extension

experience.

The

consequence destructive rationalism, others a non-rational

for hermeneutics has been in some

quarters

in others a

dogmatic intransigence,

mysticism.

matic

epistemology (a)

the

dichotomy

a

and in

yet What is needed is an

epistemology

that meets the

A pneu- a resolution of

firmly

rooted in the Biblical faith with a phenomenology

criteria of

empirically

verifiable

sensory experience (healing, miracles, etc.)

and does not violate the coherence of rational

categories.

meets these

criteria,

and

provides

between faith and reason that existentialism con- sciously

seeks to bridge, though at the

expense

of the

pneumatic;

rationalism that often

accompanies

exegesis;

and

(c)

a rational

accountability

in sola

ftdei.

To this we shall return later.

The

English

noun hermeneutics is derived from the Greek hermeneia

antidote to a destructive historical

by

a

piety grounded

meaning “interpretation.”

Something

pound,”

and

(2) “to interpret,

(b) the

a critical- for the

mysticism

of the

scope

of

meaning

is indi-

(1)

“to

explain

in

words,

ex-

of

interpretation

hermeneia

glosson, “interpretation

cated

by

the verbal

cognate hermeneuo,

i.e., to translate what has been spoken

or written in a foreign

language

into the vernacular.” The numinous

quality

of

speech

is instanced

The

range

of meaning of the Greek is

conveniently

James M. Robinson thus:

by

the

spiritual

charism of of

tongues”

in I Corinthians 12:10.

summarized

by

The Greek noun hermeneia thus embraced the whole broad

scope

from

‘speech’

that

brings

the obscure into the

of ‘interpretation,’

clarity

of

linguistic expression,

applicable

to ‘translation’

lA

colleague, Dr. Steven O’Malley has pointed

out that this would be especially

to the more mystical varieties of Pietism, e.g., Moravianism; while others, such as the Reformed Pietists Cocceius and Lampe, worked out a precisely ordered plan of salvation (Heilsordnung) for personal appropriation.

12

2

from an

obscure, foreign language

into the

clarity

of one’s own

language,

and to

‘commentary’

that

explicates

the

meaning

of

the

methodology can be illustrated

of by

obscure

language by

means of clearer

language.1

considerations,

and

commentary

of Ezra

reading

“the law of God” in

Hebrew,

while the Levites

“gave

the sense” in Aramaic “so that the

people

understood

Apart

from

etymological hermeneutics as both translation the

episode

the

reading.”2

What is

especially significant “commentary”

written text. While

interpretation ation of the oral

tradition, e.g.,

behind

prophecy Scholars have

recognized are not

merely sequential

in interpretation is that both are endemic

as “translation” and

to the

understanding

of a as “speech” is germane to the elucid-

is mediated

in a

literary

text.

during

the

early stages

of

it cannot be

gainsaid

that the oral tradition,

and

kerygma,

that oral tradition and textual transmission

but coterminous

textual tradition. The

presence

of the oral tradition

contemporaneously with the textual tradition can therefore be

mutually interpretive. the oral tradition is no longer

alive,

the task of hermeneutics is confined

to the written text.

The numinous influence be

gainsaid.

for

publication

is acutely aware

Where

can

scarcely

raised

by

of

“speech” upon meaning

Certainly anyone

who has edited an “oral”

presentation

of the

difficulty

in capturing the nuances of the human voice that affect

meaning.

A critical

question

is whether or not the numinous

effect of “speech”

can be reconstructed from the written text. The re-

contention one encounters in the literature on the New Her-

that the words

may or may

not reflect the

intentionality

into hermeneutics that if

pressed

of to the

question.

This introduces a

could

negate objective exegesis

for the determination of

the New Hermeneutic

upon meaning

peated

meneutic

the text is an

ambiguous response subjectivity

criteria such as critical-contextual meaning.

Inescapably,

provides justification,

if justification exegesis

in a sound hermeneutical

biblical hermeneutics is textual

interpretation,

hermeneutics commits us to the task of

translating sacred textual tradition, there can be no hermeneutical

from a

critical,

contextual

exegesis.

1 Robinson, op. cit, p. 6.

2Nehemiah 8:8

.

