THE HERMENEUTICS LIBERATION

OF

THEOLOGY

John Goldingay

While it may be tempting to dismiss Latin American theology as a fad of the 1970's which conveniently occupied the gap between the death of God and the myth of God, this to raise questions about movement has continued theological which approand about biblical interpretation theology theobiblical scholars as well as dogmatic priately concern In the work of many liberation theologians, indeed, logians. the Bible has a more important place than it often has in but their methods of interpretation contemporary theology; from those of what is and their results are very different called biblical theology. customarily In the first part of this paper I note some characteristic to biblical interfeatures .of liberation theology's approach it issues to conventhe challenge which constitute pretation, Then I discuss aspects of this approach tional approaches. within liberation which are matters of debate theology: between theology and praxis, how what is the relationship is the Bible's central is the belief that liberation negotiable us how are particular Bible passages to influence theme, of the truth have and how far does our understanding today, to go via the Bible.

I THEOLOGY'S THE CHALLENGE OF LIBERATION APPROACH TO INTERPRETATION believe that understanding First, liberation theologians affair that biblical 'scientific' the Bible is not the 'objective', assumes it to be. What we see in the scholarship traditionally 133

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is very substantially influenced by what we are preto see there. In part, liberation is here only applying to theology biblical interpretation an insight that is true of all forms of The scientific ideal pictures a person standing recepstudy. tively before the data of nature or of history or of some text, and seeking to understand these data on their own terms, to their categories, in keeping with their emphases. according But in fact understanding always depends on bringing to the data some hypothesis that makes sense of them. One then seeks to perceive whether the data fit the hypothesis or whether some different is needed. hypothesis Rudolf Bultmann has already emphasized that tentative of this kind are thus the way one preliminary understandings Liberation opens oneself to the biblical text.1 theology adds to this the further insight that one's opening of oneself to the text is not merely a matter of the mind but of the will and deed. It is not merely possible, preferable, or dangerous to be influenced in the way one reads the Bible by the way one lives. It is inevitable; this is simply a feature of human in any sphere. understanding Any reading of scripture takes the background of some commitment, 'reacplace against or revolutionary'; so what is important is reformist, tionary, to be self-conscious about one's bias rather than pretending to speak from 'some sort of ideologically aseptic environment' and to be self-critical about it.2 The Bible itself makes it clear that understanding is to the ways helped forward, not held back, by a commitment of the Bible's God, and thus hints that the attempt to understand it 'objectively' and 'scientifically' may not be fruitful. For the knowledge and the truth that the Bible ar.e concerned with are not mere academic attainments. Knowledge (da'at) and acknowledgment, truth implies recognition involves constancy and faithfulness. To be willing to live by the truth is a precondition of seeing the truth (c.f. John 7:17). The Bible is not merely a document of history which can be treated as a means to an end such as tracing the development pared

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the events of Israelite religion or investigating It expresses, to invites, and demands commitment history. the one of whom it speaks and to those for whom he is is to adopt an approach concerned. To study it 'objectively' Liberation thus to its own nature. theology inappropriate doubts whether the academic theology of study and univerwhether the kind sity is really theology at all, and questions lacks the context of scripture that of a of understanding at all. desire to do what it says is truly understanding that opens But what is the nature of the commitment In a context of oppression, one to the message of scripture? to liberation, to at least, the obvious answer is commitment the releasing of the bonds of all forms of exploitation and The belief that such a commitment is the means oppression. in the fact to understanding finds its vindication scripture to the prominence that it does open the interpreter's of eyes the theme of liberation in scripture itself. Further, behind much more the theme of I iberation is another assumption than it has often been in biblical in scripture prominent that the God of the Bible is the assumption interpretation, the God of the whole man, and that creation, redemption, and kingdom are matters of body as much as of covenant, a soul. He is the warrior God, a God involved in history if there is one, but a cliche of twentieth century theology it takes seriously liberation by taking theology principle He is the God of justice, as J. P. Miranda has politically.3 and the prophets, in studies of the Pentateuch emphasized of John and of Romans.4 some of Miranda's more original work relates Although to the New Testament, the biblical themes just noted are more obviously Old Testament ones, and liberation theology use of that opening makes creative theological consistently of the Bible that usually has little influence on three-quarters in Britain by E. R. Norman's as was illustrated theology liberation Reith Lectures.5 In particular, theology perceives that the pattern of God's just dealings with Israel is one that because he is the God of justice.6 applies to all nations, Israelite

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that there is only one affirmation theology's sacred and profane are not to be separated history this point, as does the further in emphasis undergirds Gutierrez on the link between creation and salvation history.7 If traditional academic finds itself study of scripture under fire for its objectivizing, uncommitted to approach then traditional confessional scripture, study of scripture, not guilty of that error, finds itself in the same although It allows its doctrinal reason. firing line for a different formulations and its piety to determine what it notices in The exodus story, for instance, is not ignored in scripture. such biblical study, but by being treated it is typologically The prophets are read, but more for their de-politicized. to the first coming of Christ and to cirpossible references cumstances leading to his second coming than for their mesThe New Testament is read out sage to their own hearers. of an interest that is 'religious' in the narrow sense (a concern that focuses on people's with God), relationship personal and so the New Testament's revolutionary political implications are missed. Such biblical study is committed, but it is a commitment to a theology and a piety that does not open up scripture broadly enough. If the theme of liberation in scripture, is so prominent how was it that theology and piety missed it for so long? The answer is that various forms of ideological prejudice to this theme. and church For blinded both scholarship our theology and interpretation are shaped unbeknown to us, as much as by the sources to which we by social mechanisms ascribe formal authority. It would be nice to think that data theories and a collection of theories forms an overproduce all view of reality. But in practice our total way of looking at what kind of theories we think determines reality normally The work of Miranda, data.8 up and thus how we interpret Miguez Bonino, and others shows how a study of Marxism has opened liberation to aspects of the biblical theologians miss or make too little of: that we might otherwise message for instance, the Bible's concern with justice, its approach to

