The Loome Theological Bookstore, "housed in the beautifully restored Old Swedish Covenant Church in Stillwater, is the largest secondhand dealer of theological books in the world..."Spent a Saturday morning here, browsing thru shelves upon shelves of books and quite a collection on modern writers like barth, pannenberg, moltmann but I just got two good and inexpensive buys. (still a lot of room for sanctification in the area of self-control!)
How To Read a Book (Mortimer Adler)
Eastern Orthodox Theology (Clendenin)
Thanks to John See for posting a summary of Soo Inn's sermon on The Six Directions of The Lord's Supper
Friends sometimes ask my take on wat 'apologetic approach' I adopt (evidentialism versus presuppositionalism) and I'd say something to the effect that each approach has its timing :)I like wat is said of Francis Schaeffer here by J. Budziszewski:
.. (Schaeffer) argued that the controversy between evidentialism and presuppositionalism presents a false alternative.
Presuppositionalists, he held, are right to assert that the ultimate premises of Christian and anti–Christian systems of thought are utterly at odds.
On the other hand, evidentialists are right to assert that between Christian and anti–Christian systems of thought there is always a point of contact.
The reason for this point of contact, he argued, is that nonbelievers cannot bring themselves to be completely consistent with their own presuppositions, and this inconsistency is a result of common grace.
"Thus, illogically," he wrote, "men have in their accepted worldviews various amounts of that which is ours. But, illogical though it may be, it is there and we can appeal to it." Well put.
Comments
Please enlighten me on what is your definition of “reformed epistemology” & “postmodern apologetics.” And how they are so very close. Thanks!
Vincent Chia
While my reading of postmodern apologetics come from philip d. kenneson in his article, 'there's no such thing as objective truth, and it's a good thing too'.
i'm sure there are differences between reformed epistemology and postmodern apologetics since the former IS an epistemological project while the latter has an incredulity towards epistemological questions.
but the similarity is striking in that the two provides an apologetics that critique the Cartesian project of rational certainty and consensus, providing an alternative apologetics that is NOT unreasonable even without evidence/arguments...
Heard the hunchback of St Michael was a big hit among the girls :)
Vince,
if not mistaken, Discordant dude is referring to the Reformed epistemology of plantinga, wolterstoff, kelly james clark etc.
Long before it's cool for bloggers to rant abt 'post-foundationalism' today, these Reformed fellas at Calvin College and others have offered a scholarly critique on classical foundationalism (cartesian?)
There are basic knowledge we have not inferred from self-evident, irrefutable evidences etc.
Chris, i have a suspicion ur onto something here.
As i was reading "5 views of apologetics" (courtesy of AL), Kelly James Clark who represents RE (though critical of postmodernism) sounds like a Stanley Grenz, MacIntyre or Franke.
Then, I found out that Grenz the professor of EC himself was indeed influenced by RE. So there's some convergence here hehe... Wouldn't it be odd if 'postfoundational' Emergents actually trace their roots to a bunch of reformed ppl??
There are differences somewhere i suspect... RE people dun seem to believe the world is out there but we have no access to it bcos of limitations of language, social group, culture etc.
But perhaps taking note of this wud give people pause before calling reformed critics 'lazy, stupid, mean, too creedal to be creative' and similar uncharitable generalisations :D
How similar or different are KJC's views from Plantinga's?
Won't be surprised if it's much more diverse. Plantinga is a Reidian foundationalist, whatever that means!
given his stature, we can be a bit skeptical of confident assertions that foundationalism is dead or irrelevant :)
anyway, thanx for the input...
i remember in one EC meeting, someone mentioned dat post- is NOT anti-, so i guess "postfoundational" is different fr "anti-foundational"
have u read grenz' and franke's co-authored book 'beyond foundationalism'? it's endorsed by reformed folks like timothy george and ji packer (?)...
i wish i have time to read books like these but even if i have the time, these books are just way too expensive...
I've flipped thru B.F. (wat Mortimer Adler calls 'pigeonholing a book') but plan to work more on Renewing the Center/Reclaiming the Center instead... if i can just pass up my MBS assignments first! hehe...
The blurbs have some good comments but again, blurbs tend to be selective ar...
Check out Vince's blog, btw. Many Reformed ppl are not fans of classical foundationalism either.
So, nice convergence here :D
In tat sense, we are all 'post-F'?
But it remains true that the works of some EC leaders tend to lump a discredited Cartesian f. with the more modest foundationalism found in plantinga, moreland, scott smith and others. That results in a serious misrepresentation since it is very much alive and well and relevant today :)
hey do try to make it for iBridge camp tis year!
1) How to skim and pigeon hold a book before deciding if i should invest more time in it
2) Dun be afraid to read thru the book once without stopping even if u dun understand
3) make lots of notes on the pages while interacting with the author.
I sayang the book too much to write on it so post-it-notes should do the trick now.
Oh well... well... I know that if I ever get around to collecting Bibles like I say I want to... I knwo where to start looking ;)