Andrews UniuersilySeminay Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1, 87-100. Copyright O 2007 Andrews University Press.
ABSOLUTE THEOLOGICAL TRUTH IN POSTMODERN TIMES FERNANDO CANALE Andrews University
Postmodernity brought about the greatest paradigm shift in philosophical s t u l e s since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle defmed the basic structure and destiny of Western philosophy and science. I n postmodern times, knowledge and truth have become relative t o the historical and cultural conditions o f the cognitive subject. Postmodern "herrneneutical reason"' replaces the "epistemologcal foundationabsm" o f classical and m o d e m times.2 T h e epistemologcal shift implies that truth changes with the times. W e can n o longer speak of "eternal" o r "absolute" truth. Truth is relative t o our historically and culturally conditioned lives3 H o w should evangelical theology relate t o this epoch-making epistemological shift? Can w e speak in postmodern times o f a n absolute unchanging theological truth?4 Recently, Stanley Grenz has addressed h s issue,5 proposing that evangelical theology should embrace postmodern epistemology and work from w i h the sociohstorical limitations o f the church community and the culturally conditioned language o f its tradition. I n short, they see theology exploring "the world-constructing, knowledge-forming 'language' of the Christian I n this presentation, I will attempt t o outline a n alternate way t o affirm both the paradgrnatic shift o f postmodern epistemology and the absolute truth o f Christian theology. I will argue, with Grenz, that evangelical theology 'Richard Rorty, Phibsophy and the Mirror $Nature, 22 ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 19791,315-356. 'Ibid. 'Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth andAiethod, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 1989). 4For an introduction to the various senses in which the word "absolute" has been used in the history of philosophy, see, e.g., JosC Ferrater Mora, Diccionario de FiLosophif, 5th ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudarnericana, 1965), s.v., "absoluto." In this article, I use the word "absolute" to describe theological truth as nonrelative or not conditioned to human-historical flux. 'Stanley Grenz and John R. Franke, Bgond Foundationa/ism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodem Context (Louisville:WestminsterJohn Knox, 2001). Grenz has been especially active in developing the ideas found in this book, as well as in his other prolific writings. Therefore, the emphasis will be on Grenz in this article, rather than Franke. 61bid., 53.