The Postmoderns Are Our Friends — Part 2: Derrida and Interpretation

James K. A. Smith begins his explication of postmodern theory with Jacques Derrida and his foundational, but misunderstood, claim that “there is nothing outside the text”. This phrase has been often construed to say that only language exists — that the symbols we use are just socially agreed up signs, but don’t actually refer to anything real. A cup isn’t a cup, we just call it that, all there is is language. I remember my mother talking about a class she had at UC Riverside in the late 80’s — the chair in the middle of the room, it doesn’t exist, it’s not a chair. The technical word for this idea is “linguistic idealism” which, if Derrida is one, is tantamount to atheism — a mutually exclusive idea with Christianity.¹ However is Derrida a linguistic idealist?

Smith looks at Derrida in context, who in 1976, was writing in conversation with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s On the Origin of Language published a few hundred years before. Rousseau saw language (the symbols we use to ascribe meaning; social categories — a table, ethical principles, marriage etc) as getting in the way of true understanding. Rousseau believed that without language, we would have the capacity to see things as they are, objectively. Derrida takes issue with this idea. Is there ever a time where we don’t interpret — where we see objectively? Can we see and interpret our world purely? We often read texts, particular Holy Scripture, as if we have to figure out the objective meaning behind it. It’s like the text is something to “sort though” to get to the meaning — a hurdle to be jumped over. Derrida and Smith are skeptical that we can read without subjective interpretation — that we can just look at the world and see it “as it is.”² Derrida and Smith believe there is no kingdom of pure reading, instead, interpretation (again think subjective understanding, reading, and thinking) is, “an inescapable part of being human.”³ Derrida is not rallying against the idea that things exist, the concept of truth or the possibility of objectivity; what he is saying is that (to quote Smith), “…there is no reality that is not always already interpreted through the mediating lens of language…all our experience is already in interpretation.”⁴ We are born into and exist in a social landscape that has already been interpreted for us and internalized by us as real social reality. So when we see a fork, we understand it as a fork and its purpose so quickly we don’t even question it. But Derrida would say just because we understand a fork as a fork so quickly doesn’t mean we are not interpreting it as a fork. For someone from a different culture they might interpret its meaning and use differently.

Even if Derrida isn’t a linguistic idealist, it’s understandably troubling. “Nothing is outside the text” quickly becomes everything is subjective and if everything is subjective then so is the gospel — which would mean the gospel isn’t true or at least can’t be trusted. A legitimate concern. Let’s dive deeper. At the core, Smith takes issue with our modern western conflation of truth with objectivity. This is critical. Smith argues this conflation posits an unjustified assumption that:

…if something is an interpretation, it can’t be true; or, conversely, it assumes that if something is true, it must be objective…Christians who become skittish about the claim that everything is interpretation are usually hanging on to a very modern notion of knowledge, one that claims something is true only insofar as it objective — insofar as it can be universally known by all people, at all time, in all places.⁵

The critic, using this understanding will say, “Jesus rose from the dead, that’s objective, therefore Derrida is antithetical to Christian faith.” The gospel, the critic argues, is capable of rational demonstration — all this business of inherent subjectivity muddies the waters. Smith argues this critique misunderstands the point. It’s not that everything is interpretation, therefore there is no true interruption, it’s that there is no such thing as objective interpretation — a view from nowhere. There are correct interpretations of the biblical witness, but those interpretations require the necessary conditions, “…the right horizons of expectation and the right presuppositions…conditions that are gifts from God [paraphrased].”⁶ It’s not that there is no truth, it’s that there is no interpretation apart from one’s context which, “determines the meaning of a text, the construel of a thing, or the “reading” of an event.”⁷

We experience the reality of interpretations — faith communities interpret spiritual reality, Holy Scripture, and Christian ethics quite differently. However, Smith isn’t using Derrida to throw up his hands in despair and say “oh well, who knows the truth really?” but instead to bring the role of the church community and the Word to a more central place for how we individually find meaning and truth. Essentially what Derrida and Smith are saying is that we all come to the world with a lens we’ve inherited. This lens either comes from our materialist culture, our family, our church, or whatever social landscape of meaning and interpretation we’ve most thickly been embedded in. There is no view from nowhere. This should free us from thinking we have to “prove” Christianity to the world; instead of being talking heads trying to convince the world of our knowledge we can live out a life of communal practice that construes reality in the most human and real way. This places the Word and the Church more to a place of central importance for the Christian. We can acknowledge the extent by which we’ve accepted lenses that construe the world falsely (unbiblically), the way we’ve often read and interpreted Scripture through a worldly (individual, modernist, consumerist) lens rather than a biblical one, and we can acknowledge the need for the Word to directly inform every square inch of reality.

Knowledge is contingent, in that, we don’t arrive at our worldview and our interpretations in a vacuum. It’s important to remember that we are creatures, created by God and therefore knowledge will always be contingent on things outside of ourselves, Only God our creator is truly independent. Thus, we need to depend on him, his church, and his word for all things.

Next article in series The Postmoderns Are Our Friends — Part 3: Lyotard and Metanarratives

[1] Smith, James K. A. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006. 35

[2] Ibid. 38

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid. 39.

[5] Ibid. 48.

[6] Ibid. 49.

[7] Ibid. 52