COMMUNIO CONTENTS ( X L I I I , 2001) Nr. 1

Systematic Theology

8 T I M NOBLE

An Introduction to the Theology of Gustavo Gutierrez

Philosophy

28 LADISLAV HEJDANEK WasistWahr?

39 IVANA DOLEJSOVA The Symbolic Nature of Christian Existence

according to Ricoeur and Chauvet Old Testament

60 FILIPCAPEK The Double Rhetoric of Brueggemann's Theology:

Hegemony as a Rhetorical Consruct Note

77 PETRSLAMA Theologie und Frommigkeit:

Sieben Thesen mit angebotener Falsifikation

Book Reviews

8 1 PETRSLAMA The Emergence and Doom of Jewish Patriarchs

in the Late Antiquity

84 FILIP CAPEK Neue hermeneutische Vorschliige

fur Interpretation im 21. Jahrhundert

8 7 DAVORIN PETERLIN On the Sociology of the Gospel

9 0 T I M NOBLE Theology: A very short introduction

VIATORUM a theological journal

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LADISLAV HEJDANEK

Mythen gibt, die voll von Sinn und tiefer Bedeutung sind. Nur weiB ich auch, daB daselben Mythen auch voll von Urisinn und falschen Bedeutungen sind. Das Problem besteht darin, daB dem mythischen Denken keine hinreichenden Denkmitel zur Verfiigung stehen, um zwischen Sinn und Unsinn richtig zu unterscheiden. Die Situation des begrifflichen Denkens ist in einer Richtung ganz ahnlich, namlich in dem, daB auch hier viel Falsches und auch Sinnloses auftaucht und manchmal gar zu einer langfristigen Tradition aufwachst. Die Begrifflichkeit ermoglicht jedoch prinzipiell die notwendige Distanz, Kritik und fortschreitendes Erkennen verschiedenster Irrtiimer. Was jedoch unentbehrlich ist, ist eine Revision und Rekonstruktion der griechischen Art von Begrifflichkeit. Nur eine neue, bessere Begriff­lichkeit wird uns ermoglichen das Wahre und die Wahrheit als unab-hangig von unserer menschlichen Subjektivitat zu verstehen, und doch diese Unabhangigkeit nicht mit einer „Objektivitat" zu verwechseln. Die Wahrheit ist kein Gegenstand unserer Erkenntnis, weil sie uns nie gegeniiber steht; nichtsdestoweniger ist sie „vor" uns im zeitlichen Sinne, weil sie friiher zu uns kommt ale wir geboren sind. Aber sie kommt nicht aus der Vergangenheit, sondern aus der Zukunft und ge-braucht uns Menschen als ihre Diener und Zeugen. Und gerade so siegt die Wahrheit iiber alles in dieser Welt.

38

THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE ACCORDING TO RICOEUR AND CHAUVET

Ivana Dolejsovd

In this article I am going to explore two ways of interpreting Christian existence: those proposed by two major contemporary French think­ers, Paul Ricoeur and Louis-Marie Chauvet. But, perhaps I should warn the reader right at the beginning, that the title would be mislead­ing i f it were to raise expectations that I am to offer expositions on what a Christian existence is. My interest has to do more with the question which provoked Ricoeur and Chauvet to offer their reflec­tions: How to exist as Christians? I wil l argue that i f we know the "how" to exist as Christians, the "what" of Christian existence wil l fall into place.1 The "how" to exist as Christians, then, is a combina­tion of understanding and acting, where both take place within com­munication with God, with the world in which we live, with other people as well as with different layers of ourselves. Both Ricoeur and Chauvet lead us to the realm of hermeneutics, as they relate the ques­tion of how to exist as Christians to how to interpret Christian exist­ence. This is where the notion of a symbolic nature of the subject matter comes into place. In order to make it possible for ourselves and for others to exist as Christians, we need to interpret this existence, and to interpret it in a way, as David Tracy says, which discloses truth 'of genuinely new possibilities for human life ' . 2 In other words, we must ask: What must appear in every good interpretation of existing

1 I take this formulation from F.J. Laishley, who states: 'Put it differently, my interest has mainly been in the "how" of communication, the method, rather than in the content as such. The latter seems to me to fall into place when the former is understood.','A Preface' to Passion for Critique: Essays in Honour of F. J. Laishley. eds. H. B. Browne & G. Griffith-Dickson, Sfa, Praha, 1997:15.

2 Tracy, D., The Analogical Imagination, SCM, London, 1981:67.

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as a Christian? And how are the possibilities of a new meaning and truth disclosed in it? 3 Ricoeur with his background in a Protestant tradition considers the difference between idol and symbol as tools of communication, while Chauvet, being a dftftuoMr theologian, em­phasizes the sacramental dimension of our communication with God and with each other. In this article I first clarify the terminology used, then examine Ricoeur's notion of a "redescription" of a world which moves from being idolatrous to becoming symbolic, then Chauvet's hermeneutics of a sacramental mediation, and finally consider where their approaches are compatible and may benefit from each other insights.

1. Symbol and sacrament

I f we trace etymological roots of the word "symbol", first we encoun­ter a Greek verb ouLtPaAAeiv, which is translated as "to talk", "to think", "to meet" or "to contribute". This use of oup.paA.A6uv places the con­cept at the heart of human communication. Stephen Happel in The New Dictionary of Theology develops a working definition: 'A sym­bol is a complex of gestures, sounds, images, and/or words that evoke, invite, and persuade participation in that to which they refer.'4 Happel continues: 'This definition places symbols at one end of a spectrum of human communicative devices that extends from the most conven­tional signs (mathematical symbols, symbolic logic, stop signs) to the most polyvalent images of psychological, moral and religious values (dream symbols, narratives of guilt and innocence, the law of Moses, and the cross of Christ).'5 Symbols are differentiated from signs. Signs give information, or offer direction. Symbols convey a plurality of

3 Hermeneutical method as applied by Tracy has a practical advantage and a theoretical weakness, it ,is dependent upon the assumption that "classics"-under­stood as those texts, events, images, persons, rituals and symbols which are assumed to disclose permanent possibilities of meaning and truth-actually exist' (Tracy, 1981:68).

