In San Diego
Well… I had anticipated blogging a little more frequently since my last post, but life has kept me from it. Today, I arrived in San Diego for the Evangelical Theological Society/Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting. The Apologetics Conference I spoke of in my last post takes place each evening, starting tomorrow, while the day is spent listening to papers from evangelical scholars in philosophy and theology.
I arrived in San Diego after noon and made it to three excellent sessions today. Here’s a brief summary:
First, J. P. Moreland delivered a paper entitled, “How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What can be Done about It.” One might misunderstand Moreland’s topic without having attended the session. In one sense, Evangelicals are under-committed to the Bible, yet, Moreland argues, they have over-committed to the Bible in making it the sole authority, or source of knowledge. This stands in contrast to the historical view which holds that the Bible is the ultimate authority or source of knowledge. This over-committment stems from a withdrawal from the broader world of ideas, surrendering the source of “real knowledge” to the hard sciences. Moreland’s call was for evangelicals to recover the use of right reason, natural law, experience, Creeds , and tradition as subordinate sources of knowledge.
I then heard an excellent paper by Dr. Angus J. L. Menuge of Concordia University Wisconsin called, “Socrates in Service to Christ: The Formation of an Apologist.” One never knows what to expect and is often misled by the Title of a Paper. I was pleasantly surprised that Menuge’s paper presented a study of Oxford University’s Socratic Club under the presidency of C. S. Lewis, 1942-1954. He asserts that the Socratic Club provides an ideal model for training Christians in apologetics. His paper was quite insightful.
Lastly, I attended a session in which Steven L. Porter of Talbot School of Theology presented a paper called, “What does a foundationalist theological methodology look like?” Porter first recounts how philosophical nonfoundationalism has led to a nonfoundational movement in theology. He then asks why a recent resurgence in philosophical foundationalism has not led to a corresponding surge in theological foundationalism. Finally, Porter provided a sketch of how three foundationalist theories (externalism, doxastic internalism, and nondoxastic internalism) affect theological methodology.
Tomorrow’s another day. I’ll see if I can provide another update then.