Per Caritatem

Given Gadamer’s rejection of a foundationalist paradigm of knowledge, he does not attempt to provide indubitable justification for his ontological views.   According to Gadamer, all forms of foundationalism fail to demonstrate that their own claims are indubitable; hence, he “rejects the possibility of a reflexive self-grounding of any philosophical position.”  Rather, as we have seen, Gadamer speaks of our grasping truth in the context of our various dialogical interactions.  In addition, Gadamer claims that “there is kind of self-validating truth that is available to those who are willing to participate in the dialogue of question and answer which we find in the philosophical tradition” (p. 12).  These self-validating truths do not purport to present us with certainty, yet they can be known and are (as the name suggests) true.  Many truths, such as those found in the human sciences, are simply part of our experience and are either taken as valid on their own terms or are rejected (p. 12). Rather than attempt to find a place outside of our experience upon which to stand so as to justify our experience of these truths, Gadamer endeavors to

offer a holistic explanation of that experience that attempts to understand it by thinking through the question of how mind and reality must be related to each other in order to make this experience possible.  This is an explicitly circular procedure that avowedly accepts its circularity but does not concede that such circularity is logically vicious.  Even logic itself rests on experiences of self-evidence that it cannot deduce (p. 13). 

Here Gadamer is operating against the grain of much of modern epistemology in that he assumes that our experiences are true “until their limitations are dialogically demonstrated.”  In other words, Gadamer offers a hermeneutics of trust rather than a hermeneutics of suspicion, and his position is not ignorant of the problems of modern epistemology.  Incarnating his own understanding of hermeneutics, Gadamer is in dialogue with the present (modern epistemology) and he also pulls from ancient philosophy, particularly Plato’s reflections on the connection between beauty and truth.  For example, in his book, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays, Gadamer writes,

Plato describes the beautiful as that which shines forth most clearly and draws us to itself, as the very visibility of the ideal.  In the beautiful presented in nature and art, we experience the convincing illumination of truth and harmony, which compels the admission:  “This is true.” [...] The beautiful [...] gives us an assurance that the truth does not lie far off and inaccessible to us, but can be encountered in the disorder of reality with all its imperfections, evils, errors, extremes and fateful confusions.  The ontological function of the beautiful is to bridge the chasm between the ideal and the real (pp. 14-15; as quoted in Wachterhauser, p. 13).

Here we have the self-validation of the beautiful whose connection with truth is not to be equated with certainty, as no truth-claim is beyond doubt.  Yet, according to Gadamer, the true manifests itself in the beautiful in that the true possesses a kind of luminosity or radiance.  With this claim, we see Gadamer drawing from the “metaphysics of light” tradition that Plato assimilated via Parmenides.  “In fact, Gadamer argues that ‘the close relationship that exists between the shining forth [Vorscheinen] of the beautiful and the evidentness [das Einleuchtende] of the understandable is based on the metaphysics of light.  This was precisely the relation that guided our hermeneutical inquiry’ (Truth and Method, 483).” Moreover,  Gadamer believes that  a critical  reworking of this tradition “can point the way beyond the impasses of skepticism and foundationalism by giving us the resources to rethink the concept of a self-validating or self-illuminating truth that does not make the fateful mistake of equating such ‘light’ with certainty” (pp. 13-14). 

In short, Gadamer’s neo-ancient view of truth, wherein truth presents itself as beauty and evinces a luminosity or radiance that is self-validating, does not deny the possibility of encountering truth, yet it does perhaps encourage us to embrace a more humble view of truth and in so doing to acknowledge our finitude in a non-despairing way. 

*Unless otherwise noted, all citations are taken from Brice R. Wachterhauser, Beyond Being:  Gadamer’s Post-Platonic Hermeneutical Ontololgy.  Evanston:  Northwestern Univ. Press, 1999. 