4 Happel, S„ 'Symbol', in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed. J. K. Komon-chak, M. Collins, D.A. Lane, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1990:997.

5 Happel, 1990:997.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

meaning. Signs are constructed by social agreement, like traffic signs. Symbols emerge from the drama of human experience, like darkness and light, or water and oil. Happel states: 'With their roots in our biological life, symbols direct our thoughts, desires, and actions, mak­ing pre-reflective demands on our psyches.'6 The plurality of mean­ing conveyed by symbols comes from their place in our process of knowing, where "images" of our five senses at every level of con­sciousness give content to our perception. The symbols can reach to our non-conceptual patterning of the sensible world, where they en­able us to name our experiences, and to engage our affective, intellec­tual and moral developing capacities. Thus Happel concludes that 'Human beings are symbolic creatures'7 and as such they are capable of creating as well as deforming human culture:

'Drawn by the pleasure of new insight, participants in symbols actualize, however briefly, the word disclosed by the metaphoric juxtapositions. They become what they imagine. As a result, sym­bols are not only crucial for the development and decline of the self, but also significant for the establishment of communal expe­rience. Symbols can lead us towards self-transcendence, but can also fixate the confusions of self-destruction and social bias.' (998)

To understand symbols is to act in a different way, to "transcend" the limited and limiting horizon of ourselves. Yet, as Happel points out, symbols can also be tools of communicating a distorted reality, with all negative consequences, and can offer a participation in this dis­torted reality, ways of ordering experience and making sense, which involve distorted values, and contribute to a change of one's acting

6 Happel, 1990:997. 7 Happel, 1990:997; this theme is developed by Bernard Lonergan, who de­

fines a man as the "symbolic animal": 'Traditionally man was defined with abstract generality as the zoon logikon, the animal rationale, the rational animal. More con­cretely today he is regarded as the symbolic animal, whose knowledge is mediated by symbols, whose actions are informed by symbols, whose existence in its most characteristic features is constituted by a self-understanding and by commitments specified by symbols.' (Lonergan, B. J . , 'First Lecture: Religious Experience', in A Third Collection. Paulist, Mahwah, N. J. , 1985: 115)

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from better to worse. To use an example, we can look at the symbol of the nation in Nazi Germany, or at the symbol of the working class in former communist countries, or to be more up to date, at the symbols of success in the advertisements of our consumer culture. They offer a transformed insight, participation in a new stage of affairs, and an invitation to act in accordance with the "world" they represent as the best world, or in the worst situation, as the only world. Yet, these sym­bols are not lasting, as the distorted reality is not "another" reality, but a distortion of the one reality, which has its capacity for regenera­tion. 8

Having defined the concept of symbol as it wi l l be used in this article, let us move to the concept of sacrament and sacramentality. The English word "sacrament" comes from Latin sacramentum, by which Tertullian translated the Greek word pvatepioi/. This concept is found in the Scriptures, but in a wider sense than refering to a ritual. In the Septuagint, Wisdom literature in particular employs the word pvovepiov, when it speaks of God's saving action in history and its eschatological dimension.9 In the synoptics pvozepiov refers to 'the secrets of the kingdom of heaven',10 which Jesus reveals through the parables, whilst in Paul it refers to Christ, who reveals the Father's wil l to save and to restore all creation through the death and resurrec­tion of his Son." What is interesting is that when the New Testament texts speak of baptism, and eucharist, they do not use the word pvoxepiov. This term in reference to rituals is employed first by the Apostolic Fathers in their polemic against the Gnostics and Ma-nichees.12 B. Cooke's definition of sacranments reflects the riches of the meaning of the word. He says that sacrament is not something which would primarily refer to religious actions. '"Sacrament" in­cludes much more than liturgical rituals; as a matter of fact, it touches

8 To express this theologically, grace is in a fundamental sense constitutive for reality.

9 Cf. Wis 6:22; Dan 2: 28,47. 1 0 Cf. Mt 13:11; Mk 4:11; Lk 8:10. 1 1 Cf. ICor 2:1-10; Rom 16:25-26; Col 1:26-27; 2:2; 4:3; Eph 1: 9-10; 3:3-12;

ITim 3:16. 1 2 See K.W. Irwin, 'Sacrament', in The New Dictionary of Theology, eds. J. K. Ko-

monchak, M. Collins, D.A. Lane, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1990, 910-922.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

everything in our life that is distinctively human.'1 3 Our human and religious experience is a constant point of reference. Cooke empha­sizes that it took many centuries for a systematic explanatory defini­tion of sacraments, and that they were first practised, and only then explained. There remained, however, a difficulty; namely, that the point of sacraments is that they cannot be fully defined or explained, as they mediate the mystery of God's salvation.14 Cooke insists that the sac­raments make sense only in a wider context of what he sees as living sacramentally: 'By the use of such symbols (words, gestures, artistic creations, etc.) we make ourselves present to one another, we share ourselves and our histories and our inmost feelings; we form human community ... We exist sacramentally.'15 Cooke's approach empha­sizes the horizontal dimension of sacraments, which, of course, can­not be isolated from the vertical one, from the communication with God. But even here, we are we are prevented from having any ambi­tion of extending our encounter with God to an extra-human realm. We are led to Jesus Christ, God-9an, as the primordial sacrament, where we are invited to relate to Christ in his humanity in order to be able to share in his divinity. 1 6 Jesus is proclaimed as the embodiment of rec-

1 3 Cooke, B., Sacraments and Sacramentality. Twenty Third Publications, Mystic, Connecticut, 1985:2.

