101 - How Adequate is the New Hermeneutic?

How Adequate is the New Hermeneutic?
By Paul J. Achtemeier

"To the extent that the 'new' hermeneutic has brought to the forefront of theological discussion the problem of hermeneutics, one must, I would argue, support it, since the validity of any theological or exegetical statement is in direct proportion to the validity of the hermeneutical method upon which it is based. But we must ask whether or not this 'new' hermeneutic is in fact adequate to the task it has set for itself, and to which it calls theological thinking."

CONSCIOUSLY or not, Christian theology is always involved in some form of the task of hermeneutics. This fact may be more evident in some historical periods than in others, and in some theological systems than in others, but the task is there, since theology is involved in explicating the meaning of God's act in Christ, and that is what hermeneutics is all about. The hermeneutical question is basically the question about the possibility of transferring meaning from one age and culture (the New Testament, or the Biblical world as a whole) to another (the contemporary scene or a given theology). For that reason, the hermeneutical question has a two-fold concern: the problem of an adequate understanding of ancient thinking, and the problem of an adequate scheme of conceptualization by means of which the ancient thinking may be expressed in understandable terms in a different, contemporary age. Because hermeneutics is concerned with understanding an ancient text, it is also concerned with the problem of understanding as such. Any answer to the problem of how understanding takes place will be of significance for the hermeneutical endeavor. And because hermeneutics is concerned with an adequate scheme of conceptualization, it is concerned with the problem of the nature of language,

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which makes such conceptualization possible. It is the insight of the so-called "new" hermeneutic that these two questions really ask the same thing, and that they may both be approached in terms of the nature of language. For the "new" hermeneutic, the question of the possibility of a Biblically-based theology, and the question of the possibility of the proclamation of a New Testament text are rooted in the question of the nature and function of language.

To understand why this is so, and how the hermeneutical task has come to be understood in such terms, it is necessary to know something of the background out of Which it has sprung.

I

Although the roots of the "new" hermeneutic reach back into the nineteenth century, and the thinking of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Herrmann and others, they are most obviously grounded in the thought of Rudolph Bultmann.¹ More specifically, the "new" hermeneutic occupies itself with two problems with which Bultmann also occupied himself: the problem of demythologizing and the problem of a valid hermeneutical principle.² As a matter of fact, the new hermeneutic understands itself as a further step in the direction of demythologizing the New Testament, and presumes this in its work.³ For Bultmann, the problem centering around the mythological language used in the New Testament concerns the fact that such language distorts the true subject-matter of faith by objectifying it. These objectifying tendencies in mythological language overshadow the understanding of existence as "eschatological" (i.e., as having no certainty in "objective" reality, whether of history or of nature), an understanding which seeks to express itself through this terminology. The danger lies in the fact that the mythological means of expressing this understanding of existence tend to obscure that understanding itself, and the content of the Christian faith is

¹ For a survey of these roots, see E. Fuchs, Hermeneutik, "Prolegomena," pp. 1-87 (Bad Cannstatt: R. Muellerschoen Verlag, 2nd ed. 1958); J. Robinson, "Hermeneutic since Barth" (pp. 1-77 in The New Hermeneutic, ed. J. Robinson and J. B. Cobb, Jr., New York: Harper and Row, 1964) and W. Pannenberg, "Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte" in ZThK, 'Vol. 60, Heft 1, August 1963, pp. 90-105 (my translation of this article will appear in volume four of Journal for Theology and the Church, ed. R. Funk; pub. by Harper and Row).
² For the first, see his article on "Die Entmythologisierung der neutestamentlichen Verkuendigung als Aufgabe" in vol. 1 of Kerygma und Mythos, ed. H.-W. Bartsch; for the second, his article "Das Problem der Hermencutik" in ZThK, 1950, pp. 47-69 (also in Glauben und Verstehen, vol. II, pp. 211 ff). To be sure, Bultmann himself understood his program of demythologizing as a hermeneutical principle (cf. Gl. it. Ver., II, p. 235, footnote 37), but for purposes of this exposition, we will separate the two.
³ For example, E. Fuchs, Studies of the Historical Jesus, p, 210 (vol. 42 of "Studies in Biblical Theology'); cf. also paragraphs 4, 11 in his Hermeneutik.

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then hopelessly distorted. In the place of faith, one then feels required to assent to "myth." Because the means of expression thus tend to overshadow the intended content, more appropriate means must befound for its expression. The first century conceptuality must be replaced by a modern conceptuality which will better display theunderstanding of existence implied in the New Testament writings. Bultmann's program of demythologizing is therefore an attempt to get behind the mythological language to the reality to which it points, so that that reality may find more adequate expression in different language.

But, asks the "new" hermeneutic, can one legitimately separate language and reality to that extent? Is it not the case that one has access to that reality only through the language itself? Therefore, that language is itself a part of the reality it expresses. In fact, reality does not exist for man apart from its linguistic expression. The key is therefore not to be sought in some reality which lies "behind" language, as though they could be separated from one another. Rather, the nature of language itself must furnish the key to the hermeneutical task. It is this basic insight into the intimate relationship between reality and language which makes the "new" hermeneutic new.

