Phenomenologies of Scripture

Adam Y. Wells

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780823275571
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

Phenomenologies of Scripture addresses two increasingly convergent disciplines: philosophy and biblical studies. On the one hand, the recent "theological turn" in phenomenology has established religion as a legitimate area of phenomenological inquiry. If that turn is to be enduringly successful, phenomenology must pay attention to the scriptures on which religious life, practice, and thought are based. On the other hand, biblical studies finds itself in a methodological morass. Contemporary approaches to scripture have raised important questions about the meaning and function of scriptural texts that phenomenology is uniquely positioned to answer: How is the meaning of a text constructed or gleaned? How can the divine be present in human words? Is a scientific approach to the Bible still possible? Bringing together essays by eight of today's most prominent philosophers of religion with responses by two leading biblical scholars, Phenomenologies of Scripture reestablishes the possibility of fruitful, dialectical exchange between fields that demand to be read together.

The Affects of Unity

Ephesians 4:1–4

EMMANUEL HOUSSET

Phenomenology and Scripture

As a matter of methodological principle, an authentic phenomenology of religious experience should not place conditions on the manifestation of God, but should understand him only from his Word. Thus phenomenological theology exists only in the context of a radicalization of the requirement to return to the “things themselves” beyond all mental constructions. If the goal of phenomenology, as a project, is to understand everything according to its own standard of knowledge, then it is the same for the knowledge of God. In effect, with regard to theology, we do not apprehend the meaning of God from the structures of our own subjectivity, but God himself becomes the condition of his own manifestation; it is he who prepares his givenness [prépare sa donnée] in the space of our interiority. Thus reading the Epistle to the Ephesians does not consist in discovering in the Bible a simple illustration of how to achieve authentic humanity that has already been established by philosophy. What the Bible says is unheard of and impossible to understand without the love of God, which prepares us to hear his Word. “To let appear,” so to speak, is the motto that animates phenomenology and gives it its proper character with respect to the entire history of philosophy, of which phenomenology is understood as the secret aspiration: phenomenology is the long and patient work of disclosure with regard to that which is barely there and to that which holds itself back. There is, then, much common ground between phenomenology and scripture, for humility is the very foundation of phenomenological description: phenomenology requires humble submission to the phenomena as they give themselves, endeavoring with the most possible rigor to avoid all theoretical or speculative bias.

The text of Ephesians 4:1–4 is quite remarkable for its density and sums up much of St. Paul’s message: “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love [charité], making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling.”1 A phenomenological reading of this passage—that is, a reading directed toward the comprehension of the phenomenality contained in this passage—has the potential to highlight the very important role played by affects. The Spirit is, according to this passage, that which manifests itself in the affects of humility, gentleness, and patience, for those are the affects that enlarge human sensibilities and allow the Spirit to manifest itself in us. It is also clear that not only does phenomenology seek to clarify scripture, but scripture also opens up phenomenology to new dimensions of manifestation inasmuch as it invites us (against a tenacious bias) to attribute cognitive power to affects without thereby substituting affect for reason. In effect, this passage of Ephesians allows us to respond to the following question: what is the affective experience that reveals the presence of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit? Paul’s use of humility, gentleness, and patience suggests that it is impossible to know the truth without love, that in order to know God as “the way” it is necessary to walk with him, and that grasping God as life is only possible in the confrontation between one’s will and that of God.

Additionally, the texts clearly state that humility, gentleness, and patience make peace possible, which is the affect according to which man is given to himself in unity with other men. In effect, to be at peace is to know [savoir] that one exists in the unity of the Spirit. Peace, therefore, cannot be understood as a simple absence of troubles. Accordingly, humility, gentleness, and patience are not simply means of obtaining peace, but are simultaneously the concrete reality of experiencing the gift of God, his call, and the act of actively receiving it. Put differently, these three affects help us to understand the impossibility of separating contemplation and action: the peace of God is received by being a peacemaker. It is thus possible to highlight the responsive nature of affective experience: humility, gentleness, and patience both recognize the gift and at the same time respond actively to it. Similarly, the unity of Christians ought to be seen as both coaffective, since it is experienced by all [ensemble] as the gift of God and as communal action, which implies that unity is not an experience of emptiness and resignation.