As mentioned in Part II, Gadamer’s conception of identity is dynamic rather than static and is based on Gadamer’s critical reworking of Plato’s reflections on unity and multiplicity.  As Wachterhauser explains, Gadamer’s “general strategy is to argue that all Being is such that it is always at one and the same time both ‘one and many.’  Thus it is no surprise that interpretation constantly confronts us with the reality of ‘identity in difference.’  In fact, wherever we turn, ‘identity and difference’ or ‘one and many’ is the mark of Being itself” (p. 7).  [Here, it seems that a Christian could make a number of Trinitarian connections].  

In order to further support his ontology, Gadamer turns to the later Plato’s account of the nature of number.  Wachterhauser summarizes this better than I can, so I shall quote him at length:

Just as any number in the number series can be described only by its logical or intelligible relationships to other numbers, so any reality is what it is only by being situated in its logical or intelligible relationships to other realities.  With regard to number, the ‘hermeneutical’ implication of this relational ontology is that any number is always both ‘one and many,’ i.e., it is what it is in its distinct logical contours but those contours can be described from an infinite number of perspectives generated by the fact that it can be defined only in its relationship to all the other numbers in the infinite series, including its relations of negation (p. 7). 

In addition, Gadamer believes that non-numerical realities exhibit the same ontological features.  That is, “[a]ll things are what they are only in their infinite relationships to other things, including both positive and negative relationships.  Thus all things are always both ‘one and many’” (p. 8).  Such a situation suggests that a diversity of interpretations is to be expected.  However, this diversity is not “ontologically vicious, i.e., it does not necessarily threaten the identity of things, nor does it preclude a critical rejection of some interpretations in favor of others” (p. 8). 

Wachterhauser next attempts to unpack Gadamer’s oft misunderstood claim that language is a necessary medium of all thought.  As Wachterhauser explains, Gadamer is neither a “linguistic constructivist” nor does his position move in the direction of “alinguistic essentialism.”  Rather, Gadamer understands language as a necessary medium to thought in the sense that “language is an indispensable place where the intelligibility of the real makes itself manifest for us” (p. 9).  Here Gadamer is not claiming that without language, reality has no intelligibility, nor is he saying that language “represents in conventional signs an otherwise alinguistic reality” (p. 9).  Here Gadamer’s engagement with Plato plays a crucial role.  Drawing on Plato’s insights, Gadamer claims that language and reality have a participatory relationship and that both participate in intelligibility.  Wachterhauser describes this relationship as follows:

Intelligibility participates in both things and words such that words potentially clarify and enhance the inherent intelligibility of things. Moreover, things themselves are inherently intelligible such that we must always look to them as the beginning and end of all inquiry.  The intelligibility of language is not to supplant the intelligibility of things but to complement and complete that intelligibility in such way that the things themselves become more manifest and provide the final warrant for any justifiable articulation (p. 9). 

In short, we might say that Gadamer claims that reality is manifest through language, and yet reality is simultaneously concealed.  Here Gadamer shows continuity with both Heidegger and with the ancient tradition in that he affirms a dialectic of the unconcealment and concealment of reality.  However, Gadamer bases this dialectic “in the tendency of language to reveal reality in a limited set of semantic and logical relationships, which simultaneously covers over other possible sets of relationships from which the same reality could be disclosed.  Thus language can reveal, but it also simultaneously conceals, how any one thing stands to the whole of all things in which it is what it is” (p. 10). 