The second problem mentioned above with which Bultmann occupied himself is the problem of a valid hermeneutical approach. In his essay on hermeneutics, Bultmann argues that a prior living relationship to the material which comes to expression in the text is necessary before a given text can be understood. From this, he concludes that every interpretation requires a certain "pre-understanding," which makes possible the understanding of the text by enabling the interpreter to ask proper questions of the text. Only if proper questions are asked, can the text be understood and interpreted. Apart from such pre-understanding, the text is dumb. That also means that unless one has a proper pre-understanding of the area the text deals with, and can ask appropriate questions, the text cannot be understood. Bultmann writes: "The understanding of a political or sociological text will only be possible for one who is moved by the problems of political and social life."⁴ Only if the matter dealt with in the text is a matter of existential concern to the interpreter can the interpretation be valid. The only "objective"

⁴ Gl. u. Ver. II p. 230.

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understanding is therefore the one which is of greatest "subjective" concern to the interpreter. Bultmann cites Kaufmann with approval when the latter argues that only when the interpreter himself has personal experience with the matter dealt with in the text can he really understand and interpret that text.

What would such a hermeneutical principle mean, then, in relation to the text of the New Testament? It must mean, in the light of Bultmann's argument, that valid interpretation of the text could only occur when the interpreter is vitally concerned about the matter concerning which the text speaks. Since the New Testament text speaks of faith, it is clear that only one vitally engaged in the faith, one for whom questions of faith are existential concerns, can understand and interpret the text. By Bultmann's own logic, it would mean that faith is the necessary "pre-understanding" for interpreting the New Testament! This is apparently not the conclusion to which Bultmann is driving, but even when he affirms that "no other conditions of understanding underlie the interpretation of the Biblical writings than underlie the interpretation of any other literature" (p. 231), this can only mean, in the light of his argument, involvement in the material expressed in the text. Bultmann's argument involves itself even deeper in this direction when he argues that "to understand reports about events as acts of God presupposes a pre-understanding of what acts of God can mean in the first place" (p. 231). But how does one know what an act of God is except through faith? Surely not as an objective event in the world of sense-perception! To argue thus is to speak "mythologically!" One can therefore apply the logic of Bultmann's approach to hermeneutics to argue for the necessity of faith as the pre-condition for interpreting the New Testament. To escape this possibility of interpretation, the "new" hermeneutic argues that the only pre-condition necessary is to be human, to be involved in the question about oneself, and that the only approach needed for valid interpretation is honesty in face of the text.

The "new" hermeneutic has thus set itself the task of carrying forward the program of demythologizing. It does this by seeking a hermeneutical principle which can be applied universally and which will therefore also be valid for the New Testament. In seeking that principle, it asks how understanding as such takes place, which is the question about the relationship between knowing subject and real-

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ity. Theologically, such a question concerns the communicability of revelation, and that is nothing less than to ask whether, and how, theology may legitimately be carried on. The new hermeneutic finds the key to these problems in its understanding of the central place language plays in human existence. It is to the "linguisticality of human existence" to which they turn for solutions.

II

The first step in this quest must concern itself with identifying the hermeneutical principle adequate for the task.⁵ Fuchs argues that a hermeneutical principle does not explain understanding, but rather simply indicates how the process of understanding gets under way, and thus gives us some control over this process.⁶ Further, he argues, a hermeneutical principle which would presume faith for its effectiveness would be of no help since, in the first place, in that event no hermeneutical principle would be needed, and secondly, the gospel itself does not presume that the reader or hearer has faith. Rather, it takes for granted that we must continually be pointed toward it. So, he says, the New Testament begins with a content which is independent of faith, so that it can call it forth. The hermeneutical principle must therefore be neutral over against faith. It neither demands nor forbids it. One must ask, therefore, what sort of hermeneutical principle faith itself presupposes when it demands that it be preached and taught, and thus presumes that it can be understood even in the absence of faith. What sort of "neutrality of understanding" does faith itself require? Answer: it requires the neutrality of understanding inherent in the question about the self.⁷ The language of faith is therefore the language of existence that understands itself. In fact, nothing more is said to us in Christ than we can understand in the question about the basis of our existence.⁸ Only one thing is required of the person who would understand the New Testament: that he be honest in his approach to the

⁵ Since many of Ebeling's statements on this theme have been translated into English (The Nature of Faith, Word and Faith), whereas the major development of this theme by Fuchs (Hermeneutik) remains unavailable to the reader of English, we will follow the latter's line of argumentation. It is all the more necessary to consider Fuchs' argument carefully, since too much discussion of tile "new hermeneutic" is carried on in complete disregard of this book (e.g., C. E. Braaten's critical article "How New is the New Hermeneutic" in THEOLOGY TODAY, July, 1965, in which it is totally ignored).
⁶ Hermeneutik, pp. 109, 111, 115.
⁷ Herm., pp. 115-116.
⁸ Herm., pp. 270, 61.