1 4 K. B. Osborne states: 'one does not start with a generic name, sacrament, nor a generic theory, sacramental theology, and then develop an understanding of Baptism, Eucharist , etc. Rather one starts with individual rites, Baptism, Eucharist, and only in the most gradual way did a unifying "theology of sacraments" develop.' (Sacramental Theology: A general Introduction. Paulist press, new York, Mahwah, 1988:24.) R. A. Duffy in his Introductory chapter on 'Sacraments in General' identi­fies the life of the church as a source of sacramentality. In other words, to speak of sacramentality is to speak of sacraments, and: 'To speak of "sacraments" in a general way is to deprive them of their normal setting, the liturgical life of the church.' From there we can describe 'the shared characteristics of all sacramental actions and thus indirectly note the unique purpose of individual sacraments. Liturgy' according to Duffy, 'is a more encompassing term than sacrament and refers to the whole range of actions and words of praise and thanksgiving that the church gives to God. Sacra­ments are highly focussed action-words within this larger liturgical context.' (In Sys­tematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, vol. II, ed. by F. Schiissler Fiorenza and J. P. Galvin, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1991, 183-210:183)

1 5 Cooke, 1985:54.

1 6 Osborne points out: 'Only Jesus in his humanity is a sacrament; to apply sacramentality to his divinity is toying with subordinationism.' (1988:47)

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onciliation, the church, then, as a locus of reconciliation. The empha­sis is 'on those visible situations in which the Church and the mem­bers of the Church give evidence in their actions and lives of God's grace and reconciliation.'1 7 Osborne's Christological method, as he says, 'begins with Jesus in his humanity as a sacrament, and only then proceeds to the Church as fundamental sacrament, and only then to the individual sacramental rituals.' 1 8 Bernhard Haring widens this perspective and in contrast ascribes sacramentality to the whole of creation - through Christ, of whom the church is to be a sacrament. He states that there is an eschatological dimension of "becoming" included. Indeed, the church fails to be the Lord's mystical body every day, is divided, self-righteous and unrighteous at the same time, a cause of shame to the Father, forgetting her Lord Jesus and suppressing the Spirit, yet she cannot shake off from herself the foundational seal: to be, to become the sacrament of God's love. Of the sacramentality of all creation he speaks as follows:

'In all-embracing openness to the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anguishes, the experiences of all of mankind and with a strong sense of continuity, Catholic theology, hand in hand with the pastors, has to work for a convincing synthesis that brings the best of tradition home in order to help people to find the integration of faith and life... It is my conviction that a profound fidelity to the biblical vision of creation and redemption can enable us to present a sacramental model of the Church as well as of Christian life in a way that can overcome the gap between worship and morality. To this end I give great attention here to the sacramentality of all creation, of the "signs of times", and to the sacramentality of the human person as "image and likeness of God". The seven sacraments of the Church will be envisaged only after having considered how in Jesus Christ all things and events, but especially Christ-like persons and communities are tangible signs of God's loving, creative and redeeming presence.'19

1 7 Osborne, 1988:37.

1 8 Osborne, 1988:47.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

It wi l l be vitally important to keep in mind this notion of sacra­ment, which relates the liturgical celebration to the whole of our rela­tionships and actions and their impact, when we explore Chauvet's hermeneutics of sacramental mediation. To repeat the point, let me finish this part with a quatation from Michael Barnes:

'The whole of Christian living, in short, is seen to be sacramen­tal through and through. This is not, however, to subscribe to some quasi-pantheistic sacredness dimly discernible "behind" natural appearances, but to say that at a variety of levels, from solemn ritual celebrations to the banality of human interchange, the suffering and the risen Lord is seen in faith to be present. Christian tradition has long recognized in the sacraments effec­tive signs of God's presence within the world. Nowadays the emphasis has shifted dramatically to the saving encounter with the person of Christ as the sacrament, the visible sign of God's self-giving, who imparts to all creation its revelatory value.... the tradition of practice based on the seven sacraments emerges in a new light: not so much a series of separate rituals as different aspects of the single and continuous engagement of God with the whole of creation. ... But, whether they [the different em­phases] are concerned with the proclamation of the Word, with the celebration of the Eucharist, or with the earthy poetic vision of Hopkins, all are linked by one conviction. God is not an occa­sional visitor, interrupting the dark story of human tragedy with occasional flashes of brilliant light. Any spirituality, which ig­nores the signs of transcendence in the world-those revealed in a privileged moments ordained by the Church and those more distantly apprehended in the joy and sadness of people of all faiths and none-will lack the power to transform ordinary hu­man l iving. ' 2 0

1 9 Haring, B., The Sacraments in a Secular Age: A vision in depth on sacra-mentality and its impact on moral life, St Paul Publications, 1976:1-2.

2 0 Barnes, M. 'Editorial' in Spirituality and Sacramentality, The Way Supple­ment 1999/94:8.

