Jakub Koryl

Intellectual and Academic Identity of Animal Studies: An Introduction

Rejowe dykteryjki i kulturowe odsłanianie reformacyjnego dyskursu

(Paweł Stępień, Śmiech w czasach ostatecznych. Tematyka religijna w figlikach Mikołaja Reja, Warszawa 2013, ss. 179)

Hearing the Kerygma: Martin Heidegger and the New Hermeneutics. Two Preliminary Findings

This paper aims to set a foreground that will further reveal the theological and hermeneutical standpoint of Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling. The author argues that some of their basic ideas and concepts, such as human being (Dasein), questionableness (Fraglichkeit), thrownness (Geworfenheit) or language-event (Sprachereignis), owed their origin to Martin Heidegger, but none of them could be considered a mere faded copy of their Heideggerian counterparts. New Hermeneutics were engaged in a theological verification and transposition (rather than accommodation) of Heidegger pursuing his aim of overcoming metaphysics. As a theory of language of faith and verified fundamental ontology, Lutheran hermeneutics deliberately avoided the question of “What does the biblical text actually mean?” or even “What does the text mean to me?” Instead, it took great pains to persist in asking “Why should the biblical text mean anything?” To grasp the supreme importance of this question, the author makes two preliminary observations: on the boredom with language and on radical questionableness or passivity of Dasein. In the section of the article concerning the boredom with language, the author discusses the reasons that prevent man from encountering the Word of God which does not stand for something thus transcending itself, but rather exercises its questioning and transformative power. For it is the Word of God which reveals itself as a biblical skandalon or the obstacle and threshold for Dasein. Instead of reassuring man in his self-understanding, such Word constantly calls human independence and agency into question. For that reason, replacing one language with another is no longer the major challenge. Instead, it is a kerygmatic interpretation of language aimed at restoring man’s intimacy with language as his genuine place of being. It is only a short step from here to disclosing the radical questionableness, that is a state of man becoming a question to himself. As an experience that calls the autonomy of human self into question, radical questionableness involves a divine question to which manmade reality never provides an answer that could be considered definitive, although all the provided answers remain binding. Consequently, such experience reveals a historical and passive path of human being before the divine Word, a path which violates metaphysical constitution of subjectivity and therefore transforms the purpose of proclamation and the meaning of kerygma. As a call and challenge to man, or an answer given by the wholly other God to the question concerning man, kerygma makes Dasein finally capable of entering a relationship with the Word which does not violate divine sovereignty. For it is kerygma that brings the ecstatic nature of man to the fore. Kerygma establishes a speaking-hearing interplay of God and man and makes hearing the basic form of man’s being before God. Such relationship consists therefore in nothing but a responsible acceptance of a gift, that is hearing the divine Word.

The aim of this paper is to present a functional and historical-semantic analysis of the following notions: tradition (traditio), authority (auctoritas), understanding (interpretatio), explanation (sensus), and sensus communis, which appear in the hermeneutics of Erasmus of Rotterdam. In a wider perspective, the study is also an attempt at re-identifying the place of the Dutch scholar’s thought within the history of hermeneutics. Contrary to what has been said to-date in studies (mainly by E.-W. Kohls, R. Stupperich, F. Krüger, and P. Walter), the hermeneutical problem, according to Erasmus, is not restricted only to exegesis or biblical philology, i.e. methods of explaining a text’s meaning. In its basic form, it includes the ontology of hermeneutical experience (disregarded in this context) and the act of understanding, with its initial conditions, course and specific cognitive benefits. Therefore, this paper attempts to answer two fundamental questions. First: how did Erasmus arrive at the universal, historically mediated horizon of the process of understanding?
Second, introducing the epistemological dimension, did Erasmus attribute to tradition – by cognitively appreciating it as an element essential for understanding – the ability to reveal a truth that is different to that which is verifiable by objective exegesis? The 20th century hermeneutics of M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer and R. Bultmann provide helpful terminological frames that go beyond the solely methodical character
of understanding. The fundamental sources include those of Erasmus’ texts that constituted his polemic with Martin Luther, that is De libero arbitrio, and particularly the first part of Hyperaspistes diatribae adversus Lutherum. Thanks to this choice of literature the contention between the two scholars concerning the freedom of will is here discussed from a barely known epistemological point of view.
The next subject discussed is the epistemological character of Erasmus’ hermeneutics. It was supposed to help formulate specific exegetic judgements, while at the same time, it already included historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), which, according to Erasmus, was the imperative feature of understanding perceived as an epistemological-existential act. The next subject discussed is the rhetoric specificity and the cognitive value of the so-called sensus communis, which together with philological skills, constituted the indispensable research equipment of an exegete in Erasmus’ opinion. In the hermeneutical reflection of Erasmus, sensus communis − unlike
Luther’s binding judgement (assertio) − is what makes explanation as a result of understanding only probable, not certain, and reveals how the process of understanding depends on a particular situation. Hermeneutical epistemology of Erasmus provides us, therefore, with practical knowledge that constantly includes changing circumstances and so constitutes the basis for sensus communis. Consequently, in Erasmus’ thought, the Christian tradition has a cognitively privileged function of an authority that aids understanding. Thereupon, Erasmus supplements the previously adopted hermeneutical division into the Holy Scripture and its interpretation with an equally important relation between the exegetical tradition applied and the exegete that relies on it. For according to Erasmus, far from obstructing understanding, tradition actually enables it because understanding always retains its historical character. In this regard, Erasmus substantially differs from Luther. Thus, the presented hierarchy of tradition and exegete not only determines the hermeneutical stance of the Netherlandish scholar, but also methodically substantiates his scepticism of a positive epistemological stance.
The functional and semantic analysis of the notions of tradition and understanding presents Erasmus’ thought as one of the early elements of the history of hermeneutics that is supposed to consider not only rules and canons of “proper” understanding, but also indicate the historical dependence and the actual process of understanding. Having problematized such cognitive relations between tradition and understanding, Erasmus set off on a similar course to that which had been crowned by H.G. Gadamer’s ontological rehabilitation of prejudices (Vor-urteile).
 

