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Hans-Georg Gadamer on Creation Myth - Dictionary of Arguments
I 423 Creation/Language/Christianity/Gadamer: Once (...) creation happens through the Word of God. Thus the early fathers already made use of the miracle of language to make the un-Greek thought of creation conceivable. But above all, the actual act of salvation, the sending of the Son, the mystery I 424 of the Incarnation, is described in the prologue of John himself by word. Exegesis interprets the sounding of the word as a miracle, just as it interprets the incarnation of God. The becoming that is at issue in both is not a becoming in which something becomes something else. It is neither a separation of the one from the other (kat' apocope), nor a diminution of the inner word by its emergence into the outer world, nor any other becoming at all, so that the inner word would be consumed(1). Even in the earliest references to Greek thought, the new direction towards the mysterious unity of Father and Son, of Spirit and Word, can be recognized. And if the direct reference to the utterance, the utterance of the word, is in the end also rejected in Christian dogmatics - in the rejection of subordinationism - it is precisely because of this decision that it becomes necessary to philosophically re-examine the mystery of language and its connection with thought. Language/Christianity/Gadamer: The greater miracle of language is not that the word becomes flesh and emerges in the outward being, but that what emerges in this way and is expressed in utterance is always already word. That the word is with God, and that is from eternity, that is the Church's teaching, which is victorious in the defense against subordinationism, and which also lets the problem of language enter completely into the inner being of thought. >Language/Christianity, >Word/Augustine. I 428 Creation Myth/Gadamer: The mystery of the Trinity, which is to be illuminated by the analogy with the inner word, must in the end remain incomprehensible from human thinking. If in the divine word the whole of the divine spirit is pronounced, then the processual moment in this word means something for which basically every analogy lets us down. If the divine spirit, by recognizing itself, at the same time recognizes all that exists, then the Word of God is the Word of the Spirit that sees and creates everything in an intuition. The process disappears in the actuality of the divine All-Wisdom. Creation, too, is not a real process, but only interprets the order of the world as a whole in a temporal scheme(2). 1. Assumendo non consumendo, Aug. de Trin. 15, 11. 2. It is clear that the patristic and scholastic interpretation of Genesis to some extent repeats the discussion about the right interpretation of "Timaios" that was held between Plato's disciples. (Cf. my study of "idea and reality in Plato's "Timaios". (Meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Philos.-histor. Class, 2nd Abh. Heidelberg 1974; now in vol. 6 of the Ges. Werke, pp. 242-270)._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gadamer I Hans-Georg Gadamer Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik 7. durchgesehene Auflage Tübingen 1960/2010 Gadamer II H. G. Gadamer The Relevance of the Beautiful, London 1986 German Edition: Die Aktualität des Schönen: Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest Stuttgart 1977 |