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2. Ricoeur's symbolic "redescription" of the world

In the Symbolism of Evil Ricoeur proposes that modern hermeneutics 'entertains the project of a revification of philosophy through contact with the fundamental symbols of consciousness.'21 These symbols are not alien to philosophy, according to Ricoeur, as 'they are already in the element of speech.' They 'rescue feeling and even fear from si­lence and confusion; they provide a language for avowal, for confes­sion;' even, 'in virtue of them, man remains language through and through.' 2 2 They lead us to the world of immediacy, and yet, it is precisely this immediacy, which creates obstacles for the modern mind, when it was presented as a realm where critical thinking was not al­lowed to enter. Thus the critical mind reduced the immediacy in order ttrgain space for itself. Ricoeur follows this process and sees himself as participating in the stage, where the 'children of criticism ... seek to go beyond criticism by means of criticism, by a criticism, which is no longer reductive but restorative.'23 Ricoeur, thus speaks of three stages, the "first naivete" or the "primitive naivete", the pre-critical. stage, which is dominated by the immediacy of belief. To exist as a Christian in this stage, seems to be easy, as the world is full of non-problematic meaning, God is in everything, God speaks to us, acts in our lives and through our lives, we have a language to speak about it, to invite others to participate in this world of faith, imme­diacy and meaning as well. Perhaps, this stage is well known to peo­ple who had a strong conversion experience as adults. Yet this para­dise of childhood, this oriented space, where we know where things are, is not lasting, as we experience tensions and conflicts, doubts arise, and we have to reevaluate the identity of our image of reality and to distance ourselves from non-problematic faith, immediacy and meaning, as we find ourselves disoriented. This stage is called by Ricoeur "a loss of naivety" or a "hermeneutics of suspicion". It is the time of critical thinking. Ricoeur's main interest, however, lies in how

Ricoeur, P., Symbolism of Evil. Beacon Press, Boston, 1967:351. Ricoeur, 1967:350. Ricoeur, 1967:350.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

to pass from this stage of adolescence to the third stage, which according to him, completes a hermeneutical circle: 'We must under­stand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand.'24

This stage is called a "second naivete" and 'aims to be a postcritical equivalent of the precritical hierophany.'25 This is a stage of regaining the immediacy of the first naivete, yet without abandoning critical thinking. Both previous stages are integrated and challenged, as one enters a reoriented space, but no longer in a non-problematic way. It is a space where aporias are present, and yet do not distance us from the contact with reality, from belief, immediacy and the plentitude of meaning. Ricoeur says that 'the second naivete would be a second Copernican revolution: being which posits itself in the Cogito has still to discover that the very act by which it abstracts itself from the whole does not cease to share in being that challenges it in every symbol.' 2 6

Michael Kirwan summarizes, 'Ricoeur's own theory of interpretation is conceived ...as a pattern of the self going out of itself (into lan­guage) and returning to itself (in the appropriation of meaning)'.27

In The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics Ricoeur relates an understanding of basic Christian categories to the distinc­tion between an idol and a symbol. Using the word 'Father' as an example, he shows that i f we allow our image to become a description of a supposed reality, we destroy it:

'Biblical faith represents God, the God of the prophets and the God of the Christian Trinity, as a father; atheism28 teaches us to

2 4 Ricoeur, 1967:351.

2 5 Ricoeur, 1967:352.

2 6 Ricoeur, 1967:356. 2 7 Kirwan, M., 'Theological Hermeneutics II: Ricoeur. Jeanrond, Tracy', A lec­

ture for the Institute of Ecumenical Studies in Prague, 21st April 1999.

2 8 Atheism, which, according to Ricoeur, has a religious meaning, and is thus, worth examining, is represented by Nietzsche and Freud. Ricoeur states: 'atheism is not limited in meaning to the mere negation and destruction of religion, but ... rather, it opens up the horizon for something else, for a type of faith that might be called ... a postreligious faith or a faith for a postreligious age. ... it looks back toward what it denies and forward toward what it makes possible.' ( Ricoeur, P., The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics. Northwestern University Press, Evasion, 1974:440).

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renounce the image of the father. Once overcome as idol, the image of the father can be recovered as symbol. This symbol is a parable of the foundation of love; it is the counterpart, within a theology of love, of the progression that leads us from simple resignation to poetic life. I believe that such is the religious mean­ing of atheism. An idol must die so that a symbol of being may begin to speak.'29

We can see this need for the idol to die in the context of Ricoeur's project as presented in the Symbolism of Evil. To take Ricoeur's argu­ment further, we can say that a struggle to remain within the bounda­ries of the first naivete at the expense of abandoning critical thinking, a struggle which we can still see in our churches, turns symbols into idols. Ricoeur's symbolic redescription of a world where we can exist as Christians, then, has to do away with the desire to live within a safe world of univocal meaning, which can be determined either by a church institution or by a community of believers claiming that they refer to "the" meaning of the Scriptures, or to "the" perspective of God, as i f such positions were available to us humans. Ricoeur explores further the themes of self-reflection and self-deception, of the conflicting in­terpretations, rules of metaphorical and narrative language, the otherness around as well as within ourselves. Also a biblical interpre­tation and the challenge of working out the language for the sacred remain among his long term interests.3" They contribute from differ­ent angles to an examination of symbolic discourse and its dialectic. He examines how it is possible to speak of a meaning for poems, narratives, and literary or philosophical essays in order not to violate their language, and the form of life they represent. In his concept of discourse he relates event and meaning, and arrives at an understand-

2 9 Ricoeur, 1974:467.

3 0 These interests are reflected in Ricoeur's main works: Fallible man (1965), Symbolism of Evil (1967), Freud and Philosophy (1970), Conflict of Interpretations (1974), Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (1976), The Rule of Metaphor: Multidisciplinary Studies of the Creation and meaning in Lan­guage (1977), Essays on Biblical Interpretation (1980), Hermeneutics and Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Acts and Interpretation (ed. J.B. Thompson, 1981), Time and Narrative (3 volumes, 1983-5), Oneself as Another (1992), Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (1992).