By employing the Platonic model of participation Gadamer of course is not simply repeating ancient ontology, but he does believe that it has something to say to us.  For example, Gadamer takes up the subject/object relation and instead of a mere repetitio Graeci regarding this relationship or promoting a modernist position that makes the subject the source of all meaning, he speaks of a belonging together between the subject and object that “takes place in our linguistically mediated experience of the world.”  Here we neither look solely to the object nor to the subject to serve as the source of meaning.  But instead, “we are driven back by ‘an internal necessity of the thing itself’ to discover a participation of thing and word in a common intelligibility.”  Thus, for Gadamer, words neither create meaning nor do they simply reflect it.  “Rather, words have the capacity to ‘enhance’ and in a sense ‘complete’ an already given meaning.  In this sense, language is the medium where thought and reality discover their prior accord.  Language is the place where intelligibility can manifest itself in a way that was not completely manifest before” (p. 10).  With these claims, we see that Gadamer is not merely repeating Plato’s views on language, but is taking Plato’s insights and extending them further so as to engage contemporary issues that are particularly relevant to our hermeneutical landscape. Gadamer does, however, see Plato as grappling in his dialogues with the idea of linguistically mediated truth.  According to Gadamer,

the Platonic dialogues are nothing less than Plato’s artful accounts of [these] limited, linguistically mediated insights into what is genuinely real and rational. For Gadamer, Socrates’s ‘flight into the logoi‘ is Plato’s testimony to the indispensability of linguistically mediated inquiry to the Platonic project.  According to Gadamer, Plato’s reliance on the Ideas is not an attempt to escape from the various logoi or discourses but a way to illuminate the fact that although our thought is always “in language,” or in some discourse with its own way of presenting issues and insights, such discourses inevitably point beyond themselves in their confrontation with other discourses to a truth which transcends them both (p. 11).   

This last statement needs further explication, lest one think that Gadamer is sneaking the traditional (dualistic) Plato in the backdoor.  For Gadamer, this “truth which transcends them both” is not grasped “outside of language, but is itself another linguistically mediated truth whose meaning and limits can only begin to show themselves in dialogue with other logoi.  For Gadamer, the claim that “all truth is relative to a language of inquiry or a dialectic of question and answer” does imply that the truths grasped through our dialogic engagements are “limited to the linguistically mediated questions we ask” (p. 11).  However, this limitation does not close us off from obtaining new truths through new dialogue partners who ask different questions.  Thus, a “finite truth” for Gadamer,

is neither a linguistic construct nor is it an alinguistic intuition; it is a truth that develops in time in conversation between historically situated conversation partners. Moreover it is a truth whose genuine possibility we can understand on the assumption that language participates in the intelligibility of reality such that finding the “right words” enhances and complements intelligible insight without brining it to final historical closure.  In sum, one might say that for Gadamer reason finds its voice through language but it is a voice with many valences that register themselves through the many discourses we engage with each other (p. 11). 

*All citations are taken from Brice R. Wachterhauser, Beyond Being:  Gadamer’s Post-Platonic Hermeneutical Ontololgy.  Evanston:  Northwestern Univ. Press, 1999. 

As Wachterhauser stresses, Gadamer’s path avoids the pitfalls of both the relativist and the ahistorical dogmatist, not by eschewing all things metaphysical, but rather by gleaning ontological insights from ancient philosophy (particularly the later Plato).   Here we encounter a significant divergence between Gadamer and Heidegger in that the former rejects important aspects of Heidegger’s critique of the Western philosophical tradition’s so-called Seinsvergessenheit (“the forgetfulness of Being”).  That is, though appreciative of Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy, Gadamer thinks Heidegger’s narrative of Western metaphysics as necessarily culminating in nihilism is based on a univocal understanding of metaphysics.  Moreover, Gadamer discerns nihilistic tendencies in Heidegger’s own position, viz., a failure to consider the ways in which questions about the human good are fundamentally related to questions about Being (Beyond Being, p. 15).   For Gadamer, “Plato is not clearly the author of the so-called metaphysics of presence,” nor is metaphysics a “univocal phenomenon destined for the nihilism that dominates many parts of our culture” (p. 15).  Instead of seeing metaphysics as a dead end in need of overcoming, Gadamer “leaves the door open to the possibility that ‘metaphysics’ contains possibilities or resources for development that have not been adequately explored” (p. 15).  Interestingly, Gadamer’s project, in light of his openness to the ancient tradition and his appreciation for Heidegger’s work, attempts to synthesize the best of both worlds.  As Wachterhauser explains,

Not only does Gadamer’s hermeneutics rely on Heidegger’s insights into ‘self-manifesting Being, the Being of aletheia‘ but it attempts to expand these insights into a more fundamental ontological inquiry by reintroducing the fundamentally Platonic concern with the transcendentals (p. 15). 

