Theologians in Their Own Words by Nelson Derek R

Author:Nelson, Derek R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4514-2640-3
Publisher: Fortress Press
Published: 2013-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

Much of the book is a synthesis and development of the work of others. We employ the philosophy of science and epistemology of Carl Hempel, Imre Lakatos, and Alasdair MacIntyre to understand the forms of reasoning that we need in order to justify our claims. Arthur Peacocke had developed a model for relating theology and the sciences that employs the idea of a “hierarchy of sciences”; he suggests that theology be understood as the science at the top of the hierarchy. What is new in our synthesis is, first, the proposal that the hierarchy be split at the higher levels into natural- and human-science branches, and, second, that the human-science branch should have at its top the “science” of ethics. It is then possible to see theology as the discipline that completes both branches—answering “boundary questions,” which arise in both cosmology and ethics, yet go beyond the scope of those disciplines alone. A single account of the divine purposes in creation, then, drawn largely from the work of John Howard Yoder, provides a bridge between the natural sciences and the human sciences.

Our editor at Fortress Press quipped that we might have titled the book “All about Everything.” It is my most ambitious attempt so far to bring together the very disparate worlds of science, Anabaptist theology, and current Anglo-American philosophy.

More recently, I have written on Anabaptist epistemology—an unlikely-sounding topic. As mentioned above, I believe MacIntyre provides the best resources for addressing epistemological issues in general; his work is also supremely applicable to the question that has been central to most of my academic pursuits: the rationality of Christian belief. MacIntyre’s argument for the tradition-dependence of all reasoning means that Christians need not apologize for the particularity of their historical starting point. All traditions, not just the Christian tradition, depend on authoritative texts or voices. In addition, MacIntyre provides detailed historical examples and arguments to show that a plurality of traditions need not imply relativism: arguments, in the public domain, for a particular tradition’s rational superiority to its rivals is in fact (sometimes) possible.

MacIntyre is consciously working within the Thomist tradition and sees his own epistemological insights as (in my terms) “theology-laden.” So the question arises whether there is anything about MacIntyre’s understanding of rationality of which a good Anabaptist should be suspicious. I received an invitation to contribute to a book on epistemology from the perspectives of various Christian subtraditions, which gave me a chance to show how an Anabaptist understanding of reason can be developed from MacIntyre’s work. MacIntyre sees his primary rival to be the “genealogical tradition”—postmodern thinkers indebted to Nietzsche—and confesses that he has not shown that tradition to be untenable. I argue that we ought to accept the Nietzschean and Foucaultian warnings that power distorts knowledge, but then turn to the radical-reformation tradition, which in its nonviolence and other social practices provides a school for learning to live in the world without the use of worldly power.[10]

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