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text. Beyond that, there is no requirement for understanding the New Testament.⁹

But to take seriously the question of one's self and one's own existence, Fuchs argues, will mean that one becomes a stranger to oneself. This happens because the New Testament asks of the self that it live from God and not from itself, that it accept its justification from God, and not seek to justify itself. Such self-sacrifice, argues Fuchs, is nothing new to man. He regularly gives himself up to something other than himself, but it is always to the wrong thing. The text of the New Testament makes us aware of the fact that we compete with God in the matter of self-sacrifice; we do not willingly sacrifice ourselves to him. In this way, the question about our self becomes in the text the question about God: will we accept what the text says we must do with ourselves? There is therefore a constant movement between text and self, in which the self, which originally questioned the text, finds itself radically called into question by the text.¹⁰

Faith, therefore, argues Fuchs, simply poses the question of the self, for the "language of faith is the language of existence that understands itself."¹¹ Following Herrmann, Fuchs thus sees salvation in terms of the self coming to itself, or becoming its true self. Fuchs writes that the one who naively affirms himself cannot know God. Rather, one must allow grace to be spoken to him by learning to know himself as a man, as one who admits that he desires to affirm himself, and thus remains estranged from God.¹² In this way a man learns to speak the "language of self-understanding," which is the language of existence before God.¹³ Man must therefore understand himself, and become a man, something which is in accord not only with the teaching of the law and the prompting of conscience, but which follows the inner tendency of language itself.¹⁴ Man, called into question by the New Testament text, hears the challenge to achieve the goal of faith: he must achieve, again and again, in each new situation, true selfhood.

But how is this challenge to a new self-understanding as one who

⁹ Herm., pp. 155, 270,
¹⁰ Herm., pp. 120, 124.
¹¹ Herm., pp. 265, 271.
¹² "Das Sprachereignis in der Verkuendigung Jesu, in der Theologie des Paulus und im Ostergeschehen" in Zum hermeneutischen Problem in der Theologie (Tuebingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959), p. 295.
¹³ Hermeneutik, p. 265.
¹⁴ Zum herm. Problem in der Theologie, p. 295; Hermeneutik, pp. 64, 265.

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exists from God and not himself put forward by the text? Obviously, through the language which the text speaks. If the hermeneutical principle is the question about the self, and if that question is intensified, even radicalized by the confrontation with the text, then the vehicle of such questioning is the language through which it occurs. The reality of God confronting the self is thus mediated, indeed, created, through language. How is that possible? What relationship between language and reality is thus pre-supposed? To understand this, we must look in some detail at Fuchs' argumentation on this point.¹⁵

Fuchs begins with the commonly-accepted statement that reality is what is.¹⁶ But to be, reality must be present. Therefore, reality has as one of its conditions that it be present, and in order for me to understand something as real, its present and my present must coincide. Such understanding, further, demands that one pay close heed to reality, and be able to say where, when, and in what manner one confronts reality. Thus, the possibility of an appropriate expression (Aussage) of the presence of reality also belongs to reality.¹⁷ But that means that reality is not simply "what is." Rather, it must be defined as that which can be expressed (zur Sprache gebracht) as present. What cannot be expressed, on the other hand, appears unreal. Thus, reality as a category applies not so much to what is, as it does to language. Fuchs concludes from this that there is no reality, no actuality, without language. "An eternal silence would be the abolition of reality" (p. 131).

By language, Fuchs does not mean simply the vocal expression of meaning, nor, he affirms, is language exclusively speech. Rather, it is an indicating, something that informs or advises, as the sunrise indicates the beginning of a day full of threat or promise, as the case may be. In that instance, the sun "speaks." Where such indication takes place, there is language. And where there is language, there is also reality. Reality and language are so closely related, Fuchs argues, that language, in expressing reality, "releases" it, sets it free.

¹⁵ Because this is a key point for Fuchs' argument, and because it is also a point at which misunderstanding often occurs, we will give, in the following paragraphs, a close paraphrase of key portions of "Das Problem der Wirklichkeit und die Sprache," pp. 126 ff in Hermeneutik. Page references are to this book.
¹⁶ For Fuchs, the terms Wirklichkeit and Moeglichkeit are the contrasting elements. Perhaps, for that reason, it would be better to translate Wirklichkeit with "actuality," to make clear its contrast with "possibility." But Wirklichkeit also means "reality" and this seems to be the sense in which Fuchs employs it.
¹⁷ Here perhaps "actuality" would convey better what is meant. Something is not "actual" for me until I can express in what way it is co-present with me.

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And because the intention of language is to allow reality to appear, language aspires to discourse, sends it forth as "sentence," and thus allows what is real truly to be what it says, or conveys. Thus, in language, says Fuchs, actuality, or reality, is helped to its truth. "The truth of reality appears only in language." Reality, therefore, awaits its release through language" (p. 132).