– 13-

which

is

needed,

for the critical role of methodology.

Inasmuch as biblical

and

clarifying

the

integrity apart

3

It is not

entirely

accurate to write, as Robinson

has,

that “The profound implication

that these

three

functions

i.e., speech, translation, and

commentary belong together

as interrelated

aspects

of a

single hermeneutic was lost in traditional hermeneutics, which was the theory of but one

aspect

of hermeneia,

exegesis.”!

To subsume the whole of traditional hermeneutics under the single rubric of exegesis is to

ignore the fact that traditional hermeneutics clearly accepted the

responsi- bility

for “translation” and

“commentary,”

and

furthermore,

distin- guished

textual criticism

(i.e., translation)

and

exposition (commentary) from

exegesis.

The

question

is best addressed

by

an

exponent

of an older and traditional hermeneutics whose book has been a school text for

generations

of American

theological

students.

Hermeneutics

properly begins

“where textual criticism leaves

off’ and aims to establish the

principles, methods,

and rules

which are needed to unfold the sense of what is written. Its

object

is to elucidate whatever may be obscure or ill-defined,

so that

every

reader

may

be

able, by

an

intelligent process,

to

obtain the exact ideas intended by the author.

Exegesis

is the

application

of these

principles

and

laws,

the actual

bringing

out

into formal statement, and

by

other

terms,

the

meaning

of the

author’s words.

Exegesis

is related to hermeneutics as preaching

is to homiletics, or, in

general,

as

practice

is to

theory.2

The intuition of traditional hermeneutics that

exegesis

is indis- pensable

to hermeneutical

integrity

is

sound;

where it has

erred,

if indeed it has

erred,

was in

placing

the hermeneutical

enterprise

at the service of textual and

propositional theology.

In

this,

hermeneutics has been but

responsive

to the

polemic

and

apologetic exigencies

of various currents both within and without the Church. A sound

gram- maticohistorical

exegetical

tradition has therefore been

indispensable to hermeneutical

methodology.

This has been both a

strength

and a weakness. A

strength

in that it

gave priority

to the

scriptural text,

but a weakness in that it

placed

the text at the service of rationalistic and propositional theology.

From an existential

perspective,

an

equally notable weakness of traditional hermeneutics is its relative insensi-

lrobinson, op. cit, p. 6.

2 Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, Library of Biblical and Theological Literature, eds. George

R Brooks and John F. Hurst, Vol. II (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1911).

z

– 14-

4

tivity

to the numinous in the ethos mediated

perspective.

from a charismatic inclined to

agree.

or Pentecostal

by

the biblical text. And

the

present

writer is

existential nonetheless

On the other hand, the New Hermeneutic,

theological mood,

while it is

responsive

threatens the hermeneutical

rooted as it is in an

to the numinous enterprise by

its

subjectivity

of the text. Its

demythologizing

of

Scripture world view robs

exegesis facticity.

of the

intentionality

of the text

This is aided and abetted

in its efforts to reconstruct the numinous

intentionality

because of its dis-ease with the biblical

of its critical-contextual

Hermeneutics is then an exercise in

private

reconstruction

cularly

true of the

approach affirmed: “The

interpretation

historicity

and

obliteration

of the

who

categorically

is not

subject from

any

other literature.”2

.

by

the existentialist

boundaries between sacred and secular hermeneutics.l This is

parti-

of Rudolf Bultmann

of the Biblical

Scriptures

to

any

different conditions of understanding

Does this not

suppose

an

optimistic

view of humanity at odds both with the biblical view of man, and the

empirical

evidence of man’s fallenness

century?

Whether then one

says

with ortho-

are the word of God, or with

neo-orthodoxy they

bear witness to the word of God, the result is the same.

Scriptures

furnished

by

the twentieth doxy

that the

Scriptures

that

reductionism that denies their

of a de facto

rejection

of

are

subjected

to an

anthropological character

the

pneumatic

The

psycho-socio-cultural

the

demythologizing

of the

Scriptures hermeneutic,

standing

this

process

of demythologizing

as the word of

God,

a

consequence

factor that alone infuses them with divine life.

dimensions

of this

anthropology

make essential to an existentialist

to hermeneia, and if so, how? reductionism,

it is a moot

for

only

thus is it commensurable with the

pre-under-

of the modern mind. But one

may

well

ask,

do the results of

contribute

Within the context of an

anthropological

question

whether one

really

encounters the word of God, or words about

horrors to an existentialist

theology,

the latter has a

God;

and horror of propositional ring

to it.

of

Scripture

is

evangelical

This leads one to

suspect

that the

demythologizing

simply

an exercise in

futility.

