Plug for reading (of the prolegomenal stripe)

re Alan Torrance, “Auditus Fidei: Where and How Does God Speak?”

Part of the audaciousness of biblical theology is the inherent claim to understand the Word of God, and in a particular way.  Despite the historical debate regarding Ramist presuppositions and Enlightenment leanings in the WCF, there are lower prolegomenal considerations that support the higher exegesis.  

“Just interpreting the text” brings a tidal wave of presumptions to bear on the interaction between human and text or Spirit and human.  This tidal wave is what Torrance appeals to as a primary matter of concern for serious exegetical work.  While this is not a novel nor peculiar appeal, he approaches us with a robust and terse history of the theological/philosophical portals that have been brought forward in the history of exegesis.  

The reason this is advocated biblical theological reading is that he frames the discussion in God’s self-disclosure.  But he moves quickly toward a constructive approach to talk about knowers committed to that self-disclosure.  The essay does a good bit of epistemological prolegomena by elucidating entry statements like: “It is imperative to appreciate here, however, that this kind of epistemic reorientation does not assume an irrational “leap in the dark.”  

Here, he explores the roots of understanding scripture through a Christological-Pneumatological epistemology that fundamentally reorients the reader.  For Torrance, the crossroads of the self-revelation of God and the exegete meet at metanoia.  

The reason I am offering this chapter as a reading is that it cuts across several pedagogical needs.  First, it can be used to stir thought and prepare students to think about epistemological assumptions of their own presumed prolegomenon.  Second, the essay can challenge us to explore the outworking of a particular theologian in the biblical theological tradition.  Third, this essay makes active use of the philosophical traditions that have sometimes muddied the conversation, but doesn’t abandon them all to frivolity.  There are ‘ways out’ that can make use of similar biblical strands of epistemology found in certain regions of philosophy.  So there is some apologetic engagement going on.

Finally, students who are new to biblical theology (like me) might benefit from the challenge to support this approach with a beefy understanding of how we might faithfully render anything from the text at all.

 Alan J. Torrance, “Auditus Fidei: Where and How Does God Speak?” in Reason and the Reasons of Faith, eds. Paul J. Griffiths and Reinhard Hütter (New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 27-52.