Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: What Is Truth?: A Comparative Study of the Positions of Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Donald Bloesch, Millard Erickson by James Emery White ISBN: 0-8054-1156-9 Publisher: Baptist Sunday School Board - Baptist Book Stores Pub. Date: March, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Lots of typos, but a worthwhile read.
Comment: In What Is Truth?, James Emery White presents an insightful examination of the concept of truth as it finds expression in the theological systems of five prominent Evangelical theologians: Cornelius Van Til, Francis Schaeffer, Carl F. H. Henry, Millard Erickson, and Donald Bloesch.
White rightly realizes the enormous challenge that postmodernism presents to Christianity, especially its Evangelical stream. Post-foundationalist thought tends to challenge not only objectivity in man's grasping and appropriation of truth, but even the very ontological reality of truth. While even so hardened a relativist as Richard Rorty admits the self-defeating nature of such a claim, it continues to garner support from many sectors of philosophy. White helpfully draws a clear distinction between the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of. This is his book's major contribution to the debate. He concludes that the metaphysical and ontological reality of truth as it is expressed in the traditional correspondence theory of truth is basic to Christian theology, indeed to all thought. The epistemological aspect of truth is a bit more problematic, though, as debate soon becomes mired in debates over epistemic justification, the nature of starting points, evidentialism vs. presuppositionalism, etc.
White provides incisive critiques of the five major thinker's systems. He appropriately questions Van Til's jihad against univocity, his attendant rejection of the necessity of the law of contradiction, and his claims that his system provided objective certainty and absolute proof for Christian theism.
The chapter on Schaeffer is rather well done. Schaeffer's shortcomings as a philosopher and historian (he claimed only to be a simple evangelist) are discussed. The best portion of the chapter deals with Schaeffer's failure to provide positive proof for Christianity. He failed to realize that disproving atheistic nihilism does equal proving Biblical Christianity. Schaeffer also tended to stress the pragmatic aspect of truth-claims, asserting that a worldview could not be true if it did not explain the 'mannishness of man,' not realizing that his values existed within his worldview and thus could not be a criterion for choosing a worldview.
Carl Henry likewise placed too much faith in the power of rational argumentation to prove the truth of Christianity. Henry is to be credited, though, for championing the universality of logic, and the propositional nature of reality and Scripture.
Millard Erickson is one Evangelical who has engaged in serious dialogue with postmodernism and post-liberal theology. He has attempted a synthesis which preserves the historic orthodoxy of the Reformation while incorporating the insights of recent trends in theology, including existentialism, structuralism, and narrative theology. While his synthesis tends more toward the former tradition than the latter, he has nonetheless been influenced by contemporary thought more than other thinkers. This influence is evident in his nuanced formulation of inerrancy, his emphasis on personal revelation, his coalition with evidentialism and its emphasis on empirical verification, and his openness toward progressive hermeneutical methods.
The last thinker examined, Donald Bloesch, can hardly be classed an Evangelical. He is a Barthian through and through. He embraces the dialectical theology of the neo-orthodox irrationalists and vitiates the doctrine of the authority of Scripture. Positively, though, he steers Evangelicals toward an appreciation of the theological implications of the Incarnation, as well as the concept of revelation as an event as well as a body of truth. Furthermore, his rejection of autonomous philosophy is a strong antidote to the Enlightenment strands in Evangelical thought.
White's book is well worth reading. White provides a good overview of the concept of truth in the thought of the thinkers he covers. I do have some gripes, though. First, numerous misspellings and typos mar the text. Second, White makes the same mistake he accuses most thinkers of making: that of confuting the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of truth. He does this when he asserts a dichotomy between the correspondence and coherence theories of truth. He wrongly portrays the latter as an ontological description of truth. Coherence and correspondence cannot be so easily dichotomized. Coherence proponents such as Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til believed in the ultimate unity of the two. Truth corresponds to the mind of God, which is completely coherent. Third, the book contains no index! Fourth, the selection of Van Til, Schaeffer, Henry, Bloesch, and Erickson is questionable. The issue is primarily philosophical. I would have selected Van Til, Gordon Clark, Arthur Holmes, Alvin Plantinga, and Norman Geisler.
 |
Title: Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power by David Aikman ISBN: 0895261286 Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc. Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
