Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Scripture

In From Work to Text, Barthes states that “the author is reputed the father, and the owner of his work; literary science therefore teachers respect for the manuscript and the author’s declared intentions, while society asserts the legality of the relation of author to work … as for the Text, it reads without the inscription of the father … hence no vital ‘respect’ is due to the Text … it can be broken … it can be read without the guarantee of its father” (1329). 

And further: "It is not that the Author may not ‘come back’ in the Text, in his text, but then does so as a ‘guest’ … a paper-author” (1329-1330).

 Barthes is saying something very dangerous here (and he knows it). When he says “the text is that social space which leaves no language safe, outside, nor any subject of the enunciation in position as judge, master, analyst, confessor, decoder” (1331), he's hinting at the equal validity thesis, which states that there are many different, yet "equally valid" ways of knowing the world. Even the more objective disciplines, like science or mathematics, are really just perception—another language game, as Wittgenstein might say. Although Barthes tiptoes around this issue, his predecessors don't. Indeed, poststructuralists go further and state that these “ways of knowing the world” can yield inconsistent beliefs (yet valid) beliefs in domains that are not typically subject to relativity—like science, for example.

This is a very dangerous position. I'll explain why later, but first I want to talk about postmodernism and Christianity.

There are a few reasons why, at least initially, postmodernism might seem friendly to Christianity.  First, there’s the sense that no single perspective can give justice to God’s revelation.  We’re limited creatures, both in terms of our language and in terms of our ability to justify our own beliefs, and it’s not clear whether we can escape that fact.  Second, postmodernism is non-hegemonic; in other words, it makes a point to level the playing field, so to speak, and give everyone an equal voice.  Third, it seems that the modern project (i.e. the aim of achieving absolute scientific knowledge and epistemological enlightenment) has failed.  Christianity, some might argue, needs to align with the enemy of its enemy in order to bring down a dying movement.

Those are some motivations.  Let's move on to the scope of Barthes's argument:

While it’s not clear by his statement that Barthes endorses a global (i.e. total) relativism about facts (unlike, it could be argued, Saussure), he nevertheless does seem to endorse a textual relativism about linguistic facts—that is to say, he is claiming:

1. There are no absolute facts of the form T 
2. Rather, our factual judgments of the form T should be construed as “according to the theory T—which we accept—P entails” 
3. There are no facts by virtue of which one theory is more faithful to “the way things are in and of themselves” than any other theory

In terms of textual analysis, this entails (from Boghossian's Fear of Knowledge):

4. There are no absolute facts of the form, p.

5. If our factual judgments are to have any prospect of being true, we must not construe utterances of the form:

“p”

As expressing the claim:

p

                        But rather as expressing the claim:

According to a theory, T, that we accept, p. (52)

There are two ways the absolutist or objectivist might respond to global relativism. The first response is that global relativism is self-defeating, while the second response is that global relativism is subject to an infinite regress. According to the first objection, “any relativistic thesis needs to commit itself to there being at least some absolute truths [or facts]; yet what a global relativism asserts is that there are no absolute truths” (53). In other words, the assumption

4'. There are no absolute facts of the form, p.

forces the global relativist into a dilemma: either “he intends his own view to be absolutely true, or he intends it to be only relatively true. If the former, he refutes himself, for he would then have admitted at least one absolute truth. If the latter, we may just ignore him, for then it is just a report of what the relativist finds it agreeable to say” (53). (By the way, some relativists have responded to the dilemma above.  I'll set aside for now whether any of them have been successful; if any of them are, it should be recognized that this is just one paradox upon...well, many.)

So, the relativist faces some major epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, even if that weren't the case, the relativistic claim that all means of interpretation are equally valid—i.e that there is no incorrect way to interpret a text—is just incompatible with Christianity. Evidence isn't exactly hard to find: take, for example, the fact that Christianity is a religion founded upon the historical occurrence of the Resurrection of Christ.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul states that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” and that if it is “only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Cor 15:16-19).  Clearly, Christianity does make a claim to objective reality.  For the sake of argument, however, let's say that I interpret passages concerning Christ's resurrection as saying the following:

1. Christ's crucifixion was actually a metaphor, and that no one named Jesus actually existed; God just absolved us of our sins for no particular reason, and Jesus's “death” was an allegorical interpretation of God's 2000-year-old mood-swing.

Relativist: that interpretation is perfectly valid. Problem?

Yeah.  There is a problem.  While a deconstructionist or postmodern outlook might initially seem attractive to Christians, it’s clearly rife with epistemological, metaphysical, and theological issues.  The text is sacred, it cannot be broken, and it must not be read with “the guarantee of its father.” Some positions are better than others, and honestly, I think that once you subscribe to a postmodern outlook, attempting to maintain a Biblical, Christian faith becomes incoherent.  

That’s not to say that you couldn’t be a postmodernist and believe in God, or even that you couldn't do your best to, for example, reconcile a Christian faith with scientific discoveries.  The latter doesn't make you a postmodernist, or a relativist, in the sense that I'm using the word.  Being a semi-orthodox Christian doesn't mean you have to take every word of the Bible literally, but it does mean that when you interpret something in a certain way, you should at least be rationally, theologically, and hermeneutically justified in doing so.

So, what I am saying is that the claim that there is no *wrong* way to interpret a text--in the context of a faith founded upon a sacred, divinely inspired, objective text--is on shaky philosophical ground.

Granted, Barthes's conception of textual relativism isn't nearly as extreme as his predecessors. Even so, he remains grounded in a relativistic tradition.  On top of that, his belief that the connection between the author and the work is merely a socially constructed one just doesn't fit in with Christianity, regardless of how you try and sell it.  Taking the author out of the text just doesn't work on a text that's supposed to be authored/guided by freaking God. Barthes's position breaks down the second you start considering Scripture as a text, which for him, is the second you start reading it.