Kevin J. Vanhoozer is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Chapter One: First Theology: Meditations in a Postmodern Tool shed
Vanhoozer states that doing theology includes God, Scripture, and hermeneutics which he calls first theology or “theological hermeneutics” (9). This chapter introduces “the post-modern challenge to theology” which is deconstructing the Bible of authoritative meanings behind the text, such as, patriarchy. Chapter one seeks to answer which should come first in our study of theology, theology proper or bibliology. Vanhoozer state that both should begin our study. The first chapter introduces “the notion of Scripture as a diverse set of divine speech acts.” This chapter introduces “the importance of learning wisdom by indwelling the biblical texts.” Vanhoozer’s strong contention is that “wisdom is more than information.... It is lived knowledge” (39). Vanhoozer concludes “there is no more vital task facing Christians today than responding faithfully to Scripture as God’s authoritative speech acts---not because the book is holy but because the Lord is, and because the Bible is his Word, the chief means we have of coming to Jesus Christ” (41).
Part One: God
Chapter Two: Does the Trinity Belong in a Theology of Religions?
Vanhoozer asks “Do all religions refer to the same God?” He quotes Mahatma Ghandhi: “One may drink out of the same great rivers with others but one need not use the same cup...all the great religions are fundamentally equal” (45).[1]
The triune God of Christianity is not the same as the god(s) in other religions. The other religions who practice “world or universal theology” are exclusivist of orthodox theology (56-57).
Chapter Three: The Love of God
For Aquinas God moves the world but is not moved by the world. He is immutable and impassible (76). Vahoozer states that “the classic model of traditional theism conceives the love of God in terms of sovereign will: benevolence, the intent and the ability to will and to act for a person’s good” (83). Edward Farley contends that he is either love or he is sovereign not both (86).
Vanhoozer argues that “The triune God is both loving (personal) and sovereign (transcendent).” Vanhoozer states that “impassibility means not that God is unfeeling but that God is never overcome or overwhelmed by passion” (93).
The love of God is an ideal case study in first theology: how we construe God’s love clearly affects how we interpret Scripture (and vice versa).
Vanhoozer concludes this chapter stating “the moral of this chapter is that the love of God should occupy no one place in a theological system, but every place. Instead of trying to situate the love of God under one doctrinal locus, that is, the theologian’s task is rather to witness to its inexhaustibility. To witness to the love of God is the Christian theologian’s supreme privilege and supreme responsibility” (95).
Chapter Four: Effectual Call or Causal Effect?
The effectual call is qualitatively distinct from impersonal causation (11).
Vanhoozer describes “the effectual call as creative or re-creative” (100). Vanhoozer argues that “grace enables human freedom to do what it otherwise could not” (101). Vanhoozer further states “faith is ‘not the cause’ but the direct ‘effect of regeneration’ and is ‘produced by effectual calling or regeneration’” (102). The effectual call reveals how God relates to the world.
Panentheism of Peacocke believes that God in whom is the world interacts with people only impersonally through nature (114). Vanhoozer considers the effectual call a sovereign speech .act where words do certain things not just communicate. The effectual call is a summons which is more than an invitation (118). Vanhoozer gives the incredible testimony of blind and deaf Helen Keller. What her teacher was to Keller the Holy Spirit is to the spiritually blind and deaf sinner (122-123).
Part Two: Scripture
Chapter Five: God’s Mighty Speech Acts (The Doctrine of Scripture Today)
In chapter five, Vanhoozer analyzes the Scripture principle which he defines as the “orthodox view that the Bible is to be identified with the Word of God” (127).
The doctrines of God and Scripture stand and fall together or one’s view of Scripture is always correlated to one’s view of God (131). Vanhoozer contends that one’s view of God affects one’s view of the Bible (143). For example, classical theism of Warfield saw “Scripture as God’s Word because God is in control of history” (145).
Vanhoozer emphasizes the doctrine of providence wherein the Bible is a ‘mighty act’ of God. The gospel requires both the “Word made flesh” and a word made verbal (11).
Chapter Six: From Speech Acts to Scripture Acts
This chapter analyzes “of what is the arguably the most important concept in this collection of essays: Illocution---what one does in saying something” (11). Vanhoozer states that his thesis is “that God’s communicative action--- core concept for thinking about the God-world relation in biblical terms---is essentially a matter of divine illocutions” (11). Vanhoozer states that “a speech act, then, is the result of an enacted communicative intention” (170). This view is destroyed by deconstruction. “Deconstruction,” Vanhoozer notes, “is the death of God put into writing” (175). The perlocutionary effect of illocution is to obey “Follow me” (202).
Part Three: Hermeneutics
Vanhoozer describes part three as “the main thrust of the present work is that hermeneutics, when theologically conceived, is precisely the locus (the where something occurs or is situated ). God and Scripture are best considered together” (11).