Liberation

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of man as a worker, its belief its understanding capitalism, that this world is not finished, its stress on praxis and on the of truth through involvement. recognition is so shaped by conThe awareness that interpretation siderations we bring to the material does not, however, imply a hopeless relativism over whether we can reach anything that really deserves to be called knowledge. People can transcend their cultural But it does imply that history.9 biblical needs to be as incisive, critical, and interpretation of itself and its in its understanding systematically suspicious own present as it is in its approach to the ancient documents of scripture's of the faith, if it is to grow in its perception and Satan himself the pharisees, Herod, significance.10 demonstrate clearly enough that the people who know the Bible are not necessarily those who can see and respond to what God is doing in their day. Indeed, biblical learning can be not only useless but destructive of the very foundations I of the faith.11 So texts 'have to be "made to speak", even as texts, which also enable us to 'relate through the secular sciences', human experience'.12 the "word" to the facts of present-day the text in its own terms, of Both exegetical understanding of the text, are facilitated not and contemporary application to liberation, but also by this only by present commitment interaction with the secular sciences. so far as fundamentoutlined I regard the assumptions a challenge to the biblical ally positive insights that constitute But each of them and church. of university interpretation conceals ambiguities, of which are matters of debate many within liberation theology itself.

II WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP AND PRAXIS? BETWEEN THEOLOGY Commitment to God's ways makes it possible to underGod's But on what basis do we commit words.

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ourselves to some action as in accordance with God's ways? Assmann 13 as if an act of commitment contains its speaks own justification, of establishing the impossibility truth given of the sphere of historical independent reality and given the of the ethical 'inescapable leap, the political importance choice'. But the agonizing of Mathieu, the philosopher 'hero' of Sartre's trilogy The Roads to Freedom, between hovering without reason, inability to commit himself and commitment illustrates the dilemma of finding a basis more realistically for commitment. Some ideology or faith must lie behind an act of commitment Of course, many acts appear so clearly right that they self-evident justification. may seem to carry an intrinsically Yet this is because we do not actually come to them with an about empty head and heart, but with a set of assumptions God and the world, about truth and life, about love, mercy, and justice, and so on, whose guiding lines happen to embrace those particular acts unambiguously. comAlthough mitment leads to new insight and to the refining of previous on the basis of a commitment itself operates assumptions, framework as the hypotheses of insights already assimilated, the scientist or historian brings to his evidence themselves the framework of an overall view of reality. presuppose Thus Marx's famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach turns out to risk over-simplification: in order to change the world, It ought to be the case that one needs to understand it.13 a clearer understanding of the world, are Christians, having in a position to create a more adequate concrete praxis than that of Marxism.16 It is right to suspect and question the assumption that the right way to do theology is to infer contemporary application from objective But exegesis or systematic theology. reflection on praxis in the or 'critical practical theology can and must be complemented light of the word'17 by on theology in the or 'critical reflection applied theology The two function in a necessary and natural light of praxis'. dialectic.

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critical approach while a historical to interFurther, is limited in what i.t can achieve, and while it can pretation subvert interpretative insight if it becomes an end in itself, it can nevertheless serve practical obedience to scripture.18 First, it can in fact be a means towards appropriating scripture It does not have to stop and being appropriated by scripture. with the whole person to that reality short of responding which one perceives the text is pointing to, even though in it very often does so stop short. the practice Secondly, effect of objectivizing can help distancing interpretation me to distinguish from the one my faith and commitment in the text, so that I can make a response to what embodied the text actually says and not merely to what I have always assumed it meant. And thirdly, when my current commitment leads me into some new interpretation of a text, historical critical interpretation can facilitate my checking this can fulfill similar posiinterpretation. Systematic theology tive functions as long as it is firmly linked with applied theoand interacting with practical theology. logy

III IS THE BELIEF THAT HOW NEGOTIABLE IS THE BIBLE'S CENTRAL THEME? LIBERATION Commitment

to liberation opens up central and negthe key to But is liberation of scripture. aspects understanding scripture? is accused of a James Cone notes that Black Theology rather than the David-Zion bias for the Mosaic tradition rather than the New, Israel's the Old Testament tradition, Is this bias arbitrary? rather than her wise men. prophets He replies by stating that the hermeneutical principle for is the revelation of Christ as liberunderstanding scripture ator.1 9 lected

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This response seems only to restate the problem. On what basis is this biblical theme given an absolute status which enables us to ignore other biblical themes? For as Cone recognizes, the Bible does have other themes. Some of them are as central to it as liberation, and cannot be sub- themes such as peace or God's rule or worsumed under it was Christum to Christ (c.f. Luther's ship or commitment None of these opens up the whole of scripture treibet). not even the last, as Luther unwittingly demonstrated in his treatment of James. does not constitute a 'grand Liberation master' hermeneutical In fact, key to biblical interpretation. is not a house on a uniform lock system. It is scripture more like a landscape that may with profit b'e viewed from Some of these offer fuller overall many vantage-points. than others, but none reveals everything. perspectives Tradition and its doctrinal formulations can suggest which will other vantage points for surveying the landscape, enable us to check whether we are seeing certain features out of perspective. They are not absolutes (only the text itself is that), but they are no more relative than my own present is, and they thus deserve critical attenperspective tion as sources of possible For the same reason, insight. liberation would be unwise to refuse to talk theotheology that only the on the grounds logy with other Christians, of the oppressed.20 can evaluate the actions oppressed are in as much danger as anyone else Liberation theologians of seeing their own face at the bottom of the hermeneutical well, and thus in as much need as anyone else of working in hermeneutical in other conwith believers fellowship texts both past and present to widen their perspective and test their visions. Even criticism from a one-sided perspective such as Edward Norman's should surely be welcomed as or taken reminders of what we may have forgotten offering too much for granted or failed to integrate with our new who are committed When Christians to political emphases. to such a critique, react with hysteria or rhetoric theology it neither their case nor bodes well for their commends chances of refining their vision.

