IPODS, sciences, and preachers
Well, a few things ruminating in my head and I need to get them out. This blog's title may soon be changing to reflect the need to "get things out of my head so that I can examine them only when I wish to." We'll see.
Anyway, a few things. First, IPODS. My friend Nate has a little post reflecting on the nature of IPODS. The reflection he notes says that IPODS let listeners take songs out of the context of an album. Tabling the question whether or not most albums have contexts, isn't this the result of postmodern philosophy? In selling the album, the author gives ownership to the consumer. The owner, literally and figuratively, owns the album. The owner/listener is in charge of the music. Why? Because the artist has lost control of the song; they no longer decide its context (if there was one). In giving the song (the text) fluidity and a life of its own, the "death of the author" notion does not lead to no authors; it (potentially) leads to many.
Second, theology has been called Queen of the Sciences. I think the best way to say what this means is that theology is the science of interpretation. Theology holds the Author's commentary. For example, yesterday a fellow in my church purchased five tickets for a concert at the last minute, when they all should have been gone. He was supposed to do this weeks ago. A friend of mine said, "That means that procrastination pays." I said, "No, it means grace." To say that it means neither is to take theology from the realm of interpretation and place it in its own space in the public square. It is to individualize the sciences. Theology is the work of integration and interpretation. Without it, there is only individualization.
Third, I heard a preacher last night give a dogmatic speech about heaven and hell. He reflected the nature of IPODS: he lifted biblical texts from their context. He reflected the nature of theology: he interpreted. His individual interpretation, however, was, well, lacking. Perhaps this is why theology should be done in community--and even reflects this guideline the very nature of what it does: you cannot interpret nothing; you must always interpret something. And 'something' has plurality built right into it.
Anyway, a few things. First, IPODS. My friend Nate has a little post reflecting on the nature of IPODS. The reflection he notes says that IPODS let listeners take songs out of the context of an album. Tabling the question whether or not most albums have contexts, isn't this the result of postmodern philosophy? In selling the album, the author gives ownership to the consumer. The owner, literally and figuratively, owns the album. The owner/listener is in charge of the music. Why? Because the artist has lost control of the song; they no longer decide its context (if there was one). In giving the song (the text) fluidity and a life of its own, the "death of the author" notion does not lead to no authors; it (potentially) leads to many.
Second, theology has been called Queen of the Sciences. I think the best way to say what this means is that theology is the science of interpretation. Theology holds the Author's commentary. For example, yesterday a fellow in my church purchased five tickets for a concert at the last minute, when they all should have been gone. He was supposed to do this weeks ago. A friend of mine said, "That means that procrastination pays." I said, "No, it means grace." To say that it means neither is to take theology from the realm of interpretation and place it in its own space in the public square. It is to individualize the sciences. Theology is the work of integration and interpretation. Without it, there is only individualization.
Third, I heard a preacher last night give a dogmatic speech about heaven and hell. He reflected the nature of IPODS: he lifted biblical texts from their context. He reflected the nature of theology: he interpreted. His individual interpretation, however, was, well, lacking. Perhaps this is why theology should be done in community--and even reflects this guideline the very nature of what it does: you cannot interpret nothing; you must always interpret something. And 'something' has plurality built right into it.
posted by Aaron Perry at
12:42 PM
9 Comments:
AP,
In the conversation on IPODs, Miller was talking about bands that he listened to that were dependent upon entire albums - like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Traffic, etc. The work of these bands is not the crafting of a song (like, say, U2), but putting together a large piece of music.
Second, I fully agree that as soon as someone buys the music, they can do what they want. However, in doing what they want, they create new albums. This creates new works of art with different forms of beauty. I have no problem with this, but think it is to create a form of beauty that is a little to me focused.
Lastly, don't you think that creating an album is kind of like doing theolgy. I mean, think of the Beatles. None of the Beatles on their own ever created an album as great as a Beatles album (post-Help!). So, it is in the community that the greatest things are made.
I would've guessed that Miller had been talking about the exceptions that I make. I am not a music aficionado, so will keep my mouth closed on this one--but making albums does seem a possible exercise in theology. (FYI: James Smith suggests Coldplay's "Rush of Blood to the Head" as a music soundtrack to his book on Radical Orthodoxy.)
Hi, AP,
I was wondering if you see any difference between theology and "hermeneutics" or is that what you mean by "interpretation?" Also, in what way does the commentary make a difference? Does it just give the "right" interpretation or does it do more?
I might want to talk more about his depending on your answers. I may have some Barthian and nature/grace concerns, but I want further elucidation before I raise them.
i think theology the practice of hermeneutics. it is given and works out the first principles which allow things to be integrated into the story.
in what way does commentary make a difference? it illuminates, it corrects, it guides, it gives vision...
I guess I'm confused by "hermeneutics" or "interpretation" and saying that theology is this (whichever one we want to use), unless you are using interpretation is a different way than it is usually used. Could you affirm theology is THAT BY WHICH we interpret? (similar to Aquinas' view that ideas are that by which we grasp reality). I think saying that theology and interpretation are so closely allied (use of the copulative "is") concerns me that theology can no longer actually be queen, since "interpretation" has now become a common place philosophical category. In the end, I guess I want theology to have independence from all other forms of knowledge due to its specific "object" of knowledge, the triune God--this is my Barthian concern. Of course, I don't think it just sits off in a corner "doing its own thing."
What do you think about this? Lately, I have been thinking about theology's relationship to other disciplines (i.e. reading Barth) so I covet your thoughts.
tim, are you doing that crazy independent study of the Dogmatics you talked about?
i said that theology is the practice of hermeneutics/the science of interpretation. if hermeneutics is something like "how you interpret," then theology is that practice. it forms the world from which we discern (and live) rightly. when asked how you know how to live, the response is, "because God has revealed himself in Jesus." and theology is about God. so, i think i'm using the term fairly.
your concern is that interpretation has become a philosophical category. why should i start with philosophy and let it say what interpretation is?
also, it seems to me that perhaps you have bifurcated nature/grace by separating the study of all sciences from God. the gift surely reflects the Giver, yes?
Hi, AP,
Alas, I cound find no professor crazy enough to take me up on going through the Dogmatics. So, I am comparing Barth's analogy of faith and Thomas's analogy of being with a summer grant I received here at UD.
Fair enough on your interpretation and theology stuff. Though perhaps my concern will become clearer with what follows.
As far as the nature grace issue goes, I am trying to preserve what de Lubac calls the second gift. He discusses this "two-fold gift" in The Mystery of the Supernatural. Basically, creation is the first gift and Jesus/salvation is the second. Of course, the two gifts relate to each other, but in order for the second to be a true gift it must be "suprising" and in some sense unanticipated even in the first. So, even though grace is present in both gifts, it is so differently without doing violence to either. Nature/creation leaves us hanging so to speak, and we get suprised by the second grace of Jesus. This is why I think it is important to maintain theology's independence, which is concerned with this second gift. Thus, I want to maintain grace's "two-foldness." Make sense? What do you think about this?
i think i hear what you are saying--although it crassly comes out in my thinking as general and special revelation.
and i can maintain the separation of theology from other sciences--that is why it interprets others. however, i wouldn't want to separate them. perhaps i could say that theology is that which "colours" all other sciences. the colour is necessary to "read" the other sciences properly, and is distinct, but not separate from them.
I understand your concern with general and special revelation, and I really want to avoid that language. Furthermore, I am in agreement that the second gift or "coloring" reinterprets, if you will, the first gift, since to be able to discuss the first gift as such we must be speaking from within the second.
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