Divine Love understood by Vanhoozer’s Trinitarian Hermeneutics & C.S. Song’s Story Theology and its Implication for Religious Dialogue

In this article, the author tires to investigate, from the perspective of contextual theology of Asia, the main works of Kevin Vanhoozer, including Is there in a Meaning in This Text? First Theology, The Drama of Doctrine and Remythologizing Theology, in order to explore how his theological hermeneutics may contribute to religious dialogue. Indubitably, the theological hermeneutics of Vanhoozer was formed in struggling with the challenges of postmodernity in the pluralistic age. That means post-modern context influenced his way of doing theology. He integrates philosophical hermeneutics, theory of speech act and the doctrine of Trinity into a Trinitarian hermeneutics of humility and conviction. For him, God, script and hermeneutics are the tripod of First Theology. On the one hand, theology is hermeneutical, because theology is based on interpretation of the Bible. On the other hand, hermeneutics is theological, because the interpretation of texts in general rests on beliefs about God and humanity. In this sense, his Trinitarian hermeneutics is positive to religious dialogue which aims at understanding the meanings of God and humanity by sharing interpretation, understanding and application of religious scriptures to deal with common problems of the world today. Based on methodology of theological hermeneutics, Vanhoozer constructs a communicative theism which is more open to other religions than previous traditional theism, and more loyal to the triune God than perichoretic theism at present-day. The author will try to argue that Vanhoozer’s contribution might be enhanced in case his theological hermeneutics practiced with story theology of Choan-Seng Song. This connection is possible because both of them espouse “theology of transposition.” As Caleb Oladipo rightly said, effective religious dialogue is achieved by “mutual understanding” and “mature differentiation.” For Vanhoozer, communicative action of God is the subject matter of theological interpretation of the Bible, and the divine Love manifested in the story of Jesus is the climax of Theo-Drama. Yet, the story of Jesus is more effective for the Asian people when it was understood and interpreted in relation to stories of suffering people in Asian contexts as the story theology of Song strived. The triune God, understood and experienced by a Trinitarian hermeneutics, is the One who lights and lives in love. Divine love of the triune God calls Christians to be responsible pluralists who seek unity in plurality of theological/religious meanings by improvising, inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit, the Theo-Drama not only among their brothers and sisters in the contexts of Christian cultures, but also amidst their neighbors of other faiths in the contexts of pluralistic religions and cultures.