Hermeneutics of faith

Hermeneutics of faith, the counterpart to hermeneutics of suspicion, is a manner in which a text may be read, "a hermeneutic not of irresponsible iconoclasm, nor of prideful play, but of charity and humility."[1]: 27  It was the traditional or predominant way of reading the Bible for at least the first fifteen hundred years of Christian history.[2] Both interpretive approaches combined are necessary for a complete knowledge of an object.[3]: 64 

Hans-Georg Gadamer, in his 1960 magnum opus Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode), offers perhaps the most systematic survey of hermeneutics in the 20th century, its title referring to his dialogue between claims of "truth" on the one hand and processes of "method" on the other—in brief, the hermeneutics of faith versus the hermeneutics of suspicion. Gadamer suggests that, ultimately, in our reading we must decide between one or the other.[4]: 106–107 

According to Ruthellen Josselson, "(Paul) Ricœur distinguishes between two forms of hermeneutics: a hermeneutics of faith, which aims to restore meaning to a text, and a hermeneutics of suspicion, which attempts to decode meanings that are disguised."[5]: 1–28  Rita Felski posits that Ricœur's hermeneutics of faith did not become fashionable because it appeared dismissive of the work of critique that defined an ascendant post-structuralism.[6]: 21 

In his early essay "The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem" and especially his Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method), conservative German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer asserts that one is always deciding between a hermeneutics of faith (truth) or a hermeneutics of suspicion (method) when engaged in the act of reading.[7]: 106 

Pope Benedict XVI's use of the term

During his October 14, 2008, address to the Synod of Bishops, Pope Benedict XVI cautioned,

[W]here the hermeneutics of faith…disappear, another type of hermeneutics will appear by necessity — a hermeneutics that is secularist, positivist, the key fundamental of which is the conviction that the divine does not appear in human history.[8]: 43 

In the history of Christianity, it is Paul the Apostle whose relationship to biblical texts is most closely associated with the hermeneutics of faith.[9]: 334 

References
  1. Carson, D. A., & Woodbridge, J. D., God and Culture: Essays in Honor of C. F. H. Henry (Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 1993), p. 27.
  2. Jasper, D., A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), esp. pp. 9, 23 and 66.
  3. Lindvall, T., & Melton, M., "Toward a Postmodern Animated Discourse: Bakhtin, Intertextuality and the Cartoon Carnival" (1994), in M. Furniss, ed., Animation: Art and Industry (New Barnet: John Libbey Publishing, 2012), esp. p. 64.
  4. Jasper, D., A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 106–107.
  5. Josselson, R., "The Hermeneutics of Faith and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion", in Narrative Inquiry 14 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, July 2004), pp. 1–28.
  6. Lydon, J., Imperial Emotions: The Politics of Empathy across the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 21.
  7. Jasper, A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p. 106.
  8. Hahn, S. W., Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009), p. 43.
  9. Schliesser, B., Abraham's Faith in Romans 4: Paul's Concept of Faith in Light of the History of Genesis 15:6 (Heidelberg: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), p. 334.

Further reading
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