Critiquing Assumptions

“Total objectivity” is possible and desirable.

Bias is always bad. Christian bias is especially

bad.

“Modern” v. “Postmodern” Epistemology

Modern: Knowledge is

certainobjectivegood

Postmodern:Knowledge is

not certainnot objectivenot good

(Millard Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith, 1998, 84-88)

Christian Response?

“Most Western Christians have yet to develop epistemological foundations that enable them to affirm the uniqueness of Christ as the only way to salvation and eternal life, and to witness boldly to the truth in winsome ways. . . .

Christian Response?

“One of the greatest challenges to the Western church is to lay again the theological foundations of the truth of the gospel and to train its members how to proclaim this with humility and love.”Paul Hiebert (Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts, 1999)

Layers of Culture

Basic Worldview Questions

1. Where are we and what is this place like?

2. Who are we and where are we going?

3. What is the problem and what is right and wrong?

4. What is the solution?5. How do we know?

“Modern” Answers

1. Where are we and what is this place like? In a closed universe, on a chunk of spinning space mass, the product of a natural cosmic event, which is moving away from its point of origin, perhaps indefinitely.

“Modern” Answers

2. Who are we and where are we going? Biological organisms, the products of remarkable evolutionary processes, who contribute to the process by spreading modernity, but whose end is personal extinction.

“Modern” Answers

3. What's the problem and what is right and wrong? Some people haven't evolved as much as others. Ethics is based on personal satisfaction and technological improvements.

“Modern” Answers

4. The solution? More science and technology.

5. How do we know? Science.

Christian Answers?

1. Where are we and what is this place like? In an open universe designed, created and sustained by God. But ever since the Fall, it’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

Christian Answers?

2. Who are we and where are we going? God’s creations, made in His image—an image distorted by sin, clarified by Jesus Christ, and restored by His redemptive work—created to enjoy His fellowship forever.

Christian Answers?

3. What is the problem and what is right and wrong? Sin, as defined by God Himself, is anything that is inconsistent with His nature and will.

Christian Answers?

4. What is the solution? Individual and collective reconciliation through Jesus and re-creation through our cooperation with the Spirit.

Christian Answers?

5. How do we know? God has revealed it.

Ways of Knowing

Science Intuition

Revelation Tradition?

Experience?

Ways of Knowing

REVELATION

SCIENCE INTUITION

PRE-MODERN

Ways of Knowing

REVELATION

SCIENCE INTUITION

MODERN

Ways of Knowing

SCIENCE

REVELATION

INTUITION

POSTMODERN

Ways of Knowing

REVELATION

SCIENCE INTUITION

CHRISTIAN

Colossians 2:2-3

2My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Ways of Knowing

REVELATION

SCIENCE INTUITION

CHRISTIAN

1 Corinthians 13:9-12

9For we know in part and we prophesy in part . . . 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Are You Sure?

Objectivists: assume reality is as we experience it

Naïve realism (positivism): truth is knowable, perception is accurate

Instrumentalism: “truth” is not the goal. Find what works.

Determinism: truth is programmed

Are You Sure?

Constructivists: assume all perceptions of reality are social constructions

Radical perspectivalism: there is no truth, there is only perception

Idealism: “truth” is only in the mind; should not get attached to illusory appearances

Are You Sure?

Objectivists Constructivists

Naïve realists Perspectivalists

Instrumentalists Idealists Determinists

Culture Wars

Orthodox: commitment to an external, transcendent authority

Progressives:there is no clear, unchanging truth

(James Davidson Hunter 1991)

Culture Wars

Is There Another Choice?

Objectivists Constructivists

Critical realism: recognizes that perception can be faulty and reason has its limits. But we can apprehend reality, at least to the extent that God reveals it.

Critical Realists

“This is How We Know!”

1 John against backdrop of “gnosticism” in various forms

“That which was from the beginning . . .” (1:1-4)

“See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you . . .” (2:24)

“This is how we know . . .”

“This is How We Know!”

But we’re not obnoxious, arrogant, or mean-spirited. We do have a testimony that is more than a good story about a good man, more than just another moral compass among many.

Christian Realism

Critical realism Christian realism

Christian Realism

Governing motifs: dialectic without capitulation transformation without

imperialism plurality without relativism conviction without hubris(John Stackhouse, Jr., Making the Best of

It, 2008)

Christian Way of Knowing

Humble

“We know in part”

We are messengers

We follow Jesus

Confident

“We know in part”

We are messengers

We follow Jesus