The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology [Paperback]

Mr. F. LeRon Shults (Author), F. LeRon Shults (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1999

In recent years the theological writings of Wolfhart Pannenberg have exerted considerable influence. However, Pannenberg's work has also been criticized for not taking seriously the postmodern challenge to traditional conceptions of rationality and truth. This volume by F. LeRon Shults argues that the popular "foundationalist" reading of Pannenberg is a misinterpretation of his methodology and shows that, in fact, the structural dynamics of Pannenberg's approach offer significant resources for the postfoundationalist task of theology in our postmodern culture. / Shults begins by laying out the first comprehensive summary and interpretation of the emerging postfoundationalist model of theological rationality. He then revisits Pannenberg's theological method and finds the German theologian to be a surprising ally in the quest to reconstruct a theological rationality along postfoundationalist lines. / In the course of his discussion, Shults challenges views that see the future, reason, or history as the central concept of Pannenberg's thought and offers instead a new interpretation of Pannenberg's basic theological principle as understanding and explaining all things sub ratione Dei (under the aspect of the relation to God)-an interpretation endorsed by Pannenberg himself in the book's foreword. Shults also focuses on Pannenberg's unique way of linking philosophical and systematic theology and demonstrates how the underlying reciprocity of this method can carry over into the postfoundational concern to link hermeneutics and epistemology in the postmodern context.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Before Pannenberg's work can be cataloged as historical theology, its implications for our current social and political situation must be fully appreciated. Shults's text opens us to those implications, effectively closing off any premature obituaries. -- Willie James Jennings

F. LeRon Shults's theological debut is a major accomplishment. Au courant with the cutting edge of contemporary theories of rationality, he moves effortlessly between the different intellectual domains of theological and philosophical reflection. In this dynamic process he creatively revisions the theology of Pannenberg and places it in a challenging postfoundationalist dialogue with the wide-ranging and complex profile of contemporary North American theology. -- J. Wentzel van Huyssteen

While much of the current talk on postmodernity remains somewhat obscure, one of the real issues is the criticism of foundationalist claims as they developed in modern thought either in empiricist or intellectualist fashion. . . . F. LeRon Shults here presents a very subtle and detailed analysis of my understanding of this issue and of its application in my own theology. He is correct in placing me neither in the foundationalist camp nor among certain forms of nonfoundationalism that surrender the rational quest for truth. I feel rather sympathetic with the position he describes as postfoundationalist. He correctly criticizes interpretations of my thought that take me to make anthropology the foundation of Christian theology. His book shows that anthropology rather gets 'sublated' in the course of my argument, though I often start from anthropological data since in modern culture anthropology has been treated as the basis of religion. The importance of sublation or elevation into something else within the procedure of my argument is presented in this book with excellent clarity. -- Wolfhart Pannenberg, from the foreword

About the Author

F. LeRon Shults is professor of systematic theology at Agder University, Kristiansand, Norway.

Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (October 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802846866
• ISBN-13: 978-0802846860
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Professor of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway.

www.leronshults.typepad.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LeRon Shults' THE POSTFOUNDATIONALIST TASK OF THEOLOGY:, February 3, 2000

By 

J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (Princeton, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (Paperback)

This important theological work is one of the best interdisciplinary achievements that I have read in recent years. Shults argues forcefully for a public, interdisciplinary theology and in so doing links together the different domains of theological and philosophical reflection by moving on the cutting edge of contemporary theories of rationality.

Shults accomplishes this major task by taking on the theology of prominent German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg as a case study for dialogue with a very diverse and pluralist contemporary North American theology. In this dynamic process he creatively revisions the theology of Pannenberg and places it in a challenging postfoundationalist dialogue with theology in this country. Shults delivers a major contribution to postfoundationalist thought by carefully developing the idea that all theological thought is deeply embedded in tradition and interpreted experience, while at the same time reaching out to contemporary culture in interdisciplinary and transcultural conversation. In doing this Shults takes very seriously the challenge of constructive postmodernism as well as theology's enduring obligation to public withness, argument, and testimony.

