evangelical + nonfoundational?

Rodney Clapp?s how firm a foundation : can evangelicals be nonfoundationalists? makes a good case for being a bona fide follower of Christ and not having to subscribe to absolute epistemological certainty..

Foundationalism, modeling its logic on mathematics and striving for an analogous kind of precision and certainty, led philosophers, theologians, and others to regard anything less as bogus knowledge. But the goal was set too high, or, to say it better, was of the wrong sort. Allow for different logics and you immediately achieve possibilities other than absolute objectivism and rank relativism.?

And so might evangelicals move from decontextualized propositions to traditioned, storied truths; from absolute certainty to humble confidence; from mathematical purity to the rich, if less predictable, world of relational trust; from detached objectivist epistemology to engaged participative epistemology; from control of the data to respect of the other in all its created variety; from individualist knowing to communal knowing; and from once-for-all rational justification to the ongoing pilgrimage of testimony.

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  1. Dave King says:

    in other words work out our salvation in fear and trembling.-Peace

  2. Hi DJ. Brian and I had a great conversation on this very article. See<a href=”http://groups.yahoo.com/group/faithmaps/message/12945blessings,Stephen”>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/faithmaps/message/12945blessings,Stephen</a&gt;

  3. Philip says:

    I personally read this text as an attack on belief in a super-natural being. Naturalistic pragmatism is supported by the passage you mention and it behooves you to at least admit that evolution is the best tool of the day, and perhaps systems of belief that require substance dualism should be re-thought on account of the beliefs being founded on not just shaky ground, but completely untenable grounds.
    Peace