Gadamer, Paul and Inspired Speech in Corinth

Abstract The goal of this article is to elucidate two aspects of Hans‐Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics that impinge on the question of transcendence and then to bring them into conversation with the Apostle Paul’s discussion of divinely inspired speech in Corinth. The two aspects of Gadamer’s thought are (1) the universality of hermeneutics rooted in the inescapability of language in the process of understanding ( WM 462) and (2) the very being of one’s interlocutor as given in language ( WM 478). Paul’s discussion of inspired speech in 1 Corinthians 14 illustrates the role of language in mediating and contesting revelation ( à la Gadamer’s hermeneutics). However, the cosmological and metaphysical context of Paul’s discussion puts important questions to implicit metaphysical assumptions about the immanent/transcendent divide at work in Gadamer’s philosophy. In other words, Gadamer’s argument that language mediates being itself constitutes an opening to transcendent self‐communication within Paul’s cosmology.