Lecture Text: The Hermeneutic Turn in Modern Theology, by Mujtahid Shabestari

Lecture text by Mujtahid Shabestari, delivered at the Porsesh Institute for Political and Economic Studies on the occasion of World Philosophy Day, December 17, 2015. To all those interested who have read the lecture text in certain newspapers and websites, we recommend reading the present text, which has been approved by the speaker and does not include the considerations of the press.

My discussion is primarily of the type of Central and Continental European philosophical discussions, and the language to which I refer is German. To present my discussion, I need to set forth several points as an introduction. I must emphasize that although these discussions have been raised in modern Christian theology, they possess conceptual and terminological elements that are also useful to us.

The first point is that we live in a world where the boundaries between theologies and religions have collapsed, and intra-religious and extra-religious boundaries cannot be clearly delineated in all cases; the old certainties no longer exist today. It is for this reason that one can build a bridge from one theology to another for the conceptual analysis contained within it.

The second point is that in the Persian and Arabic languages, we have the term vahy (revelation). This expression is sometimes used in translating the German term Offenbarung. This term in Persian roughly means

اما نكته پنجم این است كه برخلاف الهیات سنتی مسیحی در الهیات مدرن از بحث‌های توصیف و تعریف خدا چیزی نیست. بحث روی افعال خدا متمرکز است. در الهیات مدرن مسیحی از این بحث می شود كه خدا چه كرده،‌ چه می كند و چه خواهد كرد بحث الهیات مدرن مسیحی سخن از یك سلسله افعال است، افعالی كه افعال انسان نیست و افعال خداست و الهیات، حكایت آن افعال به زبانی قابل دفاع است. بحث از افعال كسی است و بحث می شود كه آن كس را چه بنامیم، چگونه بنامیم و چگونه از او حرف بزنیم. تعبیر خدا فقط یک قرارداد است!

در الهیات مدرن مسیحی از این بحث می شود كه كسی با انسان كار دارد و از این بحث می شود كه آن كس كیست؟ مسئله این است كه چیزی (یک خطاب، سخنی یا معرفتی یا رحمت و عنایتی و...) از جایی می آید(این را عرفای ما هم می گفتند). الهیات مدرن به قول پل ریكور الهیات مسیحی روایت آن خطاب یا رحمت یا عنایت است. مهم ترین عنصر روایت این است كه در روایت سخن از كسی است كه آن كس چنین كرده و چنان می كند و چنان خواهد کرد.

بدین ترتیب در الهیات مدرن مسیحی دیگر از خدای فیلسوفان خبری نیست. در الهیات سنتی مسیحیت (از تاریخی به بعد) با زبان فلسفه از خدا حرف زدند، و از مفاهیم فلسفی یونانی استفاده كردند. اما در الهیات مدرن مسیحی از علت العلل و وجوب و امكان و ... بحثی پیش نمی آید. به اصطلاح «اله» كنار رفته و از «الوهیت» بحث می شود. متالهان مدرن مسیحی مشغول فهمی از الوهیت هستند. این الوهیت ویژگی های متافیزیكی مشخصی ندارد. وقتی آن ها از اصطلاح «خدا» بحث می كنند، باید توجه كرد كه آن‌ها چه در ذهن ما هست یا حتی در الهیات قدیمی سنتی مسیحی هست، در نظر ندارند. من چند سال پیش با یك كشیش مسیحی صحبت می كردم، می گفت زمانی اهتمام ما بر این بود كه به مومنین مسیحی بگوییم كه چگونه می شود به خدا ایمان داشت چون می توانستیم مشخصا بگوییم خدا چنین و چنان است و توصیف و تعریف مشخص از او بدهیم و ایمان به او را مطالبه کنیم. اما الان مشكل ما این است كه از ما می پرسند اصلاً خدا یعنی چه؟ یعنی اساسا چه می گویی؟ این همان حرف نیچه است كه گفت خدا مرده است، یعنی دیگر معلوم نیست كه خدا كیست؟ مثل آدمی كه در تاریخ ملتی گم شده باشد. آن كشیش می گفت وقتی می گویی خدا،‌ می پرسند خدا یعنی چه؟

این تحولات که در الهیات مدرن مسیحی پیدا شده معنای Offenbarung را دگرگون کرده است. این یک چرخش هرمنوتیكی است كه در معنای «آشكار شدن» در الهیات مدرن مسیحی رخ داده است.