If that is true, Fuchs continues, and if it is also true that language expresses itself in sentences (or propositions, Saetze) which point to some subject-matter, and if language ranks before reality because only in language is reality helped to its truth (or, achieves meaning), then it follows that the subject-matter of a sentence is constituted as reality only in language, and within the horizon of language. It thus becomes "actual" as over-against merely "possible" or "potential." In addition to subject-matter, however, a sentence always has a subject which, says Fuchs, whatever the construction of the sentence may be, is always "I." "We can designate the 'I' as the logical subject of sentence structure" (p. 133). All expressible subject-matter therefore is related to the "I," and as a result this "I" relationship to the subject-matter ranks before the reality of the subject-matter. Thus, the subject-matter only appears as real (or actual) when the "I" "comes to rest" in the statement about the subject-matter. Fuchs concludes: "That which desires to come to rest in the movement of language is in the first instance neither the subject-matter nor simply the language itself, but rather the I that speaks" (p. 133). It is just that reality which has already appeared through language that can unsettle a person, says Fuchs, and as a result, language is concerned, prior to all subject-matter, with the rest, or repose, of the "I." In language, the subject comes to terms, achieves agreement (Einverstaendnis), with reality.

Language, further, as prior both to reality and to the I, is in essence call (Anruf) and summons (Zuruf). That means that the "I" is always a "called I" (gerufenes ich). Man exists therefore between call and answer. He is called by language, and he answers by language, and thus man is essentially "linguistic" in his existence. Within this area, language presents a man with that which he may allow to be actual, or real. Reality simply confirms for him what language has already given him. Man's relationship with reality is the mirror of the answer which he has given to the summons which language has addressed to him.

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This language has as its goal the repose of the speaking subject, the "I," and therefore only in language can men confront each other genuinely, and come to terms with one another. Language decides in what way a man appears in reality to another man, and to what extent he can understand himself.

Reality, in short, is conditioned by language. Language produces the "truth of reality," so that we can take a stand toward reality. Historical reality is also conditioned by language, so that history also speaks to us. In fact, that is the essence of history: it is tale, or saga. History thus affects us through language. In fact, the New Testament, as historical record, teaches us about a new language, which is presented to us in the name of Jesus Christ. This language is therefore prior to us, and protects us, says Fuchs, from a life which can become speechless through renewed sin. The historical priority of the language which is guarded for us in the New Testament opens for us the dimension of the question about our self in history as the time of self-understanding. In this event, we confront the revelation of God, and theology becomes possible. "The New Testament teaches us about the communicability of the revelation of God in that it communicates to us that the time of self-understanding has come" (p. 140).

III

Language, therefore, Which creates for man the reality within which he lives, and which enables him to come to terms with himself, and faith, Which means to admit that one is man, and therefore that he is not the basis of his own existence, intersect at this decisive point. Faith and language both expect and encourage a man to become himself. This expectation is the "inner tendency" of language itself, and it is grace. When, therefore, language functions as it ought to function, it is grace, and becomes the word of God.¹⁸

Furthermore, the essence of language is "permission." Where such permission occurs, there is a speech event, which is made possible for us by Jesus' words which free us for this permission. His words, therefore, are a true speech event, because they lift us into "the language of permission."¹⁹ Language, to put it another way, "imparts," it is by nature "giving." "When someone says 'yes' he

¹⁸ Hermeneutik, p. 265; cf. G. Ebeling, "Word of God and Hermeneutik" in Robinson and Cobb, The New Hermeneutic, p. 100.
¹⁹ Fuchs, Zum herm. Prob. in der Theologie, pp. 283, 260.

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bestows that admission in which he himself is imparted." So also When God says his "yes," in love, he imparts himself to man.²⁰

Man, therefore, living in the time of God's "yes," knowing that in Christ the time of his true self-understanding has come, remains nevertheless dependent on the communication of God's grace, a communication mediated by language, and not by historical event as such.²¹ What is most important is this one thing: whether or not the communication of God's word has become event for us, whether therefore we have a share in the time of this communication.²² And this communication occurs through language. It is therefore language alone which can "mediate" grace, indeed which is grace, and it is grace because it functions as it ought to function as language, in creating unity, acceptance and rest.

It is small wonder, in the light of all this, that Fuchs sees the chief significance of Jesus not in what he did or was, but in what he said.²³ For the same reason, the important thing about the history of Jesus is the history of his language, and the point at which to begin to understand him is his preaching.²⁴ This is also the chief significance of the cross: it represents a new language which Jesus has brought into the world. In fact, the significance of the cross is exhausted in the "language" it makes possible. Fuchs writes: "Thus the crucified one himself transforms himself into the Words of the cross, into the permission for all men to believe."²⁵ And the words do this by creating for us, as they did for the disciples, an extension of the time of decision. They extend the "present" of the decision for selfhood beyond all expectation, and therefore they create that "present," that "time" Within Which man may be united with his fellow man.²⁶

²⁰ Fuchs, "What is a 'Language-Event'?" in Studies of the Historical Jesus (trans. A. Scobie, London: SCM Press, 1964), p. 210.
²¹ Fuchs is quite impatient with those who want to understand the Christ-event as an "Objective historical event" which gives us some sort of certainty of faith within history. He argues that such "objective events of salvation" betray a non-Christian view of time in that they reflect a view of time in which man is master, no longer subject to questioning from those events. Such certainty Fuchs sees as the antithesis to faith.
²² Hermeneutih, pp. 153 f. For a similar analysis of the nature and function of language, cf. R. Kwant, Phenomenology of Language (Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 1965), who can write: "Accordingly, the meaning of expression lies in this, that we are accepted by others. Without being accepted by them, we simply cannot live. Our expression [in language) therefore is a message addressed to other human beings. In this respect also we must not separate existence from expression, for our existence itself is a being-for others" (p. 207).
²³ "Jesus' authority manifests itself above all in his language, in his scarcely surpassed parables and in his pointed logia." Studies of the Historical Jesus, p. 73.
²⁴ Hermeneutik, p. 139.
²⁵ Zum herm. Prob. in der Theol., P. 296; cf. also Herm., p. 145.
²⁶ Herm., pp. 226, 248.

