50 Key Concepts in Theology

Scriptural Reasoning
A form of discussion between the Abrahamic faiths, rooted in the practice of
discussing Scripture together.
Scriptural Reasoning (hereafter SR) is a form of inter-faith discussion
based on the shared reading of Scripture. SR builds upon the foundation of
Scripture and traditions that the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and
Islam) have in common. Fundamental to SR is the presupposition that
reasoning can only take place adequately in the light of scriptural revelation.
Although SR appears to be a neo-conservative practice appealing to the
special revelation in Scripture, there are many features of SR which are quite
radical, or have radical implications. It is implicit in SR that those of some
other faiths have an equally valid claim to religious truth and that, at some
stage in the future, some kind of reconciliation of the faiths will be possible.
SR also implicitly rejects dogmatic ideas of truth in favour of truths which
emerge in specific human contexts, within historically located human
conversations, and within interpretive communities. So truth is dynamic,
rather than static, and unfolds in many forms as Scripture is read and re-read.
The idea of a form of reason that operates in communal discussion plugs
into a wider contemporary debate about the nature of reason. Jürgen
Habermas, the German philosopher, has argued against the post-modern
assumption that there are no norms of reason and that one idea of reason is as
good as any other. Habermas argues that there is what he calls a ‘systems
rationality’: a form of reason that arises from human conversation about the
truth. For Habermas, reason is not the activity of a solitary mind (as the
Enlightenment tradition from Descartes had presumed) but takes place in
community as people talk with each other about what is valuable, true and
real.
SR owes something to Habermas’ social theory of reason, because it sees
reason disclosing itself in dialogue. But whereas Habermas sees reason as a
purely human activity, SR believes that reason has been revealed by God both
in Scripture and in traditions of human science and thinking. In asserting that
the discussion of scriptural revelation can be a form of reason, SR sets itself
against the secular model of reason as an individual mental activity that
requires no religious revelation.
Indeed SR is a self-conscious response to what it sees as the restrictive
and dogmatic understanding of reason bequeathed to us by the Enlightenment.
SR poses the possibility that there are many different forms of logic and that

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the narrow logic of scientific reasoning is not deep or broad enough to deal
with the complex reality of human existence. This is not such a strange idea:
we speak about ‘reasons of the heart’ and ‘poetic reasoning’ as legitimate
forms of human reasoning. The difference with SR is the priority that it gives
to specific scriptures in the understanding of reasoning.
SR also sets itself at a distance from the liberal understanding of reason
as a universal human activity. By making reason the subject of a special
scriptural revelation, SR restricts the full disclosure of reason to those inside
the closed circle of scriptural reasoners.
THINKERS
Jürgen Habermas (1929– ) argues that the norm of reason is a form of
conversation that he calls the ‘ideal speech situation’, an imaginary state of
affairs in which all the parties to a conversation would have equal,
unrestricted opportunity of participation. Habermas has provided an important
counter-voice to the often fashionable ‘post-modern’ consensus that it is no
longer possible to disentangle truth from fiction.
Peter Ochs (1950– ): a Jewish theologian who is the leading figure in
Scriptural Reasoning: ‘The purpose of SR is to recover the practice of
listening for the speech of God that both preceded and still provides the terms
for modern thinking.’
IDEAS
Hypothesis formation: the idea (from C. S. Peirce, the American
pragmatist philosopher) that the exploration of likely hypotheses is a form of
logical reasoning. SR sees its task as not so much to disprove what it sees as
the flawed rationality of the secular world, as to hypothecate theological
alternatives to secular modernity.
BOOKS
David Ford and C. C. Pecknold (eds.), The Promise of Scriptural
Reasoning (Blackwell, 2006)
Nicholas Adams, Habermas and Theology (Cambridge University Press,
2006)
Peter Ochs, ‘Returning to Scripture: Trends in Postcritical Interpretation’,
Crosscurrents, Winter 1994/95, Vol. 44, Issue 4

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