This book is a must-read for all philosophical and systematic theologians: not only is the theology of Pannenberg revisioned to become a true dialogue partner for North American theologians, but the vitality of a postfoundationalist rethinking of the task of theology points to new and exciting developments for theology in this country. Very strongly recommended.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unexpected Gem!, January 7, 2007

By 

Derrick A. Peterson (Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (Paperback)

F. LeRon Shults is becoming increasingly well known for his efforts in inter-disciplinary dialogue between the contemporary sciences (e.g. anthropology, psychology, biology) and theological and philosophical themes that pervade Christian self-understanding. These themes are evident in his quickly increasing number of publications, including "Reforming the Doctrine of God,"; "Reforming theological anthropology"; "The Faces of Forgiveness" co-written with psychologist Steven Sandage, amongst a host of others. This is the book that started it all.

Whether or not one wants to start writing things like "the demise of foundationalism", or the "hope of contextualism," one cannot deny that the modern (meaning, I suppose, post-modern) thought is saturated with epistemological conflict. Indeed in some instances, a la Jacque Derrida, there has been something of an anti-epistemology, a deconstruction that denies solid starting points (in this case, a denial of the referential abilities of language to point to a supposedly exterior world) on which to create explanation. Also in the philosophical hermeneutics of Richard Rorty's pragmatism, which says all readings are a function of social convention, or similarly later Wittgenstein (and in a theological inference, George Lindbeck's semi-adoption of Wittgensteinian rule-theory) which understands language not as a vehicle for "factual" or "world-fitting" description, but as artifices of habitual and communal use, there is a decided suspicion of the modern concept of "truth" as "world-fit" or "correspondance." In most instances this is because the so called "correspondance" theory of truth generally presupposes in its epistemology a "foundationalist" method, whereby all truths and all methods are derived from a single, non-debatable element. It is no secret that Descartes instances an example of this, attempting to doubt all things until he reached the point of his own self existence, which he could not doubt, because to doubt he must exist (hence "cogito ergo sum"-- I think, therefore I am). All other conceptions, for Descartes, are derived from this so called "foundational" moment of his reflection. With the late (or post) modern turn to the contextual embeddedness of reason, those like Lyotard have questioned the validity of "meta-narratives" which are not just "grand stories," explaining the world in a unified theory, as is commonly misunderstood (especially in reactionary evangelical circles) but "grand narratives" that are legitimated by supposedly "neutral" reason or empiricism serving as an underived foundation for all subsequent theorizing. The result of this late-modern tendency has been the turn to coherentism, the idea that something is true if it fits in with a web of pre-established beliefs, generally the standardized beliefs of a particular community. The loss is, of course, any concept of actual "truth," or any hope of adjudicating between apparently contradictory claims.

F. LeRon Shults' book is written with the hope in mind to transcend and yet include within itself, this supposed dialectic of choice between foundationalism and non-foundationalist coherentism. To do this, Shults engages with Wolfhart Pannenberg's theology in the hopes to better explain and elucidate his own ideas on the subject. The result is a startling combination of Shult's own epistemology (which he terms "post-foundationalist," following, I believe, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen's similar use of the term) and a, quite frankly, spectacular evaluation of Wolfhart Pannenberg's methodology.

To begin with, Wolfhart Pannenberg, debatabley not only (one of) the greatest systematic theologians of the 20th century, but one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time, has often been accused of falling prey to the modernist project of neutral, "indubitable" foundations, i.e. truth as "world fit," or "the-thing-in-itself." Ironically he has also, due to other statements in his overall theological program, been accused by conservatives as merely a "coherentist". Shults attempts to overcome these misunderstandings of Pannenbergs subtle and exhaustive theological system. Shults brilliantly outlines how Pannenberg uses neither rational or philosophical anthropological conceptions nor particular theological convictions as "foundationilist" starting points, but rather the two are paired to one another in a relationship Shults deems "bipolar asymetric relational unity." The compexity of Pannenberg's system is wonderfully elucidated by Shults (and is actually lauded by Pannenberg himself). While Pannenberg begins with general anthropological considerations (e.g. from biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology) this is not "foundational" in the sense that it "neutrally" assumes this data without theology, or that theology merely uncritically accepts modern scientific findings and alters itself accordingly. Nor is anthropological data from the sciences accepted or rejected because of presupposed theological convictions (e.g. the early fundamentalist rejection of evolution). Rather the "fundamental" moment of anthropology attempts to best explain the modern understanding of man with views to the potential implications in theological understanding. Theology then "sublates" (takes up into itself while transforming) the anthropological data with the concrete expressions of man as it is understood in theology. Hence ultimately it is a "bipolar" relationship (meaning the two movements need to not collapse into one another but remain distinct) that is ultimately unified (e.g. both sides, the fundamental or from below movement, and the systematic and from above theological movement, are both encompassing of the entire subject and hence do not exist as compartmentalized moments that somehow do not already rely on the other pole of the movement, even though they are distinct conceptions) and asymetric (in that the attempt of the relationship is meant to show that theology as an explanatory paradigm is ultimately the best explanatory model, over against, say naturalistic or atheistic models, and so the fundamental movement in theology is not totally equal to its systematic counterpart).

