Abstract

The linguistic articulation of ethical knowledge has been problematised in both philosophical and theological discourse: Not only are the claims of knowledge-possession that propositional language asserts illogical, they are manifestly dangerous. The totalitarian or authoritarian models that such claims stem from have been partially replaced in both fields by a new paradigmatic emphasis on the impossibility of full ethical knowledge. The realm of the unknown, or the 'other,' as it is referred to in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, signifies that beyond the ontological that is within our grasp, there is the realm outside of our subjectivity. In the truly ethical encounter, one is awakened to this realm. Rather than reject religion as an authoritative institution, the aim of this dissertation is to show that within the tenets of divine revelation, in both Jewish and Christian understandings, there is the encouragement to embrace the realm of the unknown, that is, mystery. Theologically this is achieved through a structural emphasis on the symbolic, rather than the propositional. The symbolic mediates between the finitude of the subject and the vastness of the infinite. Symbolic or metaphoric investigations of revelation have been made in order to answer to the problem of truth as authoritarian. This paper aims to uncover, through an analysis of ethics of the 'other', why and how such understanding and articulation of revelation are indeed more ethical. With this in mind, a symbolic approach to scripture as a source of ethics is recommended.