The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic

by James K.A. Smith

In this provocative book James K. A. Smith, one of the most engaging Christian scholars of our day, offers an innovative approach to hermeneutics. The second edition of Smith's well-received debut book provides updated interaction with contemporary hermeneutical discussions and responds to criticisms.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Christianity, Christian, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Giovanni Generoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith's argument is this: Situationality, finitude, and hermeneutics are all intrinsically human characteristics. In other words, they are not postlapsarian (post-Fall) phenomena. Adam and Eve had to interpret in the Garden of Eden. God created them this way, and furthermore, He said that His creation was "very good." So, by way of implication, "interpretation" is an aspect of the very good creation. And, by way of further implication, God didn't create humans with a "hermeneutic of immediacy," but rather He designed the world to function in such a way that truth is plural. Truth is plural because Adam and Eve did not have perfect (objective) access to God's world, but instead, they had to interpret the world from their finite (subjective) perspectives. Thus, the quest for knowledge should look a lot more like a communal quest in which multiple people from different perspectives help one another point out the others' blind spots, than like a stoic thinker sitting in an ivory tower of intelligence all by himself. God brought down the Tower of Babel, and forced its inhabitants to spread, changing their languages, forcing diversity to spread throughout the world, remember?

How starkly different this approach is than Fundamentalism which understands interpretation and subjectivity to be a result of the fall. Fundamentalism (and by extension Evangelicalism along with it) wants "perfect clarity" (which is simply another way of saying "a hermeneutic of immediacy"). Anything less than this is seen as a birth-pang of the Fall. Smith wants to challenge this notion and argue (along with the postmodernists) that finitude and situationality are what constitute humanity. In other words, if we carry out the Fundamentalist approach to its logical extreme, it makes humans evil for simply being human!

But unlike some of the postmodernists who argue that all interpretation is violent, Smith wants to argue that interpretation "can be" violent, but that it need not be violent. God created man to be an interpreter. It is an aspect of man's "very good" nature.

Smith contends that what we want is a plurality of interpretations of life, though not an infinite number. Smith goes to great lengths to defend his creational hermeneutic against the charge of full blown "relativism." If you think that postmodern philosophy (or the postmodern theology that comes with it) is simply "anything-goes-relativism" then you do not understand it. Maybe read postmodern thinkers on their own terms, and see how they respond to such a critique.

This was a great read.

[Porter Sprigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains a lot of stuff that’s frustrated me before. It’s made me appreciate the gifts of communication and interpretation that are inherent to our humanity. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to think about biblical interpretation on a conceptual level.

[Ian Caveny · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long while I've been tossing about a Christian replacement for the hegemonic epistemology called "Cartesian Rationalism." For so many Christian writers, pastors, theologians, and public intellectuals, this constellation of "objectivity" serves as an authoritative bedrock upon which biblical belief is founded. Except, it's not. Cartesianism, Enlightenment Rationalism, scientistic objectivity are all both relatively new (since the mid-16th century) and, theologically, problematic for Christian faith. Epistemologically, these "modern" philosophies lead most naturally to... well... modernism, and all its fruit (liberal Protestantism being one of the most obvious of those fruit; speaking of its iteration in the middle part of the 20th century, of course).

Having dug its feet into the same grounds of modernism that the fundamentalists had rejected half-a-century before, most modern evangelicalism suffers from a crisis of epistemology when it comes to hermeneutics. While asserting a biblicism or Scripturism that makes the Word central, too often evangelicals live functionally with a self-authoritative, self-mediated doctrine of Scripture. One great case-study of this would be Pastor John MacArthur's forthcoming The Gospel According to God: as though the Scriptures themselves were not enough to mediate "the Gospel according to God."

But begin to peel back those hermeneutic layers, and one finds a crisis of epistemology: who mediates? how can we mediate? what makes an authoritative mediation? who has the "true" interpretation? It is no surprise that evangelical-raised young adults, upon arriving at college courses on writing and knowledge, find the skepticism of New Criticism so appealing. After all, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre didn't become famous philosophers for expostulating nonsense.

With the skills of an expositional philosopher, James K.A. Smith enters the fray ready to pick-apart the Platonic idealisms of all the popular hermeneutics of our day. He dismantles the evangelical accounts of immediacy, and then he turns his gaze to Heidegger and Derrida and reveals the errors in their own violence-mediated differance. Smith's adeptness at reading both theology (text and subtext; academic and popular) and philosophy comes to the fore in this work, allowing him full resources to disclose the errors in our hermeneutics of hermeneutics, whether we take the typical modernist (and evangelical?) or post-modernist (and atheist?) tacks on topics of (im)mediacy, the Fall, and "full" knowledge.

