Toward a New Theology, Part I

I'm tired, so I'm afraid I'm probably not going to write this as clearly as I should, but for what it is worth, here is a little stream of consciousness on my thoughts about theology.

I've been contemplating what I would include in the prolegomena of my systematic theology dogmatics (I'm going to be good Barthian and not call it systematic), if I were to write such a thing right now. I certainly hope to write a set of dogmatics someday. But what interpretive framework would I use?

I'd probably look to my two patron theologians, which incidentally are the two great systematizers: Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth. From Aquinas, I'd be tempted to include a set of proofs for God in my framework. But, acknowledging Kant, Hume, et. al., I'd probably need to deconstruct my own arguments. This might be a good thing, since that would lead me to the point of crisis where I could argue for the Kierkegaardian-Barthian leap of faith. So far so good.

Now, if I followed the assumptions of Barth, I shouldn't create an external framework at all. The Bible should provide its own framework. However, even reading the Bible requires a linguistic/socio-cultural framework so that's not entirely possible. So, in this skeptical age, maybe a good starting point would be to pick out my Biblical interpretation framework right at the beginning.

This brings me back to my basic school of literary criticism. I may have said on here before that I work primarily from the assumptions of Old Historicism, New Criticism (Formalism) and Mimeticism (Jungian/Archetypal). Given that I was a religious studies major in college, it should come as no surprise that I have been primarily trained in applying historicism as an interpretive framework to the Bible — Old Historicism looks at the history of the author and his culture to discern what the author intended to say. My critical technique is dialectical, because New Criticism rejects the notion that we can know the author or what he or she intended to say. Mimetic Criticism looks at how the text represents the external reality; I juxtapose that with Jungian psychoanalysis. Traditionally Jungian interpretation is placed inside Reader Response criticism, but my basic argument is that I am interested in looking at the objective archetypes the author is aware of (consciously or not) and representing them, as opposed to looking at how the reader is alerted to their own archetypal awareness.

But, there is a plot twist at this point. This dialectical approach seems to be hurdling me toward an eventual meeting with Deconstructionism or New Historicism. Lately, I'm thinking I'm assuming the New Historicist position of the majority of my English professors, a position I previously had rejected. However, while many New Historicists are looking for a meta-narrative of dialectical materialism (e.g. they are doing Marxist criticism), I would propose a meta-narrative of covenant and election (which circularly could be supported by the Bible).

Because New Historicism assumes many of the techniques of my traditional three school approach, I could retain the formal (generic) analysis, the analysis of the cultural background and — as part of the meta-narrative — Jungian analysis. New Historicism is fairly honest in that it takes a cue from deconstructionism and admits meaning is endlessly deferred, essentially. We will use a meta-narrative interpretive framework with the goal of understanding the original cultures, rather than claiming we can actually ever completely understand the original cultures.

Ultimately, this does not matter because theology is merely a witness to the divine revelation of God: the Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is only through His self-revelation to us that the endless deferment may be set aside.

More later.