Paul Ricoeur

Although there has always been a hermeneutic problem in Christianity, the hermeneutic question today seems to us a new one.

The narrative constructs the identity of the character, what can be called his or her narrative identity, in constructing that of the story told. It is the identity of the story that makes the identity of the character.

If it is true that there is always more than one way of construing a text, it is not true that all interpretations are equal.

But myth is something else than an explanation of the world, of history, and of destiny. Myth expresses in terms of the world - that is, of the other world or the second world - the understanding that man has of himself in relation to the foundation and the limit of his existence. Hence to demythologize is to interpret myth, that is, to relate the objective representations of the myth to the self-understanding which is both shown and concealed in it.

On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise.

Testimony demands to be interpreted because of the dialectic of meaning and event that traverses it.

Myth expresses in terms of the world - that is, of the other world or the second world - the understanding that man has of himself in relation to the foundation and the limit of his existence.

Narrative identity takes part in the story's movement, in the dialectic between order and disorder

It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and to seek for an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach.

Hope, insofar as it is hope of resurrection, is the living contradiction of what it proceeds from and what is placed under the sign of the Cross and death.

The spectacle is at the same time the mirage of self in the mirror of things.