Theology As History and Hermeneutics [Paperback]

Laurence W. Wood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2005

This book is a post-critical conversation with modern and postmodern theology. It focuses on the narrative of history and the task of hermeneutics as the means of validating faith as opposed to the verification-epistemology of modern rational objectivism. Paul Ricoeur's philosophy of testimony is preferred as a means of bridging the extremes of modern objectivism and postmodern subjectivism. The contributions of Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Marcus Borg, N. T. Wright, Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Gustavor Gutiérrez, James Cone, Sandra Schneiders, James B. Cobb, Jr., George Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas, William Abraham, among others, are considered and evaluated.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is a post-critical evangelical conversation with modern and postmodern thought. The basic premise of modern thought was that knowledge is founded upon universal, autonomous, and rational principles of critical thought. This premise is also known as modern foundationalism. Post-modernism is a term to describe those who have lost confidence in this modern premise. A related term to post-modernism is post-critical. I mean by post-critical evangelicalism an adherence to the Trinitarian faith of the Church without modern foundationalism and without the notion of irrefutable orthodoxy, Some forms of post-modernism tend toward irrationalism and appear to be like recalcitrant children of modernism because they are more intent on deconstructing the idea of autonomous, critical reason than in reconstructing a more modest claim to knowledge. Post-critical is a term used to indicate an appreciation for critical thinking, but post-critical thinking is more modest in its claims about what it knows and recognizes that all knowing entails personal and subjective aspects. The claim of modern, objectivist thinking to have irrefutable truth independent of subjective and personal experience is no longer considered viable.

To be post-critical is to value a synthesis between subjective and objective dimensions of reality without falling into Romantic subjectivism and Nietzschean nihilism on the one hand, or into the dualism of fact and value in Enlightenment thought on the other hand. Post-critical evangelical theology focuses on the narrative of history and hermeneutics as a means of validating faith as opposed to the verification epistemology of modern rational objectivism. The premodern world focused on ontology; the modern world on epistemology; the postmodern world on hermeneutics. A post-critical evangelical theological method seeks to embrace the best insights of all three approaches and uses them as a basis of conversation with contemporary theology.

About the Author

Laurence W. Wood is the Frank Paul Morris Professor of Theology at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, and editor of The Asbury Theological Journal. He is the author of five books and numerous articles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Emeth Press (March 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975543555
• ISBN-13: 978-0975543559
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,559 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)