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Thus, Jesus' words create a time for love, which allows the object of love room in which to exist as a self.²⁷ The rule of God is therefore already present because in Jesus, this language of self-understanding and love has become possible."²⁸ For the same reason, Jesus framed his words in such a way that they could not easily be forgotten,²⁹ for if the words, the "language" of Jesus were to be lost, all would be lost.

With Jesus, therefore, "a turning point has occurred in the history of human self-interpretation."³⁰ Jesus, through his language, gives us a new being, a being which is "pure becoming," that is "becoming" understood "in the possibility of being a self."³¹ But that is precisely the possibility inherent in language as such. just as language constitutes man as a "called being," so Christian existence can also be defined as "called existence. "³² And just as language alone provides a man the possibility of self-understanding, so the gift of God in Christ is a true self-understanding. The God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ is therefore the God who has been at work all along in all understanding, the one who in Jesus brings a new language into the world which functions as language in its essence is meant to function, namely, bequeathing to men a life in unity and love.³³

IV

To the extent that the "new" hermeneutic has brought to the forefront of theological discussion the problem of hermeneutics, one must, I would argue, support it, since the validity of any theological or exegetical statement is in direct proportion to the validity of the hermeneutical method upon which it is based. But we must ask whether or not this "new" hermeneutic is in fact adequate to the task it has set for itself, and to which it calls theological thinking.

Such a critique could take many forms. One could point to the pietism which seems to lie back of some of Fuchs' thinking, which tends to put the stress on the individual act of faith as the decision to see in Jesus the standard, or pattern, for one's own life (i.e., he

²⁷ For Fuchs, "love" is the possibility of being free from the necessity of justifying our own existence ("Selbstbegruendung"). Thus, love results from the new self-understanding made possible by Jesus' "words"; cf. Herm., p. 246.
²⁸ Stud. of the His. Jesus, p. 74.
²⁹ Herm., p. 226; the conclusion is mine.
³⁰ Herm., p. 155.
³¹ Herm., p. 247.
³² Herm., p. 248.
³³ Herm., p. 247.

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was so free of the desire to assert himself as the basis of his own existence that he could accept the cross). Faith thus means to repeat Jesus' decision."³⁴ One could also direct attention to the gnostic flavor which appears from time to time in Fuchs' thought, gnostic not in the sense of an analysis of the cosmic structure, but rather in the emphasis on the necessity of knowing the structure of human nature, the self, as the condition of salvation and as the goal of faith. Fuchs can argue that "knowledge of Christ is actually knowledge of one's self," and that "knowledge of one's self is in truth knowledge of God," statements that would be quite at home in a gnostic context. And his whole program, hinging as it does on the fact that the goal of faith is understanding the nature of the self as it really is, depends in the last analysis on one's knowledge of Jesus' words, since these words open for man the possibility of a restoration of his true selfhood.³⁵ All of this has the flavor of a "demythologized gnosticism." One could also question the significance of the apparent attempt to reduce the classical functions of the trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, to aspects of the function of language, whereby language "creates" man in his linguisticality through call and response, redeems him by presenting him with the possibility of a valid self-understanding, and functions as the continuing possibility of illumination by the "word" of God which language itself is when it functions as it ought to function. Thus, it appears, when language does function properly, it redeems, recreates and presents man with a "future" freed from the necessity of justifying himself, i.e., a future of "love."

As we indicated at the outset, however, any hermeneutic must be judged on the adequacy with which it can "re-present" the subject matter under question, and the adequacy of the conceptuality by means of which it attempts to do this. These are the points at which we shall take a closer look at Fuchs' attempt to develop a "new" hermeneutic.³⁶

³⁴ Stud. of the His. Jesus, p. 28; cf. also Herm., pp. 228f., and esp. p. 195, where Fuchs can speak of "[das] fuer den Glauben vorbildlichen Gehorsam Jesu Christi."
³⁵ Herm., pp. 195 ff. It is interesting to compare Fuchs' analogy of the grown-over garden which reminds a man of a lost possibility of his own existence (Herm., pp. 68 ff) with the "Hymn of the Pearl" (e.g., in R. M. Grant, Gnosticism, A Sourcebook ... , New York: Harper and Bros., 1961, pp. 116 ff), where a "letter" reminds the "son of the King" what he once was, and what lie ought to become.
³⁶ It ought to be pointed out that Fuchs did not entitle his book Die neue Hermeneutik, but simply Hermeneutik. While the adjective "new" is used in the discussion in German (e.g. Fuchs' article "Alte und Neue Hermeneutik" in his third volume of Essays, Glaube und Erfahrung [Tuebingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1965]), it has, it appears to me, achieved greater

