PLAYWRIGHTS, PROTAGONISTS, PRODUCERS, AND TRINITARIAN THEODRAMATICS
4.4 T HEODRAMATIC E MPLOTMENT 1 Unity and Diversity
Does Scripture really present an “all-embracing, creative, redemptive drama” despite containing a vast diversity of texts and genres?67 It is true that appeals to canonical unity can
easily stifle diversity and ignore textual particularity, ambiguity, and complexity. Richard Bauckham recognizes several ways in which the Bible does not possess seamless unity, including the fact that some books—such as Proverbs—do not fit neatly into the narrative structure, as well as the different styles, purposes and contexts of the various human authors.68
Walter Brueggemann offers a more robust warning against homogenization, since “the Bible does not consist in a single, large drama, but in many small, disordered dramas.69
Nevertheless, Brueggemann does admit that a narrative coherence slowly emerges after being immersed in the individual dramas transcribed in Scripture, but a tension remains between the small, disordering dramas and the large, unifying drama.70
Whereas Scripture contains diverse genres, historical situations, and authorial perspectives, it transcribes and prescribes performances in a unified theodrama. This unity
sense of direction.” Hart, “The Sense of an Ending: Finitude and the Authentic Performance of Life,” 176.
67Paul D. Hanson, The People Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1986), 531.
68 Richard Bauckham, “Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story,” in The Art of Reading Scripture, ed.
Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 38–40.
69 Brueggemann, The Bible and Postmodern Imagination, 70. 70 Ibid.
does not flatten out every contingency and complexity, but allows particularities to cohere within a greater whole. Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen observe that affirming the unity of Scripture actually liberates rather than oppresses interpretation by providing a framework for what otherwise might seem like an inchoate collection of literature.71 Indeed,
Scripture itself includes overviews of the unified theodrama, such as Stephen’s summary in Acts 7 or the numerous synopses in the Psalms (e.g. Ps 78; 105; 136). Of course, Bauckham correctly cautions that “the summaries cannot replace what they summarize; the story they summarize resists closure.”72 We must resist imposing “premature eschatological closure” on
the theodramatic unity of Scripture, yet a unified story emerges from the unique cases, complex characters, and surprising and unresolved plot permutations. As the second thesis of the Scripture Project asserts, “Scripture is rightly understood in light of the church’s rule of faith as a coherent dramatic narrative.”73 Ultimately, confidence in the coherent theodrama
revealed by Scripture rests on a belief in a divine playwright who does not dictate a script to human authors, but who nevertheless communicates through just these transcriptive texts and remains involved as producer in their prescriptive power in the life of the church. In short, Scripture testifies to and invites participation in a unified theodrama because it is divine discourse, a performance of the triune God.
4.4.2 Thematization and Development
It is one thing to recognize “a coherent dramatic narrative” in Scripture; it is quite another to determine the main theme and plot developments. This is an important and necessary move, however, if particular paradigms are to function properly as prescripts in the theodrama today. Correct interpretation of Scripture demands readers to locate particular biblical texts and their own historical location within the larger theodrama. Paul Ricoeur utilizes the term “emplotment” to describe the joint work of text and reader in configuring a plot.74 He observes that just as emplotment helps us make sense of our own lives, the same
71 Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen, “Story and Biblical Theology,” in Out of Egypt:
Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Mary Healy, Karl Moller, and Robin Parry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 167.
