Christian Hermeneutics : Paul Ricoeur and the Refiguring of Theology

What lies behind the peculiar and distinctive discourse of theology? This book addresses the fundamental question of how truth, meaning, and reference are related in theological language and writing - applying to theology with exciting and controversial results the innovative and enormously influential ideas of Paul Ricoeur, one of the greatest contemporary living philosophers.

Paul Ricoeur is one of the most influential philosophers alive today. This book draws primarily on Ricouer''s hermeneutic insights to address the fundamental question of how reference, truth, and meaning are related in the discourse of theology. The author defends the view that theological truth claims cannot be sustained without some appeal to the referential, or in Ricouer''s terminology, "refigurative" potential intrinsic to our linguistic practices. What it means for Christians to tell the truth, for their language and life to display and thus elicit trust, cannot be understood apart from an appreciation of the refigurative power of language. By appealing to Aristotle''s theory of mimesis (imitation) and muthos (plot), as well as to the ideas of Augustine and Heidegger on time, Paul Ricouer offers striking possibilities whereby theological discourse might renew its task of speaking truthfully of God, and hence of our relation to God, to one another, and to the world.