SUBJECTIVITY AND DIVINITY IN BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS

Abstract

The question concerning the status of the subject is the systematic focal point of modern philosophical concern. Modern philosophy grounds itself in its understanding of the self as centered I, a subject of thinking. In the modern philosophical conception, the subjectivity of the self has the meaning of an undefinable universal: I am subject and never object. Nonetheless, in this view the self is both immediately conscious of its subjectivity as an inescapable and necessary origin point of its representations, and it can mediate that certainty to itself. Recently, however, debates have raged concerning the 'self-assertive' pretensions of the 'modern' philosophical conception of the self brought forth by Descartes and amplified by Kant and his idealist successors.1 Many European and American critics argue that the central notion of the subject-centered self should be replaced with an alternative notion of the origin, nature, and purpose of the self.2 The suggestions are manifold and heterogeneous in kind but they share a com mon desire to escape the subject-centered conception of the 'modern self'.3 It is of utmost importance for hermeneutical thinkers, that clarity be achieved concerning the question of the status of the subject-centered self. Is escape from the subject-centered self desirable? Is it even possible? Let me focus for a moment on the discipline of hermeneutics to show the force of the question. Hermeneutical thinkers in the line of influence from Schleiermacher to