911恐怖攻擊事件後，宗教在各方面退卻到基要主義，形成了詮釋學使命上的重大問題。本文關注海德格和高達美之後的瓦蒂莫的著作，將虛無主義的事件表達成一個詮釋時代中的基本元素。在此詮釋時代中，「沒有事實，只有詮釋」，而且形上學的衰敗激起如此的主張；「［尼釆和海德格之後的］詮釋學乃是基督教信息的發展和老化。」瓦蒂莫的虛己神學和二十世紀末美國的「神死神學」有幾分相似之處。

After 9/11, the religious retreat into fundamentalism on all sides posed a major question for the task of hermeneutics. Focusing on the work of Gianni Vattimo, after Heidegger and Gadamer, this essay addresses the issue of nihilism as a fundamental element of religion in an age of interpretation in which ”there are no facts and only interpretations,” and in which the decay of metaphysics prompts the claim that ”hermeneutics [after Nietzsche and Heidegger] is the development and maturation of the Christian message.” Vattimo's deeply kenotic theology bears some resemblance to the ”death of God” theology in the USA in the later years of the twentieth century.