Authorial Intention in the Age of AI: Redeeming Vanhoozer’s Hermeneutics

Authorial intention has been a historically important hermeneutic tool. However, the current use in modern hermeneutics will become increasingly problematic for a generation raised in the world of AI generated meaningful texts. AI generated meaningful texts already are a source of confusion and disillusionment for readers who expect a human author behind such a text. The significance of the potential disillusionment is exacerbated by older hermeneutic theories that unconditionally prioritize and elevate the role of an anonymous author. One such example is the moral hermeneutics of Dr. Vanhoozer. To defend against this disillusionment, I will synthesize Vanhoozer's ethical writings with his hermeneutic theory to propose what I will call the hermeneutics of faith. The synthesis will defend against the potential disillusionment caused by increasing exposure to meaningful but AI-generated texts. The proposed remediation is an expansion of authorial intention to consider the commitment of the author made public by their lives. The author's lived commitment provides personal involvement and authentication for their textual claims. AI systems can produce compelling texts, but do not live or stay committed to what they have written. The proposed authentication will be a pre-condition before the literary event, allowing the reader to be properly prepared to approach the truth claims of the text and avoid a disillusionment regarding the revealed author. The aspirational result will be preservation of trust in the role of an author, which is important for equipping future generations of exegetes to defend Scripture as authoritative and reliable within a rapidly changing context of reader to author relationships.