On the one

hand,

the notable

growth

of

with their

ready espousal

churches,

of biblical

miracles,

lEbeling, “Word of God and Hermeneutics,” Word and Faith, translated by James W. Leitch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), pp. 310, 311.

2Ebeling, op. cib, p. 311, footnote #1.

– 15-

5

and on the other the

proliferation

Scriptures.

to the miraculous existentialist

theology

of all forms of

psychic-occult my-

make it clear that the biblical

the

than either liberal or

enterprise

indeed

sticism,

even

among

the

intelligentsia,

world view is not what inhibits the modern mind from

understanding

The modern mind has

proven

itself to be far more amenable

or even the

pseudo-miraculous

has been

willing

to admit For this

reason, though

not for this reason alone, the

demythologizing

emerges

as an exercise in irrelevancy.

If, then,

it is not an “archaic” world view that

precludes

the

Scriptures

Let it be said that one must

applaud

to make the

Scriptures intelligible

to the modern mind.

However,

from

mind from

understanding

the modern and their

message,

what is it?

the existentialist’s concern

of the twentieth

century,

it becomes this “modem mind.” In the final

of the word of God that ren-

the

perspective

of the last

quarter increasingly

difficult to

identify analysis,

it is the absolute ders it incomprehensible

is the scandal

of the

cross. “Christ and

folly

to Gentiles”

(I

Corinthians man is a better than reasonable

transcendence

to the modern

temper.

In Pauline

language,

it

crucified,

a stunmhrtg block to Jews 1:23).

As a matter of fact, modem

would be better “modern man.”

facsimile of his ante-diluvian ancestor. One indeed

might

ask whether or not the cause of a biblical hermeneutic

by “demythologizing”

served

our

metaphysical

The

Scriptures

the

concept

of a

absolutes.

in itself

of our Even

as in

It is indeed the word that

sin and of

righteousness

and of judgment” and an

apocalyptic

Having spoken

of God’s word as absolute and transcendent

poses

a problem in hermeneutics. Within the cultural

pluralism day,

there are no ethical, moral, or

spiritual

systems,

transcendence is

but

absurd.

affirm, however,

that the word of God is the ulti- mate word. It is the transcendent word. It is the word

beyond

all human words,

for it is

spoken by

God

(revelation).

contradicts all human words, for it

speaks absolutely “of

(John 16:8).

It is both an

eschatological

word that

judges

all human

gnosis.

It is a word for which there are no

categories

endemic to human

understanding. word for

which,

in

fact,

there is no hermeneutic

divine hermenecctes

(the Holy Spirit)

mediates an

understanding.

The

insight

of an existential language

itself as hermeneutic

It is a unless and until the

hermeneutic that we encounter

However,

failure to dis-

reductionism of which

is

salutary.

tinguish

the transcendent nature of the

speaking subject

in the word- event leads to

confusion, i.e.,

the

anthropological

we have

already spoken.

It seems clear

that,

on the human

level,

we encounter each other as

willing, thinking,

feeling subjects

as-event. It is our common

humanity

in all its

cultural, social,

existential

16

in the

word-

6

commonality encounter

predicates

in

finiteness

point

at least, an incommensurable

that makes

understanding possible. When, however,

we

the word of

God,

there are no

egalitarian

common,

for the word is the divine

Logos

before whom we stand in the

of our creaturehood. There

is, in fact,

from the human stand-

gulf

between the Creator and the creature. The word of God is

fundamentally

incarnation).

The biblical

precondition man’s

ontological

re-creation “partakers

of the divine nature”

an

ontological reality (the for

understanding

that Word is

1:4)

that the

Holy Spirit

by

the

Holy Spirit (the

new

birth).

It is as

(II

Peter

“guides…

into all truth”

(John 16:13).