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to liberation can open one's eyes While a commitment to aspects of the biblical text that had long been missed, it into them when it is can also make one read this interest to praxis, not there, or miss some other theme of importance the actual nature of the Bible's own underor misconceive which may differ from the one we of liberation, standing to the Bible.21 Exodus, for instance, pictures Yahweh bring for an oppressed bringing about an act of political liberation But in its account of this act it emphasizes the superpeople. natural activity of God himself, the goal of the service of of God by opand the aim of the acknowledgment God, and we must be open to hearing these pressed and oppressor, which may not immediately corresfeatures of its account him predisposes pond to what the modern reader's situation here may be the vital and distinctive to hear.22 Indeed, In ancient Israel, and in aspects to the biblical testimony. to speak of God as warrior and of Latin America, modern of human violence may be inthe theological significance at all. evitable if life as it is is to be interpreted theologically If Yahweh is God at all he must be God the warrior (that is part of being God in a warring cosmos), so that the Bible's regarding God and his activity lie not in telling affirmations its assertion that God is a warrior (which is common to all religions) but in the way it portrays him making war. to liberation functions as a preliminary So commitment but this preof a central aspect of scripture, understanding must not be allowed to freeze as a liminary understanding final understanding of liberation or of scripture as a whole. is the hopeless prisoner of a Otherwise liberation theology Even liberation vicious circle. hermeneutical theology needs so that it can allow itself from its own questions liberating If it refuses this, it may in to be questioned by scripture.23 the end even be doing praxis itself a disservice, for if liberation is the gospel message 'what will theology say when there are no people to liberate ?'24

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m HOW ARE PARTICULAR BIBLICAL PASSAGES TO INFLUENCE US TODAY? The preceding have begun to raise the questparagraphs ion how much of the Bible we are to seek to apply to our own situations, and how we go about that task. The Bible manifests a rich diversity in the contexts it reflects and the of the Old Testament attitudes it takes up. The theologizing revolves around two very different experiences, substantially the triumph of redemption from Egypt and the humiliation of exile in Babylon, while the theologizing of the New Testament the shame of crucifixion has to hold together and the victory of resurrection. The ethical insight of the Bible in creation and in the rule of embraces the ideals embodied God proclaimed to by Christ, and also the condescensions Israel's hardness of heart whereby God adapts his standards to the reality of the people he has to deal with. The world is seen both as the sphere of God, in which we are to be involved, and as the sphere of evil powers, from which we are to distance There are times when violence is ourselves. commended and times for turning the other cheek, times for an emphasis and political needs and on people's physical times for an emphasis on their need of forgiveness and times for looking to the past and times renewal, spiritual for looking to the future, times for a stress on order and in scripture This diversity times for a stress on conflict. of reality itself, the variety of the reflects the complexity and the differences between situations addresses, scripture what is absolutely true or right and what people can cope with at a particular moment. of scripture's Cone's to the diversity testiapproach monies is to regard these as a resource within which we can to our circumstances, identify ones which seem appropriate For instance, he appeals to texts that and ignore others. refer to breaking the chains of oppression but does not view texts about turning the other cheek or going the second mile

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their masters as binding the conslaves obeying black community.25 temporary Segundo takes the broadly in asking whether it is realistic situational further approach to look for any passages in the Bible that directly relate to our situation. In any period, God relates to the circumand to questions as they see stances his people experience is directly applicable so no biblical response them; today. to their situations we From the biblical writers' responses learn not the content of our response to ours but the way we should respond, making our own decisions in the light of an analysis of our situation (to which the use of secular resources will be of key importance) and of the guidance of We enter upon this task in faith knowing that the Spirit. of our interpretative there is no final verifying intuitions this side of heaven, yet also knowing that these are both of the people of God received and tested within the context indwelt by the Spirit.26 corporately Liberation however, that theology only half-recognizes, whether or not we believe that some scriptural passages like ours, commitment to scripture directly address situations at all implies opening ourselves to all the dimensions of its For if, on the one hand, it is right that scriptural testimony. more as paradigms in the light narratives and laws function of which we formulate our response to our own situation then we need to than as direct warrant or precedent,27 to the full I range of biblical paradigms if ourselves expose we are to have our thinking led into biblical ways in a fashion. If, on the other hand, we do find thorough-going we passages that more directly address our kind of context, still need to check this discovery by the rest of scripture. Because of scripture's diversity, almost anything can be given a veneer of justification from it. Both right and left can use it ideologically. Thus Andre Dumas, while recognizing that our application of specific scriptural insights will depend on that we pay attention nevertheless to circumstances, urges the various biblical and points out that models, political political and liberation change of emphasis during theology's or about