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The key to getting at the intention, the "truth" of the text, is what Fuchs (and Bultmann before him) calls the "hermeneutical principle" (or the hermeneutical situation). That principle is what makes understanding possible. The hermeneutical principle is not something that explains understanding, but it simply sets the desired process of understanding in motion. For example, says Fuchs, to know what a cat is, one needs simply to put a mouse in front of it, and the cat will show itself to be what it really is. The mouse confronting the cat is thus the "hermeneutical situation" which enables us to understand what a cat really is. To the objection that a cat confronted with milk will react in a different way, Fuchs admits it is true, but affirms that really to know what a cat is, a mouse is better.³⁷ The point of the illustration: only the correct hermeneutical principle-the question about the self-will permit the New Testament to function as it ought to function, will permit it to show itself for what it is.

Yet this analogy-and the point-need closer examination. Let us push to make our point. Put a dog in front of the cat, and the cat will react differently from either mouse or milk. But by what criterion does one decide that the cat is more truly cat when it hunts (mouse) than when it is hunted (dog)? Is the cat acting any less like a cat in escaping an enemy than when attacking a victim? Confront it at the same time with a dog and a mouse: what then shows itself to be the dominant trait of its existence? The point is just this: depending on the hermeneutical situation, one sees the text function in differing ways, without being any less text in each instance! Bultmann had pointed this out in his article on hermeneutics when he wrote that the purpose behind the questions addressed to a text will determine the kind of answers one receives. By what criterion does one decide which is the hermeneutical question? Why is a cat more cat when facing a mouse than when facing milk, as Fuchs affirms? Why is the question of the self the only valid hermeneutical principle for understanding the New Testament? Clearly, to ask the New Testament about self-understanding will reveal answers about self-understanding, but that does not prove that it is the only valid question that can be asked of it. Such a

popularity as an identifying catch-word in English than in German. Since the adjective has come to be identified with this position, I have used it, but to indicate that it is not part of the self-designation of Fuchs' major work on the subject, I have enclosed it in quotation-marks,
³⁷ Herm., pp, 109 ff.

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judgment has been made on the basis of considerations other than the nature of the text.

That the New Testament will in fact not always yield to this kind of hermeneutical principle is illustrated by the kind of "exegesis' Fuchs must carry on to make the text yield to the questions he asks it. One could cite many examples: his attempt to make the point of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20: 1-15) turn on what would have been the result had those hired first said to themselves what the owner says to them in answer to their objection about all receiving equal wages³⁸; his rejection of Cullmann's "law of Heilsgeschichte" as a criterion for what is Heilsgeschichte and what is not by arguing that according to Rom. 10: 4, II Cor. 3: 13 and Gal. 4: 4 (sic), Christ is the end of the law³⁹; his argument that Paul to the contrary notwithstanding (Rom. 4: 11, 12, 16), Abraham is not the type of the believer, but of God the Father⁴⁰; the fact that, the Gospels to the contrary notwithstanding, we must free ourselves of the "prejudice" that Jesus was something of an apocalyptic figure⁴¹; his defense of his understanding of "love" as faithfulness to a word that has been given to a loved one by pointing out that in the Gospel of John the high-priestly prayer of Jesus (John 17) comes before the command to love in John 13: 34 f.⁴² But the whole problem emerges most clearly in his attempt to "understand" Paul's thought in I Cor. 15. The problem centers around Fuchs' conception of faith as the achievement of true selfhood through the abandonment of the attempt to justify one's own existence. Therefore, he is against any dependence of faith on historical "fact" because that will hinder the encounter between God and man, an encounter which calls for ever new decisions about my self and my life. If faith seeks to base itself on historical fact rather than on that continuing encounter with God within existence, such historical fact may lead faith away from its true task: the becoming self. For that reason, Paul's affirmation that Christian faith and preaching depend on the historical facticity of the resurrection (I Cor. 15: 1 ff, esp. v. 14) can find no place in Fuchs'

³⁸ Zur Frage nach dem historischen Jesus (Tuebingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1960), pp. 139 ff. Only nine of the eighteen essays in the German edition appear in the English "Studies of the historical Jesus." The article "Bernerkungen zur Gleihinisauslegung," from which this example is taken, is unfortunately not one of them.
³⁹ Herm., p. 51; italics mine.
⁴⁰ Herm., pp. 196 f.
⁴¹ Herm., p. 227.
⁴² Herm., p. 173; he calls Bultmann's re-arrangement of John "illuminating."

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understanding of the Christian faith. At this point, Fuchs argues, the "Easter experiences" have become "stronger than faith."⁴³ To avoid the clear implication of Paul's argument that faith depends on the resurrection event (I Cor. 15: 14), Fuchs is driven to the artificial explanation that for Paul also, preaching preceded hearing, since he persecuted the preachers, no, rather the preaching, of the Christian faith before he saw the risen Christ.⁴⁴ If Fuchs can become to such an extent the criterion for the true intention and significance of the apostolic witness when he applies his hermeneutical principle, and his understanding of the nature of faith, one must raise serious question as to the possibility that such a procedure is capable of representing in any legitimate way the intention of the text.

