"Here I stand" (in two places): David Tracy's Interpretive Theory and its Application on Luther's Reading of the Pauline Corpus
Author
Fassio, Daniel Dawson
Subject
Washington and Lee University -- Honors in Religion
Tracy, David
Luther, Martin, 1483-1546
Christianity -- Philosophy
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Thus, interpretation must go about the work of "overcoming distance and cultural differences and of matching the reader to a text which has become foreign, thereby incorporating its meaning into the present comprehension a man is able to have of himself' [1]. In order to do this, it seems one must find a theory or a way of reading in which allows the reader to engage the text in his own world and his own time, yet still be cognizant of the tradition from which the text springs. David Tracy presents a possible way of interpreting a text that would allow the reader to be immersed in tradition and yet also in the contemporary moment. He presents this theory in his book The Analogical Imagination. In the chapter called "The Classic", Tracy attempts to sketch out how readers interact with a classic text. In doing so, he delves into the problems of hermeneutics that Ricouer was addressing. Tracy finds that it is possible to find a method of hermeneutical approach that allows for a reader to engage a text in their contemporary situation and still remain within a tradition. What was striking about his approach is its application in the theology of Christianity. Tracy's theory does much to explain the approach to interpretation of many great Christian thinkers to the texts that came before them. In particular, the works of
Martin Luther come to mind. Luther's writings were heavily influenced by Paul the Apostle, and in reading more of Tracy's theory, it seems a task worth undertaking to investigate the application of Tracy's notion of interpretation of a classic to Luther's interpretation of Paul. [From Introduction]