3: Narrative as Drama
“Theological ethics requires the written text, but is not limited to the written word. It assumes interpretation, but can never be just a verbal matter, written or spoken. It inevitably involves the organization of interpretation and its structuring into doctrine, but this exercise must always be a support to something else, not an end in itself. That something else is the embodiment of the text, the events it describes, its interpretation and systematic construal in the practices and performance of the community. This is a dynamic, spiraling process of constant repetition, reinterpretation, transfer, and restoration of meaning, of things never being the same again and other things being rediscovered, ever new. It is what happens when words leave the page, when thoughts leave the mind, when actions ripple through other lives and cause further actions and further thoughts. It is what happens when narrative becomes drama.”
Von Balthasar and Theo Drama. The difference between epic, lyric, and dramatic story telling. “The apostolic witness is one whose life and faith speaks to believer (lyric) and unbeliever (epic), and whose experience of God’s prior action becomes part of the testimony. The authors of the New Testament write as apostolic witnesses in this dramatic mode.”
Reconsidering von Balthasar. Criticism of Balthasar and NT Wright’s concept of the unfinished play. Wells agrees with that with some mods.
A Five-Act Play.
- Creation. Too much love for God to keep it to himself. God is the center of the story, not the world.
- Israel. The old testament is a love story . Israel strives with God, unable to live with him and unable to live without him.
- Jesus. God reveals his character. The author enters the drama.
- The Church. The church is given all it needs to be the body of God in the world—the Holy Spirit, the Scripture, baptism, the eucharist, and more. This is the drama lived out in the present.
- The Eschaton. Still to come. The God at the end is no different than the God revealed in Act 3.
Wells discusses some mistakes made by assuming one lives in the wrong act.
Quotes from: Samuel Wells. “Improvisation.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/improvisation/id473939687?mt=11