So just what is Gadamer’s ontologico-hermeneutical strategy-a strategy that Wachterhauser claims carves out a path that bypasses the problems of relativism and ahistorical dogmatism?  First, Gadamer directs our attention to ontological questions, viz., what kind of being do works of art or texts possess that allows an identity in difference?  Here Wachterhauser introduces what he calls Gadamer’s “ontological perspectivism,” which claims that

things like texts are such that they contain within themselves different ‘faces’ or ‘looks’ that present themselves in different historically mediated contexts in such a way that we can say that it is possible for one and the same reality to show itself in many ways (p. 7). 

With his understanding of a non-univocal, non-staticized view of identity, Gadamer can, on the one hand, allow for the possibility of ever new (legitimate) interpretations, and on the other hand, because some kind of identity obtains, he can also regard other interpretations as illegitimate.  Here I propose a few of my own musical examples to further elucidate how Gadamer’s ontological perspectivism does not fall prey to relativism.  Jazz musicians often use what is called a “lead sheet” when learning a new piece of music.  A jazz lead sheet is similar to a notated score for a classical piece; however, only the melody is written out in standard musical notation.  Both the lead sheet and the classical score are “texts” that the musicians must engage and interpret in order for the music to, so to speak, appear.  In contrast, however, to the classical score in which the bass line, the chords, and more or less every note that will be played is written out in full notation, a lead sheet allows for much more flexibility.[1]   For example, above the melody one simply finds chord symbols, as opposed to chords displayed in standard notation with specific voicings.  Writing the chord symbols in this manner affords the pianist or guitarist, as well as the bassist, a significant amount of creative freedom in performing the piece.  However, we should be clear that this freedom does not swallow up the form or structure nor does it fundamentally alter the piece itself, as one must choose harmonies and bass lines that fall within a certain trajectory of the specified chord symbol that supports the melody and marks out the general harmonic structure of the piece.  Thus, with a jazz lead sheet, one is in a sense tied to the score, i.e., one must agree to submit to the givens that make the piece to be what it is and respond accordingly.   Yet, in other sense, one’s own personality, skill level, and creative sensibilities also come through making each performance something unique. (In Gadamer universe of discourse, a “fusion of horizons” occurs). One might even say that the flexibility that lead sheets afford, coupled with the distinctly human traits and personal idiosyncrasies that manifest in improvisation, in a sense engenders greater intelligibility and appeal to the piece itself.  That is, the built-in flexibility of lead sheets aids in preserving the piece through the passage of time while simultaneously allowing and even expecting various re-articulations because it has room for the creative expansions that inevitably come with temporal/historical progression and human interpretative endeavors.   

Just as in no way is it the case that when a jazz piece is performed and interpreted by various musicians from different time periods, a kind of free-for-all takes place in which the original melody is somehow destroyed, neither would it be the case according to Gadamer’s hermeneutical thesis that our interpretations have no strictures whatsoever and no relation to the to the text and even the author’s intentions.  (However, Gadamer would quickly add that our interpretations are not confined solely to the author’s intentions).  Though it is the case, that each jazz performance is distinctive, there is a common, yet dynamic range that unites each performance such that the melody is recognizable when played in a wide range of styles (from traditional to more avant-guard styles).  If one simply ignored the melody (text) and harmonic structure or distorted either such that they became completely unrecognizable, then clearly one has gone astray.  However, this is neither what I nor Gadamer have in mind.

In part III, I shall discuss in more detail Gadamer’s non-repetitious use of Platonic insights. 