Chapter Seven: The Spirit of Understanding
“For God’s communicative action in and through Scripture is triune, involving both Word and Spirit” (11). Vanhoozer agrees with Barth that “the Spirit is the Lord of the hearing” (227). Vanhoozer connects the three parts of speech act to the Trinity. “First, the Father’s locution: the words are the authorized words of the Father/Author. Second, the illocutionary dimension: what God does in Scripture is testify, in various ways, to Christ. Finally, to return to the catechism, we may best view the Holy Spirit’s work as God’s perlocution, that is, as what happens as a result of speaking” (227).
Vanhoozer states that “the next three chapters represent exegetical reflections on three different text” (11).
Chapter Eight: The Reader at the Well
Chapter eight compares the process of reading Scripture to the Samaritan woman’s meeting of Jesus by the well (Jn 4) (12). Vanhoozer states that in the “reader’s liberation movement” the readers makes meaning he does not discover the meaning of the original author (236). Vanhoozer contrasts the conservative reader-response (closer to the traditional author-oriented view. Nevertheless, the text is unfinished and must be completed by the reader. Readers must fill in the blanks) and the radical reader-response critic. These readers create the meaning for texts with opposing views such as patriarchy (241-242). In John 4, the radical-reader has a hermeneutic of suspension and deconstructs the story “of privileged hierarchical opposition, such as male and female” (254). The woman at the well “turns out to be the first deconstructive-feminist critic” who understands the meaning of the water better than Jesus (255). He sees a contrast between the literal and spiritual, she more insightfully refers back to Jacob’s well and sees the symbolism of hierarchical opposition.
Chapter Nine: The Hermeneutics of I-Witness Testimony
The “I” in I-witness is a reference to the author, in this case, John who is denied by radical-readers and deconstructionists. They reject the I-witness i.e., the author, because they reject authorial intent. Vanhoozer rightly believes that the “author” is the person (s) responsible for the final form of the text (266). This is another example of the hermeneutic of suspicion of deconstruction “which denies the very possibility of knowledge as justified true belief. For deconstruction, justification is always rationalization” (267). John is the ideal disciple. As he gave testimony so should we.
Chapter Ten: Body Piercing, the Natural Sense & the Task of Theological Interpretation
Chapter ten “offers five more theses on the nature of the nature of theological interpretation and makes a case for the authority of the ‘theological natural’ sense of the text” (12). Vanhoozer believes “that the way forward for theological interpretation of Scripture lies in a fusion of ....general and special hermeneutics and to the contrasting of emphases of norms verses aims” (285). Vanhoozer explains the norms and aims: “The norm of theological interpretation (what an author has intentionally said/done) generates an interpretive aim: to bear competent to what an author as said/done” (293).
Vanhoozer interprets John 19:34 as “the new life of the Holy Spirit flows from the slain body of Jesus” which includes John 7:39 (302). This is Vanhoozer’s “thick description” which includes a canonical view which in this case would include references to the Passover verses the “thin description” (303). By “thin description” Vanhoozer means “one that offers a minimal interpretation only, one that confines itself, say, to lexical issues or to issues of historical references” (297).
Chapter Eleven: The World Well Staged? Theology, Culture & Hermeneutics
Vanhoozer states that chapter eleven “makes the twofold claim that (1) culture needs to be exegeted and interpreted and (2) interpreting the bible involves a critical analysis of contemporary culture and the construction of a biblical counterculture” (12).
Vanhoozer defines culture as “the objectification, the expression in words and works, of the spirit of a particular people who inhabit a particular time and place” (313). Vanhoozer adds and that “culture is a text that calls for interpretation” (316). Vanhoozer also describes culture as the fruit of a theology or a worldview (326). If one’s worldview is atheism, then the culture is immoral or amoral, there is no absolutes. Metaphysics is the attempt to answer rationally the ultimate questions concerning life and reality and postmodernism has abandoned any modernistic possibility of answering these questions. Postmodernists are suspicious of all metanarratives or any overarching stories that answer metaphysical questions (329). This view shows up among Christian theologian who do not believe that there is Christian metanarrative (330). Vanhoozer believes as the church lives God’s Word can produce a particular culture (332). “The believer performs the gospel (euangelion) when he or she puts it into practice, following the Word to grace and freedom in Christ, and then showing and telling others the way to follow” (335).
Chapter Twelve: The Trials of Truth
In this chapter, postmodernism’s criticism of truth claims is addressed. Vanhoozer presents his thesis in the first section: “theology in postmodernity must reorient itself to wisdom rather than knowledge” (348). Wisdom for Vanhoozer is not winning debates; it is displayed in “a trial of life and death. Christian wisdom is fruit-conductive” (350). He writes “The epistemology of the cross is far more deconstructive of human ideologies and belief polices than anything postmodernity has yet produced” (355). Jesus truth claims led to the cross and suffering. What leads to this suffering is living and witnessing the truth.
[1] Bruce Demarest, General Revelation: Historical Views and Contemporary Issues (Grand Rapids: Zondervan) 1982, 255.