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the 1970's from the exodus and the hope of the resurrection to the exile and the cross only. partially a differindicated in situation: ence has reflected 'theology moods, rather than presenting and doctrine'.28 The swing proclamation if exodus had been of mood might have been unnecessary seen in the light of exile and hope in the light of the cross. The theology of the right may only notice the side to the Bible which is less overtly political, while the theology of the left may see liberation behind every text; each ends up with too narrow a perspective.29 The diversity within scripture as a whole can be markedreduced if the specific emphases of the Old Testament can ly be eliminated. The overall picture of biblical attitudes is thus significantly hence Segundo's modified: observation that the whole of theology has been conditioned by the attitude it takes (or rather, an by its failure to formulate to the question of the relationship of Old and New attitude) Testaments.30 In practice, the Old Testament has commonly been silenced in the Christian church, being unconsciously ignored and unread, as superseded or consciously regarded by the to the New by interpretative devices New, or assimilated Gustavo Guti6rrez such as typology and allegory. protests against such 'spiritualizing' exegesis, and one may grant that the New Testament than it has is itself more this-worldly often been taken.31 But it is easy to exaggerate this point, and in reasserting the importance of many fundamentally Old Testament themes, liberation theology may seem to have reverted from New Testament to Old Testament perspectives ones without noticing, still less reasoning this out.32 So how do the various parts of the Bible relate to each other? Liberation has emphasized the intrinsic theology New Testaments; of the exodus to both Old and importance is its 'privileged text'.33 The exodus ,the Exodus narrative from Egypt indeed dominates Israel's faith as she looks to the past, shapes her hopes as she looks to future release from the

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of exile, and supplies one interpretative bondage key to of Christ. But the hermethe achievement understanding neutical of setting exodus and exile or exodus significance each other can be understood in and Christ-event alongside Traditional reads the exodus in the two ways. theology events and is inclined to spiritualize it. light of subsequent that Liberation stresses the opposite implication, theology liberation should continue to the nature of the Israelites' of liberation. form the focus of a biblical understanding should surely be In fact, the interpretative process When different events are justaseen as a dialectical one. they throw light on each posed for interpretative purposes, For instance, because the New Testament other. regards the Old as God's word, its appeal to the exodus from Egypt and to the hope of a new exodus invites us to take seriously what God was actually doing and promising then, with both its But because the story of and its spiritual aspects. political of scriptures which include the exodus belongs to a collection to it, the exilic and early Christian writings which refer of the exodus has to be seen in their context. the significance Isaiah 40-55) The later Old Testament writings (especially on political bondage and place relatively lessen concentration more stress on bondage to rebellion against God on the part Then the New Testaand oppressor alike.34 of oppressed when the Jews are once again ment, arising out of a context makes little reaffirmation nevertheless unjustly oppressed, and instead of God's commitment to political liberation, as a means of picturing liberation from uses the exodus story sin, not in its original political significance.35 On the other hand, it would be a mistake to see the New effect on biblical perTestament as having a de-politicizing and Christ brings a new fulness, confirmation, spectives. but he does not fulfillment to Old Testament promises, them.36 How can he? He can do more than they spiritualize envisaged, but if they were God's words he cannot do less. He brings a radicalizing of the Old: the inner problem of

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Israel's spiritual which prevents her creative enjoybondage ment of political freedom, itself clearly enough in manifests of consideration in the Exodus, but comes to the forefront New Testament, yet without any actual denial of the importance of what Exodus majored on. The exodus both explains later events and is illuminated It is not God's by them.37 only act, but it is his act. We cannot use the Old Testament as if we did not have the new horizon provided by the New, but neither is our use of the Old limited to the way the New uses it. The insights of Old and of New Testaments are set in the context of scripture as a whole, and a fully biblical involves living with the various tensions between perspective these insights.38 The danger theology and biblical interof the complexity risk is a simplifying of pretation always reality and of the Bible itself. In the light. of such considerations, Cone's choice of to the suspicion of being ideological. texts is particularly open First, it involves setting aside a moral position that Christ the liberator took up. Now this might be justifiable on the question of slavery, at least, most Christians do not assume that he spoke a timeless word regarding Christian The problem is that Cone asserts rather than argues praxis. the point and as we have noted, it is not the case that the times was in a markedly different disciple in New Testament situation vis-a-vis his oppressors than the modern disciple. Then Cone's choice of texts ignores the hermeneutical clue Christ himself for viewing Old Testament texts suggested that sat in tension with the view Christ wished to commend, of different in seeing them as not simply reflections situations but of human hard-heartedness (Mark 10:5). Indeed, it might be possible to defend an ethic of liberation along the oppressed these lines can only cope with exodus, they are not up to the sermon on the mount. Scripture does not But to live by God's ultimate word. always expect people he ignores asserts rather than argues. Further, again, Cone rather to possible of the than understandings responds and politics within of thinking on liberation development

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to 'speaking across culthe Bible, despite his commitment tural lines' on the basis of the Bible and 'looking at the messto see whether it does 'center age of Scripture exegetically' of the I iberation of the oppressed' upon the proclamation in the way that he believes.39 A parallel question-mark is placed alongside Segundo's of this development which he acknowledges in ignoring on issues which are less to a greater concentration scripture overtly political.4? Might not the educative process which he identifies one which takes in scripture be a cumulative the people of God to a stance which has a more developed asks of bondage and liberation? understanding Segundo whether Israel should be expected to act differrhetorically now as at the ently if she finds herself in the same situation Is this impossible? (We may look beginning of her story.41 liberation forward to some Israeli Christian Both theology. Can people only hear the message of the Jewish and Arab?) exile and of the cross when they have experienced the disof exodus/resurrection Is it not possible appointment hope? to learn from history instead of having to repeat it? A traditional to finding the unity in the diverapproach in the Bible is to look for of the theological statements sity themes or motifs or truths or emphases that underlie the external differences. Miguez Bonino takes up this possibility, of the biblical text', 'the reading of the direction suggesting the witness of the faith's events, especially paradigmatic which point 'to certain which such concepts directions as liberation, shalom, the poor, love help us to righteousness, In the variety of responses to situations define'.42 that are collected in scripture certain patterns may emerge. One aspect of this study is an examination of how scripture itself goes about expressing itself in the world's terms. Abraham and David take up Canaanite concepts and language and Paul takes up Greek ones, and thus theology follows biblical precedent in doing a similar thing today. What one has to be wary of is taking over the world's concepts and without transforming them, and one of the aspects language