نکته ششم این که «الهیات» مسیحی با آن چه در عالم اسلام تحت عنوان «كلام و الهیات» اسلامی شكل گرفته بسیار متفاوت است. الهیات مسیحی «تئولوژی» به معنای خداشناسی است. اما كلام اسلامی خداشناسی نیست، بلكه مقومات دیگری دارد. بنابراین نباید تئولوژی را با كلام یكسان گرفت. یعنی نمی توانیم بگوییم به همان معنایی كه الهیات اسلامی داریم،‌ الهیات مسیحی داریم. نمی توانیم بگوییم كتاب الهیات ابن سینا شبیه كتاب الهیات آگوستین است. ساختارها و بافت و موضع های حركت كاملا متفاوت است.

پس از بیان این مقدمات عرض می کنم در آغاز که عناصر اصلی تشكیل دهنده الهیات سنتی مسیحی به وسیله آباء كلیسا بنیانگذاری شد، تلقی این بود كه Offenbarung یك سلسله اطلاعات است كه از سوی خدا به انسان داده می شود. یعنی گزاره هایی صادق، مطابق با واقع درباره جهان و انسان و خدا و گذشته و آینده ... به انسان داده می شود. این مرحله اول دریافت از معنای Offenbarung بود. در مرحله دوم گفتند كه چنین نیست. به خصوص اوایل پیدا شدن فلسفه های اگزیستانس گفتند Offenbarung مجموعه ای از اطلاعات نیست كه خدا آن ها را در اختیار بشر بگذارد، Offenbarung عبارت است از آشكار شدن خدا برای انسان از طریق ظهور عیسی مسیح. یعنی Offenbarung نفس این آشكار شدن است و اساس آن گزاره های صادق نیست، بلكه یك حادثه است. این حادثه وقتی رخ می دهد، نتیجه اش این نیست كه یكسری گزاره در اختیار انسان قرار می گیرد، بلكه نتیجه اش این است که انسان دگرگون می شود و تولد جدید می یابد. اگزیستانس انسان تغییر می یابد. Offenbarung یعنی آشكار شدن خدا در طول تاریخ و این آشكار شدن پس از عیسی(ع) ادامه دارد، زیرا عیسی(ع) در كلیسا حضور دارد و این آشكار شدن امری مستمر است، مثلاً شبیه آن چه ما در «خلق مدام» داریم.

The third transformation that occurred in the meaning of Offenbarung was that revelation cannot mean the disclosure of God in the external world and in a specific event. This view has numerous philosophical and non-philosophical difficulties. Rather, the matter is that a knowledge or experience of God arises for the human being, and the human being interprets this as Offenbarung, and this interpretation is an interpretation. The human being interprets the knowledge that has arisen for them as the disclosure of God. This is an interpretation of an experience that the human being has grasped. This is the latest word discussed on this subject in modern Christian theology. This meaning has, firstly, freed the concept of Offenbarung from numerous philosophical difficulties, and secondly, it is currently the most acceptable expression of Offenbarung that is offered. In what follows, I will try to address, to some extent, how this third transformation came about and to express what it seeks to say. This is precisely the hermeneutic turn in modern theology. At the beginning of this transformation, the question was discussed: how did the Church Fathers arrive at the conclusion that Offenbarung means the giving of information? The answer given to this question was that this expression (Offenbarung as information) was an apologetic expression, meaning that Christians wanted to say that our religion is the only true religion, and they expressed this statement in the form of this model: that God, through the appearance of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), has given us information that is not available to any other human being, and consequently, everyone must come under our umbrella. Because we have information that cannot be attained through the two ordinary human knowledges of reason and experience. This is proprietary and custom-made knowledge that is only available to the Church, and no other human being has access to it. Of course, many of the world's rational people opposed this claim, but the goal of the Church's effort was not to silence rational opponents; rather, their goal was the acceptance of the general public, which was achieved successfully. The Church also added that both the way of receiving this information is supernatural (supra natural) and the content of this information is supernatural. This statement means that this information pertains to a series of beings and realms of existence that are beyond the realm of nature, and human beings have no way of becoming aware of them.