Even the new birth does not

the

boundary

between the Creator and the creature. However, the

erase

conditions for

hearing

and

understanding

the Word are now

present

for

can never

transgress

conditions for

hearing

and

understanding automatically

insure our

understanding tative distance between

we become

by grace

what He is

by

nature.

But,

and it is a large

bu?

we

the limits of our creaturehood. Even

though

the

2:10), interprets

of the word is

qualitatively

are now

present,

that does not the divine address. The

quali-

it is

the Creator and the

creature, although bridged,

is not erased. This distance renders the word

ambiguous

until the

Holy Spirit,

who “searches even the

depth

of God”

(I

Corinthians

it to the hearer. Thus the

hearing

and

understanding

more than an exercise in semantics. It is theological (theos-logos)

communication in its

deepest ontological

con- text, Le.,

the incarnational. The incarnation makes truth

personal-“I am the truth.” It is not

simply grasping

the

kerygma cognitively.

It is being apprehended by

Jesus

Christ,

not

simply

in the letter-word but the divine-human word. Herein lies the

ground

for a pneumatic

hermen-

eutic.

Before, however, proceeding

.

to a discussion of a pneumatic hermen- eutic,

there are several other concerns that must at least be noted.

among

these is the

question

of the

relationship

between the word

(II

Peter

1:21)

and the

Preeminent

word of

God,

as the

spoken

existential Scriptures,

God is indivisible from a sacred literature,

as the written word. Let it be said

then,

that the word of

the

Bible,

or the

Holy Scrip-

tures

(II Timothy 3:15).

It is as

Georges Florovsky

has so

trenchantly

observed:

The

Scriptures

are

“inspired,”

What is the

inspiration

is a

mystery

therein. It is a

mystery

can never be

properly

they

are the Word of God.

defined-there

of the divine-human en-

holy

counter. We cannot

fully

understand in what manner ‘God’s men’ heard the Word of their Lord and how

they

could articulate it in the words of their own dialect.

Yet,

even in their human

it was the voice of God. Therein lies the miracle

transmission,

17

7

transmit

of

and the

mystery

of the

Bible,

that it is the Word of God in human idiom. And in whatever the manner we understand the

inspira- tion,

one factor must not be overlooked. The

Scriptures and

preserve

the Word of God

precisely

in the idiom of man … The human idiom does not betray or belittle the

splendour

it does not bind the

power

of God’s Word. The Word

and

rightly expressed

revelation,

of God

may

be

adequately words.1

in human

literary

and historical

understanding

of the

Scriptures. rationality by

itself is inadequate of

Scripture.

And,

we

might add, precisely

because of the

incarnation,

analysis

are

indispensable

It is

only

as human

rationality joined

in

ontological with “the mind of Christ”

(I Corinthians

is understood

Spirit

that the divine

mystery

linguistic,

as a first

step

to an This is the

province

of

exegesis.

But for the task of interpreting the words

union

2:16)

is quickened by the

Holy

by

man for:

for those who love

him,

God

has revealed

What no

eye

has

seen,

nor ear

heard,

nor the heart of man conceived,

what God has

prepared

to us

through

the

Spirit.

It is the

testimony

of

Scripture2

fundamental articulated

inadequacy pneumatic

clearly

enunciated

pneumatic to a demythologizing

miracles renders

of the same coin.

Consequently,

(I

Corinthians 2:9,

10) that it is not

possible

to

pene-

trate to the heart of its

message apart

from the

Holy Spirit.

This is the

of the New

Hermeneutic,

dimension. Since the Bible

spells

clearly

the initiative of the

Holy Spirit

in the

miracles,

dimension in the New Hermeneutic

of miracles and

conversely

the

demythologizing

the

Holy Spirit

irrelevant.

the

problem

of hermeneutics

to Bultmann is the

problem

of

“demythologizing

only

within a Bultmannian

But

precisely

what is to be

demythologized?

The

problem applies

to the

mythical

statements in the New

Testament. No one can

deny

that there are such statements:

message,”3

it lacks a

clearly

out

quite

neglect

of a

leads

of

They

are

opposite

sides

according

the New Testament anthropology.

