Teologiczna hermeneutyka T. J. J. Altizera a ewangelickie proprium hermeneutyczne

Abstract

The article examines the relation between theological hermeneutics of Altizer (during the years 1951-2006) and the Protestant hermeneutical proprium. We have analyzed Altizer’s hermeneutics and Protestant hermeneutics from perspective of epistemology, ontology, methodology, system and axiology. We have demonstrated that Altizer’s hermeneutics in spite of his Anglican background doesn’t have anything in common with Protestant hermeneutics. Furthermore, the comparison of Altizer’s thought with the philosophy of Hegel, whom he treated as one of the „prophets”, shows the seclusion and the oddity of Altizerian theology, for there is no evidence for his interpretations of Hegelian system in the works of Hegel himself. Such antimethodological attitude to declared sources of the reflection derives from the illuminative and speculative epistemology of Altizer, that is called in the literature of the subject the mystical principle. We have also noticed the isolation of Altizerian theology from contemporary Protestant theology and from the radical theology (death-of-God-theology), among which he was universally counted. Altizer’s hermeneutics coincides with the hermeneutics of enthusiasm in general and should be examined in this context. In Altizer’s thought occurs gnostic tendency, that manifests as hatred for the created world. The analysis of Altizer’s relationship to his sources, namely „prophets” (primarily: Blake, Dante, Joyce, Milton, Hegel and Nietzsche) discloses a contradiction in Altizerian epistemology, for he declared that „prophets” reveal the true knowledge about the universe, and at the same time he granted axiomatic status to the laws of the dialectic created by himself. In conclusion we have stated that there are convincing premises to preserve Protestant hermeneutical proprium in opposition to Altizer, who demands from the contemporaries the total extinction of all past theology.