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

ing of language as 'the process by which private experience is made public' He states further: 'Language is the exteriorization thanks to which an impression is transcended and becomes an ex-pression ... There the solitude of life is for a moment, anyway, illuminated by the common light of discourse.'31 But language is not a world of its own. Ricoeur emphasizes that 'It is not even a world. But because we are in the world, because we are affected by situations, and because we ori­ent ourselves comprehensively in those situations, we have something to say, we have experience to bring to language.'32 Thus by intention we point toward the extra-linguistic. The dialectic of event and mean­ing, is then developed as an inner dialectic of the meaning of dis­course. Ricoeur speaks of meaning as "sense" and as "reference": 'To mean is what the speaker does. But it is also what the sentence does.'33

A sentence can make sense in terms of being coherent, but only a speaker uttering this sentence can refer to that about which it is said, to the world in which he lives. And this leads to Ricoeur's ultimate criterion of language as discourse: 'Discourse in action and in use refers back­wards and forwards, to a speaker and a world. ' 3 4 J. M . Valdes summa­rizes that 'Discourse "cannot fail to be about something"; "poetic texts speak about the world. But not in a descriptive way.. . " ' 3 5 For Ricoeur, then, literature "redescribes" the world for its readers. However, this "redescription" is done by a language of metaphor and symbol. They help us to avoid the illusion of an absolute language or of absolute meaning. Ricoeur insists that a "message" contained in literature has a capacity to carry more than one meaning. This distinguishes works of literature from scientific works, whose significations, according to Ricoeur, are to be taken literally.3 6 Metaphor is for Ricoeur a touch­stone of the cognitive value of literary works. Their domain is in

3 1 Ricoeur, P., Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Texas Christian University Press, Fort Worth, 1976:19.

3 2 Ricoeur, 1976:20-21.

3 3 Ricoeur, 1976:19.

3 4 Ricoeur, 1976:22.

3 5 Valdes, J.M., 'Ricoeur', in The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism, eds. M. Gorden and M. Kreiswirth, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, London, 1994,623-625: 624. The quotation is from Ricoeur, 1976: 36-36.

3 6 See Ricoeur, 1976: 45.

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semantics. Understanding of symbol develops in Ricoeur's writings. 3 7

In the Interpretation Theory he states:

'Within the symbol, ...there is something non-semantic as well as something semantic, it follows that a better hypothesis would be to approach the symbol in terms of a structure of double-meaning, which is not a purely semantic structure, which, as we shall see is the case with metaphor.... the symbol wil l allow us to extend our theory of signification by allowing us to include within it, not only verbal double-meaning, but non-verbal double-meaning as wel l . ' 3 8

The semantic moment in symbol bears literal as well as figurative meaning. The non-semantic moment signifies and refers to the divine transcendence on one hand, and on the other hand, to the sacred at­tested by everything that is. Ricoeur speaks both of God's otherness, that transcends every attempt to be pin down; and of a religious man's vision of the world, where the sacred is present in the fertility of the soil, the vegetative exuberance, the flourishing of the flock or fertility of the maternal womb. And he shows that symbols come into lan­guage to the extent that the elements of the world themselves become transparent. They have roots in the power of being as well as in tradi­tion. 3 9 Ricoeur's symbolic redescription of a world where we can ex­ist as Christians, thus leads to the continuity of tradition, and yet a varied multitude of meanings. It involves a desire for and an open-

3 7 Ricoeur in the Interpretation Theory refers to his earlier writings, The Sym­bolism of Evil and Freud and Philosophy in particular, where he defined his hermeneutics directly by means of symbol, and states that now he wants first to take more linguistics into account. That leads to his emphasis on a double-meaning of symbol, as used in the lecture. See, 1976, 45-46.

3 8 Ricoeur, 1976: 45-46.

3 9 Ricoeur, P., Time and Narrative. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984:70. S. M. Levi points out that in Ricoeur the narrative identity 'develops through the interplay of what he calls "sedimented models of life account (typologies of literary genre, e.g. myths, popular stories, tragedies) and our imaginative re-inter­pretation of textual givens, narrating our own story against the backdrop of tradi­tional forms.' (Levi, S. M., 'Suffering and Post-Modern Consciousness: The Imagi­native Appropriation of Tradition in Contemporary Culture', Anglican Theological Review, 1998 (LXXX:3) , 320-337:327)

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ness to the critical immediacy where God is allowed to be other than our images of "him", and yet present. It is not a nostalgic longing for the lost world of the first naivete, where everything had its fixed place, but a wager. We have to risk losing the security of the immature ideas in order to be able to encounter reality anew, in order to understand who we are and who God is when the idol dies.

3. Chauvet's hermeneutics of sacramental mediation

Chauvet's approach, similarly to that of Ricoeur, starts with a critique of all attempts to imprison reality within all-embracing explanatory schemes. Chauvet's critique is addressed to metaphysics and he ar­gues for a methodological shift in contemporary theology, from the metaphysical to the symbolic. Chauvet is aware that the metaphysical tradition of the West cannot be reduced to one approach, but he speaks about a variety of forms of the philosophical tradition inherited from the Greeks, which is named "metaphysics". At most we can speak of a "family resemblance" of the unconscious logic underlying these approaches, namely that they aim at explaining the totality of being, which Chauvet identifies as onto-theology. He accepts that the best of these approaches were aware of their own conceptual limits, and did not think that we can describe being "as it is".4" Rather, metaphysics and onto-theology are methodological concepts, showing the main interests of these approaches and depicting foundational ways of think­ing. To move from the metaphysical or from the onto-theological, then, is not to move from one meta-theory to another, but rather to under­stand the change of 'epistemological terrain for our thinking activity. Chauvet recalls Martin Heidegger's critique of metaphysics as the 'ongoing confusion between the entity and Being'. 4 1 This, however, is

4 0 Chauvet shows examples of this awareness of the limints, as he mentions Plotinus's notion of oion ("such as"), the quasi ("such as") of the Latin thinkers, or Thomas's esse ("being"), which also plays a critical role. See Symbol and Sacra­ment: A sacramental reinterpretation of Christian existence. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, 1995:8.