Ernest Fuchs

responds:

1 Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition : An Eastern

Orthodox View. Belmont, ylassachusetts: Nordland Publishing Co., 1972), p. 27.

express

2 It is also the testimony of the Apostolic tradition. The definitions of the councils

the harmony of the human will with the Divine will in the Church; cf. Acts 15 :28 – “It seemed good to the

Holy Spirit and to us…”

3Ernest

Fuchs, The New Hermeneutic, p. 115.

– 18-

8

resurrection he rules

together

heavenly being. After his

Jesus is conceived of as a pre-existent

with God at God’s

right

hand. During

his lifetime he can walk on the water like a spirit. He was conceived

by the Holy Spirit

without male

participation.

1

forth.

While the events

specified similar

categories

in the Gnostic spective,

the

analogies

myth

to the

demythologizers difference is due to the role ascribed

may

bear an

analogical

literature,

are semantic and not substantive.

is

mystery

The

cogency

of

argument

eighteenth-or scientific

nineteenth-century

physics, Copernican

And so

relationship

to

from the orthodox

per-

What is

to the

orthodox,

and the to the

Holy Spirit-or

not as-

may appeal

to the

world view. But such a

scribed to the

Holy Spirit

as the case

may

be.

for

demythologizing

“modern mind” because it fits

readily

into the frame of reference of an

scientific

world view is neither self-evident nor

self-authenticating today. True,

the world view

forged

from the

postulates

celestial

mechanics,

ism

may

have

provided

a

congenial

frame of reference

lations. But does the modern scientific mind think in these

categories any longer?

With the advent of nuclear

physics,

science has made a quantum leap

forward and the older scientific materialism

As one

physicist

friend remarked standpoint,

the

theory

of

quantum understand from a scientific

viewpoint ances of Jesus.”

of Newtonian and

Lyellian

uniformitarian-

for such

specu-

is obsolete. to the writer: “From a rational mechanics2 makes it easier to

the

post-resurrection appear-

.

when he writes:

knowledge nineteenth materialism,

Morton

Kelsey

is but

echoing

a

growing

concensus

In field after field scientists have discovered that man’s

of the world is

simply

not final or static in the

way

century

science believed. The

tight, confining

box of

held

together by precise

apart

at the seams. And still the revolution

have

begun

to realize the

magnitude

1Ibid., pp. 115, 116.

natural

laws,

has come

is continuing and men and

scope

of the

change.3

Copernicanism by theology

2This does not imply that scientific theory can adequately explain the mystery of our salvation as revealed in the Christian faith. Some may provide more appropriate analogies to illumine our understanding. The preoccupation of the Church with such theories may exert detrimental effects. As Dr. O’Malley points out, such a preoccupation with

the Protestant

“Enlightment” theologians shifted the attention of

from the central concerns of soteriology to cosmology.

1972), p.

3 Morton Kelsey, Encounters With God (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany Fellowship,

92.

– 19-

9

trenchant observation American Psychological psychologists,

It is

futile,

he warned the

a physics which is not there

categories.

cen- time and Does not

The scientific

phenomenology tury

is

suggesting

space, energy

and matter, the existentialist

of the nineteenth century? polemical,

but nonetheless

Lest

anyone judge

these conclusions too

sweeping, Kelsey quotes

the

of Robert

Oppenheimer

in an address to the

Association.

to model their science “after

any more,

which has been

quite

outdates.”l

of the last half of the twentieth

radically

different

ways

of

understanding

and a host of related

hermeneutic address itself to a fossilized mindset

The

question

presses

for an answer.

Once

again Georges Florovsky

has

something pertinent

bute to the discussion.

an ‘archaic

idiom’-i.e.,

is neither

rhetorical

nor

to contri-

are retained.

The modern

It has

recently

been

suggested gize’ Scripture,

of the

Holy

Writ

by something

Most of us have lost the

integrity

of the

scriptural mind,

even if some bits of biblical

phraseology

man often

complains

that the truth of God is offered to him in

in the

language

of the Bible-which is no more his own and cannot be used

spontaneously.

that we should

radically ‘demytholo-

meaning

to

replace

the

antiquated categories more modern. Yet the

question

really nothing

cannot be evaded: Is the

language

of

Scripture

else than an accidental and external

wrapping

out of which some ‘eternal idea’ is to be extricated and

disentangled,

vehicle of the divine

message,

a

perennial

delivered for all time?2 The

question may

be

phrased

substantive

it is more

apparent of a nineteenth-century view.

