Dear fellow Medievalists:
I have just come back from a very interesting lunch with one of my
colleagues, Hugh Pyper, who teaches biblical studies here. We had a
long talk about the nature of texts and exegesis, and one of the
points we came upon related to one of my pet peeves.
Anyone who has had the patience to listen me yack on about the "big
questions" in my research has had to endure my rant about the
traditional account of scholastic theology. Put simply, the point of
departure in the research for over a century has been the
relationship between faith and reason. And, the scholastic is the
hero who braved on in the efforts to introduce a more rationally
structured approach to theological discourse.
My main problem is that sometimes this minimises the role of biblical
exegesis in medieval theological thought, or presents exegesis as
almost an opponent to speculation (ie, those "biblical" theologians
who resisted the "new theology"). Moreover, based on my reading of
the sources to date, I am coming to think that the major issue is the
relationship between faith and Scripture.
I realise that is problematic for two reasons, or at least
problematic in relation to the literature of the field. In the first
place, there has been the temptation to collapse faith and scripture
into one category (a disastrous approach, I would say). Or, the
subject of faith is reduced to an issue of authority and assent.
Exegesis is then governed by authority/ies (more often presented as
external to the text, but not always), and hence cannot always
exploit the more powerful tools of logical discourse: recourse to
authority is the weakest form of argument (which Aquinas proves, by
the way, by citing an authority :-]).
Instead, I am thinking that we may need to view scholastic theology
as developing a more complex relationship between faith and
scripture, where reason is related to, or inherent in, both elements.
The scholastic project, if I can use such a term, is an attempt to
describe the relationship between the whole person (intellect, will,
etc) and the sacred page.
The immediate problem I see for myself, is my own inadequacy for
analysing faith outside the parameters of authority. Here is where
my colleague made some intriguing points that have got me thinking.
He has been (almost cheekily) using Richard Dwarkins' model of the
selfish gene to examine the question, what makes a successful text?
The answer is that it is one that ensures that it will be reproduced
from generation to generation, either in whole or in part (which
means that one could argue that the Bible has created Western
Civilisation in order to ensure its own survival!). In his recent
study of a text from II Samuel, he argued that in this case the
narrative sparks an anxiety in the reader, which in the first place
allows the reader to see himself in the text, and then pushes him to
reproduce the text in himself and in subsequent generations (sorry,
this is a very facile summary: the book is Hugh Pyper, _David as
Reader_ [(Brill, 1996)].
I wonder if this anxiety can be described as some aspect of faith.
In other words, the relationship between faith and Scripture is one
of mimesis. I think this is in keeping with the medieval approach to
faith, where anxiety is sometimes the point of departure: and, the
imitatio christi (as an active faith) entails some mimesis. This
raises the question whether all scholastic exegesis is performative
in some way, but I don't even know how get my head around that one.
I suppose I am asking is how one can talk about medieval conceptions
of faith, and avoid making it one dimensional.
I welcome comments and criticism on this short reflection (or
exhortations to shut up).
Cheers
Jim
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James R. Ginther
Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
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"Excellencior enim est scriptura in mente viva quam in
pelle mortua" -Robert Grosseteste.
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