The force of this passage of Ephesians consists not in an empty exhortation to unity, but in highlighting the path of unity that is long and difficult: without humility, gentleness, and patience there is no peace, and without peace there is no unity. Yet this path toward unity makes sense only if these three affects demonstrate a sensibility that is not a retreat into self or an ignorance of the world and other men. Humility is not submission, gentleness is not cloying, and patience is not placidity, but these three virtues produce sensibilities that illuminate—for these sensibilities are an opening, a “being taken by” something other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas accurately describes the transitivity of experience, which is at heart reflexive: “[it] is to apprehend oneself with the same gesture that already turns toward the exterior to extra-vert and to manifest—to respond for what it apprehends—to express.”2 Accordingly, humility, gentleness, and patience exemplify the reflexive transitivity of experience, in which the other is received in himself, and without which my self-affection would be distinct from my affection for another. Life in communion with the other man is traversed by an obscurity that is not negative, as it consists in accomplishing something together and keeping no account of who did what. In communal life, there is a realization of “being together,” of perfection in this human life, which is a preview of the future beatitude.

Humility, Gentleness, and Patience as Tonalities of Christian Existence

Without anticipating a precise analysis of the seven concepts contained in the text of Ephesians 4:1–3 (call, humility, gentleness, patience, love, peace, and unity), it is necessary to further elaborate the question at hand. St. Paul does not in any way propose a psychological or emotional interpretation of the union between God and man. In other words, for St. Paul it is not a question of valorizing pathos over and against reason, and it has nothing to do with a religion of “good feelings,” which consists only in expressions of self-pride. The call of God does not ask us to choose naively between reason and sensibility, for such a choice is absurd and arises only from an abstract construction.3 In effect, the call of God entirely transfigures us, and thus our sensibilities, which become transitive in a very novel way.

Heidegger, who is particularly interested in the letters of St. Paul as part of a phenomenological explanation of concrete religious phenomena, has also profoundly transformed our understanding of sensibility by demonstrating the essential link between Befindlichkeit and that understanding.4 Thus, in showing that sensibility, with its double intentionality, is a mode of being in the world, Heidegger’s thought runs contrary to the modern impulse to de-psychologize the Stimmung, or attunement. In fact, attunements (for example, angst, boredom, fear, joy, astonishment) are the original modes of being of Dasein, wherein Dasein is open to itself prior to any knowing or willing. The attunement is, then, a mode of opening, a mode of transcendence. Without being able to develop here Heidegger’s lengthy and complex analysis of Stimmung, this simple reminder is already helpful in reading the aforementioned passage of Paul’s letter by making clear that humility, gentleness, and patience are ways of receiving the world, of perceiving it, before any knowledge [connaissance] and before any decision of the will.5 Of course, pride, boorishness, and impatience are also modes of transcendence, modes of being in the world, but befitting a closure to the world, which is the most quotidian and habitual form of existence.

Phenomenological understanding attempts to go back to that which is original in Christian experience. For that reason, in humility, gentleness, and patience, phenomenology is able to see an original Christian religiosity, having to do with the “how” of hearing God’s call and the “how” of vocation as a religious phenomenon. The concrete life of Christ manifests humility, gentleness, and patience, which constitute the means by which man is capable of receiving the Spirit. Original Christian experience, therefore, has nothing to do with interior sentiments, but with the way man is present to the Spirit through his sensibility. There is truly a Christian mode of being-thrown in the world that is not a simple variant of the pagan world but is its total reversal, for it is not primarily concerned with one’s comportment toward other objects; rather, it transfigures one’s very mode of existing. There is, for example, no continuity, no common essence, between pagan patience, which consists only in endurance [endurcissement], and Christian patience, which is constituted by hope. In patience, Christians do not try to escape suffering, but thanks to the gift of the Spirit, neither do they assign the same meaning to suffering. Patience may thus become the individuating principle of man, for he finds himself, he understands himself in his response to the call, in his capacity to support others with charity, in the act of preserving the unity of the Spirit. It is, therefore, possible to show that humility, gentleness, and patience are not primarily acts of reflection but, as modes of exposure to the world, constitute an opening to the world [un pâtir] prior to all objective intentionality, before all constituting activity.

