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2 Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952).Google Scholar

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4 For useful introductions, see Kellner, Hans, Language and Historical Representation: Getting the Story Crooked (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Martin, Wallace, Recent Theories of Narrative (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

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6 See the “Forward” by his widow, Voegelin, Lissy, in Voegelin, , In Search of Order, vol. 5 of Order and History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

7 Gebhardt, Jürgen, “Epilogue”, in Voegelin, , In Search of Order, pp. 109–18.Google Scholar

8 Voegelin, , Israel and Revelation, vol. 1 of Order and History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956), p. 1.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p. 2.

12 Voegelin, , Anamnesis, trans, and ed. Niemeyer, Gerhart (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), pp. 100, 99.Google Scholar

13 Voegelin, , Israel and Revelation, p. 2.Google Scholar

14 Voegelin, , “Immortality: Experience and Symbol,” in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, ed. Sandoz, Ellis, vol. 12, Published Essays: 1966–1985 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), p. 91.Google Scholar

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17 Cf. Ibid., p. 107.

18 Webb, Eugene, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1981), pp. 283–84.Google Scholar

19 Voegelin, , In Search of Order, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., p. 15.

21 Ibid., pp. 16–18.

22 Cf. White, Hayden, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), p. 53.Google Scholar

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28 Lash, , “Ideology”, p. 76ffGoogle Scholar; cf. Voegelin, , Anamnesis, p. 206Google Scholar. The usage here implies, incidentally, that Voegelin's two metaphors of consciousness with which I began this article are, in fact, brief stories. This implication forms a premise of the present paper.

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30 Cf. White, , Content of the Form, pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

31 Wyschogrod, Michael. The Body of Faith: Judaism as Corporeal Election (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1983), p. 5Google Scholar; cf. Ricoeur, , From Text to Action, p. 4.Google Scholar

32 White, , Content of the Form, pp. 50–51Google Scholar. This “grasping together” reminds us of Voegelin's early statement that “the historical line of meaning stretches like a rope over an abyss into which everything that cannot cling fast falls” (“Die Sinnlinie der Geschichte läuft wie ein Seil über einen Abgrund, in den alles was sich auf ihm nicht halten kann, hinabstürtzt” [Über die Form des Amerikanischen Geistes (Tübingen, 1928), p. 14]).

33 Lash, , “Ideology”, p. 72Google Scholar. Cf. Lash's, valuable comments on Thomas Aquinas's philosophical method, pp. 79–85.Google Scholar

34 The term is Voegelin's. It refers to “the precarious awareness of the conditions of existence in the metaxy [Plato's symbol representing the experience of human existence as ‘between’ lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, and so on.”], easily lost when the experience of being drawn toward the transcendental pole becomes sufficiently vivid to tempt one to expect escape from the metaxy and from the existential tension that characterizes it” (Webb, , Eric Voegelin, pp. 278, 284).Google Scholar

35 Voegelin, , “What Is History”, pp. 3–13Google Scholar; Anamnesis, pp. 175–82.

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40 Ibid., p. 14.

41 Faber, , Prometheus-Komplex, pp. 22–25Google Scholar. Webb has carefully noted some of the problems that Voegelin's language and symbolic closures may produce (Philosophers of Consciousness, pp. 119–30).

42 Ricoeur, , From Text to Action, p. 2.Google Scholar

43 White, , Content of the Form, p. 179Google Scholar; Ricoeur, Paul, “Narrative Time,” Critical Inquiry 7 (1980): 171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Voegelin, , Anamnesis, pp. 36–7Google Scholar; Ricoeur suggests such a relationship, From Text to Action, pp. 9–10.

45 Cf. Voegelin, , Anamnesis, pp. 36–37Google Scholar; In Search of Order, p. 21; Webb, , Philosophers of Consciousness, pp. 59–62Google Scholar; and section 6 below.

46 For an example of such “sense-making”, see White, , Content of the Form, pp. 6–11.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Walsh, David, After Ideology: Recovering the Spiritual Foundations of Freedom (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990)Google Scholar; and Franz, Politics of Spiritual Revolt.

48 Voegelin, , In Search of Order, pp. 45–47.Google Scholar

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50 Hauerwas, Stanley, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 24–29Google Scholar. White makes a similar argument in his evaluation and summation of the first two volumes of Ricoeur's Time and Narrative (Content of the Form, pp. 178–81); cf. Ricoeur, Paul, Time and Narrative, vol. 1, trans. McLaughlin, Kathleen and Pellauer, David (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 52–87.Google Scholar

51 McClendon, James Wm., Systematic Theology: Ethics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1986), pp. 170–73Google Scholar, Goldberg, Michael, Theology and Narrative: A Critical Introduction (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1982)Google Scholar. Hans kellner, in contrast, seems more skeptical about the possibility of communities built around authoritative narratives (Historical Representation, pp. x–xi, 330–33).

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56 Cf. Voegelin, , Anamnesis, pp. 97–111.Google Scholar

57 Voegelin, , In Search of Order, pp. 48–54.Google Scholar

58 Hauerwas, and Burrell, , “System to Story,” p. 20.Google Scholar

59 Ibid., p. 21.

60 Voegelin, , In Search of Order, pp. 42–47Google Scholar; Goldberg, Michael, Jews and Christians: Getting Our Stories Straight (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1985).Google Scholar

61 Hauerwas, and Burrell, , “System to Story,” p. 21.Google Scholar

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63 Wood, Charles M., “Hermeneutics and the Authority of Scripture,” in Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interprefation, ed. Green, Garrett (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 12.Google Scholar

64 Wood, , “Hermeneutics,” pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

65 Thiemann, Ronald, “Radiance and Obscurity in Biblical Narrative,” in Green, , Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, p. 27.Google Scholar

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67 Webb, , Philosopher of History, p. 285.Google Scholar

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70 Ibid., p. 29.

71 Ibid., p. 24.

72 For an interesting interpretation of this recollection, see Sebba, Gregor, “Prelude and Variations on the Theme of Eric Voegelin,” Southern Review 13 (1977): 651 and 651n4.Google Scholar

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74 Ibid., p. 37. Webb argues that Voegelin's inclination “to assume that the production of interpretive symbols must be a spontaneous, virtually automatic process” displays the influence on his thought of both Schelling and Schopenhauer, but more especially Kant. Webb's considerations of René Girard's (and Paul Ricoeur's) “hermeneutics of suspicion” adds a useful caveat to Voegelin's rather more optimistic view of what the indices of consciousness provide; myths and symbols can also mislead us by surreptitiously confirming or introducing prejudices, justifications for violence, and other evils. Accordingly, our response to wonder and mystery must be open, yet critical (Philosophers of Consciousness, pp. 130ff, 14, 16–18, 206–211).

75 Cf. Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 50–51, 57–58Google Scholar; Voegelin, , Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1968), pp. 108–114Google Scholar. A particularly fine example of the role of community in interpretation may be found in the biblical account of the Ethiopian eunuch's conversion to Christianity (Acts 8:16–40). See also Tanner, Kathryn E., “Theology and the Plain Sense,” in Green, , Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, pp. 59–78.Google Scholar

76 Thiemann, , “Radiance and Obscurity,” p. 26.Google Scholar

77 Ibid., pp. 26–27.

78 See especially Webb, , Philosopher of History, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar

79 Voegelin, , Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, pp. 108–109.Google Scholar

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