72 Bauckham, “Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story,” 44.
73 The Nine Theses on the Interpretation of Scripture are an introduction to the book that
resulted from the Scripture Project: Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays, eds., The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
74 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer, vol. 1
skill is used to bring cohesion to other stories, which when applied to Scripture takes the form of narrative theology.75 He also affirms the possibility of maintaining complex diversity within a unified plot, since “the triumphant concordance between the beginning and the end does not suppress, but enhances, the militant discordance of the middle.”76
Although Constantin Stanislavski never used the term “emplotment,” his theatrical practices correspond to Ricoeur’s theoretical concerns. To prepare a play for performance, Stanislavski insisted on discerning the development of the play and its main theme, or dividing the play into units and discerning the “super-objective.” This practice helps actors discern the direction of the play, out of which emerges a main theme or super-objective.77 For Stanislavski, discerning the super-objective is supremely important, because “in the play the whole stream of individual, minor objectives, all the imaginative thoughts, feelings and actions of an actor, should converge to carry out the super-objective of the plot.”78 He instructs actors to consider this carefully, although sometimes it is not possible to discern the super-objective until performing the play. As it emerges, however, the objective becomes the “fountainhead of the actor’s artistic creation,” a theatrical aid containing a “miraculous, life- giving quality.”79
Discerning the super-objective and plot of Scripture can be equally life-giving for actors in the theodrama, helping them understand the theodrama in which they are participating and giving meaning to the text and their own lives. In this “dramatic mode of reading,” observes Rowan Williams, the “movements, transaction, and transformations” of Scripture become ours and motivate fitting participation in the theodrama.80 The tasks of theodramatic emplotment and thematization, therefore, are not mere academic exercises, but pastoral, practical and performance-oriented activities. In a similar vein, Daniel Brendsel makes a convincing case that discerning the biblical plot and central theme are inextricably linked with ethical responsibility, since different emplotments and main themes imply different responsibilities.81
75 Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, ed. Mark I. Wallace, trans. David Pellauer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1995), 236f.
76 Ibid., 238.
77 Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares, 116–19. 78 Ibid., 271.
79 Ibid., 273, 276.
80 Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 50. This appeared earlier as Williams, “The Literal Sense of Scripture.”
81 Daniel J. Brendsel, “Plots, Themes, and Responsibilities: The Search for a Center of Biblical Theology Reexamined,” Themelios 35, no. 5 (2010): 400–412.
Most scholars exploring a theatrical model for theology and ethics have attempted to emplot the biblical theodrama according to different Acts, and the results are largely similar despite slight differences.82 Emplotting the theodrama by dividing it into Acts highlights its overall unity as well as its progression and development. For example, Tom Wright emplots Scripture as a five-Act play under the theme of a creation comedy as follows:
Act 1: Creation Act 2: Fall Act 3: Israel Act 4: Jesus Act 5: Church83
Wells purposefully sets his emplotment in counterpoint to Wright’s, criticizing Wright for putting the church at the end of the theodrama rather than the eschaton, failing to place Jesus at the center of the drama, and separating creation and fall into two Acts.84 In this way, Wells similarly delineates a five-Act theodrama, with contemporary Christians finding their role in Act 4.85 Rather than summarizing the story with a theme, Wells simply highlights the main developments in the story:
Act 1: Creation Act 2: Israel Act 3: Jesus Act 4: Church Act 5: Eschaton
Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen also acknowledge their debt to Wright, and offer yet another variation on his influential theodramatic emplotment.86 Like Wells, Bartholomew and Goheen add a final Act beyond the church, and include subheadings for several Acts to highlight the themes of kingdom and redemption.
82 I am not aware that Balthasar ever attempted an overarching theodramatic emplotment, but he
did articulate the five acts of Christ’s courtroom drama in conjunction with the work of Markus Barth (TD II, 156-59) and the three-act play of theodramatic anthropology (TD II, 335-36).
83 Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, 141–42.
84 Wells, Improvisation, 53–55. Wright dealt with Wells’ objections in Scripture and the Authority of God
(122-23) and preserved his emplotment.
85 Vanhoozer also follows this emplotment and expresses the main theme as a covenantal comedy
centered on the person and work of Jesus. See Drama of Doctrine, 2–3.
