FROM THEOLOGY TO THEOLOGICAL THINKING: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THOUGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THEOLOGY

Abstract

Let us start in a very odd place—odd, at least, for an essay on hermeneutics and theology! The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) was an orthodox Roman Catholic, though his work is so bizzare that by the seven teenth century he was reputed to have been a heretic. In particular, it has been suggested that his extraordinary three-part painting known as The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500—1510) in the Prado, Madrid, was painted as an altar-piece for an heretical cult which was addicted to orgiastic rites. There is no evidence that this was so. The left wing of the painting represents Paradise; the central panel shows the sinful activities of mankind: the right wing represents Hell. Theology, fantasy, a gift for modern post-Freudian thinkers—in art claimed as a forerunner of Surrealism; Bosch is a gift for the unease of contemporary critical thinking. For my purposes I want to concen trate on just one comer of Hell as a prelude to thinking about text and writing in theology and theological thinking. In the lower right comer of each of the three panels of The Garden of Earthly Delights is a little emblem, a kind of signature, which is also a riddle of the whole panel, a cartoon offering an explanation, as in a parable, of the whole complex picture; o avayivœoKœv voeirœ—let the reader understandi1 In Hell there is an anxious little man, seated with a written document on his knee. He is warding off the amorous advances of a pig which is wearing a nun's headdress and is endeavouring either to kiss him on the cheek, or perhaps whisper something in his ear. With its trotter the pig holds out to the man a quill pen as if asking him to sign the written manuscript—that is, complete it with his signature. Bearing down on the man to the right of the picture is a lost soul in Hell carrying more documents on his head and in his hand, each officially stamped with a red seal, the sign of completion and closure. To the left, crouching on the ground is a gryll, a squat little monster