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of the Bible's exercises in theologizing to examine is the direction in which it modifies non-biblical and concepts when it takes them over. language As there are directions which underlie the diversity of the biblical texts, so there will be directions which underlie the situations in response to which the faith has to find its embodiment. If this is so, then it qualifies the emphasis on the uniqueness we face and the difficulty of the situations of applying scripture directly to them. Dumas, for instance, the paradigms of resistance and submission having examined in scripture, comments that neither must be absolutized but both practised, on the circumstances, what 'depending He does not and what they make possible'.43 they require assume that the infinite variety of situations we experience with each other, but makes them impossible to compare rather that certain directions underlie them. One pattern itself is that it scripture running through The first might be called seems to combine two purposes. it reassures the hearers of God's involvement legitimation: with them in their particular situation and provides them with a context for their experience. of meaning Exodus assures the oppressed Israelites that God will liberate them, and assures later generations of his involvement in bringing them to Canaan. Isaiah 40-55, the gospels, Revelation, and so on give parallel assurances in later contexts. But scripture as well also fulfils a second, more confrontational purpose: as encouraging them, God challenges his people in some way. In Exodus this challenge concerns their acknowledgment of In Isaiah 40-55 these themes God and their service of God. reappear in a radicalized form (to use Dumas's word), though the sinfulness of the people is also emphasized, especially in Isaiah 48. In the teaching of Jesus, challenge and gospel are interwoven to repentfrom the first in his exhortation ance in view of the coming of the rule of God. In Revelation the challenges 2-3 precede the in chapters to the churches and judgment on oppression. promise of deliverance

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as well as reassures God's word consistently confronts in offering the oppressed. It does not function ideologically that this will continue One would expect only legitimation. The passages we have just referred to to be the case today. illustrate in which the biblical text confronts both ways and liberation western theology For each (but in theology. or opposite aspects of the text) there is both legitimation or challenge. Each theology reassurance and confrontation is open to the temptation to find only the legitimation, and each may need to listen to the other theology in order to hear the challenge. When one compares the stance of each, it is striking that neither can actually find itself in any of the overall stances of either Old or New Testaments. Our interest in the Bible will be to allow ourselves to be both reassured and confronted by the total message of which we feel drawn because they speak to our passages to and also by other passages circumstances and our questions, and encouragements. that bring totally different challenges the commitment we have that seem to undermine Passages will be ones we pay particular attention to if already made we want to open ourselves to constructive criticism. They will not be ones we quickly seek to subvert by declaring and irrelevant. them historically conditioned or situational be as concerned needs to Thus the theology of liberation to was not central to ponder the fact that political liberation and activity, in a context when this Jesus's overt teaching would have been quite possible and natural,44 and that the rest of the New Testament concentrates more on how Christians are to hold on under pressure than on how they are to make a revolution, as it is to work out the real political The study of of the New Testament implications message. 'the political Christ' more clearly than any the illustrates of prior commitment interwovenness and exegetical study.45 Once again, we risk seeing our own face at the bottom of the hermeneutical well.

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has an unfortunate habit of careering from Theology on one insight, treating one half-truth as the overemphasis whole truth, to some opposite or half-truth. overemphasis It swings from other-worldliness to politicization, from passito revolution, from rejection of the world to assimilavity tion. Attentiveness to the diversity of scriptural paradigms the tension these various between may aid us in holding poles.46

V WHO IS INTERPRETING

WHAT?

Hermeneutics is concerned with understanding. In the narrow sense it refers to the way people go about understandIt studies the way written (or some artefact). ing something we grasp the meaning of a document and work out its implications for ourselves. But the documents we seek to understand are themselves exercises in understanding. Their authors had seen or heard something which they then exTheir writings are thus expressions of pressed in writing. someone else's understanding before they are the object of before my understanding. They are exercises in hermeneutics So when they are the object of my exercise in hermeneutics. I seek to enter into their way of looking at reality, I do so on equal terms with them. I feel free to evaluate them on the basis of my own understanding of reality; they may confirm it, or complement it, or be judged by it. it, or modify The Bible, too, is an exercise in hermeneutics before it is an object of hermeneutics. It is the interpretation of God's mind by figures such as prophets and apostles. Does that the Bible and the mean, then, that when I seek to understand truth to which it witnesses, I am also ultimately on equal terms with it? Or does the notion of its being scripture involve my being committed to the assumption that its exercises in hermeneutics were successful and can be the

