As we have seen above, if the MIF shapes the Christian moral life through the intended perlocutionary effect, then the possibility of a new approach to its ethical intent and content could be opened up from the perspective of Christology. This in turn refers to God’s saving activity (i.e., God’s kingdom) for the people of God. God’s performative action invites us to trust God, and to surrender in devotion and obedience to the words of Jesus (the MIF or messianic ministry) in real-life situations. It demands a specific ethical responsibility as a particular self-involving commitment with respect to the recognition of one’s role, attitude, calling as a Christian in the public domain. This means that the Christian moral life from the
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perspective of SAT is not a dichotomy between cognitive-propositional knowledge and a cognitive-response of its ethical content. Rather, they cannot be separated from each other because they are completely force-neutral – “when a proposition is expressed it is always expressed in the performance of an illocutionary act” (Searle 1968:148; 1969:29). The proposition implies both “what the text meant” and “what the text would do” to the hearer at the same time. The MIF also creates a bridge between the Bible and contemporary life across time and place. Its energy and its intention are continuously being echoed in our lives as a real dynamic and powerful communicative action between Jesus and believers. Thus, this point has a new potential to establish continuity between the “biblical world” and the “contemporary world” through the MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect on the Christian life and from the viewpoint of Christology.
However, it is difficult to use the dichotomy between “what the text meant” and “what the text would do” to explain the relationship between knowledge and action (i.e., a form of Cartesian dualism) or one’s relationship to others. The proposition, “I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo
sum),” does not give an account of either individual action or social interaction because this
consideration focuses on the private subjective consciousness. Such a view indicates that, “the disengaged identity and its attendant notion of freedom tend to generate an understanding of the individual as metaphysically independent of society” (Taylor 1985:8). Macmurray’s (1957:73) remark in this regard is noteworthy. He says:
If we make the ‘I think’ the primary postulate of philosophy, then not merely do we institute a dualism between theoretical and practical experience, but we make action logically inconceivable – a mystery… in which we necessarily believe, but which we can never comprehend.
The above statement shows that it is difficult to use dichotomy to understand society and others in the public domain. On the other hand, using SAT to understand illocutionary force (MIF) enables us to determine the public setting and social interaction in the communicative act between Jesus and others. This is because the words of Jesus can be regarded as a divine speech act. According to Taylor (1985:259), language produces a particular public space or sphere. For example, in a wedding ceremony, the minister proclaims, “From now, they become husband and wife”. In the spoken discourse, what the speaker does with words creates a certain context (a public domain) that a man and a woman have decided to live the rest of their lives together
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officially before many witnesses. After that, no one could raise any objection to them being husband and wife. Furthermore, such a response produces a new social reality (public area) and it shows that actions contain communicative practice in a certain context according to the norms and practices in that context. This means that a person in a particular community carries his/her identity like their “face” (to use Lévinas’ term), and acts out a certain role, position and responsibility in the context of a conversation. For Lévinas (1985:87), “Face and discourse are tied. The face speaks.”
Accordingly, in SAT, the characteristics of the MIF can be likened to the face that represents Jesus’ character (identity) in a speech act in which the hearers are urged to do something through an illocutionary notion in accordance with its intended perlocutionary effect. It is closely linked to Christology, “Jesus is the Messiah, Lord” and to God’s saving activity through Jesus Christ in the present world. The point of the MIF is to invite believers to participate in God’s saving work in accordance with the intended perlocutionary effect which creates a new public domain and transforms their lives with their new roles and new responsibilities as Christians.
Returning to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-42, we can see that this passage presents the social status of women and men in terms of gender and the relationship between Jews and Samaritans as issues of religious practices or tradition that relate to morality concerns. As Botha (1991:88) has shown in a SAT-oriented reading of this biblical text, the unspoken language expresses a culturally shared knowledge that includes various social settings, customs and rules in a community:
Jesus and the woman meet as complete strangers.
They encounter each other in a ‘foreign’ country, that is, Samaria.
They are allusions to the patriarchs and worship-shared knowledge between them.
Jesus is a male Jew,-she is a female Samaritan; an impossible conversation in terms of the socio-historical context.
