Does contemporary theology require a postfoundationalist way of knowing?
In his The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, F. LeRon Shults recommends postfoundationalism as a via media between modernist foundationalism and postmodernist antifoundationalism. He advocates postfoundationalism as an epistemological approach which avoids the pitfalls on either side and provide...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2007
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| In: |
Scottish journal of theology
Year: 2007, Volume: 60, Issue: 3, Pages: 271-293 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In his The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, F. LeRon Shults recommends postfoundationalism as a via media between modernist foundationalism and postmodernist antifoundationalism. He advocates postfoundationalism as an epistemological approach which avoids the pitfalls on either side and provides the best way forward for constructive theological work. In this article I attempt to assess how well Shults's proposal treats Christian theological knowing. I begin by entertaining a Barthian theological concern which might be employed as soft criteria for an assessment of any proposed theological epistemology. This concern stipulates that an epistemology in the service of Christian theology must respect a commitment to the objective reality of God who, as Word become flesh, makes himself known through the human experience of reality to his church, while recognising the fallibility of human knowing, presupposing a knowledge of God accessible through experience always only by the prevenient, self-giving action of God. I then turn to a brief analysis of the Shults–van Huyssteen case against foundationalism and nonfoundationalism, focusing particularly on the postfoundationalist critiques of foundationalism and fideism in dialogue with Barth. The article concludes with an appraisal of the postfoundationalist recommendation. I argue that Shults's approach maps well to the theological concern for critical realism and a recognition of the social embeddedness of human knowing. Postfoundationalism's underlying commitments, however, leave it closed to an external source of warrant, and as a consequence repudiate a from above view of theological knowing. I suggest instead that only a theofoundationalist epistemology avoids the pitfalls sketched by Shults in a way that maintains proper epistemic humility without entering the ghettos of fideism or scepticism. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-3065 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Scottish journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0036930607003286 |