The hermeneutical nexus of an undenominational Bible school : an application of philosophical hermeneutics and the literary analysis of Paul Ricoeur to the Carroll model for congregational studies

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The hermeneutical nexus and an undenominational Bible School.This dissertation arose out of reflections on the Carroll Handbook Jor Congregational Studiesand inter alia seeks to give a philosophical base to that work. Noting the frequent referencesto hermeneutical principles, the researcher found that one of them were dealt with adequatelyin considering congregations as carriers of faith. There being no difference in principlebetween a congregation and a Bible School, the dissertation deals with both. It was apparentthat there is a nexus (a binding together) of hermeneutical principles and processes in such aninstitution that forms the thick discourse in these carriers of faith. Having been associatedwith a Bible School for a quarter of a century, the researcher was aware that such institutions,like congregations were badly in need of a metacritical approach in order to meet changingconditions and new challenges. This dissertation attempts as a starting point to have a betterunderstanding of the identity of the institution.The Bible School, as an historical reality, has had and still has a vast influence particularly inthe Third World. This was exemplified by the growth and flowering of so-called BibleSchool Movement which is described and which revealed hermeneutical principles andprocesses which were essentially describing its identity in broad terms. Some of theseprocesses are critiqued. In an attempt to find a central focus for a Bible School, the researcherfound that subject to the main purpose of the church (the increase among men of the love ofgod and one's neighbour according to H Richard Niebuhr) there are in fact so many fociamong Bible Schools that he could only conclude that God uses the gifts He gives to HisChurch in different ways and different circumstances as He wills.It was then found necessary to examine the application of hermeneutics to an institutionseeing that metacriticism is a hermeneutical exercise and Carroll used many terms implyinghermeneutics. For this purpose foundations were sought in Schleiermacher, Dilthey,Gadamer and especially Paul Ricoeur. Hermeneutics changed fundamentally over the periodcovered by these scholars, from a psychological to a literary base. The researcher found itnecessary to draw from both the psychological and the literary approaches. He seeks to makea synthesis between Carroll (and Hopewell who initiated Carroll's work) and Ricoeur becausethe most fundamental methodology of both require a narrative form, a text. RegrettablyCarroll was unable to give any philosophical base to his main point of sum it up in story'which meant that the life of the congregation over a selected period of time was to be reducedto a narrative. This has been called the thick discourse of the congregation. Thephilosophical hermeneutics of Ricoeur, however, gives an advanced literary analysis and theresearcher extrapolates and applies this to institutions to make a synthesis with Carroll'sinstitutional insights.A key element in Ricoeur's hermeneutics is that discourse is the event of language and isunderstood as meaning. In the synthesis attempted this thick discourse of the institution isexpounded as a kind of locutionary act, i.e. a speech act. The thick discourse of the institutionis multi-faceted covering language, culture, time, space and matter, which are the events ofdiscourse understood as meaning.The Carroll model requires that the congregational story be reduced to narrative form, i.e. atext. It follows that the Ricoeurean concepts of distanciation and appropriation as applied toinstitutions take effect and these ultimately involves the congregation in an enlarged selfunderstanding.In the appropriation of the text to which the congregational discourse isreduced, a new world-view emerges, a different self-identity is discovered. This, the--researcher suggests, requires a postlocutionary act so that from being-in-the-world theinstitution becomes something new. Becoming (one of Carroll's main concepts) requires reimagingand re-imaging requires metacriticism. For this focus and boundaries are required asan institution is an open system. In the end a complementary relationship between Carrolland Ricoeur is advocated as part of a thick discourse in this preliminary study of institutionalhermeneutics.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University