Presence, Absence and the Authority of Scripture

The Presumption of Presence n Scripture is authoritative for the Church n A text that means nothing or everything cannot function authoritatively n The recent deregulation of meaning may be taken either as threat or as opportunity n Both those approaches which claim too much, and those which claim too little, effectively ‘tame’ the text

Recognising the reader’s contribution to ‘meaning’ n The ‘event of meaning’ is shaped in part by what the reader brings to it. n “The reader’s response is not to the meaning: it is the meaning” (Fish) n More moderate versions see the text as offering a framework for interpretation, but leaving gaps to be filled in by the reader n Meaning = thus a joint venture

‘Determinate’ readings n BW III : “Meaning resides in the text and is placed there by the author by means of his or her configuration of its words and phrases”. n Wolterstorff: ‘meaning’ is something which sentences have, although they may be used in various ways to generate distinct ‘sense’.

Fowl’s ‘under-determined’approach n We should stop speaking of ‘meaning’, and ask in each case of the use of a text how it is being used. n This involves relativising the significance of the author’s contribution n Is this necessary in order to secure what he wants to secure?

n Will the distinction between ‘meaning’ and ‘significance’ hold? n The personal coefficient can never be eradicated from our attempts to discern the ‘original sense’ n BUT: texts are the products of intentional acts of communication, and we cannot relegate the question of this intention to an accidental or incidental significance.

Meaning as an event n Meaning is an event with a transmitter and a receiver, as well as a ‘text’ and something to which the text refers. n Both transmitter and receiver contribute something important to the event, but not evenly. n The basic shape and direction are contributed by the transmission which the receiver seeks to hear and ‘under-stand’.

Taming the text n Overly objective approaches think they ‘have’ the text’s meaning, and thereby risk closing themselves off from its otherness and authority. n Indeterminate readings mistake the ‘elusiveness’ of presence for absence. They too effectively relocate authority from the text to the reader (or community).

The ‘genius’ of language n Language (hence texts) both provides sufficient stability for genuine communication to occur, and sufficient instability for language to refer us to a world of experience which is complex, ever changing and open-ended. n The biblical text furnishes a ‘given’ to which we have a moral obligation, but also speaks to ever new and changing contexts.

Reading in the Spirit n A Christian reading of the text as Scripture must presume not just the presence of the human author’s voice, but also the presence of God’s speaking through the Spirit. n The Spirit is not an aid to getting at the meaning of Scripture, but is himself God in his relatedness to us in the event of meaning through which he addresses us.

n In the presence of this same God, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, the gaps between differing cultures and times fade in their significance. n In the Spirit we read, and this breaks the text open because it was in this same Spirit that the text was produced, and to which the text itself refers us.