Notes

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[1] I would argue that even with classical music where all the parts are strictly defined and written out, the same piece played by the same group or musician is strictly speaking never played the same way twice; hence, we still have multiple interpretations though they are not as readily apparent as those encountered in jazz.

Brice R. Wachterhauser, in his book, Beyond Being:  Gadamer’s Post-Platonic Hermeneutical Ontololgy, argues that Gadamer’s hermeneutical studies must be read in dialogue with his work on Plato in order to properly understand a number of Gadamer’s significant hermeneutical insights, as well as to avoid common misreadings of Gadamer.     In other words, Wachterhauser’s claim is that crucial Gadamerian hermeneutical claims presuppose his interpretation of Plato, particularly the later Plato and a Plato whom Aristotle would find more palatable.  As Wachterhauser explains,

unlike some commentators who think the Parmenides represents a definitive rejection of the Ideas, Gadamer thinks it reveals a common, mistaken interpretation of the Ideas, an interpretation that Plato himself may have inadvertently contributed to, but one which he never intended when he introduced the theme of the Ideas.  According to Gadamer, the Parmenides teaches us that we should not think about Ideas as discrete transcendental realities.  Instead we should think of the Ideas as internally related to each other and the things they inform.  Thus they cannot be defined without various kinds of logically complex relationships to each other and to the things which instantiate them.  And instead of thinking of them as occupying a transcendental realm of their own-a kind of repository of discrete ideal types-we should think of them as immanent to the things they inform, without being identical to them” (p. 5). 

In sum, according to Gadamer, Plato’s later dialogues show a greater depth in his thinking concerning the nature of methexis (participation), and consequently, they are not to be taken as Plato’s self-critical razing of his previous work. 

Among the most important findings in Plato’s later dialogues are insights concerning what later thinkers call “transcendentals” (being, unity, truth, beauty etc.).  On Gadamer’s read, Plato, in his later dialogues, was attempting to work out the problems of his comprehensive ontological vision via deeper a understanding of the transcendentals in order to correct a false understanding of the Ideas, viz., the interpretation that the “Ideas represent a second, transcendent reality wholly detached from the realm of ordinary things and logically distinct from each other” (p. 5). 

Wachterhauser then attempts to support his thesis regarding the importance of Gadamer’s interpretation of the later Plato for his hermeneutical writings by discussing one of the central concerns of Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method, viz., identity and difference as it relates to interpretation. With regard to identity, we have the claim that a text or a work of art exhibits unity or oneness and thus has only one meaning (or one finite set of meanings).  Yet, it seems impossible to deny that many valid interpretations exist for the very same text or work of art.  Likewise, in order to gain access to the identity of the text or work, we cannot bypass the interpretative process.  But admitting these claims seems to land us in an uncomfortable position, as the “diversity of interpretations threatens to dissolve the identity of the work” (p. 6).  And after all, if we lose the identity of the work, then how are we to discern a legitimate interpretation from an illegitimate one?  According to Wachterhauser, Gadamer provides a way out of this hermeneutical despair. 

Gadamer is neither a relativist or subjectivist who would say that interpreters may legitimately impute any meaning to the work, nor is he oblivious to the reality of genuinely legitimate but diverse interpretations.  Instead, Gadamer always has his eye on clarifying the unique type of identity that characterizes the objects of interpretation.  In this vein, he writes, ‘we ask what this identity is that presents itself so differently in the changing course of ages and circumstances.  It does not disintegrate into the changing aspects of itself so that it would lose all identity, but it is there in them all.  They all belong to it’ (TM, 121). His intent is to describe this identity in a plausible way that leaves room for multiple interpretations, without falling into the morass of relativism or the iron cage of dogmatism.  This issue is at the very heart of Truth and Method.  Key to his hermeneutics is the thesis that works like texts always present themselves differently in different historical circumstances, but they do so in such a way that they neither lose their identity nor safeguard it by unduly restricting its possible meaning (p. 6). 

