In a certain sense, John Wycliffe (d. 1384) bridged the gap between the Middle Ages and the Reformation. In his accusations of several Roman Catholic doctrines his emphasis on the literal sense of Scripture can be observed. Later, Martin Luther (d. 1546) strongly supported the concept of faith and grace as the key for understanding the nature of biblical revelation. Since the 17th century many Pietists and other Christian scholars maintained a stance toward Scripture that was largely in continuity with the Reformers. However, Semler (d. 1791), though he respected the inspiration of Scripture, sought to shake Scripture free from all dogma through careful attention to grammar, rhetoric, logic, textual history, translations and manuscript variants. Hence, Semler sometimes is considered ‘the father of German rationalism’.
Intellectual and historical progression
Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834) developed a hermeneutics of understanding that sought to identify deeply with the thoughts and feelings of the biblical authors. Schleiermacher considered a text as the creative product of a human individual in a particular place and at a particular time. His work also questioned the basis and possibility for human understanding in general (objectivity). He noticed that interpretation first requires a level of listening to the claims of the text as one would to a friend. Schleiermacher saw textual meaning residing in the interaction of the author’s intention and the language deployed, yet he also acknowledged that a text’s range of effects, or reader-responses, is an important element in the formulation of meaning. Wilhelm Dilthey (d. 1911) agreed with Schleiermacher that the aim of interpretation is to understand a text by reliving the time and circumstances in which it was written. Different from Schleiermacher Dilthey considered understanding a text as a step in the much larger project of understanding ‘universal history’. According to him understanding an author was a means to the understanding of history.
Marx (d. 1883), Nietzsche (d. 1900) and Freud (d.1939) are considered to be the masters of suspicion. In short, they suspected that another motivation lies behind every utterances. They added the critical notion to historicism that an utterance may not speak about history, but about ideology. As a matter of fact the utterance is not the product of an autonomous individual but the product of a distorted self which is not even aware of the distortion. Consequently, the author’s utterances could not be taken seriously as a genuine expression of a human self. In general, the ideas of these masters of suspicion have led to radical scepticism and determinism: people are governed by powers which they cannot control themselves.
Karl Barth (d. 1968) revealed the values presupposed by his critics in their alleged objective approach. Different from most biblical scholars of his time, he admitted his interpretive presuppositions, including beliefs in the transcendence of God and the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. His interest lay not in exegesis as description but rather in understanding Scripture as a way through which God communicates and makes demands of readers. The New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann (d. 1976) also rejected the claim of objectivity in biblical interpretation. Along with Barth, he accepted the transcendence of God but regarded the hermeneutical process itself as what connects God and the reader. Bultmann advocated a program of de-mythologizing the New Testament as a means of discovering the existential truth communicated by a text. This entails a rejection of what might be offensive to modern sensibilities (miracles and a preexistent Christ), but also attention to the kerygma of the New Testament as addressed to the contemporary reader. In other words, Bultmann denied the historicity of events like resurrection, but advocated an existential identification (by means of faith) with the message of salvation of the crucifixion that readers appropriate for themselves. Consequently, for Bultmann the resurrection occurs only in the proclamation of the word. Barth and Bultmann are considered to be the key proponents of the dialectical theology movement, however, their ways parted because of disagreement on a central hermeneutical theological issue: ‘how can we speak of God?’
Heidegger’s (d. 1976) life’s work centered on the question of the meaning of being. He attempted to discern the meaning of being by looking at human being whose very being involves the question of being. According to Heidegger the interpretation of texts happens always from a certain historical perspective restricted by time and place, the world of the concrete human existence (Dasein). This existence is characterized by being in the world (In-der-Welt-sein), and already starts at human birth in a state of decay (Verfallen). Heidegger regarded this state as ‘inauthentic existence’. Individuals are thrown into the world (Geworfen), which means that humans are delivered over to the world which they have not chosen. Heidegger had serious reservations about tradition for his concern is human existence and according to him tradition is hindering human existence and clouding the search and demand for ‘Being’.
Heidegger attempted to understand reality from a given reality instead of understanding reality from a metaphysical perspective. Therefore he made a distinction between the language of objects and human language. Objects have certain fixed characteristics (categories) however, human existence is marked by possibilities instead of characteristics. The world of objects can be described and captured in concepts and definitions. In contrast, the world of human existence is determined by interests, care (Sorge) and the awareness of finitude (Sein-zum-Tode). Heidegger emphasizes that who want to understand human essence, first needs to take into consideration human finitude.
In short, humans are not able to observe without interpreting. According to Heidegger this fact need to be admitted and explicated because it increases the possibilities for gaining understanding. Further, Heidegger assumes that interpretation (making sense of something within one’s world) is the fundamental mode of language. However, according to the later Heidegger, only the language of art and poetry is suitable to expresses the essence of human existence.
Why and How is Heidegger leads us into postmodernism?
Can ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ exist together?
In modernity it was Schleiermacher who attempted to rise above the Enlightenment thoughts without denying the importance of critical rationality and without relapsing in the naive fideism of old-protestant orthodoxy. He tried to combine the ‘best’ of two worlds aiming for synthesis between science and faith, reason and sense. On the one hand Schleiermacher sought to do justice to objectivity as the standard for scholarship and at the other hand he emphasises the importance of subjectivity in the process of interpreting religious texts. However, Strauss accused Schleiermacher of dogmatic bias and historical-critical half-heartedness and Gadamer complained that Schleiermacher was too much involved with Romanticism. In short, modern and postmodern can exist together, however, not without tension.
How does these themes refer to modern or postmodern?
In fact, as appears from above, no clean break exists between the modern and postmodern. The designations ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ are helpful to get a sense of patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours but cannot be used to label voices and put them in boxes. The intellectual and cultural phenomena they are meant to reference are far too heterogeneous to be captured by these labels. Consequently, the designations ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ are inevitably inadequate but nevertheless useful to get a certain overview.