Gazing Through a Prism Darkly: Reflections on Merold Westphal's Hermeneutical Epistemology

Talking to Balaam’s Ass

Talking to Balaam’s Ass A Concluding Conversation B . K E I T H P U T T A N D M E R O L D W E S T P H A L B. Keith Putt: Merold, in your intellectual autobiography, Faith Seeking Understanding, you refer to the significant influence of Arthur Holmes, one of evangelicalism’s finest scholars, whose clarion call was ‘‘all truth is God’s truth.’’ How has that epigram shaped your own appropriation of philosophy in its various manifestations, whether analytical, Continental , or postmodern? Merold Westphal: I guess there are two ways. First, I haven’t felt the need to think that truth would only be found exclusively in theological contexts . ‘‘All truth is God’s truth’’ means that one may discover truth in contexts that aren’t overtly religious, in subject matter that isn’t overtly religious, and in voices that are not overtly religious, on the contrary, perhaps even antireligious. I sometimes remind myself and my friends that on one occasion Balaam’s ass spoke the word of God [laughter]. But the other, the second, impact is that if all truth is God’s truth, then, everything that I think of as truth needs to be brought into relationship with God. It doesn’t just sit off in some separate compartment . I don’t understand that to mean that it’s my task to construct a perfectly synthesized, fully integrated system of thought. That’s one of the things that I don’t think we should try to do or even can do. But— well, let me tell you this story. The vicar at our church was leading a confirmation class in the aftermath of the killings at Colorado, at Columbine, and he asked a group of eighth graders to think about that tragedy in relationship to what they had been doing in the class. And 181 that question sort of stumped them. They weren’t in the habit of doing that type of overt practical application. Consequently, one of the students asked the vicar, ‘‘Do we have to relate everything to God?’’ And he answered, ‘‘Yep!’’ Putt: That’s a great story. Westphal: And they proceeded that way. I thought the question was just wonderful. Putt: Well, then, do we have to relate everything to God? Westphal: Yep! [Laughter] I think that’s part of what I came away with from ‘‘all truth is God’s truth.’’ Everything has to be related to God, which, by the way, doesn’t mean that it has to be converted into theology. Putt: Of course. What’s interesting about your being so influenced by that broader understanding of truth is that you came out of a decidedly fundamentalist evangelical background. Westphal: Oh yes. Wheaton College was a broadening experience for me. Putt: And you mention in the article that your parents never really understood this broadening, this openness toward encountering other people and other perspectives. Westphal: That’s right. That was very painful. Putt: Was it? Westphal: Yes. It truly was. Putt: So your philosophy, your move into philosophy, was not just intellectual —there was an existential and even spiritual dynamic at work in it? Westphal: Yes. Although not in the sense of ‘‘I have to get away from where I’ve been; I must find someplace else.’’ What happened is I just gradually found myself someplace else, arriving there in small steps not in great leaps. I just gradually found myself living in a different space, and as that space moved, it got farther away from the space in which my parents still lived. Putt: Speaking of that space, were we to do a genealogy of your philosophical development, we would discover Hebraic categories, Kantian hermeneutics of finitude, and Kierkegaardian hermeneutics of suspicion . Personally, in reading you, I think I find a strong Ricoeurean influence, especially Ricoeur’s post-Hegelian Kantianism. Could you speak briefly on how you correlate these different influences on your thought? Westphal: Sure. A lot of the structure of my thinking revolves around both the hermeneutics of finitude and the hermeneutics of suspicion. 182 Talking to Balaam’s Ass The first I think of as a philosophical correlate of the doctrine of creation ; finitude is the limitedness of our creation, of our createdness, which undermines certain aspirations within the philosophical tradition to overreach and to achieve, particularly in terms of...