482 - The Second Naivete': Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology

The Second Naivete': Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology

By Mark I. Wallace

Macon, Ga., Mercer University Press, 1990. 130 Pp. $16.95.

This is a thoughtful, patient, and illuminating comparative study of the theological hermeneutics of Karl Barth and Paul Ricoeur, leading to some proposals for the task of a theological interpretation of Scripture today. The "second naivete"' of the title refers to Barth's and Ricoeur's common conviction that theological interpretation of the Bible ought to lead us beyond a critical preoccupation with the text to a fresh encounter with the divine reality to which the text bears witness. In agreeing with Barth and Ricoeur about that aim, Wallace is advocating a hermeneutical stance he sees to be at odds with some current trends in theology and culture and, in particular, with some thoroughgoing deconstructionist approaches. He sees in both Barth and Ricoeur the resources for a more radical and more hopeful theological self-criticism than these other approaches offer.

Wallace rightly observes a key strategic difference between his two protagonists. While Barth tends to draw sharp distinctions and to ask his readers to choose sides, Ricoeur tends to relate, to reconcile, and to absorb differences in a higher synthesis. In this respect, among others, Wallace's work is more akin to Ricoeur's than to Barth's spirit. His emphasis, unlike that of many commentators on these two figures,

484 - The Second Naivete': Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology

is on what he takes to be their major points of agreement. Their shared fundamental conviction about the aim of theological interpretation of Scripture is one such point. With it goes a concern to acknowledge and explore the way God is related to these texts and the way God relates to readers and hearers through them. This leads, in Wallace's view, to a similarity in hermeneutical method. Barth's employment of the classical three-phase movement of explicatio, meditatio, and applicatio (or "observation," "reflection," and "appropriation") is paralleled by Ricoeur's move from "naive understanding" through "objective explanation" to "appropriation." Wallace makes a good case for more than a superficial similarity in method. Here, as elsewhere, his exposition of the sources and his critical engagement with the work of other readers of Barth and Ricoeur make this book a useful guide to the hermeneutics of both figures as well as to the current state of the question.

Wallace's sympathy with Ricoeur's strategy of assimilating other views into his own may lead one to wonder whether Barth is being co-opted into a Ricoeurian project in this book. That there are such similarities in basic approach as Wallace finds is, I think, clear. But are serious differences being muted or overlooked here? I would be inclined to look in two places in particular for such differences. One is the way in which each thinker speaks of the "location" of textual meaning. Ricoeur speaks of the "world in front of the text" as that to which the text refers, and Wallace adopts this as a term equally applicable to Barth's approach. Is that, in fact, the case? The other difference is in the use each thinker is willing, in both principle and practice, to make of nontheological, "philosophical" resources in interpretation. Whether serious differences exist in either instance is not a question to be easily resolved. While I suspect that the differences and their implications may be greater than Wallace might allow, his account provides the most helpful context yet available for thinking these points through.

Wallace does not overlook important points of dissimilarity, especially with regard to what these two interpreters actually find in the text. "Though they offer related arguments for the primacy of the biblical text-world in interpretation,... Barth's 'world' is often very different from Ricoeur's, and vice versa." In Wallace's judgment, Ricoeur's text-world is more expansive, more open, and more ambiguous than Barth's Christologically-determined, "theoanthropocentric" version. Wallace finds Ricoeur's the more convincing and theologically adequate rendition. These differences in outcome are, of course, not unrelated to some subtle (and, no doubt, debatable) differences in approach. For example, Ricoeur's apparently greater tolerance for the variety of, and even conflict of, meanings to be found in the text, and his interest in the contribution of the wisdom literature to a "biblical" understanding of God, have something to do with each other.

485 - The Second Naivete': Barth, Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology

Wallace's chapter on the "New Yale Theology" is essentially an excursus. Its main point is to show that, in their effort to side with Barth over against "liberalism" in general and (sometimes) Ricoeur in particular, the theologians of this school (principally Hans Frei, Paul Holmer, and George Lindbeck) commit some serious errors of interpretation and of reasoning. Wallace raises good questions in this chapter-about the anti-foundationalist polemic and the fideistic tendencies to be found here and there among these writers, about their readings of Ricoeur, and about the consistency of their positions on these issues with Barth's own. His objections are well-stated and often persuasive. However, the chapter, like the term "New Yale Theology" itself, perpetuates an unfortunate tendency to lump together several markedly individual theologians who, while they have learned much from each other, have quite distinct and sometimes conflicting positions.

The book concludes with a brief chapter in which Wallace states and develops three theses concerning the task of a "hermeneutics of the second naivete'." The theses articulate some promising principles and give strong evidence of what can be gained from the project to which Wallace has devoted himself in this book. Along with the rest of the book, they are eminently worthy of reflection and discussion by anyone with a serious interest in the future of the theological interpretation of Scripture.

CHARLES M. WOOD

Perkins School of Theology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas