Questions of argumentation
Thompson, William M.
'THE FIRST COMING AGAIN QUESTIONS OF ARGUMENTATION THOMAS SHEEHAN'S HISTORICAL METHOD In 1984, Commonweal published an extended discussion of an essay in which Thomas Sheehan argued that a...
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...I rather suggest that the latter would have a difficult time being persuaded of this...
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...Gnosis, wherever it exists, tends to be rich in projection and fantasy...
...For the most part, my typescript copy turns out to have been missing the notes for Parts Two and Three, an absence which I noted and questioned in my review...
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...Insofar as my earlier review might have indicated otherwise, it now needs correction...
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...On page 27 he refers to Boethius's notion of yoking together faith and reason: ". . .fidem, sipoteris, rationemque coniuge...
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...What I have been pointing to here is the matrix out of which the author proceeds...
...That was what we had promised Sheehan's publisher...
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...They are important, helpful, and speak well for the author's research and scholarship...
...But there are fruitful connections to be explored between gnosis and the flight from the incarnational (that is, from the christological principle that we can't do it alone—as Sheehan suggests we can —but that we rely upon the Divine as mediated to us through our frail, human history), and from soteriology (that is, our humble awareness of our frail and even sinful nature...
...in reality, review copies of finished books are not infrequently received in our office only after publication date, and the editors of this journal know from experience here and from writing for other journals that reviews must often be done 'from earlier versions if the reviews are to appear promptly upon the book's official publication date...
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...We replied that we did not find a suitable excerpt but, given the interest stirred by the earlier discussion, the magazine would make every effort to publish a review of the Sheehan book immediately upon its publication — which was announced for early June...
...This separation of faith presuppositions from historical reconstruction is, I think, far from confined to an occasional note...
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...The importance of these notes for Parts Two and Three should not be exaggerated...
...It is this matrix which is unprobed, and from it flows far too much, whether in the text I had earlier or in the published book's additional notes, for such a fragile thing to sustain...
...This tendency to ignore the delicate relationship between one's larger philosophical-theological horizon and one's historical reconstruction also has further consequences...
...We theologians need a renewed discussion with the a-theistic position, which all too often is simply ridiculed in these name-calling and "restorationist"days...
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...Let us, however, stay with these notes for a moment...
...Sheehan has understandably complained...
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...Our efforts to make sure that The First Coming did not receive a belated review in these pages resulted in its receiving a premature review and one written from an incomplete text...
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...They do show that the author was aware of some of the important alternative positions...
...I have the impression that the author slides, way too quickly, over the "hermeneutical circle" in interpretation, claiming for himself much more ' 'objectivity" and solidity of evidence than the case warrants...
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...Out of fairness to the book, its author, its potential readers, and (not least) to Mr...
...Cutting through" seems a peculiarly poignant verbal form for the kind of hermeneutics all too often found in these pages...
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...Also, Schillebeeckx, at least, argues quite explicitly that his views can't be read as denying the "logical" and "ontological"priority of Jesus' personal resurrection...
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...On what grounds is he surpassing...
...WILLIAM M. THOMPSON (William M. Thompson is associate professor of theology at Duquesne University and author of The Jesus Debate, published by Paulist Press...
...Thompson were aware that this typescript copy was incomplete...
...it is something else to engage them in a sustained way, arguing the issues pro and con in a dialogical manner...
...Thompson, we have asked the latter to revise or expand upon his earlier review in light of the published text...
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...When all of this is borne in mind, one wonders what Pesch and Schillebeeckx have in common with Sheehan...
...The publisher asked whether we were interested in publishing an excerpt of this forthcoming book, The First Coming...
...It was certainly not the fault of our reviewer, William M. Thompson...
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...Paul Ricoeur speaks of the Romanticist hermeneutics as one of psychological projection of the intentions/events behind a text...
...Certainly I would amend that "hardly a mention...
...that was why we urged the reviewer to send us his review, which was duly published in the June 20, 1986 Commonweal...
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...The sagacious reader of this provocative book ought at least to think of some of these further issues...
...Here Sheehan states, "In this chapter I generally follow Pesch, but without intending to exclude Schillebeeckx's hypothesis...
...This talk of going beyond or surpassing raises interesting issues...
...Last spring, no doubt because of this earlier debate, Random House sent Commonweal a copy of a manuscript in which Sheehan developed his positions at book length...
...This same "method" also peeks out at us rather glaringly on page 225...
...What they have in common lies at the center of my presentation: that the disciples required no special 'risen-Jesus events' in order to come to Easter faith.'' If this is an example of careful use of other scholars, then indeed one might legitimately raise serious questions about the validity of the argumentation found in these pages...
...Finally, I think there are serious issues in christology and theology in general which need much more discussion and debate...
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...Both Pesch and Schillebeeckx come from quite different faith presuppositions than the author: neither claims to be a "post-liberal" or even "post-Christian...
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...It seems to me that these notes do not usually do the latter...
...To meet this deadline, the editors sent the manuscript copy to a reviewer, William M. Thompson, the author of a widely praised book, The Jesus Debate...
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...Sheehan's book will perhaps foster such a renewed exchange...
...For example, referring to Sheehan's interpretation of the Resurrection experiences, I expressed disappointment that "the reader will find no sustained treatment (in fact, hardly a mention) of alternative reconstructions...
...I cannot, however, amend my expression of disappointment...
...I suppose there are a number of ways to read this...
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...Here I would expect Sheehan to think this through in the way that the medieval tradition practiced it: the work of reason is never separated from faith but is an "extension" or partial development of faith...
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...THE EDITORS ¦ have now had a chance to study Thomas Sheehan's The First Coming (Random House, $17.95, 287 pp...
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...Surely the quite extensive discussion of the hermeneutical circle deserves better than this...
...But listen to the author's interpretation: "Today we might paraphrase his [Boethius's] dictum as follows: Faith, if it is possible and if it is to be responsible, can never escape from history or ignore the evidence that history provides...
...I wrote my earlier review in good faith that I was working from the finished product...
...There are of course other facets of this work, which remain troubling to me, but perhaps my earlier review will suffice for those matters...
...On the basis of the book's internal evidence, I have the impression that the author wants to bend the axiom in a more "positivistic" or "secularistic" direction: first we practice history, then we join faith to it (or not, depending upon what history turns up...
...For example, Sheehan says a number of times that he "goes beyond" the positions of the traditionalist or moderate or liberal on the issue of the Resurrection (e.g., p. 165) or he says his purpose is "to surpass rather than to repeat the mainline Christian interpretation of Jesus, both in its traditional and in its more modern 'liberal' form" (pp...
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...This needs to be said, surely...
...That very evidence is what has brought Christianity to the foundational crisis it is now living through...
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...The issues raised by Sheehan, while important, are somewhat narrow in range and reflective of a rather limited academic segment of the population...
...Neither intends his work to be used as an argument against the Christian faith or the centrality of Jesus for faith...
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...It is one thing to be aware of alternative positions...
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...There the author states, "To hear the message of the kingdom of God 'without Jesus,' that is, without attributing to the prophet any unique or extraordinary powers, means to take Jesus as his word [ at his word...
...But there are issues beyond those raised by Sheehan which need sustained thought as well: Trinitarianism, hermeneutics, the feminist critique, the relationship between the world's religions and Christianity, spirituality and soteriology, etc...
...There is a kind of gnosis here (I'm referring to Sheehan's text, not to his personal intentions, which are of course beyond my purview), a kind of idiosyncratic claim for the greater value of one's largely unprobed position...
...In the meantime, however, the publication date of the Sheehan book had been delayed...
...I would single out note 20 of Part Two (pp.257-58) as particularly important for the reader...
...The range of alternatives he presents are also not as rich as the range many of us see...
...I don't want to push my complaint of gnosis too far, and again I remind the reader that I am referring to Sheehan's text, which has undergone a distancing from the author...
...By the way, it is, I suggest, this quite problematic use of the historical method which enables the author to claim that he is "building upon" the work of other post-Bultmannian "moderates" and "liberals" in his own "reconstruction...
...That means cutting through the words and deeds in which Jesus preached the kingdom of God, in order to discover what gave rise to those acts and made them possible...
...This gnostic tendency to (at least precipitously) "exalt" one's point of view also goes along well with the the kind of psychologistic or largely "hunch-making" form of exegesis practiced throughout this work...
...Sheehan refers to this, in fact, in his note 75 (p...
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...THE FIRST COMING AGAIN QUESTIONS OF ARGUMENTATION THOMAS SHEEHAN'S HISTORICAL METHOD In 1984, Commonweal published an extended discussion of an essay in which Thomas Sheehan argued that a "liberal consensus" of Catholic scholarship had effectively dismantled the church's traditional beliefs and should logically issue in a position that abandoned the Resurrection and post-Resurrection claims of Jesus' divinity...
...In principle, reviews should not be published unless the final, bound copy of the book can be checked...
...Can one separate horizons of interpretation from historical reconstructions in the way Sheehan at times tends to do...
...This sort of hunch-making, unrestrained by the textual-literary evidence, is appealing, I would suggest, to a kind of gnostic overvaluing of the kind of positions represented here...
...But in terms of sustained argumentation or simply in terms of quantity, they do not add some radical new dimension to the book...
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...The citation is from Volume 64 of Migne, not 63, as the book indicates on page 273, note 28...
...By what criteria does he know his position to be superior in terms not only of historical "data" —which I suggest cannot be separated from larger philosophical-theological positions—but also in terms of a larger, more foundational horizon of thought and practice...
...So far as I can tell, there are no other crucial differences between the finished book and the version I worked with formerly...
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Vol. 114 • January 1987 • No. 2
