Jesus’s Parables: Simulation, Stories, and Narrative Idiolect

Abstract

Human cognitive structures and processes are to a great extent just that—human, thus universal or nearly universal. But at the same time no two human brains are identical. Applying these observations to literature, we would expect storytellers to share many narrative structures and processes, but also to exhibit in some degree individually distinctive patterns in these structures and processes. One important component of producing and experiencing stories is simulation, the imagination of particular, counterfactual or hypothetical situations and trajectories of events, including subjective perspectives and intentions. This essay examines the operation of simulation, focusing in particular on Jesus’s parables. It takes up the parables to further our understanding of human simulative processes. At the same time, it explores the individual features of the stories themselves, considering the ethical and theological issues they address. The analysis suggests that the theology of the parables may be to a surprising extent guided by modes of emplotment—a point with broader implications for our understanding of theology and ethical thought more generally.