| This dissertation argues that Paul Ricoeur's interpretation theory—particularly his notion of a text projecting a world and a way of being-in-the-world which readers help complete and appropriate, and the paired hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval entailed therein—contributes to an adequate notion of tradition from an Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective. This exploration evolves in light of the textual (scriptural) focus of Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, its emphasis on faith as a shared way of life, and the plurality and ambiguity present in historical traditions.; I first consider the problematization of the notion of tradition and rehabilitations of the concept in philosophical hermeneutics and theology in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, David Tracy, and George Lindbeck.; Then I examine developments and shifts in the definition and function of tradition in American Anabaptist-Mennonite theology beginning with Harold S. Bender's Anabaptist Vision in 1944. This exploration includes the work of Bender, Guy F. Hershberger, Robert Friedmann, John C. Wenger, J. Lawrence Burkholder, John Howard Yoder, polygenesis historiographers, J. Denny Weaver, Thomas N. Finger, Gordon D. Kaufman, and Duane K. Friesen. Drawing from the treatment of tradition by the latter four contemporary figures, I develop several trajectories for an Anabaptist-Mennonite understanding of tradition.; Next I explicate Ricoeur's interpretation theory, focusing on the productivity of distanciation, the understanding-explanation dialectic, and the world of the text. I consider the implications of these concepts for a conceptualization of tradition and apply them toward developing a hermeneutics of tradition in Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective. The exploration demonstrates that sufficient resonance exists between Ricoeur's thought and the concerns of representative Anabaptist-Mennonite theologians to generate a hermeneutics of tradition adequately reflecting the self-understanding of this community. At the same time, Ricoeur's model clearly challenges Anabaptist-Mennonite construals of tradition and its functioning to expand in three directions: first, to develop a more dialectical notion of the relation between formative texts, tradition, and identity across time; second, to understand multiple, competing interpretations of a tradition and their argumentation as constitutive of the dynamic identity of a tradition; third, to employ the paired hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval in all construals of tradition, as necessitated by the ambiguity of any historical tradition, its texts, interpretations, and interpreters. |
