"Is There a Meaning in This Text?", Chapter 5

Vanhoozer now sets out to offer a counter to the Derridean notion that language is master of us all. Instead, Vanhoozer suggests that being a citizen of language is an appropriate descriptive metaphor for the relationship between humans and language (202). He writes, "Language is indeed our environment, but it is neither open field nor prison house. Language is like a city in which there is both overall structure and diverse neighborhoods, a city in which speakers have freedom of movement within (city) limits" (202).

Vanhoozer begins by suggesting we think of "meaning" as "something people do" (202). Texts only mean something when someone means something by it. Vanhoozer notes that Ricoeur takes a step forward by suggesting that a sentence is not merely a higher order sign, but a new entity (204). For Ricoeur, semantics is not just the study of symbols, but of sentences--language used in actual situations. From here, V. defines language as a gift of God, "to be used gratefully and responsibly as we communicate with others" (205). Human beings also have communicative faculties which allow us to interpret correctly. Vanhoozer shows the theological base of his project: "the design plan of language is to serve as the medium of covenantal relations with God, with others, and with the world" (206). This means that language has to be used responsibly.

To defend this move, Vanhoozer enlists three philosophers: John Searle, Paul Ricoeur, and Jurgen Habermas. First, Searle, as part of the 'ordinary language cohort, notes that, contrary to Derrida's belief that language is unstable, language "works well enough." The fact that people use the same words to say something completely different does not mean that those words have no determinate meaning, and one that can often be deduced from context.

Second, Vanhoozer utilizes Ricoeur's interpretation theory. For Ricoeur, a text is a discourse fixed by writing. Texts join authors and readers together and makes shared meaning possible. Both Ricoeur and Derrida are post-structuralist, which means they do not believe there are basic and universal ways of articulating and understandings things like texts, but in different ways. Whereas Derrida held that language was all self-referential and there was nothing outside the text and everything was interpretation, Ricoeur believed that language had a structure to facilitate referring to "beyond itself to the world" (214). This means that authors use language as a "communicative social practice" (214). However, more than discourse, texts are their own. They have impacts on readers that authors do not intend, even separated from their semantic meanings. Hermeneutics thus includes this impact, not simply the semantic meaning. This means that "what the text means now matters more than what the author meant when he wrote it" (215, quoting Ricoeur). Obviously Ricoeur does not want to ground meaning in authorial intention, and so refers to the intention of the text. Vanhoozer notes, however, that texts do not have intentions; they do not act. Instead, Vanhoozer suggests that humans leave "traces" which can make up a kind of text.

Third, Vanhoozer turns to Habermas, who developed a new rationality outside the subject-object distinction. For Habermas, language "does not contaminate reality, but...contains it" (217). This means that communication has elements of inter-subjectivity. Three such elements to make such speech-acts competent are that it must be true (to the outside world); it must be truthful (to the speaker's intentions); it must be right (in the context of the society in which it is spoken).

The implications of these thinkers form Vanhoozer's thesis for the remainder of the chapter, that "meaning is a three-dimensional communicative action, with form and matter (propositional content), energy and trajectory (illocutionary force), and teleology or final purpose (perlocutionary effect)" (218). To use this notion of communicative action, Vanhoozer grounds texts in communicative action and writing (225). Therefore, Vanhoozer thinks that what an author means by the communicative act that is a text counts as what it means.

However, this meaning is not to be separated from community, but not because communities form meaning, but because communicative acts are made in community and authors are "embodied persons who form part of a language community" (231). This means that meaning is not to be found in the subjective consciousness of the author but in her communicative act. Vanhoozer takes this a step further. The author, in part, becomes something by doing what they do.

Let me summarize, using Vanhoozer's words, "Textual meaning, I have argued, enjoys an independence and integrity of its own, apart from the process of interpretation, thanks to the nature and directedness of the author's communicative act. The author attends to a particular matter (the propositional content) in a particular way (the illocutionary act); the author's intentions is what makes his or her words count as one kind of action rather than another" (254).

"Is There a Meaning in This Text?", Part II

We now enter into Part II of Vanhoozer's tome, "Is There a Meaning in this Text?" Let me begin with a recap. Part I examines how all participants in the act of reading are deconstructable.
> The author is no longer in control of the text because language is her only means of communication and language is fluid. Further, the author has already been shaped by this fluid language that is an interrelation of signs that refer to nothing beyond themselves. Her intentions are subconscious and not necessary to understanding...

> The book is not a complete whole because the whole world is an interpretation and hence understanding is always progressing and interrelated. Texts are thus separated from their authors, but cannot stand on their own, but require...

> The reader, finally, is in a similar position as the author, without the stability of their own ability to read outside cultural values, linguistically formed. There is no position above the text from which to read; nothing behind the text to guide interpretation. There is only the text and that is all there is. But this text, as noted, is not complete and it does not stand on its own. The reader and text enter into mutual relations that leave no determinant meaning.

So, in light of this contemporary situation, is there a meaning in this text? Vanhoozer argues yes, there is!, and bases this position on an unapologetic theological claim that "God communicates with others ('In the beginning was the Word') and that humans, created in God's image, are likewise communicative agents" (198-99). "The triune God is communicative agent (Father/author), action (Word/text), and result (Spirit/power of reception)" (199). Vanhoozer argues against the above contemporary philosophical hermeneutics theologically because it is based on a theological mistake.

Learning to Appreciate

Has anyone else ever felt that it's easy to denigrate other spiritual gifts in order to elevate your own? I gotta say, that is a trap of into which I've fallen many times. Lots of times in cyberspace, too, I'm sure.

This past week was General Conference for my denomination. The more I sit back and watch the hard work of denominational leadership, the more impressed I become by those who have the gift of leadership and are able to exercise it in this context. Most of the time I need someone to explain to me the ins and outs of the meanings of different events because I simply cannot appreciate the delicacy and tact which goes before so many decisions being made in the orders of such large meetings and such a large conference.

I am also learning to appreciate the unnoticed work of my senior pastor whom I have admired for a while, but am re-learning to do so.

Finally, I was informed this week that a woman whom I consider a friend is leaving a church. She is not leaving with hurt feelings (that I know of) but because her (still orthodox) theology is changing and she wants to stay consistent with it. (I don't know if she'd use that wording, but I think it's appropriate.) I contacted her and wished her the best in her Christian faith. Still tough, though.

The Gospel follow-up

Lots of emphasis on reconciliation with regard to "the gospel." I have preached that that is likely the best picture of atonement to our contemporary society. However, my own opinion remains that the announcement "Jesus is Lord" is "the gospel." Everything else must be developed from this good news.

But as to how it relates to environmentalism, I am still stumped. Not stumped in the sense that I don't know how people emphasize environmentalism--I reduce, reuse, and recycle!--in Christianity, but why this must be tied to "the gospel." I think a simple but firm creation theology gets you there and grounding it in resurrection might be unnecessary.

The Gospel

Just read on my buddy Mark Brewer's blog a discussion about environmentalism and "the gospel." While reading many of the posts, I wanted to stop the writer and ask, "Wait...what is the gospel? Exactly what is the "good news" that you believe leads me to a certain belief or action? I have been guilty of using the phrase quickly and flippantly before, so I figure a discussion would be helpful.

So, what is "the gospel"?