Having surveyed the history of hermeneutics as represented by its major thinkers and writers, Stanley Porter and Jason Robinson conclude with what they view as questions which the subject must continue to grapple with as it heads into the future (Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), kindle loc. 4079ff.):
- Which element in the tripartitie relationship of author, text, and reader should take center place - the author and his/her intention within the text? The text and its cultural-historical context, or even the meaning that arises from just having the words and sentences laid out as such as the text? Or the reader’s present situation and socio-historically conditioned way of understanding the text?
- Does misunderstanding and radical difference or a pre-existing common accord, however slight, which thereby enables understanding come first in every experience of understanding?
- What does it mean to cultivate a critical and reflective attitude, or for that matter, to be a virtuous reader? Is the cultivation of these attitudes mutually exclusive from methods?
- Is interpretation and objective or subjective act, or perhaps an inter-subjective play?
- Is there a correct interpretation? Or should we make do and concern ourselves with the best possible interpretation at the moment?
- What is the role of hermeneutics in theological and biblical interpretation?
Porter and Robinson conclude:
The important point to remind ourselves of here is that it is a mistake to rely on absolute categories when thinking about hermeneutics. We cannot rightly divide ways of thinking about hermeneutics into bipolar camps of either structuralism or poststructuralism, foundationalism or antifoundationalism, ontology or epistemology, textual or authorial, literary or philosophical, etc. These categories represent uneven tensions within hermeneutics that transgress simple boundaries and disciplinary lines...
Hermeneutics is a hybrid of that which is, that which came before, and that which is becoming. It is ontological, epistemological, and far more... hermeneutics and interpretive theories continue to expand and develop in new directions... Our belief is that the future of hermeneutics will be one in which the very conception of what it means for humans to understand will continue to develop, most especially so as we find new and more helpful ways of describing our being-in-the-world and being-with-others - including our very complex and changing relationships with the written word. (loc.4120)
Seen in this light, there is indeed some truth in the words of Hans Robert Jauss (a reception-theory hermeneutician), “to understand is to understand differently, and still differently again.”
"If human creatures hear and know [the Word of God], it is because God the Holy Spirit makes them hear and know. This hearing and knowing are genuinely creaturely acts - were they not, there would be no fellowship between God and creatures but simply a divine utterance into a void. But the hearing and knowing of human creatures are spiritual acts, that is, acts for whose description we must employ language about the Holy Spirit."