4 1 Cf. Heidegger, M., Le retour au fondement de la metaphysique, Q . l , 29 , in Chauvet, 1995:47.

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to be examined not as a failure, but as an event, which proceeds '"from a revelation of being," but it has remained "unaware" of this revela­tion' . 4 2 What is to be overcome is an understanding of the reality of being as a 'stock-in- trade', where each thing, in order to "be" real, is to be explained. Then, instead of crossing metaphysics out, it is to be related to the very source of its life, 'the truth of Being'. 4 3 Being is not an entity-a "beingness", rather it is a non-thing, it 'never ceases to hide within a difference which constitutes i t ' , 4 4 it faces human be­ings, we are thrown into Being. 4 5 From Emmanuel Levinas, Chauvet takes a critique of the obsession with "identity", and a shift of focus, where the Other is constitutive for the subject and gives it its lost iden­tity. 4 6

This critique of metaphysics provides Chauvet with tools when he enters the main field of his interest, sacramental theology.47 Sacra­mental theology, according to him, runs two risks, one of becoming narrow legalism, the other of being abstract speculation: 'Like every branch of theology, it must negotiate constantly between conceptual knowledge (without which it would no longer be theology, and there­fore constructed discourse -"science" as the scholastics call it) and sym­bolic non-knowledge (without which it would no longer be respecting

4 2 Cf. Heidegger, Le retour, Q. l : 24, in Chauvet, 1995:47.

4 3 Cf. Heidegger, Le retour, Q . l , 24-25, in Chauvet, 1995: 7.48.

4 4 See Heidegger, Contribution to the Question about Being. 1955, in Chauvet, 1995:49.

4 5 For Heidegger, to overcome metaphysics is finally to make metaphysics possible. Chauvet prefers to move into speaking about symbolic theology.

4 6 Chauvet sees a double-sidedness in Levinas's approach, and although par­tially accepting its emphasis on alterity, he accords with the following critique pre­sented by Derrida : 'None have struggled more vigorously than E . Levinas to liberate themselves from the Greek logos and to challenge the Greek tradition from the view point of the Jewish; that is to challenge Being (impersonal, anonymous, violent re­ducer of otherness to the totality of the same) with the Other (pure eruption and rupture bursting through the "Face," the unifying pretensions and the ultimately to­talitarian essence of the Greek logos).' ( Derrida, J. , "Violence et mdtaphysique," in L'ecriture et la difference. Seuil, Paris, 1967:196; in Chauvet, 1995:46)

4 7 Louis-Marie Chauvet is a professor of Sacramental Theology at the Institut Catholique in Paris, among his books and articles are Du Symbolique au Symbole. Essai sur les sacrements (Paris 1979), Symbole et Sacrement. line relecture sacra-mentelle del'existence chre'tienne (Paris, 1987), co ed. Liturgy and the Body (Concilium 1995/3) Illness and Healing (check)

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

the mystery of God)... it must not forget to derive the concept from its living source: the symbols deployed by liturgical action.' 4 8 Chauvet asks, why the symbolic aspect, which is so necessary for sacramental theology, has been often ignored:

'The initial question of the present study may be formulated as follows: How did it come about that, when attempting to com­prehend theologically the sacramental relation with God ex­pressed most fully under the term "grace," the Scholastics (and here we will consider only Thomas Aquinas) singled out for privi­leged consideration the category of "cause"7'49

In other words, to ask why their approach was dominated by concep­tual knowledge, the need to explain how God is related to his creation and vice versa, at the expense of the symbolic non-knowledge, which Chauvet considers in terms of the hermeneutics of mediation. He takes insights from the philosophy of language as well as from Freud's and Lacan's psychoanalyses, and relates them to the symbolic communi­cation of grace. This aims at restoring faith and its basic attitudes of gratitude and generosity, which lay at heart of sacramental theology.50

In the symbolic order held by Chauvet, grace is an irreducible gift: grace comes first, it is 'always preceding and necessitated by noth­ing', it is not justified, it is not reducible to any "value", whether con­ceptual, physical or moral. A way to grace is also a way towards Heideggerian Being, it is spoken in terms of a fundamental openness, 'an attitude of listening and welcome toward something ungraspable by which we are already grasped; ...a gracious attitude of "letting

4 8 See Chauvet, L.-M.'The Liturgy in its Symbolic Space', Liturgy and the Body, Concilium 1995/3, ed. L. -M. Chauvet and F.K. Lumbala, SCM, London; Orbis Books, Maryknoll, 29-39: 36-37.

4 9 Chauvet, 1995:7.