The Church also said about faith that faith consists of receiving this supernatural information and accepting it. Thus, logically, in traditional Christian theology, the occurrence of Offenbarung was prior to the emergence of faith. If Offenbarung did not occur, faith would not come into being. Therefore, both the object of faith and what was understood from Offenbarung/revelation were outside the realm of human understanding, because both the channel and the content were supernatural.

These conceptions created various problems throughout history. It was in the process of resolving these problems and the dispute with philosophy that Christian theologians said: since these discussions are raised in the Testaments, we must ask whether the words of these biblical texts also came from God, or only their meanings came from God. Numerous books were written to solve this problem, and various theories emerged; for example, it was discussed whether the words of the Testaments were presented as dictation? And so on. These discussions were current for a while. Each of the theories presented to answer these questions encountered a problem. Some Christian theologians set aside the coming of the words from God and said that the authors of the Bible chose the words themselves, and the meanings were dictated to them, and so on. What was very decisive was that some questions were unanswerable.

The important epistemological question that had no answer was: if the contents are supernatural, and the knowledge given to human beings through these books is in no way attainable by human beings themselves, how can human beings understand something for which they lack the foundations of understanding in their own capabilities? That is, how is the understanding of these supernatural concepts possible? These questions truly had no proper answer.

Some said the content is supernatural, but it was expressed in a form (language) that humans could understand. Similar to making a content comprehensible to a child with a simple example. Thus they tried to preserve it, but sometimes they said, in the context of exegesis, we separate the container and the contained in these texts, and we interpret this book based on the pre-understanding that a communication has been formed between God and humanity through God's initiative. In this communication, God's message to humans was sent in the container of the culture, concepts, and rationality of the era of the biblical authors, and there was no other way. God's message is the contained, and the culture of the era is the container of that message. Any erroneous or unacceptable statement in the Bible pertains to that container, but the contained itself, meaning God's message, is immune from any error. In this view, it is said that Offenbarung is presented in the language of a people's culture and in accordance with their culture and worldview. These efforts were made so that they could approximate to the mind and make it accepted that information and knowledge have come from a place inaccessible to anyone and is a special kind of knowledge. But when they made these remedies, they faced a major problem.

This problem was that if the content and the contained are different from the container, what means do you have to distinguish the container from the contained? By what rational method can the container be separated from the contained? There is no way to separate them. And thus this theory was not accepted. Ultimately, they reached the point that this claim that Offenbarung means a series of propositions reached humans from God through supernatural means with supernatural content and exists in a book, is in no way defensible and faces numerous problems from various aspects, and the claimant must abandon his claim. Finally, one Christian theologian encountered an important problem. He said that someone who wants to claim that God has proclaimed propositions or claims that God has revealed Himself, must first prove the existence of God and then show that He has revealed Himself. But is this premise attainable? Is the question of God a matter of faith or is it provable and settled? Since in the present age the existence of God is not provable, the question of God is a matter of faith, meaning it is reasonable for someone to say, for example, I am searching for the meaning of meanings and I call it God. Or, as Kierkegaard says, I make a leap to a place and accept a message that I think comes from an origin I call God. In the present age, it has become a matter of leaping and jumping, searching and finding. This is different from the traditional conception of the concept of God. One cannot report from such a God and say He has spoken or revealed Himself.

