Friday, 21 October 2016

The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education, Second Ed.,
Walter Brueggemann, Fortress Press, 2015, page 90

In an attempt to answer the last question, Brueggemann drops into a footnote and explains at more length:

All knowledge is linked to some form of human interest. Thus the adherents to "new truth" have not only the problem of establishing some form of fresh authority, but or critiquing the claims of old revelation which combine theological legitimation and enormous vested interest. It would be a gain in church education simply to nurture people in an awareness of the linkage of kowledge and interest. Not only conventional theology, but also some new psychologies and some new literary theories proceed as if interest has no part in knowledge. The current formal fascination with symbols seems to be based on the conviction that symbols lie prior to and outside the arena of human and vested interest. That is simply a sophisticated form of the argument that G-d is outside history. Church education needs a heavy dose of a "hermeneutic of suspicion" to counteract such ideological naïaut;veté, for placing regnant symbols outside acriticism of interest serves unwittingly to absolutise them.

So we need to be suspicious of claims for new revelation until we have discovered what interest there is behind the claim.