Sensory experience

or is it rather which was once

in another

way.

Is the

dichotomy

of the modern mind

truly

From the writer’s

perspective,

upon

the

viability

by

a materialistic world

between a Biblical faith and the

rationality

or

merely

circumstantial?

than real. Its

cogency

is dependent

mind-set conditioned

and reason

may supply knowledge adequate for one to function within such a world view. Alone

they

are

inadequate to account for the new

insights

into the nature of reality. More and

more, this

reality

takes on the character not

only

of a time-space

but of a “created -“uncreated” continuum that

predicates

It is in this new intellectual climate that a

pneumatic

epistemology. epistemology

offers a new

synthesis.

llbid., p. 93

2Florovsky, op. ciG, p. 10.

– 20-

continuum, a revised

10

in a new context

of an

Hermeneutically,

intuitive,

non-verbal

miracles.

precisely

what the biblical record

this raises the

question

communication between God and

man, namely The

reality

of a direct encounter

between God and man is of

dreams, visions, theophanies,

the

Scriptures

miracles, etc.,

is

saying

to us. Seen in this

perspective,

of God’s self-revelation. Morton

Kelsey,

from the stand-

are the ikon point

of a

Jungian

psychologist,

contemporary

validity

of dreams and visions in the

process

value for a direct encounter

tential

theology

there is no

provision

for

knowledge

mediated encounter with

God,

the

only

sources of knowledge within this

system

has

developed

in some detail the

of

revelation,

and their

with God.1 Since in exis-

by

direct

are sense

experience

and reason. being challenged

research

findings

of a psychiatrist, and

dying

with

patients

been revived must

give pause skeptics. Despite

the

preoccupation

from another direction. For

instance,

who have

experienced

to all

except

ontological analysis,

its

anthropology arbitrarily

of the

epistemological consequences communication.

Symptomatic

encounters

pothesis

Christian. kerygmatic

However,

these

assumptions

are

the

startling Raymond

A. Moody,

Jr.,2

on death

a “clinical death” and

the most

intransigent

of existential

theology

with

excludes consideration

of a

large

area of non-verbal

direct

learned

Christ, i.e.,

the before he became a

Road? Is the

keryg-

of the

epistemological myopia

that excludes

with a

spiritual

or non-material realm of

reality

is the

hy-

that “Paul was converted via the

kerygmatic

Christ known to him in the

kerygma”3

But one

might

ask: What is the difference between the

Christ and the Christ of the Damascus

matic

Christ,

after all is said and

done, merely

a “docetic” Christ? The biblical record makes it clear

that,

if Paul did know the

kerygma

it did not

produce

it seems to have’intensified his

hostility.

It was not until his encounter

Road that his conversion

before his conversion,

his conversion.

If

anything,

resulted. of a direct

(i.e.,

miraculous there-

with Christ on the Damascus

The

repudiation

of a

concept fore

“mythological”?)

in a hermeneutic

encounter with God

exposes

another weakness derived from such a theology. The

Word,

or kerygma,

1 Kelsey, op. cit

(Carmel,

2 Raymond A. Moody, Life After Life and Reflections on Life After Life, two in one voL

NY: Guideposts, 1975).

3Robert W. Funk, “The Hermeneutical Problem and Historical Criticism,” The New Hermeneutic, p. 171.

– 21-

11

upon

which existential

theology lays great

stress

in

its

hermeneutic, conceived as

spoken cognitively,

not

experientially,

with God. Does not such a

cognitive

word

predicate

revelation, tradiction therefore,

and is not

propositional for existential

God? The

question

is further

revelation

is

in direct encounter

propositional a

methodological

con-

Have

we,

by categorical

statements requires

that the

saving

event

theology

and its New Hermeneutic?

come full circle

again

so that the

kerygma

is

simply

a propo- sitional word about God (merely “God talk”) rather than the Word of

compounded

like the

following.

