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Texts in quarantine: Karl Barth, biblical interpretation and imaginative resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2018

Angela Dienhart Hancock
Angela Dienhart Hancock*
Affiliation:
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 616 North Highland Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA [email protected]
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Abstract

This essay explores the overlapping territory between the phenomenon known as ‘imaginative resistance’ in literary, psychological and philosophical circles and Karl Barth's theological hermeneutic. Imaginative resistance refers to the way readers are willing to give consent to all sorts of implausible things in the context of a fiction, but become uneasy when asked to imagine that something they consider morally or ethically reprehensible is good. The essay offers an overview of the current scholarly theories regarding the origins of the phenomenon of imaginative resistance, arguing that none of them provide an adequate account of imaginative resistance in relation to a text read as ‘Word of God’. The essay suggests that Karl Barth's theological hermeneutic does not offer a ‘solution’ to imaginative resistance in relation to scripture, but rather deepens and redescribes it in meaningful ways by acknowledging the appropriateness of the interpreter's resistance while encouraging continued engagement even with the claims of challenging biblical texts.

Keywords

Karl Barthhermeneuticsimaginative resistanceliterary theoryscriptureWord of God
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Hume, David, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, in Selected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 151–2Google Scholar.

2 Currie, Gregory, Narratives and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Does ‘imaginative resistance’ entail a choice, or does it describe an inability? When we describe a scene as one of ‘unimaginable horror’, do we mean it is so horrible we refuse to imagine it, or that it is so horrible we simply cannot imagine it? The question remains an open one.

4 Currie, Narratives, p. 93.

5 Walton, Kendall, Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 35 Google Scholar.

6 For the complete argument, see Szabó Gendler's, Tamar influential essay, ‘The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance’, Journal of Philosophy 97 (2000), pp. 55–81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 There is some empirical evidence to suggest that giving our consent to a framework that invites us to imagine that violence is admirable, for example, may in fact spill over into an increase in violent behaviour. So perhaps we are wise to worry that pretending might have real-life consequences.

8 Currie, Narratives, p. 121.

9 There may be contextual factors that influence the degree to which this dynamic is present. For example, empirical studies show that, by comparison with citizens of other countries, Americans have less exposure to ‘cross-cutting’ conversations, that is, conversations with people whose views differ from our own. While Americans are exposed to an enormous amount of ‘cross-cutting’ conversation about controversial issues via media outlets, citizens rarely engage in such debate themselves. Does the corresponding lack of deliberative/empathetic skill make imaginative resistance more likely to occur? Further research is warranted. See Mutz, Diana C., Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See McTravers, Derek, ‘Fictional Assent and the (So-Called) “Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance”’, in Kieran, Matthew and McIver Lopes, Dominic (eds), Imagination, Philosophy, and the Arts (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 91–106 Google Scholar.

11 Stock, Kathleen, ‘Resisting Imaginative Resistance’, Philosophical Quarterly, 55/221 (Oct. 2005), p. 621 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Barth did not reject historical-criticism or any other kind of critical tool in relation to the Bible. Rather, he argued that critical inquiry included the ‘meta’ questions of meaning, questions which could not be answered by any particular way of knowing, even a ‘scientific’ one. This is why descriptors like ‘pre-critical’ or even ‘post-critical’ in reference to Barth's exegetical approach are less than ideal. Eberhard Jüngel's term, ‘meta-critical’, is more fitting. See Jüngel, Eberhard, Barth-Studien (Zürich: Benziger; Mohn, 1982), pp. 83–97 Google Scholar.

13 The ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ Barth encountered in the biblical scholars of his day was not identical with that of the group Paul Ricoeur dubbed the ‘masters’ of the hermeneutics of suspicion: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. See Ricœur, Paul, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 32–5Google Scholar. Nonetheless, there is some overlap: many German biblical scholars of the period questioned the reliability of the ‘surface’ of the biblical text, and believed that the biblical authors and redactors produced the texts they did in order to achieve particular contextually directed ends.

14 Barth, Karl, ‘The New World in the Bible’, in Barth, The Word of God and Theology, trans. Marga, Amy (London: T&T Clark, 2011), p. 19.Google Scholar

15 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics [hereafter CD], 13 vols., ed. and trans. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–1974), I/1, §4 for Barth's introduction to the topic.

16 CD I/1, p. 409.

17 CD IV/3, p. 16.

18 CD I/2, pp. 508–9.

19 Ibid., p. 533.

20 Even in the event of revelation the Word remains mysterious, veiled and indirect; a holiness hidden in secularity. CD I/1, p. 165. What is undermined in this qualification? Any notion of scripture as an ‘oracle’ or ‘paper pope’. See Barth, Karl, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, vol. 1, ed. Reiffen, Hannelotte, trans. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 217.Google Scholar

21 CD I/2, p. 688.

22 Ibid., p. 690.

23 Ibid., p. 579.

24 This must be seen in relationship to the hermeneutical tradition that stretches from Herder to Schleiermacher, namely, that the empathy required for good interpretation must be based on a universal, intuitable human nature, which one can access by looking inside oneself. Barth did not set out with the goal of ‘understanding the author better than they understood themselves’, but to understand the subject matter that concerned them. Rather than assuming the sameness of human being that undergirded both romantic and historicist ways of reading, Barth adopted an exegetical method that affirmed the otherness of others. Burnett, Richard, Karl Barth's Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 184–220 Google Scholar.

25 CD I/2, p. 709.

26 Ibid., p. 718.

27 For Barth's exposition of human being as being in becoming, see CD IV/3.2, pp. 481–680.

28 CD I/2, p. 533.

29 Cf. CD I/2, p. 470.