86 Goheen and Bartholomew, Drama of Scripture. The six acts are conveniently used as chapter
Act 1: God establishes his kingdom: creation Act 2: Rebellion in the kingdom: fall
Act 3: The king chooses Israel: redemption initiated Act 4: The coming of the King: redemption accomplished Act 5: Spreading the news of the King: the mission of the church Act 6: The return of the King: redemption completed
Although not every scholar emplots the biblical theodrama in a similar manner, there exists a common impulse to emplot and identify main themes and super-objectives. Even Walter Brueggemann, who resists cohesive emplotments, recognizes creation-covenant- consummation as the theodramatic plot, albeit one that is “enormously variegated in its detail and nuance.”87 What is more, all of these emplotments share a general movement from creation to new creation through the climactic person and work of Jesus. The major differences between these emplotments include the choice of a super-objective or theme (e.g. new creation, covenant, kingdom), the exact number of Acts and how they are apportioned (whether four, five, or six), and the presence of additional modifiers (e.g. redemption initiated) to provide more insight into the theodramatic theme.
Interestingly, only Bartholomew and Goheen name individual Acts in order to correspond with the overall theme of the theodrama rather than simply describing a particular era in the theodrama. Assigning thematic titles to various Acts constitutes, to a certain extent, imaginative interpretation and is always open to modification, but it represents a helpful and honest way to clarify the thematic unity and development of the theodrama. While Bartholomew and Goheen succeed in communicating thematic unity and development within their emplotment, they also introduce confusion by weaving together two themes— kingdom and redemption—and mixing in other popular monikers for theodramatic eras, such as creation, fall, and church. A more successful emplotment, it seems, would combine both consistent thematic descriptions of Acts and historical monikers common in most emplotments. The following is one example of how this might be accomplished:
Act 1: Formation (Creation) Act 2: Deformation (Fall)
Act 3: Transformation emerged (Israel) Act 4: Transformation embodied (Jesus) Act 5: Transformation empowered (Church) Act 6: Re-formation (New Creation)
Consider several benefits of this particular emplotment. First, each Act title contains a common root word—form—emphasizing theodramatic unity while highlighting the progression by prefix changes: de-, trans- and re-. Thus, the relationship between each Act is more obvious and organic than the typical scheme of creation-fall-redemption- consummation. Second, the different permutations of formation highlight the relationship between the tragic and comic elements of theodrama. If formation sets the stage for a comedy, then deformation introduces the tragic element (the bad news), while the comic reemerges through transformation (the good news) and finally swallows up the tragic in complete re-formation.88 Third, focusing the plot around the theme of form emphasizes not merely theodramatic truth or performative goodness, but the beauty of the theodrama: beauty formed, deformed, transformed, and reformed. Fourth, “redemption” may be the most common title for the Act following the fall, but “redemption” is only one possible description of God’s action throughout the theodrama. It is simply one metaphor among many to describe God’s salvific action, including reconciliation, ransom, adoption, victory, liberation, justification, and more. Transformation, on the other hand, is a concept expansive enough to include all of these metaphors within its conceptual reach. Therefore, it calls for rather than limits further description of the theodramatic plot utilizing other biblical metaphors and themes.
Although this is merely one example of a theodramatic emplotment, it illustrates the importance of identifying a theme and discerning development within the theodrama. Without a main theme or super-objective, the Acts of the theodrama easily become disconnected. The dispensationalist error is not recognizing the dramatic development and connection between the Acts, and how the earlier acts continue to influence the latter.89 Again, this is the benefit of naming the Acts in order to discern theodramatic continuity and discontinuity. Careful attention to development and thematization enables fruitful interpretation of Scripture as transcript and prescript, placing each text and paradigm within the context of the whole theodrama. Next, we turn to consider how developing biblical disponibility and displaying biblical fittingness are related to Scripture as transcript and prescript and the practices of exegeting paradigmatic texts and emploting the theodrama.
88 As such, I am inclined to view the theodrama, like C. S. Lewis does, as a “tragic-comedy.” For a good introduction to this theme in Lewis, see Michael Wards’s essay “The Tragedy Is in the Pity: C. S. Lewis and the Song of the Goat” in Taylor and Waller, Christian Theology and Tragedy: Theologians, Tragic Literature and Tragic Theory, 149–63.
4.5 BIBLICAL DISPONIBILITY AND FITTINGNESS