William DiPuccio, The Interior Sense of Scripture: The
Sacred Hermeneutics of John W. Nevin (Studies in American Biblical
Hermeneutics 14; Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1998).
From the back cover:
John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) was, with Philip Schaff and others, a progenitor of the “Mercersburg Theology.” Nevin’s transcendental hermeneutics is one of the most penetrating and sophisticated theological systems to emerge from American soil. In The Interior Sense of Scripture, William DiPuccio unfolds for the first time Nevin’s vision of a biblical hermeneutic based on the centrality of the Incarnation. In part I DiPuccio explores Nevin’s hermeneutics of a new creation and the Eucharist. In Part II he presents Nevin’s critique of American culture in the light of his hermeneutical conclusions. More than a century has passed since he spoke, yet Nevin’s polemic against materialism, religious skepticism, individualism, and sectarianism retains its creative force and insight.
For Nevin, the Incarnation is the transcendental (or top-down) archetype of all hermeneutics and philosophy. And it is as true today that the decay of American culture and religion lies in its widespread adoption of Common Sense Realism (a bottom-up paradigm) which values the material above the spiritual, the actual above the ideal, and the particular above the universal. Thus Nevin’s transcendental/incarnational hermeneutics is as appropriate for the current worldview situation as for his own time.
The blurb should have alerted me to the prominence given in
this work to cultural critique. The title led me to expect rather more on Biblical
hermeneutics – how to read the Scriptures – and so I was disappointed. It was nevertheless
valuable to read about the conflict between William Nevin and Charles Hodge and
to see how sacramental realism/nominalism are connected with traditional/modern
approaches to Scripture. Metaphysics and hermeneutics are indeed closely tied
together.