What he arrives with at the end is a re-reading of Augustine and Derrida pro-Creation and contra both the weak readings of their own texts (Smith's assault against "Searle's Derrida" is particularly delightful) as well as the hermeneutically-deficient Fallen accounts of reading. This rigorous Augustinianism, characteristic of Smith, makes a gorgeous case for the orthodoxy of post-/pre-modern thought contra-typical evangelicalism's corner of the market.

Altogether, The Fall of Interpretation is the answer for the problem of hermeneutics that I've been longing for. Again, Smith demonstrates that he's already answering the problems I'm contemplating; but I won't say I'm jealous about this one (see my review of Desiring the Kingdom for my jealousy! haha): teasing out the complexities of hermeneutics and epistemology through theology and philosophy looks like it was a lot of work. I'm glad Smith wrote this book!

[Monte Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith, James K.A. The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2012).

When in His likeness, God created humankind,
He commissioned them to fruitfulness— expanding diversities.
He blessed them and this, as “good,”
By pouring out on every tongue, the gift of Pentecost.

In this 2012 second edition of his earlier 2000 work, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, James Smith brilliantly argues for a “creational-pneumatic hermeneutic”, that affirms the act of hermeneutics not as ultimately emerging from human fallenness and sinfulness, but rather from God’s “good” blessing on human creature-hood and hence our commissioned hermeneutical vocation within creation.

What makes Smith’s book especially relevant for Pentecostal theology is that he argues this as a distinctively “Pentecostal” hermeneutic.” Hence, Smith explains how “the heart of a creational hermeneutics is . . . ‘Pentecostal.’” It is Pentecostal because it supposes that in endowing us with the constitutive gift and need to interpret, God thereby created a sanctioned “a space where there is room for a plurality of God’s creatures to speak, sing, and dance in a multivalent chorus of tongues” (p. 20). Seeking therefore to project a “Pentecostal . . . philosophical hermeneutic,” (ftnte 91, p. 191), Smith argues that the goodness of creation comprises a God sanctioned “space . . . for a plurality of interpretations, a multiplicity of tongues, which is also a very pneumatic-Pentecostal notion.” He thus argues, that, “When we recognize both the situationality of human be-ing and the fundamental trust of be-ing, then we are able to relinquish a mono-logical hermeneutics in favor of a creational and Pentecostal diversity, the plurality preceding Babel and following Pentecost” (p. 196).

Smith’s “creational-pneumatic hermeneutic” contrasts with three other common hermeneutical models which he delineates and critiques. He calls the first, the “Present Immediacy” model, which is highly common within modern Evangelicalism. Reflecting the Princetonian scholastic influence on Evangelicalism, this model generally perceives the act of interpretation as arising from the fall. Hence, the “Present Immediacy” model argues that “immediacy” into the plain meaning of Scripture is restored through the Spirit’s illumination (pp. 34-37).

Second is the “Eschatological Immediacy” model, exemplified by Wolfhart Pannenberg, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Jürgen Habermas, which stresses “the provisionality and limits of human knowing based on the finitude of existence” (p. 64). Smith argues that this model however essentially shares the first model’s presumption however, that present huiman interpretation emerges from the fallenness of human creature-hood (p. 69).

In contrast to the first two models, the “Violent Mediation” model, exemplified by the works of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. argues that the act of interpretation and interpretive plurality exemplifies the human condition, which ultimately however points to the inevitable violence of human life (pp. 90-101).

While clearly contrasting with these models, Smith’s “creational-pneumatic hermeneutic” builds on Heidegger’s and Derrida’s respective insights into the hermeneutical situatedness of humanity, while however arguing that this need not point to the inevitably of violence. Smith develops his thesis by retrieving the later Augustine’s and Neo-Calvinian Abraham Kyyper’s respective stress on creational goodness (pp. 142-143). In doing so, Smith argues that we appreciate hermeneutics as “constitutive of creaturehood” and thus “fundamentally good and not necessarily violent” (p. 159)— thereby positing God’s blessing and commissioning of humankind towards hermeneutical plurality.

Smith still stresses our eschatological tension and drive towards the “more to come” in the renewing of creation. He therefore concludes, “A creational-pneumatic hermeneutic is a hermeneutic that celebrates humanity, but it is one that also mourns its rupture and roots its lament precisely in its belief in a good creation. The heart of a creational-pneumatic hermeneutic is a space, a field of multiplicitous meeting in the wile spaces of love (James Olthuis), where there is room for a plurality of God’s creatures to speak, sing, and dance in a multivalent chorus of tongues” (p. 197).


