J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology

Je suis en train de commencer la lecture d'un autre livre, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology de J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, un livre qui sera, je l'espère, très passionnant et instructif, particulièrement en raison du propos abordé. Voici la description de l'ouvrage, telle qu'on peut la lire sur la couverture arrière du livre:

How and why do some of us hang on to religious faith amid the confusion of this postmodern age? How can we speak of the certainty of faith or of passionate commitments and deep convictions in a postmodern context that celebrates cultural and religious pluralism? Can Christian theology ever really claim to join this postmodern conversation without retreating to an esoteric world of private, insular knowledge claims? Finally, how does theological reflection relate to other modes of intellectual inquiry, and especially to scientific knowledge, which very often goes unchallenged as the ultimate paradigm of human rationality in our times?

This collection of essays in philosophical theology boldly addresses many of the challenges faced by Christian theology in the context of contemporary postmodern thought. Through a series of profound discussions of theology in relation to epistemology, methodology, and science, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen presses the case for a "postfoundationalist theology" as a viable third option beyond the extremes of foundationalism and nonfoundationalism.

The essays in Part l explore the dynamics involved when a philosophical theologian enters the interdisciplinary conversation with strong personal convictions. In the process, van Huyssteen critically engages with the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg, Nancey Murphy, and Jerome Stone. Part 2 focuses on the need for Christian theology to break out of an insularity that is concerned only with its own community and with the church and to relate publicly and plausibly to our contemporary intellectual world. Part 3, which begins in dialogue with Gerd Theissen, turns to some of the important issues in the current theology-and-science dialogue as concrete examples of interdisciplinarity in postfoundationalist theology.

Handling abstract themes in a remarkably clear and concise way, this volume sets forth the convincing argument that only a truly accessible and philosophically credible notion of interdisciplinarity will be able to pave the way for a plausible public theology that can play an important intellectual role in our fragmented culture today.

J. WENTZEL VAN HUYSSTEEN is the James I. McCord Professor of Theology and Science at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also the author of Theology and the Justification of Faith: Constructing Theories in Systematic Theology.