“Paul’s hermeneutic

be understood as word and word

only,

as the word

spoken by

God in

At the risk of

belaboring

that Word

apart

from the

Holy Spirit

cannot

produce

of Paul. “And

were in demonstration of the

Spirit

and of Power”

2:4).2

Since the

“demonstration(s)

Power” are

by

definition miraculous therefore

they

receive short shrift in

the hermeneutical

The

question

then recurs in another form. If the

saving

event is “word and word

only,”

is the New Hermeneutic

Christ

(cf. 5:19).”1 objected

Recall

again

the witness preaching…

Corinthians

New

Hermeneutic, enterprise.

the

point,

it must be

faith. my message

and

my

(I

of the

Spirit

and of “mythological”

for the

equating

Word and

that the

Scriptures

Spirit

in a

crypto-Sabellianism?3

A

pneumatic epistemology are the

product

of an

experience writers describe in

phenomenological of a

pneumatic epistemology,

posits

an awareness

with the

Holy Spirit

which the biblical

scriptive linguistics. apostolic experience, companying

language.

From the

standpoint of this

phenomeno-

phenomenology

ac-

community

that birthed

There are at least two immediate resulting

from a Pentecostal

the

interpretation

logical language

is much more than an exercise in semantics or de-

When one encounters the

Holy Spirit

in the same

with the same charismatic

it,

one is then in a better

position

to come to terms with the

apostolic

witness in a

truly

existential manner.

“Truly

existential” in the sense that a vertical dimension to man’s existence is

recognized and affirmed. One then stands in “pneumatic”

the

Scriptures.

continuity

with the faith

consequences

for hermeneutics

A recurrent

encounter with the

Holy Spirit. First,

there is a

deepening respect

for the witness of the

Scriptures

theme

among colleagues

who have

experienced

1 Funk, op. cit., pp. 172, 173.

2 Italics supplied.

to themselves.

the Pente-

31 am indebted to a colleague. Dr. Ted Williams, for this insight.

-22-

12

tautology,

the context of the

present

discussion. within,” accepting

categories

of

costal

reality

is this: “The Bible is a new Book.” At the risk of a

one

might ask,

“but

why”?

The answer is self-evident

within the

pneumatic continuity community

in They

are now

reading

it “from

are now read

and that communities of to and for the

.

its own idiom and

categories,

not

imposing

the alien

a nineteenth

century

mind-set

upon

them.

The second is a

corrolary

to the first. The

Scriptures

of the faith

community,

is much

larger

than the

post-Reformation

the West. There is a

growing

sense of

accountability

cumulative consensus of the Church to the

deposit

of the faith once for all delivered. Part of Jesus’

promise

of the

Holy Spirit

to the Church is that “he will teach

you

all things and

bring

to your remembrance all that “he will teach

you

all

things

and

bring

to

your

remembrance

he will

guide you

into all the truth”

(John 14:27; 16:13).

Thus it

seems,

at least to this

writer,

that the hermeneutical

have said unto

you …

enterprise

must entertain creeds are not

Scripture,

seriously

all that I

the

insight

in the Church.”

The

of the

gospel,

lest it

Hermeneutics needs to relate cession” in the

understanding become “another

to the whole of the Church’s individual

but neither are

they

the memorabilia of a dead past. They

are

warp

and woof of a

living

hermeneutical tradition.

its

insights

to this historical “suc-

and

proclamation

gospel.”

Care must be taken to relate hermeneutics

understanding. Loyalty

to the credos of

sects and denominations cannot be taken for the whole counsel of God. A viable hermeneutic must deal

responsibly

apostolic

witness of Scripture in terms of an apostolic experience, and in

continuity

with the Church’s

apostolic

It is the

testimony

of

Scripture

with the

traditions.

of its words is

that

understanding

not

possible apart

from the

agency

of the

Holy Spirit

who first breathed

hermeneutic with

regard

to the

them. The

ambiguity

of an existential Scripture’s pneumatic

anthropological presuppositions Le.,

the

supernatural

manifestations mythological.