IMPLICATIONS TOWARDS GLOBAL PENTECOSTALISM(S) AND PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGY
I believe that especially promising towards 21st century Christian missional presence, is the Pentecostal localizing giftedness (simper formanda loci pro ecclesia catholica), which pluralizes Pentecostalism(s) worldwide. However, detrimentally incongruent to this giftedness are certain Fundamentalist-Evangelical mediated postures to Scripture, such as foundationalist ideas of immutable truth, ahistorical biblical primitivism, pragmatic-aimed utilitarianism, and deterministic theological monism. Given how these variables coalesce with free church like-minded”-shaped ecclesiologies, they undermine the eschatologically-passioned, polyphonic perspectivalism that I believe underlies the revelational dynamism intrinsic to the Pentecostal missional giftedness.

Smith’s creational-pneumatic hermeneutic” points to a better way of understanding theological differences existing not only within Pentecostalism but the whole Church as well. I find a deeply resonating substantiation to Smith’s “creational-pneumatic hermeneutic” from Telford Work’s “Trinitarian-Ontology of Scripture” (Work, Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation, Eerdmans 2002), which in similar fashion, affirms from a Pentecostal perspective, hermeneutical pluralism. Work’s own thesis is that the “Trinitarian-Ontology of Scripture” accounts for the communal-hermeneutical pluralities that comprise the Church Catholic. These altogether mirror and proceed from the plurality evoked through the perichoretic life of God as Trinity. Work’s thesis that the “Trinitarian-Ontology of Scripture” accounts for the communal-hermeneutical pluralities that comprise the Church Catholic, and conclusion that stress on Augustine’s hermeneutic of love as a guiding hermeneutic for negotiating these pluralities and indeterminate meanings of Scripture.

I also suggest that Smith’s “creational-pneumatic hermeneutic” and Work’s “Trinitarian-Ontology of Scripture” infers how within God’s triune mission towards creation— global hermeneutical pluralism serves a salvific purpose within God’s economy of cosmic salvation. Here we may also draw from Miroslav Volf’s doctrine of "catholic personalities" and “catholic communities” (propleptic “microcosms” of God’s renewed creation) as soteriological aims fostered through global-ecumenical sharing of charisms between diverse interpretive communities. In behalf of the whole creational salvific journey, ecumenical sharing of gifts serves to endow “catholic personalities” towards higher levels of generative-emergent theological reflection, which is especially needful towards the 21st century challenges of human and planetary flourishing.

The many tongues of Pentecost therefore points to a cosmic soteriological purpose to worldwide polyphonic Perspectivalism, whereby Spirit baptized people practice their true human vocation towards the envisioning, prophesying and making with God— new worlds that are theologically, morally, and ethically congruent to God’s eschatological renewing of creation.
For the many
Bless the margins
Pronounce them, "Good!"
For the Catholic Church
And the earth renewed
Give us seed, plant our fruit
Raise our gifts a hundred-fold.

With Your joy perfect our lives
Heal creation with our songs
Beyond the stars all heavens fill—
With the glory of Your reign.
Alleluia!

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nessa obra, o argumento de Smith é o de que nossa cosmovisão e interpretação são fruto de comunidades e tradições de interpretação e que a interpretação é proveniente da criação e da finitude humana de modo que a pluralidade interpretativa é uma dádiva. Ele chama essa abordagem de "hermenêutica pneumática-criacional".
No capítulo um, Smith apresenta a "abordagem da imediação presente" que diz que o problema hermenêutico pode ser superado no presente por meio da iluminação do Espírito Santo. Os autores dessa abordagem são Koivisto e Lints. Esse último, cabe destacar, que é reformado, segundo Smith, adota uma abordagem racionalista da interpretação.
No capítulo dois, Smith apresenta a "abordagem da imediação escatológica" que diz que o problema hermenêutico será superado no futuro ou em um momento oportuno. Autores dessa abordagem são Pannenberg, Gadamer e Habermas.
No capítulo três e quatro, Smith apresenta a "abordagem da mediação violenta" que sugere que a interpretação é um ato violento que não pode ser superado, isto é, é uma "hermenêutica da queda" em que a interpretação é vista como um elemento do Éden caído, permeado de violência interpretativa intersubjetiva. Autores dessa linha são Heidegger e Derrida.
Por fim, Smith apresenta seu modelo criacional de inspiração augustiniana. A hermenêutica faz parte da criação, nem pode ser superada e nem precisa ser violenta. A estrutura da criação, apesar da queda, está preservada. O homem é um ser interpretativo e isso é bom. A interpretação é inevitável e é formada pela tradição de quem interpreta. Contudo, a interpretação deve observar normas que limitam a subjetividade do interprete e deve observar as dimensões ética e pística da realidade. Nesse ponto, a influência de Dooyeweerd é evidente.
Por último, Smith afirma que interpretar tem um risco de comunicação e que a intenção do Autor só é conhecida e apreendida na comunidade.
"A queda da interpretação" é uma abordagem cristã de inspiração continental que supera o racionalismo analítico e reconhece como bom a pluralidade e tradicionalidade das interpretações.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative book and well worth the effort, which at times was fairly smooth going but in about 1/3 or so was quite dense and tough going as he deciphered hermeneutics in light of postmodernism and deconstruction. But for someone (myself) with no previous study of people like Derrida, for the most part Smith was able to present complex concepts in an understandable way. But those parts take considerable work and concentration. With all that said, the other 2/3 of the book was much more accessible and enjoyable. I think it is an important book to read at this time and highly recommend it with the aforementioned qualifications.

