The Philosophical Task of the Interpreter- Culturology

The Philosophical Task of the Interpreter- Culturology

Sometimes it is difficult for people to equate the ministry with the head, since the essence of spiritual life seems to have a heavy bent to wards matters of the heart. Thus, when people think of biblical interpretation, whether for practical application or ministerial/teaching tools, the emphasis is normally outside the realm of philosophical thought. However, although Christianity is much more than an intellectual pursuit, it is certainly not less than such a pursuit! The interpretive task is performed and taught by humans conscious of the world they live in, which brings Christianity into the realm of philosophy and worldview.

Orientation

That introductory paragraph is something that I am quite confident of, but not something I have always been aware of. In recent months, I have personally been forced to walk within this philosophical awareness in my own transition from a life-long upbringing in a Free-will Baptist denomination to the Presbyterian and Reformed denomination. My transition to a new denomination was possible by two factors: biblical conviction, and a growing awareness of presuppositions and culture. In God’s providence, my own transition took place in tandem with enrolling with Moody Bible Institute. How this background experience relates and informs the philosophical task of the interpreter will be made evident in the following sections.

Connections

Interpreting Scripture has taught me a necessary question to ask in the interpretive process: Is there a true correlation between philosophy, culture and spiritual formation? The textbook “Everyday Theology” has been an excellent study in seeking an informed answer to the question. Kevin J. Vanhoozer implies that this is so: “describing culture as a process of spiritual formation is not to say that we are helpless and hapless victims but rather to call our attention to the fact that spiritual formation is happening to us and to our children all the time” (31). As this process of life happens, we all develop a worldview with a growing array of presuppositions. It is simply impossible to separate this reality of human existence from our processing of information, especially when it comes to biblical interpretation. This is the subjective element of philosophy that must be realized- that everyone who comes to the text of Scripture comes with presuppositions, or to put it strongly, biases.

This philosophical awareness has flourished tremendously in this class, but it has done so from the foundation of a previous class Story and Structure of the Bible in which the textbook “Introduction to Biblical Interpretation” introduced me to the concept of presuppositions, defined as preunderstanding: “preunderstanding may be defined as a body of assumptions and attitudes which a person brings to the perception and interpretation of reality or any aspect of it” (Klein et al. 154). While this concept was a minor point in that class, I can see that it laid a healthy foundation for the cultural aspect of this class.

Insights

The way that Vanhoozer builds upon that foundation of preunderstanding and connects it to the whole pursuit of the philosophical task is by calling readers to implement Romans 12.2 in a comprehensive way:

Christians must learn to read the Bible and culture alike […] ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Rom.12.2). The apostolic exhortation confronts us with a question: In which cultural world of meaning do we dwe

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