The inadequacy of this hermeneutical method in its attempt to get at the true intention of the text is shown just as clearly in its attempt to come to terms with the death of Christ. If the New Testament itself suggests any "hermeneutical. principles," it is precisely the death and ensuing resurrection of Christ. This is the event in whose light the New Testament text shows what it really is and means. In the light of this event, the sayings of Jesus, and his acts, assume their proper significance. This is shown not only in Paul's clear use of Christ's death and resurrection in this way in I Cor. 15 and elsewhere, but in the very structure of the synoptic gospels themselves. There can be little question that even the accounts of Jesus' earthly career have been understood and interpreted in the light of his death and resurrection (e.g., the baptism, predictions of the passion, parable of the wicked husbandmen, and others).⁴⁵ Quite clearly, this is the hermeneutical situation used in the New Testament itself, in the light of which an understanding of Jesus and his career, as well as his significance for us, becomes possible, and takes place.

It is not accidental that at precisely this point, the "new" hermeneutic experiences its greatest difficulty, for, Fuchs' denial to the contrary notwithstanding, he does in fact bypass Easter and makes

⁴³ Herm., p. 120; cf. also pp. 265 ff.
⁴⁴ Zum herm. Prob. in der Theol., p. 301. The extent to which this verse poses a problem for Fuchs is indicated by the fact that in his exegesis of I Cor. 15 in his article "Die Auferstehungsgewissheit nach I Kor. 15" (idem, pp. 197-210), he nowhere mentions v. 14, either as to content, or even by number. This is a clear indication of his embarrassment with this verse, a verse which Paul presents as the legitimation both of faith and of preaching!
⁴⁵ Cf. G. Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Harper and Bros., 1960), pp. 17-19. This is of course also the case with the Gospel according to John.

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the death of Christ of only relative, and thus secondary, importance. This is clear, for example, when one considers the great stress Fuchs places upon the "language" of Jesus. Fuchs can argue, for example, that the real problem faced by faith is whether or not Jesus' word will remain victor also in the future. Indeed, the confession of Jesus' resurrection itself means nothing more than that faith experiences "the victory of the word of Jesus."⁴⁶ The significance of Jesus is dissolved into his words: it is the parables, not the resurrection, "which in reality resist death. They lead into eternal life."⁴⁷ Jesus' death, on the other hand, is seen as proof that he fulfilled the goal of faith, i.e., that he opposed the self-justification of life so successfully that he could give it up, and thus the significance of that death is simply the challenge it presents to all men similarly to admit that the necessity to justify their own existence can be overcome.⁴⁸ Jesus' death is therefore "a point where our daily life intersects with the death of Jesus" because "our daily life has to do with death." Therefore the death of Jesus means that "we gain new factors in common between Jesus and ourselves."⁴⁹

It is this emphasis on Jesus' language and the consequent de-emphasizing of the significance of his death that made the "new quest" of the historical Jesus imperative for Fuchs. It is necessary to get behind the reports of Jesus' "new language" as they are given in the New Testament writings, because those reports have too often fallen victim to the temptation of faith to become "historical," i.e., to see the reality of faith determined by historical event, in this case death and resurrection. Only in that way can one free these words from the misunderstanding to which these words were subjected, "as it were, at the source of (Christian) existence."⁵⁰ The necessity of the new quest is therefore given with the structure of this "new" hermeneutic, and is made necessary because the view of faith which motivates it is different from the view held by the writers of the New Testament.

Yet even here there is a strange lack of consistency in the "new" hermeneutic. We are assured that "language" is not to be understood as mere vocalization, or even in terms of human language. If,

⁴⁶ Herm., P. 229.
⁴⁷ "The New Testament and the Problem" in The New Hermeneutic, ed. Robinson and Cobb, p. 133.
⁴⁸ Herm., p. 246. Such difficulty with the death and resurrection as historical event is also characteristic of much gnostic literature.
⁴⁹ "The NT and the Problem" in The New Herm., p. 132.
⁵⁰ Herm., p. 173.

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when the sun rises, it speaks, then language must mean primarily the communication of meaning, the "illumination of being." But surely the cross and resurrection constitute "language" in this sense. Why then insist on the priority of the spoken language of Jesus over the language of the cross and resurrection? Apparently because, all contrary asseverations notwithstanding, language does mean in the last analysis "verbalization." The "language" which is most important in this instance is the language Jesus spoke, not the meaning communicated by what happened to him. It is precisely this emphasis on the spoken words of Jesus (the language lie "presents us with" which is preserved in the New Testament) which unnecessarily flattens out the content of the Christian faith, and points to the problem inherent in this particular approach to the hermeneutical problem.