[Adam Marquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book which should be more wide spread within the church. The church has long needed to evaluate 'what' we think, 'how' we think, how we think about what we think, why we think the way we do, and then to have the courage to think differently as needed. "The Fall of Interpretation" presents a starting place from which to launch into the endeavor of rethinking it all. Not only does J. K. Smith provide us with actual material to consider in the above mentioned areas, but it also, offers a form or method with which to get our hands dirty in the endeavor ourselves.

[Liam Marsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biggest problem: James K A Smith does not understand Heidegger as Wolfhart Pannenberg interprets him. Smith makes it sound like Wolfhart Pannenberg denies any revelation of God. Yet, both Heidegger and Pannenberg see God revealed. Yes, Pannenberg views the Hermeneutics shaped through the Fall, but Pannenberg sees a more Eastern Orthodox view of the Fall. It’s an interesting book to engage, but I still remain critical of Smith’s philosophical work even more.

[Sytse de Jonge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that is rich in contents, but not always easy to read for me as a non-native. Too often difficult words are used where also easy words would be available.

[Zachary Kime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was baptized by the insight this book has; much needed.

[Squolle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unbedingt die zweite Auflage lesen.
Das denkwürdigste Kapitel ist eine Ergänzung der Neuauflage aus 2012. Auch das Vorwort zu dieser Ausgabe ist ziemlich lesenswert.

[E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Pentecostal who is Reformed and writes about what evangelical hermeneutics can learn from Derrida and Heidegger. Yes, I think I want to read that, out of curiosity if nothing else.

Then, early in the book, statements like this really excited me:

The hermeneutical structure of creation is good; it produces goods: a plurality of interpretations and a diversity of readings. The sin of Babel was its quest for unity -- one interpretation, one reading, one people -- which was an abandonment of creational diversity and plurality in favor of exclusion and violence; and the "ravages of hatred have an ominous sameness." Plurality in interpretation is not the original sin; it is, on the contrary, the original goodness of creation: a creation where many flowers bloom and many voices are heard, where God is praised by a multitude from "every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9), singing songs in a diversity of tongues, even worshiping through a diversity of theologies.

The first section deconstructs that views that believe hermeneutics is the result of some sort of fall. That if humanity was not fallen (not always understood religiously) then we would have immediacy of experience and interpretation would not be necessary. Not only do many evangelicals hold this view, Smith argues that Gadamer and Habermas are guilty of it as well. Against them, he argues that hermeneutics is an inescapable feature of humanity.

In part two he deconstructs Heidegger and Derrida. They agree that hermeneutics is inescapable but contend that interpretation is violent. He argues pretty persuasively that a holdover of religious notions of fall is involved in their views. But more importantly he contends that hermeneutics need not be violent and that if Christians believe in the goodness of creation, then the plurality of interpretation should be a good thing.

In part three he draws together his own view, drawing on Augustine, and presents what boundaries and ethics should guide our interpretation. The final sentence of the first edition of the book is, "The heart of a creational-pneumatic hermeneutic is a space, a field of multiplicitous meeting in the wild spaces of love, where there is room for a plurality of God's creatures to speak, sing, and dance in a multivalent chorus of tongues."

A final, seventh, chapter has been added for the second edition. In it he responds to the criticism that for Derrida there is no communication of meaning. Smith writes that this is a misinterpretation of Derrida and that authorial intent does survive in Derrida, just it does not dominate. He then proceeds to claim that we need a community of interpretation, particularly to read the bible, which requires a special hermeneutic. The final sentence of this chapter is, "In other words, our hermeneutics of Scripture will require, first and foremost, an ecclesiology."