The result was that in modern Christian theology they said Offenbarung is an interpretive discussion. It neither means that God has conveyed propositions to us, nor does it mean that He has revealed Himself. Two very renowned theologians, one Protestant and the other Catholic, proposed a new perspective. Among Catholics, this figure was Karl Rahner (1904-1984), who was an important thinker and played a major role in drafting the decrees of Vatican II in the 1960s. He was among those who saved the Catholic Church from many unreasonable matters. Among Protestants, the prominent figure was Pannenberg. They took the lead in this area and said the story is that sometimes messages arrive and experiences emerge for humans, and humans gain a knowledge of God such that when they want to express it, they say God speaks to us. This expression is an interpretive expression. The nature of the experience is as if God speaks to humans. From their perspective, Offenbarung means exactly this. In this view, it is said that Jesus spoke to the disciples, and they experienced God speaking, and they reflected those words in the Gospel; now, through these writings and tradition, a message reaches us that we consider to be the word of God.

Karl Rahner has added another point, one that is also found among our mystics. He says that every human being has a vague knowledge of God within themselves. Sometimes that inner knowledge crystallizes, emerges, through an encounter with symbols that exist externally, not within the human being. Paul Ricoeur's existentialist hermeneutics proceeds in the same way. He says that when a human being projects themselves, they do not project themselves into a void. Rather, they design themselves in contact with a series of signs and symbols that exist externally. Here he goes a step beyond Heidegger. Perhaps he also completes Heidegger's thought.

In any case, this is Rahner's view. Many other Christian theologians say similar things. They say that this sometimes manifests, erupts, and comes to appearance through an encounter with symbols and institutions. In Pannenberg's terms, it encounters history. Pannenberg speaks of the theology of history, or through culture, which is the view of Paul Tillich, and Mr. Farhadpour has translated these well.

This is the latest stage that this development in modern Christian theology has reached, and I call it the hermeneutic turn, and for now, among the various theories concerning Offenbarung, it seems the most acceptable. This is what I, for my part, am pursuing in Iran. When I say that the prophetic reading is interpretation, this is how I understand it. That is, what is in the Holy Book is a kind of knowledge whose identity is interpretive knowledge, recitative knowledge, and narrative knowledge that reached the Prophet of Islam, and its language is also metaphorical language. The idea that God has revealed Himself in the sense of incarnation has, fortunately, not been accepted among Muslims from the beginning. Revealing in the sense of embodiment and corporealization has not been present among Muslims. Rather, our mystics have believed in the sense that God is in the human heart.

The meaning of revealing that the mystics speak of is a different meaning. They say that God is in the human heart. The German Meister Eckhart also says that God plants a seed in the human heart, and this seed grows. This is a beautiful expression of Meister Eckhart that I never forget. Eckhart is the greatest Christian mystic. Meister Eckhart is a German theologian and preacher whose sermons, unfortunately, have not been translated. His sermons, which are in two volumes, are one of the authentic texts of Christian mysticism in the German language, which unfortunately have not been translated into Persian. These books are on par with the first-rate mystical texts of the world. Eckhart's expression is that God plants a seed within the human being, and this seed grows. This is a very beautiful simile. Karl Rahner, Pannenberg, and Paul Tillich—those who are the founders and proponents of modern Christian theology—say something similar. Today's humanity can place these claims alongside contemporary philosophies and engage in dialogue with them. Mr. Habermas, who came to Iran a few years ago, said in a private conversation: I engage in dialogue with Catholic theologians because Catholic theologians have firm foundations, but I cannot engage in dialogue with Protestants because they do not start from the foundations from which Catholics begin. In summary, let us think about the discussions related to the new theology, which is in various forms in exile in our society. Because the choice of these discussions in our society is under pressure from both the claimants and the opponents of religion. These noteworthy ideas exist in today's world, and my entire effort is to draw your attention to these ideas.

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