From this point of view, humility, gentleness, and patience are not virtues properly speaking; rather, they are the conditions of any virtue. It is through them that strength, for example, can become a virtue. In fact, before the constitution of the other, as friend or foe, as fellow man or subordinate, as a member of the human community or a resource to be exploited, the other is first encountered either in an attunement consisting in mutual adherence to humility, gentleness, and patience or in the more natural attunement constituted by brutality and domination. Here again, humility and brutality are not a means of encounter, but the place, the ground that decides the sense of the encounter. Moreover, in humility, gentleness, and patience, the other is not simply encountered according to the modality of knowledge [connaissance], which requires only calm, availability, and astonishment; rather, the three active affects, which make charity possible, are equally affects of action, for they have to do with making peace, and without them there is no other possibility than social dispersion and violence.

Put differently, humility, gentleness, and patience are not accidents of character, they are not naturally possessed by some men and lacking in others; rather, they are gifts from God that allow man to go beyond his nature: being-in-the-world in the mode of being beyond the world. The Christian life is oriented toward the future; it is hope that determines its meaning. The Christian life is thus a mode of comprehension as an ability to face a situation, as a capacity to work for peace despite the reality of violence. Beginning with God’s call, man opens himself to his own possibilities by being able to bring about peace. From this gracious gift, humility, gentleness, and patience lead man beyond the a priori horizon of purely human possibilities, for love can do all things. In effect, the Christian cannot be understood within the singular horizon of death, but within the hope of “bearing with one another in love [charité].” That hope drives man to grow in humility, gentleness, and patience—qualities that can be had only to the extent that they grow continually. As such, humility, gentleness, and patience are acts of comprehension, for in encountering the other, humility perceives grandeur, gentleness perceives sensibility, and patience perceives its appropriate duration.

As Heidegger has shown, there is no existence without attunement, and existence involves a constant passage from one attunement to another. The text of Ephesians 4 presents a fundamental alternative between the attunements of pride and humility. This goes along with the issue of access to the original phenomenon of life as spiritual life: in humility, gentleness, and patience, the world gives itself as full of life, as having a future. In each case, these attunements do not consist in seeing things in a naïve way, but in watching over the world and ourselves, while knowing that the spiritual life is beyond the measures of the world. Every action has its own place within an attunement, and it is only possible to achieve peace through humility, gentleness, and patience, for peace is not achieved as a spectator, but as one busy with hope. Thus a phenomenological reading of this passage shows that the peace in question is something other than a formal exhortation to unity—a far cry from an empty and meaningless affirmation of the “togetherness” of occasional fraternization. The text leads back to the original phenomenon of spiritual life, which is primarily a form of self-dispossession through humility, gentleness, and patience, for dispossession is the condition of willing and acting. Indeed, the will to peace has its source in the tangible proof of the other in the horizon of hope and not in reflection alone. From this perspective, being a self is tantamount to being in exile, being away from home, away from the exigencies of the world, in order that the self might be reassembled in the Spirit. If the ethical subject is a being who stays in the world and gets involved there, then the text of Ephesians 4:1–4 leads us beyond the ethical by describing an existence delivered from preoccupation with the self and worldly standards—that is, an existence governed by love and presided over by the unity of the Spirit that is beyond our categories. The man who exists in a vocation arising from grace and who finds his verticality in response to the call of the Spirit is a peacemaker.

The Call Received

By highlighting the affects of unity, reflection on Christian ethics—that is, reflection on the universal norms of action as they are presented in Christianity—becomes possible. Yet the fact remains that the commandment to bear with one another in charity, humility, gentleness, and patience leads to a life beyond ethics inasmuch as the path of humility, gentleness, and patience begins with Christ and proceeds from him. But what are humility, gentleness, and patience? What are love, peace, and unity? Christ alone can teach us and bring us out of our darkness, for he alone has fulfilled them perfectly. Christ alone shows us an accord that is not coerced by a play of the passions and that is not the simple result of reasoned...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Announcement Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Half Title
• Biblical Criticism and the Phenomenology of Scripture
• God’s Word and Human Speech
• Sketch of a Phenomenological Concept of Sacrifice
• To Exist without Enemies
• The Manifestation of the Father: On Luke 15:11–32
• Phenomenology as Lectio Divina: Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery
• Split Interpretations of a Split I: Romans 7:7–25
• Love and Law according to Paul and Some Philosophers
• The Affects of Unity: Ephesians 4:1–4
• Response: Dwelling in the Thickness
• Response: Interpretation and Agency
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Series Page