5 0 'the communication of grace is to be understood, not according to the "meta­physical" scheme of cause and effect, but according to the symbolic scheme of com­munication through language, communication supremely effective because it is through language that the subject comes forth in its relations to other subjects within a common "world" of meaning. It is precisely a new relation of places between sub­jects, a relationship of filial and brotherly and sisterly alliance, that the sacramental "expression" aims at instituting or restoring in faith.' (Chauvet, 1995:139-140)

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be" and "allowing oneself to be spoken" which requires us to re­nounce all ambition for mastery.'5'

Language enable us to ex-press and, according to Chauvet, makes 'the "corporality" of the fa i th ' 5 2 possible. Language constitutes "a place", where we come into being. In this context Chavet speaks of 'the triple body which makes us into believers': first, the social body, the Church with its network, interpretation of history, life and the uni­verse; second, the traditional body, which within the Church sup­ports the whole of ritual, through references to the words and deeds of Christ attested by the apostolic witness of the Scriptures; third, the cosmic body of a universe received as the gift of the Creator, from which symbolic elements of water, bread and wine, oil ... are recog­nized as a "sacramental" mediation of God's acting in the Spirit. 5 3

Chauvet emphasizes the "materiality" of faith as opposed to what he calls 'a nostalgia for an ideal and immediate presence to oneself, to others, and to God.' 5 4 Faith, to be a Christian faith, must give a seal, a character on one's body, the character testifying the belonging to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, in the body of the Church, by means of participating in her tradition receiving and offering the uni­verse as a gift. In this light he interprets the story of the disciples going to Emmaus.55 Here he starts with a key question: 'How does one pass from non-faith to faith?' 5 6 In order to arrive at an answer Chauvet analyses the structure of the turn-around, the transformation that gradually takes part in the disciples in that story:

'In the first section of the story (vv. 13-17, up until their first stopping on the road), the two disciples have in effect abandoned their mission; in turning away from Jerusalem, they are also in

5 1 Chauvet, 1995: 446.

5 2 Chauvet, 1995: 152.

5 3 See Chauvet, 1995:152.

5 4 Chauvet, 1995:154. In this Chauvet is a true son of Aquinas, who argued for mediated presence of God against Bonaventure's immediate presence. However, unlike Aquinas, Chauvet disregards the other position, without exploring its possi­bilities.

5 5 Cf. L k 24:13-35.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

effect turning their backs on their previous experience with Je­sus. They talk between themselves, each a sort of mirror-image of the other, tossing back and forth the same expression of a definite postmortem on the failed mission of theirs. Conse­quently, their eyes are "kept from recognising him"; their spir­its, like their eyes, are shut. For that matter, everything is shut. They have allowed themselves to be sealed up together with the dead body of Jesus in the constricted place of his death, the sepulcher, whose mouth has been blocked with a huge stone. Their past is dead; in any case, it has no future.'5 7

Chauvet points to a transition from a dualistic to a triangular relation, when, instead of speaking to each other in a close circle, they open themselves to a stranger. He enters into a conversation with them, and lets them name their situation, lets them tell their story. He first ap­peals to their memory, then makes a link with the Scriptures: 'remem­ber... slow of heart all that the prophets have declared ... everything ...must be fulfilled', 5 8 and offers a rereading of all the Scriptures.59

Chauvet says, 'Instead of holding forth with self-assured pronounce­ments on God, one must begin by listening to a word as the word of God. The reference to the Scriptures as a third agency plays a role that is of capital importance here. In allowing Jesus to open the Scrip­tures for them, the two disciples begin to enter into an understanding of the "real", different from what they previously thought evident.'6" They urge the stranger to stay, and in his breaking bread, when his word becomes flesh, their eyes begin to open, they recognise the stranger in his radical strangeness. But their eyes open to an empti­ness, he vanished from their sight. But it is emptiness full of presence. The disciples recognize the Risen Lord, they receive it as a gift of the good news and return it as a gift in terms of Christian witness. Chauvet emphasizes that one is not possible without the other. Then he states:

5 6 Chauvet, 1995:161.

5 7 Chauvet, 1995:167.

5 8 Lk 24, 6.25-27.

5 9 See Lk 24: 44-45.

6 0 Chauvet, 1995:168.

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'In the last analysis, faith can exist only i f it expresses itself in a life of witness. '61

What insight does Chauvet gain for his sacramental theology here? His approach is called topological, as he emphasizes the "topos", the place where the sacramental is present, and heavily relying on Luke, Chauvet develops the sacramentality of the Church as the symbolic mediation of Christ. Chauvet's topological interpretation, neverthe­less, does not lead to an uncritical glorification of the Church. In­spired by Derrida and Levinas, Chauvet finally claims: 'Those who reject the Church in order to find Christ by themselves misunderstand [Christ has departed]... But those who live too comfortably in the Church also misunderstand it: they are then in danger of forgetting that the Church is not Christ and that if, in faith, it is recognized as the privileged place of his presence, it is also, in this same faith, the most radical mediation of his absence. .. .The Church radicalizes the va­cancy of the place of God.' 6 2 The blank space of God, then, Chauvet calls the 'anti-name of God, the Spirit, ...which, while fully of God's very self, workd to subvert in us every idolatrous attempt at manipu­lating God (whether at the conceptual, ethical or ritual level...) ' . 6 3

Chauvet's sacramental rewriting of Christian existence takes sym­bolic theology into where our faith meets our bodily existence. Chauvet spoke of this in his understanding of the disciples facing the absence of God full of presence, which is now mediated in their corporality, as well as in his elaboration of alterity and the whole concept of creation as a gift, received and offered. He repeats throughout his book that 'The corporality constitutive of human beings is the place of God.'64

This is where we are given a share in faith, where we learn gratitude and generosityjchauvet's approach to a Christian existence does not accept any other relation to God than that mediated by the Church: 'One becomes a Christian only by entering an institution and in let­ting this institution stamp its "trademark," its "character," on one's

6 1 Chauvet, 1995:164. 6 2 Chauvet, 1995: 177.178. He also points out that the Church's mediation of

Christ is a mediation of God's kenosis. See 1995: 509.

6 3 Chauvet, 1995: 517.

6 4 Chauvet, 1995: 531.

