Contours of a Constructive Pentecostal Philosophical-Theological Hermeneutic

Abstract

Development of Pentecostal hermeneutics continues to benefit from further consideration of the roles general philosophical and theological hermeneutics play in the formation of Pentecostal hermeneutics of Scripture and life. This article pictures a Pentecostal philosophical-theological hermeneutical paradigm by sketching the contours of a broad hermeneutical realist program for Pentecostal interpretive structures. It commends a dialectical structure which recognizes the thoroughgoing contextuality of human understanding with attendant linguistic-symbolic encultured categories of knowing in interpretive relation with the ontic, which, for Pentecostal Christian hermeneutics especially, includes divine revelation. The article further commends a theological narrative of epochal moments in salvation history – Creation-Incarnation-Pentecost-Eschaton – to provide an overarching theological structure which is complementary with already prominent Pentecostal governing theological narrations.