Smith provides interesting (and difficult) discussions of the major thinkers I've listed above (and a few others). These are valuable. And I was very excited by his statements on a plurality of voices (those quotes I've included above), but was very disappointed that these ideas were not developed more fully. I guess I would suggest reading some queer thinkers like Dale Martin for more robust development of these ideas. I was just curious how a Reformed Pentecostal would approach them.

Finally, I was disappointed with the final, new chapter, which I didn't think added to the book. The final sentence of it exposed this book as truly prolegomena. If one wants a postmodern hermeneutics within the context of an ecclesiology, then I'd suggest reading Stanley Hauerwas and James McClendon (not referenced in this book) and as philosophical groundwork for that reading, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was quite a read, but abundantly worth it. This was Smith's first published work, and while I caught glimpses of many of the ideas he develops later (in Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church and Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, to name only two), The Fall of Interpretation never feels like it's progressing towards those eventual directions, but rather exists as the fully-formed intellectual foundation his later work builds upon.

In The Fall of Interpretation, Smith advances a radical hypothesis: that the necessity of hermeneutics and interpretation is a creational good, part of God's intended plan for the world and not the result of the fall nor essentially (ontologically) evil. Thus, Smith sets himself at odds with, well, just about everyone. The sheer audacity of his thesis gave reading his arguments almost the thrill of fiction, as each new chapter brought a greater intellectual force or challenge to overcome. As to whether he does, in the end, succeed: yes, though I'll need time to think through the implications.

Two things I particularly appreciated:

First, Smith helped me finally understand (to the point of articulatution) why postmodernism, and deconstruction in particular, isn't self-defeating. That insight alone was worth the 228 difficult pages.

Second, Smith thoroughly and clearly refutes the belief (especially common among evangelicals) that scripture can be accessed directly, without interpretation, or that we could read scripture by the light of scripture, and somehow have access to a "pure reading" of scripture free from any cultural, historical, or linguistic influence. I will definitely be drawing from his arguments in the future.

If I were to describe my overall experience of The Fall of Interpretation, I would have to reference to Chesterton's short story (is it too soon to call it myth?) "Homesick at Home". In the story, a man leaves his wife and children and white farmhouse by the river and circuvents the entire globe, all to be able to come back home again, to his wife and children and white farmhouse by the river, now able to experience home, to be at-home-in-his-home, as never before.

I don't want to overstate my case; but I felt something like that.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smith pleads for an affirmation of finitude and temporality in understanding interpretation, and the need to return to both. Smith highlights his claim against the common evangelical desire to "get to the Bible's meaning," or "to get the biblical interpretation" on the matter. He suggests that this is naive and un-Augustinian. Smith argues that we will bring our interpretation to the text and that we will do so because we are human.

Overview

Smith notes that many Evangelicals either look forward to the day when sin is gone and they will be able to understand the text *im*mediately, or if they read enough commentaries they can achieve the same results. At this point Smith interacts with Continental philosophers who wrestle with the same questions.

Smith follows St Augustine who said that language makes public the private intentions of the "other." Language must span a gulf between interiorities, since the other has no means of entering my soul. (and here is the key point). The space between souls requires the mediation of signs, which in turn requires interpretation. Interpretation, therefore, is ubiquitous.

Interpretation is part of what it is to be human. Human is to be finite. Finitude preceded the fall. Interpretation preceded the fall.

But if everyone has their own interpretation, does anything go? Smith disagrees. Interpretations are also communal and tradition-ed. There are built-in rules that will apply.

Conclusion:
A radical book. Changed the way I look at reality. However, I wish a few more questions were answered, such as those dealing with hermeneutical police.

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short Review: Book Review: The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic by James KA Smith - an interesting book about what it means to be created as finite creatures and how that affects the way we consider interpretation. Primarily Smith is thinking about interpretation of scripture, but also interpretation of all other communication as well. This is a second edition of what was originally Smith's PhD dissertation, so it leans academic (for Smith that means continental philosophy), but still understandable if you are not a philosopher (as I am not.)

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-fall-of-interpre...

[Luís Branco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author sets off with an interesting proposal, but ends up with a bad assumption. The prospect of the Eden is quite interesting theologically, but the author could not separate himself from Derrida's hermeneutics, even trying to set a new perspective on Derrida and also a slight difference between him and Derrida's views of the Scripture, but in my perspective he failed to do so. The author end up in the same grave as Derrida.

[Mark Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel he starts marvelously here, but did not finish with the bang I was expecting.

[Shaun Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review of this book is available here: http://erb.kingdomnow.org/james-k-a-s...