SUBJECT/OBJECT & SUBJECTIVITY/OBJECTIVITY

In our recent discussions, subjectivity keeps coming up, especially in regard to hermeneutics.  As the blurb on the back of Slavoj Zizek's book, THE TICKLISH SUBJECT, puts it: "A spectre is haunting Western academia, the spectre of the Cartesian subject."  His book is subtitled, "The Absent Centre of Political Ontology."  In his introduction, Zizek writes, "All academic powers have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spectre ..."  Having just read my son's paper on HEARING PARABLES, I now revel in the possibilities of subjective reading that can be trusted when rightly (objectively?) related to the Person of Jesus Christ, Himself the Parable par excellence.  

In Christ Jesus, God subjected Himself to the confines of creation, the object of His own powerful Word. In following Christ, that Word become flesh, we, no longer objects of God's wrath but rather the objects of God's love in Christ, subject ourselves to God.  In another post someone wondered about the subject of creation - is it Man?  The first Man fell (a phrase which recalls the title of another paper my son Vincent wrote a while ago, "The Man Fell In"), the Second Man fulfilled what the first Man failed to do; the reconciliation of all Mankind has been accomplished in this faithful act.  It does indeed seem that Man is the subject of Creation. The subject of every story relates in some way to this one Story - thus history is indeed His Story.

" Objective" cosmology (and any other -ology) ignores the person making the observations, but in doing so, becomes blind to the Person who, having created the Cosmos, continues to observe the observer.  Putting oneself into the perspective of that Person's observation will surely recalibrate how one measures what appears in one's observations.  Hermeneutical subjectivity must always consider the perspective of this Other Person.  The Greek word for reading is anagnosko, "knowing again."  This concept of recognition is highlighted by Gadamer and others.  I think it is significant in that recognition of Jesus Christ as the Lord of History will faithfully subject our perspective to become calibrated by the Author Himself whose intent is revealed in the call and response each of us experience through the Holy Spirit, Giver of Life.

The great hermeneutical question remains: where does meaning reside?  In the intention of the author? in the content of the text? in the retention of the reader?  Perhaps the genius of teaching in parables is that the answer is "yes" to the question.  "For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, ... was not yes and no, but yes in Him" (2 Corinthians 1:19).  Jesus tells the tale of Himself to those united with him in the telling.  Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life." Jesus was, is, and will be.  Jesus is the stillpoint making history move.  Objecting to this Subject subjects one to become the object of God's wrath.  Let us rather subject ourselves to this Objective Truth: Christ died, Christ lived, Christ will come again.