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THE SYMBOLIC NATURE OF CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE

body. ' 6 5 And, although, he is aware of the stumbling on the institu­tion, he claims that the stumbling is a result of 'a nostalgia for an ideal and immediate presence to oneself, to others, and to God.' 6 6 Our sac­ramental existence, according to Chauvet, shatter such dreams. And he insists, that a Christian faith is sacramental in its constitution.

4. Conclusion

Now, let me sum up how Ricoeur and Chauvet speak of a symbolic interpretation of Christian existence, where their approaches overlap, where they differ, and how they can enrich each other.

For both, Ricoeur and Chauvet, critique is a starting point. Ricoeur criticizes a loss of immediacy, meaning and faith in a culture, where critical thinking dominates, and he 'seeks to go beyond criticism by means of criticism', which is not 'reductive but restorative,'67 opens up possibilities of a second, critical immediacy, of the world in which we can once again find our ways round, yet with an awareness that these are not the only ways with absolute quarantees. Chauvet's cri­tique is directed to metaphysics and to onto-theology, basically to any attempts to explain the totality of being. He emphasizes that a thing in order to be real does not have to be explained. We need to be related to the very source of life, to allow the reality of being to be revealed.68

Ricoeur emphasizes that an idol has to die so that a symbol can live, and relates this to any attempt at the absolutisation of language or of meaning. Christian existence is a symbolic existence, which we communicate in a symbolic language. In the symbolic language, there is something verbal and something non-verbal, and even the non-verbal has a double meaning.69 It is simply impossible to pin a single mean­ing down and say, it is the only right meaning. Ricoeur speaks of a semantic moment in symbol, that bears literal as well as figurative

Chauvet, 1995: 155.

Chauvet, 1995: 154.

Ricoeur, 1967: 350.

See Chauvet, 1995: 47.48.

Ricoeur, 1976: 45-46.

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65

66

67

68

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IVANA DOLEJSOVA

meaning, and the non-semantic moment, which cannot be fully ar­ticulated. It signifies and refers to both divine transcendence and di­vine immanence, to the awesome inexpressible mystery and to the sacred present in every element of our life. Chauvet's contrast is less striking, it is not an idol and symbol, but conceptual knowledge and symbolic non-knowledge. He says that without conceptual knowledge, there wil l be no theology as a science, and without symbolic non--knowledge, there wil l be no respect for the mystery of God. But the former has to find its life in the latter, and not vice versa.70 Thus, Chauvet employs the concept of symbol in a more restricted way than Ricoeur, and different modes of knowing are not placed within the symbolic, as with Ricoeur. And, although Christian existence is in its roots a symbolic existence, it needs also the non-symbolic knowledge.

Both Ricoeur and Chauvet agree in emphasizing that to exist as Christians is to express ourselves in a life of witness,71 and that this life involves a dialectic between the presence and the absence of God, a dialectic expressed in a multitude of ways. They even agree that the non-symbolic place of God has to remain empty, or otherwise while leaving the symbolic we would be entering the idolatrous. The conti­nuity of truth-disclosure has to grow from the continuous contact with the reality of being, and from a symbolic expression within tradition. Ricoeur's wider concept of symbol, is perhaps more useful for spell­ing this out. Chauvet, at least, emphasizes, that any scientific theo­logical reflection, must grow from the pre-conceptual non-knowledge.

Finally, Ricoeur operates primarily in a philosophical terrain, and from there he comments on theological themes. Chauvet employs insights from philosophy for a theological reflection. Therefore, where Ricoeur does remain silent, Chauvet speaks of grace as an irreducible gift, which lies at the roots of the symbolic order, the gift of the 'ungraspable by which we are already grasped', which leads to a 'gra­cious attitude of "letting be" and "allowing oneself to be spoken" which requires us to renounce all ambition for mastery.'72 The gift, which language enables us to ex-press, makes 'the "corporality" of

7 0 See Chauvet, Liturgy and the Body, Concilium 1995/3: 36-37.

7 1 Chauvet, 1995:164.

7 2 Chauvet, 1995:446.

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the faith' 7 3 possible. Chauvet very strongly emphasizes the materiality of faith, faith incarnated in our bodily existence, faith embodied in the Church and communicated through the Church's sacramental media­tion. For him faith is primarily participation. Ricoeur states that lan­guage constitutes "a place", where we come into being. And yet for him most of our being is dominated by solitude, not by corporality. Symbol is not materialised in a sacrament, in the way it is for Chauvet. The community of the Church is not the mediator of this materialisa­tion, as it is in Chauvet. For Ricoeur faith is primarily orientation, which grows from the experience of the critical immediacy, the de­sired second naivete. In this context Ricoeur says that the 'Language is the exteriorization thanks to which an impression is transcended and becomes an ex-pression ... There the solitude of life is for a mo­ment, anyway, illuminated by the common light of discourse.'74 While Chauvet emphasizes the need to belong, Ricoeur speaks of the need to risk, to wager. It is possible to recognise the heritage of the Protes­tant and Catholic traditions behind these approaches, and it is also possible to see the need of their complementarity. Ricoeur's Protes­tant approach gives more space to a prophet or to a mystic, and yet, can be very lonely. This is a price for the freedom of orientation. This approach cultivates the individuality, but does not develop the corporality in an equal measure. Chauvet's Catholic position emphasizes the con­stitutive role of the Church institution for the faith of a Christian, but does not support the individual, when s/he stumbles on oppressive deviations of the Church institution. This is a price for the strong sense of participation. Here the developed corporality needs to include a space of freedom for an individual.

7 3 Chauvet, 1995:152.

7 4 Ricoeur, 1976:19.

59