V

The second question which must be asked of any hermeneutical approach concerns the adequacy of its conceptualization for the contemporary expression of the meaning with which it attempts to deal. For the "new" hermeneutic, this means to raise the question of the adequacy of its view of language. The specific question which must be raised is this: is Fuchs' analysis of the relationship between language and reality valid? Is it true that language is constitutive of reality to the extent that, apart from language, there would be no reality,⁵¹ that language is prior both to the speaking subject and the reality spoken? Is language, in short, the vehicle of reality to that extent? It cannot be denied that what is available to man as reality is conditioned to a great extent by the language available to him to understand and express it. There will be, for example, no real care for the ill in a primitive community that attributes all illness to demon-possession until the "language" of medical science is learned, and the reality of modern medicine thus made available. So long as the "language" of demonic illness persists, they will resist, or misinterpret, medical aid. To that extent, language creates, or "frees" reality. When the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Britain was being observed recently, a pilot who had been involved was asked by a newspaper reporter what had enabled him and his comrades to continue beyond all human endurance. His answer

⁵¹ See footnote 18.

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indicated that the cause was to be found in Churchill's speeches. Churchill's language, in this instance, had taught them the "language" of courage. Similarly, before the British people as a whole had learned that "language," such courage was not present. It was not until Churchill had "taught" them this language that such courage became for them a possibility, and then a reality which made it possible for them also to be courageous. For the British people, language had created reality, and to that extent, the view of language underlying the "new" hermeneutic is correct.

But a prior question must be raised: who taught Churchill the language of courage? Is it not the case that his own personal courage gave rise to the language of courage he taught his listeners? Do we not have a case here of reality preceding and creating language? In that case, can one really insist that reality is only freed in language? Was it not the reality that "created" the language, indeed "freed" the language, to express it? Is this not in fact the way language grows and is enriched, when someone discovers a new reality, and releases into the language the possibility of its becoming real for others? Language and reality therefore do not in fact overlap with no remainder, with language the sole cause of reality, or its perception.⁵² And this in turn leads to a question which must be put to the "new" hermeneutic: what guarantee do we have that what language "brings to expression" is not in fact a distortion of reality? Since language and reality do not overlap, it must be possible for language to give distorted expression to reality, and thus hide, or obscure it. Language can darken, as well as illumine, being. If then the reality of the Christian faith is limited to the expression given to it in language, how can we be sure that that expression does not distort, rather than free, faith's reality?⁵³ In other words, is the under-

⁵² R. Kwant has written a penetrating analysis of precisely this problem, and comes to the conclusion that while "our speaking is the 'locus' of all meaning, yet almost all forms of meaning exist originally outside speech. Speech puts us into contact with all meaning but is not the original contact with meaning" (Phenomenology of Language, p. 46). Kwant observes that one's "universe of discourse" (read: language) is "superficial" in view of the wide variety of the "lived world," and concludes that "language is unable to express all the subtle variations of the world of meaning" (p. 39). Although the terminology is different, the point is the same.
⁵³ This same point has been raised by Prof. J. C. Weber on the basis of an analysis of Fuchs' ontology ("Language-Event and Christian Faith" in THEOLOGY TODAY, Vol. 21, no. 4, Jan. 1965, pp. 449-457), and is implied in Kwant's analysis, when lie writes that "it is possible for our 'universe of discourse' to be unfaithful to life; we may get lost more or less in that universe, so that our view of life and reality becomes very obscure.... During the Nazi regime in Germany, the party's 'universe of discourse' made innumerable people blind to the reality of life and changed men into monsters" (p. 37; cf. also his discussion on pp. 46 f, 107 f; all come from his Phen. of Lang.).

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standing of man as a "linguistic" reality an adequate conceptual tool to do justice to the possibility that language can "free" illusion as well as reality, that language can distort as well as "lighten"? Is it adequate, in short, to account for that distortion in human reality which we refer to with the word "sin"?

There is in fact more to life, and more meaning available to it, than is, or can be, expressed in language at any given point in its development. Otherwise language could not grow and change. It is therefore possible for language to distort and destroy reality, as well as illumine and release it, If man's reality is exclusively linguistic, What criterion will enable us to differentiate between reality and illusion?⁵⁴ The fact that such differentiation can in fact be practiced indicates the inadequacy of such a view of man's nature, and one must therefore question whether a hermeneutic based on that view can accomplish its purpose of "illuminating" human existence. One must seriously question, in summary, whether a view of man as essentially linguistic is capable either of an adequate understanding of the intention of the New Testament writings, or of expressing that intention in a meaningful way to the contemporary age. The question of an adequate hermeneutical approach has been raised by the "new" hermeneutic; it has yet to be answered.

⁵⁴ To argue that one knows when language is functioning properly by observing when it functions as it ought to function, that is, when it grants acceptance, will not answer the problem. What of those times when acceptance is only apparently conferred by language, or is conveyed for some ulterior purpose which may not be conscious in the speaker himself? Clearly at that point language appears to function properly, but in fact conveys illusion and not reality. Cf. Kwant (Phen. of Long.), p. 218 f and his analysis of the "language of power" and its ability to conceal rather than reveal the true intention of the speaker. The problem of language conveying reality or illusion cannot be solved by an appeal to language alone.