Sermón sin título
Since presuppositions are involved in the process of interpretation, proper interpretation is impossible without proper presuppositions.2 For this reason, it is important to understand a bit more clearly the nature of both presuppositions and hermeneutics, and to clarify the nature and implications of the connection between them.
Understanding, according to this view, occurs when a person (subject) actively interacts with an object such as a text. In this interaction, the interpreter’s role is not limited to just correctly and disinterestedly applying rules to the text, but she actively contributes to the understanding that results because of the assumptions (presuppositions) she brings with her.
Thus, the term is applied in a generalized way to the conditions of thinking that make all human understanding possible.
So, when the term “presupposition” is used generally in academic circles, it means more precisely the number of beliefs we accept without support from other beliefs, arguments, or evidence.10 But in this precise way, presuppositions are not just any assumptions we may hold. Rather, presuppositions appear as principles
Thus, among Christian thinkers the interpretations of God include pantheism, panentheism, deism, classical theism (incorporating a view of timelessness that makes God impassible, etc.), open theism, and process theism.
Meso-level presuppositions take the form of doctrines formulated within the limits set by the interpreter’s conceptual framework based on its ontological and epistemological determinations.
First, it is a fact that micro-exegetical results are routinely affected by macro-and meso-hermeneutical presuppositions.
Second, it is also a fact that, at the micro-exegetical level, macro-hermeneutical presuppositions affect one’s choice of exegetical method for biblical interpretation.
The discussion so far has highlighted the fact that first, all interpreters approach a text (micro-hermeneutics), including the biblical text, with a conceptual framework that incorporates ideas (macro-hermeneutics) of a metaphysical and epistemological nature that are derived from macro-hermeneutical presuppositions. Second, biblical interpreters approach their task with doctrinal beliefs (meso-hermeneutics) shaped by their macro-hermeneutical conceptual framework.
Applying the concept to the study of God, we have to admit that God is not physically available for our study, but Bible-believing interpreters acknowledge that God can be known because He has revealed Himself in the Bible
To the latter group of scholars, the first narrative recounts the creation of all things in the order in which it occurred, while the second narrative groups things in their relation to humans
Creation of the world also means that the world is contingent, which means that creation does not exist as a necessary phenomenon in the sense that it had to be or can continue to be by itself. The created order is connected with, conditioned by, subject to, and dependent upon the supernatural, transcendent, immanent, and personal God.
Sola Scriptura, in the context of the Reformation, served to focus attention on the Bible as a principle of interpretation against competing principles.50 Several other necessary principles of hermeneutical importance are derived from the sola Scriptura principle: the authority of Scripture,51 the necessity of Scripture,52 the perspicuity/clarity of Scripture,53 the sufficiency of Scripture,54 and the unity of Scripture.
The Holy Spirit is a key epistemological agent for Adventist hermeneutics because He is presented in the Bible as the Guide to all truth.
Just as historical critical approaches toward biblical interpretation fit the modernistic, anti-supernatural, and naturalistic scientific interpretations of reality, the world, and knowledge, so also macro-presuppositions that are faithful to Scripture influence the preference for a particular method—namely, the historical-grammatical method. Its presuppositions include, among other aspects, the inspiration of the Bible, scriptural perspicuity, authorial intentionality, and objectivity
It may be possible that interpreters with different interpretive systems or paradigms may come to what seems to be a similar conclusion on a biblical idea. However, a closer examination of the idea in the context of the respective interpretive systems/paradigms will expose some differences in meaning.
As it is understood in contemporary hermeneutics, the concept of the hermeneutical circle relates to the idea that “we can only understand the parts of a text, or any body of meaning, out of a general idea of its whole, yet we can only gain this understanding of the whole by understanding its parts.”
Considering the Bible in its entirety as the object of interpretation, the quest for biblical presuppositions that are consistent with biblical hermeneutics involves two interconnected moves that entail two hermeneutical circles: one between the reader and text and the other between the parts and the whole of the canon.
Each of these circles involves exegesis at a different level, yet the two levels impact each other. Micro-exegesis (relation of reader and text) concerns the procedures of grammatical-historical exegesis at the level of pericopes, while macroexegesis (relation of parts and the whole) refers to interpretation that goes beyond a particular pericope toward seeking the conceptual framework (that is, the biblical theological idea) that the text suggests.
Thus, in this hermeneutical spiral, details of a text are examined first, and from them broader macro-hermeneutical presuppositions are drawn to undergird further explorations of particular texts and pericopes.69 In this way, the interpreter gets closer and closer to preventing nonbiblical presuppositions from being imposed on the text. This dynamic interaction between the reader and the text, as well as the relationship between the parts and the whole of Scripture as outlined, together with the adoption of the biblical understandings of God, man, world, and knowledge, goes a long way toward advancing true, biblical hermeneutics.