They are alone, which is also socially unacceptable.
Jews and Samaritans do not share cooking or eating utensils (his italics).
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“institutional facts” in the biblical narrative which demonstrates standards of living or patterns of behaviour in human community. Before Jesus and the Samaritan woman engaged in a conversation, the custom that Jews and Samaritans do not share things was already in place. However, we assume that after their conversation the woman’s public place would be/is changed by the utterance of Jesus through the MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect. In other words, the MIF has the power to create a new public domain in the present and to produce transformation.
The Samaritan woman recognizes that “Jesus is the Messiah” through the MIF in the conversation with Jesus and, then, she preaches Jesus as the Messiah to her fellow villagers (v.29). On hearing her, the villagers go out to meet Jesus (v. 30), even though in terms of the socio-historical context, Jews and Samaritans do not interact or share things in common. Interestingly, the villagers believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony (v. 39). This testimony is the result of the perlocutionary action through the MIF in the utterance of Jesus as an intended perlocutionary effect, and the woman’s testimony through the intended perlocutionary effect constructs a new public setting as the people accept the words of the woman as a new world of reality. It means that the public domain is totally changed by the woman’s testimony of Jesus as the Messiah. This event engages social issues such as gender, ethnic and religious discrimination through Jesus’ MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect. This is confirmed by verse 40 in which as they listened to the utterance of the woman, the villagers came to Jesus and asked him to stay with them. In those days, it was unimaginable that Jews and Samaritans would meet, talk and stay together (Gench 2004:111-112). This shows that Jesus’ MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect not only builds up a new public domain but also dissolves the issues of gender and of ethnic discrimination. Because of the MIF in the utterance of Jesus, many more believed in him as the Messiah, the true Saviour of the world (vv. 41-42). In short, the woman’s personal testimony about Jesus through the MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect creates a new public domain, in which the villagers are invited into a new reality of the world in accordance with the MIF point which the woman experienced through the spoken word of Jesus. In this sense, the people also become a “public testimony” through the illocutionary force and energy which results from a completely changed public arena. That is to say, the community according to the MIF is required to
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participate in this new reality as a transformation of life.
Thus, we see how Jesus’ MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect moves from the exchange of conversation to the Christian life with a new role and new responsibility as a witness of Jesus in the public domain. Ethical responsibility should prompt one to follow Jesus’ intention in his sayings in faith as they seek Jesus’ illocutionary action through the MIF which shapes them as a living testimony of the MIF in the present world. The intended perlocutionary effect empowers people in their role as Christians to invite the public to trust, love, devotion and obedience through the MIF, which can resolve social issues such as gender as well as, ethnic and religious discrimination. Therefore, the response Jesus would anticipate in the narrative text is that the people of God today also respond to its MIF from the witness of the words of Jesus as public testimony.
In particular, “Like the promise, testimony establishes a connection between what one says and the way things actually are. Indeed… testimony is an illocutionary act whereby a witness’s say so is itself evidence for the truth of what is said” (Vanhoozer 1998:291). This means that the Bible is the testimony of Christian communities to God’s (Jesus’) illocutionary action in history which indicates that interpreting the Bible must be treated as testimony in the public domain
by the people of God (Vanhoozer 1998:292). Vanhoozer (2002:161) states the point as follows:
The conclusion highlights what follows for biblical interpreters from this analysis [speech act theory]. It is not insignificant that the leading categories for describing interpreters-witness,
disciple-are drawn from the language of theology. For nothing less will do in describing our
properly theological responsibility to hear, and to understand, what God and neighbor are
saying/doing when they address us (my emphasis).
The above point demonstrates the intended perlocutionary effect in the Christian encounter through the illocutionary force and energy which require us to respond properly as witnesses of Scripture with “theological responsibility” according to the words of Jesus in the public setting. Thus, the MIF according to its intended perlocutionary effect influences one to be a witness of Jesus due to the illocutionary force and energy in Jesus’ speech act in the public domain.
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4.4 Revisiting the presence of the Kingdom in the relationship between truth and