Stay tuned for more…

After several conversations with friends, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, I have formulated the following (rough, very unpolished) proposed reading of Augustine’s spiritual journey.  In light of the fact that it would take significantly more research to substitiate this thesis properly, I doubt that I will use it in my paper for the Villanova conference, but I do think that there may be something to it and plan to revisit it at a later date.  Comments, criticisms, and literature recommendations are most welcome.  Thanks also to all who have helped me to think through problem areas.

***

Could it be the case that Augustine became a believer in Christ during his time as a catechumen under the spiritual care of Ambrose within the context of the Church?  If so, then it would seem to be the case that Augustine already possessed faith in Christ well before the famous garden scene in book VIII.  We know that it was through Ambrose that Augustine acquired a new hermeneutical orientation to Scripture, and since Ambrose was part of what we might call the premodern Christian interpretative tradition, it seems plausible to conclude that Augustine’s new hermeneutical approach (which was likely also practiced by Ambrose in the sermons that Augustine was hearing) involved reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, i.e., I am suggesting that it is conceivable that Augustine had embraced a Christocentric reading of Scripture by way of Ambrose. If that is correct, then perhaps this might also support the view that Augustine had become a believer in Christ during his catechumen stage and prior to his baptism-(when exactly, who knows and who cares-the more significant point that I am trying to argue is that Augustine had faith in Christ well before book VIII). In fact, a comment made by Augustine the narrator at the end of book V might be interpreted to support my proposal. As Augustine reflects on his reasons for coming to Milan and his encounter with Ambrose, he writes,”[u]nknowingly I was led by you to him [Ambrose], so that though him I might be led, knowingly, to you [God].”^[1] In other words, although the young Augustine did not recognize God’s providence directing him to Ambrose while existentially experiencing those (now) past events, Augustine the narrator informs us that God had in fact used his friendship with Ambrose to bring him into friendship with God. And this, I claim, can only come about by grace through faith in Christ.  To be more specific, my proposal is that Augustine had already moved from a state of unbelief to a state of belief (in Christ) during his time as a catechumen in the Catholic Church and that by Augustine the narrator’s own testimony, Ambrose played an instrumental role in this movement.  If this is case, then perhaps what we see in books VII and VIII are a deepening of Augustine’s, as he calls it, “unformed” faith (fides). 

In book VII, two passages in particular seem to support this reading.  The first passage is found at VII.5.7, where Augustine the narrator says, “Faith in your Christ, our Lord and Savior, as I found it in the Catholic Church, still persisted steadfastly in my heart, though it was a faith still in many ways unformed, wavering and at a variance with the norm of her teaching. Yet my mind did not abandon it, but drank it in ever more deeply as the days passed”^[2] (Boulding trans., p. 164). The second passage occurs at VII.7.11, where again Augustine the narrator says, “[s]o it was that you, my helper, had already freed me from those bonds [i.e., false teachings], but I was still trying to trace the cause of evil, and found no way out of the difficulty. Yet you allowed no flood of thoughts to sweep me away from the faith whereby I believed that you exist, that your essence is unchangeable, that you care for us humans and judge our deeds, and that in your Son, Christ our Lord, and in the holy scriptures which the authority of your Catholic Church guarantees, you have laid down the way for human beings to reach that eternal life which awaits for us after death.  These beliefs were unaffected, and persisted strong and unshaken in me as I feverishly searched for the origin of evil”^[3] (Ibid., p. 168; emphases added). These passages, at least from my vantage point, seem to strongly suggest that Augustine was already a believer in Christ; and hence, a Christian, though one yet unbaptized.^[4]

Early in book VIII, Augustine writes that he no longer desired “greater certainty” about God, “but a more steadfast abiding” in Him (Ibid., p. 131).^[5] Augustine then describes what continued to keep him from a more steadfast abiding, viz., his “bondage to a woman.” Here Augustine seems to suggest that he already had a relationship with Christ; yet, his continual yielding to sin was preventing deeper intimacy in his experience of Christ. When we finally reach the famous garden scene, we find Augustine in a state of spiritual turmoil-on the one hand, longing to embrace Christ more intimately, yet lacking the power to do so. 