Difficult Legacy. Critical Remarks on the Two Models of Protestant Reformation Studies. Part 2: Histories (Confessionalisation – Reformation – Humanism – Hermeneutics) and Perspectives (Modernisation)

Having the theoretical deliberation in the previous part as a point of departure, this paper discusses the other side of the dichotomy caused by Troeltsch’s thesis on methodological framework designed for theological inquiry. Unlike the first part of the article, which was focused on doctrinal questions, this one is devoted to the historical facet of Reformation studies. The predominant trend in recent Reformation historiography should be attributed to a model created by German historians, namely Confessionalisation. Rather than specific procedures typical for that model, the study describes historiosophical content, especially these parts of it that concentrate on the developmental socio-political tendencies of the early modern period. Consequently representatives of the Confessionalisation model, together with French historians gathered around the Annales school and later joined also by J. Bossy with his pragmatic concept of Christianity Translated, raised the question of whether the conventional notion of Reformation should retain its functional significance in the modern scholarship. Whether or not Reformation, Vorsattelzeit der Moderne, longue durée, Christianity Translated or anything else is in question, recent historiography under the influence of the social sciences, unlike the old-fashioned history of events, is focused on effects. Instead of giving an answer to the question of what, when or where happened in relation to the Reformation phenomenon, historians establish the purpose for which it took place and what its later implications and different ramifications were. Therefore, aspects of the early modern period ignored thus far, like the rise of the myth of Reformation reinforced by communication process, as well as a visual and propaganda revolution, and finally the impact of religious change upon the humanist movement (so called confessionalisation of humanism) have been brought into light. On the other hand, historians like H. Schilling deliberately justified the dichotomy of doctrinal or historical examination of the discussed period. Such a separation was thoroughly repealed only in twentieth-century theological hermeneutics, Lutheran in particular. R. Bultmann’s disciples, first of all the originators of the New Hermeneutic, not only aimed at a complementary description of the universal aspect of sacred matter entangled with particular human experiences, but also contributed tremendously to the explanation of Luther’s hermeneutic, henceforth no longer limited to exegetical procedures. The concluding part of the article is aimed at sketching a new attitude towards the lore obtained both by doctrinal and historical studies on Reformation. Commonly called modernisation of Reformation knowledge, this approach does not make a new tool designed for examination of doctrinal or historical data, but indicates a present that seriouslyconsiders its past. In consequence, and after Gadamer’s concept of Geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung, modernisation as the name of this attitude cannot be characterised by distancing itself from tradition. Its scope consists of being situated within the tradition of Reformation that can provide an example suitable for the understanding of our own selves.

Troeltsch’s Difficult Legacy. Critical Remarks on the Two Models of Protestant Reformation Studies. Part 1: Terms (Ecumenism – Irenicism – Toleration) and Doctrines

On the basis of the seminal paper On the Historical and Dogmatic Methods in Theology authored by Ernst Troeltsch and of critical assessments of his polemicists, mainly Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann, this article aims to recognise the recent tendencies in theological and philosophical development of the studies devoted to the early modern Protestant thought. The subject matter of the paper, which is not a bibliographical study but a description of current intellectual history, is concerned with the consequences of Troeltsch’s thesis, namely the separation of scientific lore together with its particular and different goals – the theological one concerned with doctrinal questions, and the historical one concerned with rise, development and change. Due to the doctrinal problems discussed in the first part, the contemporary ecumenical movement appears to be the main driving factor for theological recognition of early modern Protestant doctrines. Beside the several unquestionable benefits of the recent intensification of Reformation studies in Poland, there are also several disadvantages or inherent limitations of this branch of Polish scholarship. First of all, the conceptual framework typical for ecumenism poses a threat of anachronic attitude to the specificity of early modern religious realities that were different from contemporary conditions of the ecumenical movement. Secondly, it may overlook the semantic changes undergone by the historical meanings and modes of usage of particular terms, once used for specific intended purposes. Consequently, basic concepts devoid of historical significance  like irenicism, toleration and ecumenism, lacking their Begriffsgeschichte clarifications, are too often used interchangeably, although there are pivotal differences between them. Moreover, the area of​the interest of ecumenism is currently restricted to the historical precedents (irenicism, for instance) of the modern strive for an interconfessional agreement and is limited merely to the questions that divide contemporary Christianity (for example, the Lutheran doctrine of justification). Therefore, numerous other theological problems of Protestant Reformation are ignored.

The second part of this paper will discuss the historical facet of the specificity of Troeltsch’s legacy.