Doctrines are not simple matters of
belief. They are linguistic formulations
designed to articulate experiences of God's activity in our lives. (This is true also of the doctrine of the
Trinity. The doctrine is meaningless if
it does not enable believers to discern how each of the three divine Persons is
active in their lives.)
Romans, 7 offers the biblical
passage which best articulates the experience encoded in the doctrine of
original sin: "The good that I
would do, that I don't; and the evil
that I would not do, that I do."
Working from this starting point, I welcome
postmodernist readings of the Christian tradition which reveal that doctrinal
formulations and moral judgments indebted to a metaphor of power and judgment
are repositories of violence. And I
agree that, since a detached, god-like perspective on the formative power of
language is quite impossible, language is inescapably a repository of
violence. In sum, as long as the
formative power of everyday language goes unquestioned, a power-structure
distorts the ways that we process interactions with one another. Since everyday English incorporates intimacy
as a form of life, transforming moments are possible. But they are also needed, since we are not
socialized to intimacy.
From a theological perspective, the
postmodernist judgment that language is a repository of violence identifies
language, not Adam's transgression of a prohibition against moral discourse, as
the original sin. In this regard,
Derrida's neologism, difference,
locates the fatal flaw in the fact that languages are generated by an interplay
of differentiation and deferral.
Concretely, desire reveals the Otherness of the object of desire, and
the line of demarcation which marks the difference is designed to confer power
to gratify the desire in question.
However, since desires are insatiable, the fulfillment is constantly
deferred. (Note the recurrence of the
concern in the Hebrew narrative tradition that the fulfillment of the promises
made to Abraham was constantly deferred.)
Moreover, since differentiations are arbitrary, they enshrine the will
to power exposed by Nietzsche in and through the formative power they acquire
in processing experience. And since a
god-like perspective on the interplay between language and experience is
impossible, the language acquired through a pervasive process of socialization
corrupts the interactions of all concerned.
The only authentic stance, then, is that encoded in a hermeneutics of
suspicion.
I have no quarrel with an analysis of the
workings of language which identifies the linguistic ability of human beings as
the original sin. (If I so desired, I
could argue that Yahweh's prohibition against moral discourse recognized that
fact.) The issue, then, is defined by
the question: Are transforming moments
possible? My answer to the question can
be found in analyses which show that the language of intimacy enables
individuals to learn how to interact passionately, vulnerably, respectfully and
faithfully. In so doing, they escape
from an otherwise inescapable formative power of language.
(A note in passing: In Christian
Ethics: An Ethics of Intimacy, I
suggest that Luther's protest against a theology which insisted that sinful
individuals had access to God only through mediators was inspired by a longing
for intimacy. His metaphor depicting
individuals standing naked before God is a metaphor of intimacy. However, Luther's conviction that the
corruption due to original sin was irreversible and inescapable is evident in
his description of the results of justification by faith alone: Totus
simul justus et peccator. I.e., one
is simultaneously totally sinful and totally justified. The doctrine of justification by faith alone
is therefore an illusory promise of instant intimacy.)
Consequently, I grieve over the fact that a
hermeneutics of suspicion designed to ensure that subversions of authority do
not re-inscribe authority in their critiques limits moral responses to a hollow
voice of prophetic protest. My protests
against violence invoke the descriptive import of a language capable of showing
that exercises of power and judgment do violence to anyone who dares to embrace
the quest for intimacy as inseparable from the quest for a fully human and
uniquely personal existence.
I am grateful, therefore, that a hard-won
awareness that God's love is all-inclusive and ever-faithful enables me to face
the hidden ways that I still exclude individuals who disturb my comfort-zone or
threaten my self-sufficiency. In short,
I can now see that these cross-situations can be gifts for me as well as for
them, and these gifts include a deepening involvement with Father, Jesus and
the Holy Spirit.
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