| Popis: |
This research attempts to interpret, in a semiotic manner, the Epistle of James from the viewpoint of the internality–externality type of synergism, according to which faith and action make an inseparable synergic unit. The first part of the thesis deals with emphasizing the synergic pairs of the book, observing, according to Dibelius, the fact that faith and action are seen by traditional Jewish religiosity as an indivisible unit. It also underlines the difference between Luther’s viewpoint of faith–works unity and a number of modern interpretations. The latter hesitate to take into account James’ synergism evoked in 2:22, and conceive a kind of faith, theoretical or intellectual, which consists in its structural separation from acts. In order to explain the tendency of some contemporary interpretations to differentiate between theoretical and practical faith, or to favour faith to the detriment of acts, and the other way round, this study will tackle, in the second part, Charles Taylor’s analysis of modernity and will take into consideration his proposition related to the correction of the modern paradigm. Consequently, my thesis will pursue the conjunction of C.S. Peirce’s pragmatic semiotics with Oliver Davies’ cosmological semiotics. The result of this synthesis will constitute the object of the third part of this paper, which will end up formulating a methodology that, first of all, confers a non-dualistic rationality from whose perspective I will approach the Epistle of James. Secondly, it facilitates a hermeneutics which will unify meaning and action by integrating, in a reflexive manner, the linear life of the reader within the interpretative proceeding. Thirdly, it puts semiotic-theological instruments of interpreting the epistle at our disposal. In the fourth section, I will pursue an interpretation of the epistle, which will conclude with the presentation of a possible purpose, structure and progression in James. |