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Looked at this way, the question of biblical judge of mine? hermeneutics collapses into the questions of biblical authority and inspiration the reverse happens). (as in other contexts In the context of liberation theology, this same question If theology takes the following form. involves 'critical reflection on praxis in the light of the word', it involves an one's commitment, openness to scripture modifying modifyone's initial understanding of scripture in relation to ing the Marxian perspective that faciliand modifying liberation, tates one's understanding of scripture. On the other hand, God's current liberation involvement theology emphasizes in human history, and if our history reflects this involvement, we will naturally to gain insight on God's purpose expect from a consideration of, and a sharing in, that involvement. Both scripture and history, then, reflect God's activity, and each throws light on the other. But what is their relative revelatory status? This is a question is upon which liberation theology often equivocal. Raul Vidales, for instance, speaks of a 'dialectical activity' which 'obliges the theologian to re-read the Bible from the context of the other "Bible" known as human in the conviction that 'human history is the manihistory' 'God's activity is manifested in of the Christ-fact'; festation effective human efforts to create a more just and fraternal Here contemporary event society in line with his promise'. and biblical word seem to have parallel significance hence the possibility between of a dialectical them. relationship Yet later Vidales speaks of theology's need to maintain its church and society critical function over against both by reference back to 'its vital underlying means of its constant source and principle: the word of God.'47 So what is the between the two 'Bibles'? Again, Cone says that relationship 'the dialectic relationship of the black experience and Scripture is the point of departure of Black Theology's Christology'; i and the 'the black Christian ethic must start with Scripture black experience. We must read each in the light of the and then ask, "What am I to do?" '48 But how do other,

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between these you deal with disagreements theological resources? Gutierrez manifests ambivalences over parallel the relationship current and the overt between experience In the end, is praxis to statements of the biblical text.49 be subjected evaluation and reinterpretation to critical in the light of the word, or is the word to be subjected to in the light of praxis? critical evaluation and reinterpretation have noticed Some Latin American the theologians fence on which liberation seeks to sit and have theology sought to climb off it, though not without leaving a hand on the palings to keep themselves On the basis of the steady. that seeking to understand the will of God today assumption is parallel to that attempt the will of God to understand which is embodied in scripture, rather than subordinate to infers that we cannot check our Christian comit, Assmann mitment by setting it in the light of the faith as revealed in the Bible, because the faith only appears there, too, in historical embodiments. The Bible is 'the history of successive And anyway, 'How can we of Christianity. interpretations' talk candidly when there is so much truth of the "gospel" in what one committed Christian once said to me: "The Bible? It doesn't The only Bible is the sociological exist. bible of what I see happening here and now as a Christian"?' For the theology of liberation, 'its "text" is our situation, and our situation is our primary and basic reference point' not any other resource such as scripture.50 biblical as too, sees the various Segundo, messages human crystallizations of the faith in particular essentially In a telling footnote contexts.51 on the 'gratuitousness' of the love demanded he remarks by the New Testament, that such love 'redounds to the advantage and maintenance of ideoof the status quo', and infers that 'the suspicion which seems quite logical when applied logical interpretation, to historical theology, as far as the sacred writings penetrates themselves. Since the latter are already an interpretation, why should they be free of "ideology"?'52 Similarly political theology explains the gap between the Christ of faith and

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Jesus of history by seeing the former as a dehistoriversion of the latter.53 cized, depoliticized If our attempts at understanding relate as directly to to underdo, then our attempt reality itself as scripture's stand the acts of God described in scripture is also parallel to scripture's to understand those acts, rather own attempt than subordinate it. Indeed, we may in some respects be to an event such as the in a better to understand position of exodus (or at least of exodus if we have our experiences this. For current events in Latin to facilitate bondage) America are also God's acts, and because they are events of on behalf of the oppressed, a similar kind, acts of liberation the original event a means of understanding they provide of it, and thus a of the scriptural independent interpretation of the event's 'reserve means of apprehending something of meaning'.54 Here we are only following scripture's own itself earlier understandings of example, for within scripture the significance of the exodus are transformed in the light of the subsequent events of exile and the coming of Christ. Latin American as a further context of God's experience, can bring out yet more aspects of the revelatory activity, meaning of that event. event of the exodus in the In interpreting the historical seeks to remove from the events, Croatto light of current features. narrative of the exodus two 'mythical' scriptural it may encourage us to believe One is its mythical function: of the present and that the act of God which is constitutive is one that belongs to the past, which brings us salvation whereas in reality biblical revelation breaks with myth and a constant event and establishes tension between primordial ' present history.55 The other feature is that it uses mythical language. The historical reality in the exodus story is the event itself, as of special and promissory experienced significance, which reveals that God is at work, and engenders a conscientization of man (Ex 14:31 ) an end to the hopeless acceptance of to redeem. and an insight into God's purpose oppression

the

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comes first, and the new awareness only follows But this awareness is then back-projected and subsequently. as Yahweh appearing to Moses at the beginning mythologized of the story. Moses was not really a leader because he was called in this way: he is `called' (that is, a call narrative comes to be attached to him) because he was a leader. Symbo[ic and mythical seaimages such as the plagues, the miraculous and the pillar of cloud give further metaphorical crossing, that God was active in the to the conviction expression event.56 The picture of the event as issuing from God's call and God's promise is painted in the light of the event itself.57 But it is only Latin American experience of how liberation comes about which reveals that this must have been the case. Again, the current event in which God's revelatory activity is perceived is a human activity, and thus the exodus is understood in these terms. Similarly Fierro describes grace as 'the 'the idea with transcendent side of the believer's freedom', which theology human authentic freedom'.58 represents He perhaps goes further than Croatto; his critique of the unreflective or uncritical or rhetorical use of language in political and liberation may suggest that he would see theology the language of Christian orthoCroatto as preserving only doxy.59 Now the understanding of Yahweh's action and of our own that Croatto expresses is by no means alien to scripture. is capable of seeing Yahweh's Scripture activity as an immanent providence meaning to events which giving transcendent can be described in human terms, a perspective which appears in the opening chapters of the exodus story (Ex 1:1-2:10). It is capable of describing human battles as ones in which Yahweh is involved, and Exodus 17 provides a notable example, so that Patrick Miller can describe 'holy war' as a 'synergism', 'a fusion of divine and human activity'.60 Precisely the constituin this light it is striking that Exodus attributes act of redemption tive, paradigmatic solely to Yahweh. It Here human activity could hardly be further minimized. of the is implausible to claim that Croatto's understanding