A programmatic and

categories

of the

centrality

ethos is its

great

weakness. In

fact, given

the

of existential

theology,

the

miracles, of the

Holy Spirit

must

appear

as

of the biblical words

of the latter.

charismatic, or

upon

the

experi-

The contribution Pentecostal, ential

immediacy non-material

demythologization

relating

to the miraculous is

ancillary

to a

denigration

of the

Holy Spirit

in the hermeneutical task. The former is

simply

the

logical consequence

to hermeneutics of the

present

renewal of the Church is its insistence

of the

Holy Spirit.

There are direct contacts with

reality

that inform a Pentecostal

hermeneutics. This must.not be construed as a plea for a spiritualizing

Rather,

it is a truly existential and

phenome- nological response

to the

Holy Spirit’s

initiative in historical

continuity

(allegorical) interpretation.

– 23-

epistemology,

hence its

13

programmatic

development

of the Church

“following original eyewitnesses

involves

pneumatic continuity the Church’s historic understanding and individual life.

2. An

acknowledgement reconstruct a

“biography”

with the life of the Spirit in the Church.

In conclusion, there are at least four factors that must influence any

of a Pentecostal hermeneutic.

1.

Respect

for the facticity of the Biblical record as the

testimony

the traditions handed down to us

by

the

and servants of the

Gospel” (Luke

in

experience,

the reminiscences data

indispensable

the two introduces a Nestorian

3.

Acceptance

1:2, NEB).

This

faith,

and doctrine with of these elements in its

corporate

we

may

never be able to

Jesus, primarily

because of the

Gospels, nevertheless,

at this

point,

for to

separate

that, although

of the historical

of the

episodic

and

theological

nature

of the words and deeds of Jesus constitute historical

to the Christian faith. The Christ of faith is the Jesus of

history.

There can be no

compromise

cleavage

of the

Per,son

of the Son.

of both the

methodology

tions of

grammatico-historical,

critical-contextual

has no other recourse than to mistrust the

of circumstantial differences

sources and

contradictory

and substantive contribu-

exegesis. However,

a

Pentecostal hermeneutic

extrapolation

formity

of

theological

meneutical stance is

predicated collegium

in Jerusalem

(Galatians fluence

Jerusalem council-if the

suggestion – in Acts 15:6ff.

4. Pentecostal

experience awareness of the miraculous

of such a

collegium upon

doctrine is made

explicit

temporary experiences

in the narratives into

pluri-

doctrines. Its her- upon

the evidence of an

apostolic

1:18; 2: Iff).

The

normalizing

in-

in the

is

accepted,

Christian Sanhedrin

but

“objectively”

real. Con-

miracles, tongues,

of a sphere of existence with which one can

of and interaction with is axiomatic in a Pentecostal

non-material

and does have immediate the

presence

of this

spiritual epistemology

Our words “awareness limit our

understanding understanding

of Pentecostal corporately,

is

ontologically

with the

Holy Spirit gives

existential

in the Biblical world view. These events as recorded are no

longer “mythological,”

of divine

healing, prophecy,

and exorcism are

empirical

evidence of the

impingement

reality upon

our

time-space

contact Awareness

continuum

that affects

decisively

its hermeneutic.

of” and “interaction with” must

not, however,

to a

purely phenomenological

experience.

identified with this

spiritual

Writing

from an Eastern Orthodox

perspective,

us:

– 24-

and functional The Church, individually and

continuum.

Timothy

Ware reminds

14

… the Church is … charismatic

special

ordained

and Pentecostal.

‘Quench

not

(I Thessalonians v, 19-20).

priests.

In the

Apostolic ministry

conferred

charismata or

gifts

conferred mentions `gifts

the

Spirit. Despise

not

prophesyings’

The

Holy Spirit

is poured out

upon

all God’s

people.

There is a

ministry

of

bishops, priests,

and

deacons; yet, at the same

time,

the whole

people

of God are

prophets

Church,

by

the

laying

on of

hands, there were other

and besides the institutional

directly

by

the

Spirit:

Paul

xii, 28-30).

In the Church of

have been less in

later

days, evidence,

of healing,’ the working of miracles,

‘speaking

with tongues,’

and the like

(I Corinthians

these charismatic ministries

but

they

have never been

wholly extinguished.l

1

lTimothy Ware,

The Orthodox Church

(Baltimore, Maryland: Penquin Books. 1972), pp. 253, 254.

– 25-

15