So, for a concrete example, in anthropology there is a fascination with what is known as "weltoffenheit" or world-openness, meaning mans' ability to always seek beyond his current situation, ultimately beyond all boundaries. This data is presented and then "sublated" in Pannenberg's argument, where Jesus is seens as the fulfillment of human world-openness, which is now understood theologically as "open-ness" to God (which Pannenberg also sublates, i.e. "brings up into" the discussion of the nature of the imago Dei). Hence anthropological considerations need a reality to explain their findings, while theology needs a presupposed "need" of which it is the fulfillment. But neither are left untouched by the other, as if theological or anthropological conceptions were merely what they were without the other, but rather each mutually modify the other in the course of the dialogue. This isn't like Tillich's method of correspondence where philosophical ontology asks existentially relevent questions that are answered by theology. The questions and the answers, according to Pannenberg and Shults, are not "outside" eachother but are part of the same overall task: neither the fundamental or "from below" moment nor the systematic or "from above" moment is a starting point that somehow does not initially include the other, as if they were two atomistic starting points (hence once again, they are bipolar in the sense that they cannot be collapsed into one, but are unified because they do not ever exist without modification from the other). For anthropology, claims Pannenberg, its concepts of the unity of human identity already presupposes in itself the unity of the world, and hence the unity of God, while theology already presupposes some model of anthropological reality. Like Calvin states at the beginning of his Institutes: To understand the self, one must understand God, to understand God one must understand the self. The two cannot be thought without the other." Indeed, it is as such that Pannenberg in his book on Anthropology can point out to the strong implications Christian theological considerations have had on supposedly "secular" anthropological concepts. But vice-versa, the concepts have themselves been modified by continued data and paradigm acquisition. Hence the method is "foundational" in the same sense of all epistemology, in that the task must start somewhere, but, as Shults takes great pains to emphasize, it is not "foundationalist" because it doesn't "hold-on-to" the starting point uncritically, unilaterally, or unmodified. (Please forgive the brevity and perhaps opacity of this presentation, which is certainly not a fault of the book, but of the limited time of this review. Don't let the quality of the review dissuade you from the book!)

All of this is done in interaction with Shults "post-foundationalist" epistemology. He creates four "couplets" which mutually modify eachother something akin to the process that Shults elaborates in Pannenberg:

I. Interpreted experience engenders and nourishes a web of beliefs, while the web of beleifs informs the interpretation of experience

II. The unity of truth is a presupposition for the intelligible search for knowledge, while the subjective multiplicity of knowledge indicates the fallibitly of truth claims

III.Rational judgement is the activity of socially situated individuals while the cultural community indeterminately mediates the criterion for rationality

IV. Explnation aims for universal, transcontextual understanding, while understanding arises out of particular contextualized explanations.

The first two couplets (I+II)... Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Authenticated Expansion of Pannenberg's Thought, December 11, 2010

By 

Joshua Brainard - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (Paperback)

If you are like me, you wish you could get your hands on more stuff that Wolfhart Pannenberg wrote on just about anything. Shultz works through philosophical issues concerning modernist's foundationalism and postmodern thinking that Pannenberg did not spend much time commenting on explicitly. Shultz scours Pannenberg's work to show how he anticipated these kinds of questions and implies a practical middle way between them that Shultz calls "post-foundationalism." Best of all, rather than giving pure speculation, the author obtained an endorsement and consent from Pannenberg who writes a couple of pages at the beginning of the book to show his approval. The book is dense and not necessarily easy to follow for the beginner in Pannenberg, theology, or philosophy. Nevertheless, a careful reading of Shultz will prove insightful and practical for grasping today's "postfoundationalist task of theology."