The

event

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exodus is one which Exodus itself, when rightly interpreted, in the light of the contemporary The interpretation shares. event rules out that offered in Exodus. Miranda's of the relative on the question position of biblical text and modern situation seems to importance differ from those of Assmann, Segundo, and Croatto. Miranda the validity of 'empirical He agrees questions theology'. but points out that that God is active in present history, claim to recognize and irreconcilable 'opposing ideologies' where that purposeful And the only activity can be seen. way to judge whether any of these claims is Christian is to of Jesus and his signifireturn to the Bible and its portrait scientific understood 'verifiable, cance, by exegesis'.61 As Cone recognizes, has an objective too, scripture givenness which means it can stand over against me and my It is partly on these grounds that Dumas advocates `story'.62 a life lived in dialogue 'meta-textual' with the existence, one such as dogbiblical texts, rather than a metaphysical matic theology or a meta-historical tends to encourage, one such as Marxism's. Meta-textual existence involves 'trying to listen to a God who is other than our aspirations or our and it avoids the risk of putting one's fancies in energies' place of what one might hear.63 is itself a historical a phenomenon, Again, Marxism It too is 'dependent reaction circumstances. to particular upon a social a priori' and is 'open to error'.64 So, while Marxian insight can enable the suspicious to exinterpreter and interpretation, Marxism pose hidden biases in theology itself should not be absolutized. The fact that it is effective in subverting certain ideologies in certain circumstances does not mean it could not itself function in other ideologically circumstances ideoor, indeed, is not itself functioning at other points.65 logically introduces Meta-textual existence not more, less, realism into one's politics than an absolutizing of Marxism, because at key points the Bible's insights are more profound than Marxism's.66 we have noted already that Further,

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and make it is an inherently history as we experience ambiguous affair. The revelation that history offers will only become truly clear when the last piece is added to its jigsaw. So can we perceive the meaning of history before then? revelation in Christ himself sees the anticipatory Pannenberg as the key to understanding The Bible itself history.67 offers the further insight that the purpose of the interpretative word of prophet and apostle was to explain the meaning of events. Word and event belong together in the biblical but the former explains and the of revelation, understanding latter confirms.68 is right that current Liberation theology But what it reveals we history reveals the activity of God. it for us. do not know until someone interprets The Bible offers to be the means of our interpreting It does that in two main ways. First, it forms our history. overall thinking as we seek to immerse ourselves in it and let our attitudes and lives be shaped by it. It thus forms the in the light of which we interpret our experience 'ideology' and make our decisions. But then it is also the norm to which we refer as we seek to reflect critically on our praxis. and praxis are both that is, theology 'Ideology' into seeing the meaning and implications of scripture ways or ways of avoiding scripture. Both may be embodiitself, ments of what scripture the says, or ways of concealing and praxis interact critically meaning of scripture. Theology with each other. But at least until God's revelation in the is complete, we need scripture to inform whole of history and to judge both theology and praxis. That, at least, is what To accept this offer is the offers to be for us. scripture and in my view preferable, way off the fence alternative, referred to above. 'The one and only thing that can maintain the liberative character of any theology is not its content but its methodology'.69 This will involve Christian believers in fellowship and in the Spirit searching the scriptures from the context of commitment to the Christ of the cross and the own meaning to empty tomb, and allowing the scriptures' challenge both church and world.70

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NOTES 1 See R. Bultmann, Essays Theological and Philosophical, London: SCM and New York: Macmillan, 1955, pp. 234-61; Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, New York: Meridian, 1960, and London: Hodder, 1961, pp. 289-96, 314-1 S. 2 J. Miguez Bonino, Revolutionary Theology Comes of Age, London : SPCK, 1975, p. 99; cf. J: L. Segundo, Liberation of Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976 and Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1977, pp. 7-8. So A Kee (ed.), The Scope of Political Theology, London: SCM, 1978, pp. 16-17, quoting H. Assmann, Practical Theology of Liberation, London: Search Press, 1975, p. 76; cf. I. Ellacuria, Freedom Made Flesh: The Mission of Christ and His Church, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976, pp. 131-41. 4 J. P. Miranda, Marx and the Bible, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1974 and London: SCM, 1977. 5 E. R. Norman, Christianity New York: OUP, 1979. 6 and the World Order, Oxford and 3

Cf. Miranda, op. cit., pp. 88-106.

7 G. Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1973, and London: SCM, 1974, pp. 149-60. 8 Cf. J. H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, New York: Seabury, 1975 and London: SPCK, 1977, pp. 39-61 and elsewhere. Segundo offers some nice examples of what he calls "the ideological infiltration of dogma (op. cit., pp. 40-47); cf. also Miranda's comments on the manipulative presupposition which underlies preoccupation with being 'in itself' " (op. cit., pp. V I I-IX,XV I I I-XX). 9 Cf. Cone, op. cit., p. 49.

10 Cf. Segundo, op. cit., p. 9; he goes on to illustrate a four-stage hermeneutical circle in process. Cf. Segundo, op. cit., pp. 81-82; H. Bojorge, "Para una interpretacion liberadora," Revista Biblica 33 (1971), p. 67. 11 l

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12 13 14

Assmann, op. cit., p. 64. Assmann, ibid., p. 105. So Segundo, op. cit., p. 101.

