Abstract

David Tracy, a prominent North American Roman Catholic theologian, offers a hermeneutic model which aims at unifying the diverse and often contradictory perspectives between theology and modern thought. Tracy, who is a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, interacts with the plurality of ideas and approaches in the stimulating academic environment in which he works. Tracy's setting and expertise give him priority for being chosen as an example in directing theological thought through the pluralistic culture and world. ;The proposal of this dissertation is that Tracy operates from within the "aesthetic-phenomenological hermeneutic" tradition. The thesis held is that Tracy's appeal to historical, social, and literary critical approaches in interpreting religious texts achieves a significant accomplishment by bringing closer together the creative with the critical, the scientific with the imaginative, and the sacred with the secular. Implications of Tracy's model are evaluated in relation to how this influenced his Christology. ;The introduction establishes the legitimacy of and justifies the reason for researching such a topic in order to give clarity and insight into the hermeneutical debate. ;Chapter one provides a basic overview and correlation of aesthetic and phenomenological themes in interpretation theory. The genetic tie between these two respective lineages is proven in this chapter through the elaboration that phenomenologists give to literature and art. ;Chapter two considers hermeneutical issues that help to uncover Tracy's interpretive presuppositions, foundational in determining the degree of consistency of his model. ;Chapter three closely follows Tracy's outline and thought in explaining how his revisionist theological position has grown out of the various theological disciplines, historic theological paradigms, and systematic theological responses, as well as why he views this perspective as a profitable trend. ;Chapters four through six connect philological, philosophical, and theological theories of interpretation. Here there is an elaboration upon how Tracy integrates linguistic and literary theories with philosophical and theological hermeneutics, and how Tracy's hermeneutic model affects his description of the person and work of Jesus Christ. ;The conclusion notes the positive contributions of Tracy's hermeneutic model, giving emphasis to the gains of the aesthetic-phenomenological hermeneutic to theology, an more particularly to Christology