It is also interesting to me that Augustine employs a number of Romans 7 allusions in this section of the Confessions. My interpretation of Romans 7 is that it speaks of Paul as a believer who still struggles with sin (and is not a flashback to his life before his experience on the road to Damascus; however, I am not sure whether this is the interpretation that Augustine held in the Confessions (though I have recently heard that in his writings against the Pelagians, Augustine, did follow the interpretation of Romans 7 that I suggest).  Lastly, my proposal would seem to harmonize well with pastoral concerns that Augustine the Bishop no doubt had.  That is, keeping in mind the multiple audiences that Augustine was addressing, e.g., believers and unbelievers, the believers would be particularly encouraged by Augustine’s story-a story that suggests that one’s faith unfolds slowly, maturing with time and that Christ is sufficient to meet all of life’s challenges (whether intellectual, moral, emotional or whatever). 

Notes

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^[1] ad eum autem ducebar abs te nesciens, ut per eum ad te sciens ducerer (V.13.23).

^[2] stabiliter tamen haerebat in corde meo in Catholica ecclesia fides Christi tui, domini et salvatoris nostri, in multis quidem adhuc informis et praeter doctrinae normam fluitans; sed tamen non eam relinquebat animus, immo in dies magis magisque inbibebat (VII.5.7).  “Yet, firmly fixed [haerebat] in my heart was this faith of your Christ, our Lord and Savior as found in the Catholic Church-a faith no doubt in many ways unformed and wavering from her doctrinal norm; yet, my soul/mind did not forsake it, but absorbed it more and more as the days passed” (my translation).

 ^[3] Iam itaque me, adiutor meus, illis vinculis solveras, et quaerebam, unde malum, et non erat exitus. sed me non sinebas ullis fluctibus cogitationis auferri ab ea fide, qua credebam et esse te, et esse inconmutabilem substantiam tuam, et esse de hominibus curam et iudicium tuum; et in Christo, filio tuo, domino nostro, atque scripturis sanctis, quas ecclesiae tuae Catholicae commendaret auctoritas, viam te posuisse salutis humanae ad eam vitam, quae post hanc mortem futura est. his itaque salvis atque inconcusse roboratis in animo meo, quaerebam aestuans, unde sit malum (VII.7.11). 

^[4] The fact that in the two passages from book VII Augustine uses fides instead of assentio in relation to Christ seems significant.  That is, not only is it a scriptural way to speak, but it points to a fiduciary element particularly when this faith in Christ (or of Christ) is connected with the authority of the Catholic Church (as it the case in both passages). 

^[5] At the end of book V, Augustine the narrator informs us that he had decided to live as a catechumen in the Catholic Church “until some kind of certainty dawned by which I might direct my steps aright” (V.25).   In light of my thesis, perhaps now that Augustine’s faith has matured and deepened, he no longer seeks this “certainty” that he had pursued as a younger believer.  Some will quickly point out that the reason that he no longer desired greater certainty was due to the treasures that he pillaged from the Platonists; however, as Augustine’s writings demonstrate, we know that he continued to wrestle with a number of intellectual and theological problems throughout this career and that he would never have considered himself to have comprehended God or all things theological.  With these two points in mind, it seems plausible to suggest that as Augustine grew in his faith and knowledge of God, he abandoned the quest for certainty, particularly the kind of (mathematical) certainty that he had sought as a young man. 

Below are additional thoughts/findings related to my ongoing Augustine/Gadamer paper. 