15 Cf. J. P. Miranda, Being and the Messiah, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1977, pp. 5-6. 16 J. A. Kirk, Liberation Theology: An Evangelical View from the Third World, London: Marshall and Atlanta: John Knox, 1979, pp. 200-01. 17 18 Cf. Gutirrez, op. cit., pp. 3-19.

Cf. Miguez Bonino, op. cit., pp. 101-02; Miranda, Being and the Messiah, p. 73. Miranda's two books show him putting this conviction into practice. 19 Cone, op. cit., 81-82.

20 So C. Banana, "The biblical basis for liberation struggles," International Review of Mission 68 (1979), p. 422; cf. Cone, op. cit., p. 206. 21 Cf. the analysis by J. Mejia, "La liberaci6n: aspectos biblicos: evaluci6n critica," Liberacin: diilogos en el CELAM, Bogota: CELAM, 1974, pp. 271-307. 22 See further J. Goldingay, "The man of war and the suffering servant: the Old Testament and the theology of liberation," Tyndale Bulletin 27 (1976), pp. 89-93. 23 Cf. Miguez Bonino, op. cit., p. 87; Bojorge, op. cit., pp. 68-70.

24 A. Fierro, The Militant Gospel: An Analysis of Contemporary Political Theologies, London: SCM and Maryknoll: Orbis, 1977, p. 211. 25 See e.g. God of the Oppressed, pp. 62-81; A Black Theology of Liberation, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1970, pp. 68, 108-09; Black Theology and Black Power, New York: Seabury, 1969, pp. 139-40.

See Segundo, op. cit., pp. 33-34, 110-22; cf. Cone, God of the Oppressed, pp. 197-200; Miguez Bonino, op. cit., p. 103.

26

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27

So Miguez Bonino, ibid.

'

'

28 A. Dumas, Political Theology and the Life of the Church, London : SCM and Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978, pp. 46, 99. 29 Cf. J. Smolik, the theology of revolution," Concilium 7/5 (1969), pp. 73-78, on the variety of patterns of social existence in the New Testament. Segundo, op. cit., p. 113; cf. my Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation, Leicester/Downers Grove: IVP, 1981, p. 11.

30

31 Cf. Gutierrez, op. cit., pp. 166-67; P. Bigo, The Church and Third World Revolutions, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1977, p. 81. 32 So Fierro, op. cit., p. 325. z

33 Kirk, op. cit., p. 95; Assmann, op. cit., p. 35; J. S. Croatto, Liberaci6n y libertad, Buenos Aires: Mundo Nuevo, 1973, pp. 21-61; Guti6rrez, op. cit., pp. 153-60. 34 35 See further Goldingay, Tyndale Bulletin 27 (1976), pp. 93-104.

Cf. J. M. Breneman, El 'exodo como tema de interpretacion teologica, San Jose: privately published, 1973, p. 28. 36 37 Cf. Guti6rrez, op. cit., pp. 166-68.

Cf. Breneman, op. cit., p. 27. Dumas (op. cit., p. 57) instances Jesus' radicalizing by comparing his story with that of Joseph. 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 Cf. Dumas, op. cit., pp. 24-46. Cone, God of the Oppressed, pp. 37-38. Segundo, op. cit., p. 111. Segundo, op. cit., p. 115. Miguez Bonino, op. cit., p. 42. Dumas, op. cit., p. 46. Segundo, op. cit., pp. 110-12; Dumas, op. cit., p. 42. '

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45 46

Cf. Fierro, op. cit., pp. 165-67. Cf. Dumas, op. cit., p. 13.

47 See R. Vidales, "Methodological issues in liberation theology," Frontiers of Theology in Latin America, ed. R. Gibellini, Maryknoll: Orbis, pp. 40, 47. 48 49 50 51 See Cone, God of the Oppressed, pp. 113, 205. So Kirk, op. cit., pp. 61-65; Fierro, op. cit., pp. 326-27. So Assmann, op. cit., pp. 60-61, 104. Segundo, op. cit., pp. 116-17. .

52 J. L. Segundo, A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity 5: Evolution and Guilt, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1974, p. 125. 53 So Kee, op. cit., pp. 18-20; cf. Fierro, op. cit., pp. 215-16 with his quotation from Pannenberg. Croatto, Liberaci6n y libertad, pp. 27-29; Revista Biblica 35 (1973), pp. 52-57; cf. S. Ruiz, "Teologia bibtica de la liberaci6n," Liberacion: dialogos en el CELAM, Bogota: CELAM, 1974, pp. 347-48; also J. Goldingay, op. cit., pp. 106-13 for a discussion of Croatto's views. 55 56 57 58 59 60 Croatto, Revista Biblica 35 (1973), p. 53. Cf. Liberaci6n y libertad, pp. 52-54. Op. cit., pp. 32-34. Fierro, op. cit., p. 293. Op. Cit., pp. 318-29; 339-47. ' ' 54

P. D. Miller The Divine Warrior, Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1973, p. 156. Mirando, Being and the Messiah, pp. 80-81. Cone, God of the Oppressed, pp. 103-04.

61 62

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63 64 65

Dumas, op. cit., pp. 47-51, 54-55. So Cone, op. cit., p. 44. So Kirk, op. cit., pp. 191-92..

' -

66 Dumas, op. cit., p. 130; cf. the critiques of Marxism in the works of Kirk and Miguez Bonino. 67 W. Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology II, London: SCM and Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971, pp. 21-27. 68 69 Cf. my discussion in Tyndale Bulletin 23 (1972), pp. 58-81. Segundo, Liberation of Theology, pp. 39-40. Revolution, Leicester/ .

70 Cf. J. A. Kirk, Theology Encounters Downers Grove: IVP, 1980, p. 183.