Defense Date

10-28-2016

Graduation Date

Fall 1-1-2016

Availability

Worldwide Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Communication and Rhetorical Studies

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Janie Harden Fritz

Committee Member

Ronald C. Arnett

Committee Member

Richard Thames

Keywords

Augustine, bible, Evangelical, Hermeneutics, participation, philosophy of communication

Abstract

Using a philosophy of communication approach adapted from St. Augustine’s rhetorical theory, I propose the recovery of Augustinian scriptural hermeneutics to meet the hermeneutical crisis in current Evangelicalism. Evangelical identity is centered on scripturally mediated belief and mission that ties together its ecumenical coalition, but its hermeneutic principles were co-opted by modernism and have now become further embattled by the turn away from modernism to philosophical hermeneutic approaches. Augustine’s hermeneutical principles of charity, hermeneutical humility through responsiveness to the Word, and the social/communal action of lived hermeneutics are explained in terms of Augustine’s pre-modern cosmology of “participation” and are clarified by comparison with the hermeneutic theories of Gadamer, Ricoeur, and their Evangelical respondents. Fulfilling its philosophy of communication emphasis, this project concludes with a conceptual sketch of Evangelical interpretation as practiced through Augustinian participatory hermeneutics.

Format

PDF

Language

English

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