***

Interestingly, those who, in the spirit of B. Spinoza, adopt a strict grammatico-historical method of interpreting Scripture tend to embrace only the literal or historical sense of Scripture.  Likewise, those advocating this methodological stance often claim to interpret Scripture in an unbiased manner, free from all prejudices and uncritical claims of authority.  Postmoderns, of course, are very suspicious of this alleged neutrality, and from a certain perspective, premoderns are as well.  For example, as Henri de Lubac indicates (and Augustine would agree), the Church Fathers and medievals openly acknowledged their dependence on tradition and the interpretations handed down to the Church by the apostles and their successors.  “Right from the beginning, in the first century of the Church’s existence, at the time of the very first generation of Christians, it was a matter of Scripture being read or the word of God being heard in the Church and interpreted by Tradition.”[1]  So we see that the Church from its very inception openly acknowledged her dependence on the interpretative authority of her leaders-Christ being the chief interpreter, who in turn instructed the apostles, and they in turn faithfully taught others.  Moreover, neither the Church Fathers nor the medievals approached Scripture as just another human book or piece of literature to be studied or examined scientifically, much less as something to be dissected and treated atomistically.  Rather, Holy Scripture was first and foremost understood as the very word of God, which having many parts is nonetheless, one story, written ultimately by One Author, and culminating in One Person, the Lord Jesus Christ.[2]  In other words, instead of approaching Scripture as a collection of divergent and contradicting accounts, the Christian comes to Scripture assuming its unity because she understands both testaments as unfolding one drama whose main actor is Christ.[3] 

As Gadamer points out, in stark contrast with premodern hermeneutical practices, the modern Enlightenment critique is directed against the Christian tradition and in particular, against the authority of Scriptural tradition.  “In general, the Enlightenment tends to accept no authority and to decide everything before the judgment seat of reason.  Thus the written tradition of Scripture, like any other historical document, can claim no absolute validity; the possible truth of the tradition depends on the credibility that reason accords it.  It is not tradition but reason that constitutes the ultimate source of all authority.”[4]  Here, as well as in other places, Gadamer alludes to a kind of pride exhibited by modern Enlightenment figures in their claim to be free of all prejudices and to insist that we “accept no authority” but rather “decide everything before the judgment seat of reason.” If this is correct, then perhaps Gadamer’s critique of the Enlightenment shares another point of contact with Augustine’s hermeneutical views as elaborated in the Confessions, viz., the idea that virtue and vice affect one’s interpretative endeavors. In other words, it seems to be the case that at least part of Gadamer’s critique involves the claim that the Enlightenment proponents exhibited a lack of humility (and hence a vice) which blinded them from seeing that their own position was driven by a “prejudice against prejudice itself.”
Notes

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[1] Medieval Exegesis, p. 25.

[2] De Lubac in describing the two Testaments not as two books but rather as two dispensations or covenants also alludes to the progressive unfolding of Scripture in redemptive history.  “The goal of the one that is prior in time is to prepare the way for the second.  But this is not what merits them those respective terms of ‘old’ and ‘new.’  The New Testament does not take its name solely from the fact that it comes second in time. It is not merely ‘modern.’  It is the last word, in an absolute sense [...] The New Covenant is not repeated.  It is completed and fulfilled once and for all” (Medieval Exegesis, p. 227).

[3] As Thomas Martin observes, Augustine communicates the unity of Scripture in the way he chooses to structure book XII of the Confessions.  “The very tapestry of scriptural texts that permeate the entire narrative where Old Testament verses and allusions are inextricably intertwined with New Testament verses and allusions becomes an operative demonstration of the unity between the Old and the New Testaments and the vitality of their interrelationship.  Book Twelve’s exploration of the opening words of Genesis is done by way of a deluge of New Testament citations, and once again the careful reader knows that this is not simply rhetorical amplification or incidental ornamentation.  What is being demonstrated is the unity of the Bible, the very antithesis of a Manichean reading of the Bible” (“Book Twelve:  Exegesis and Confessio,” p. 190). 

[4] Truth and Method, p. 272.