ETS 2: Moreland v. Franke on Non-Foundationalism
November 19, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton
One of the most anticipated sessions at this year’s ETS conference was the exchange between J.P. Moreland and John Franke. The purpose of the session was to address the concerns raised by Moreland in last year’s plenary paper. Franke stated the best way he saw to do this was to give his reasons for adopting non-foundationalism.
(My summary of Moreland’s paper is longer because he passed his out and I was able to use it to write this post. I only have my notes from Franke’s paper to reflect on.)
Franke cited Barth’s idea that God never enters into the control of human beings. Therefore, our approaches to God cannot ultimately relate to Him. Theology is only possible when God speaks. Even revelation does not directly correspond to God- the finite cannot understand the infinite. The Cappadocian Fathers were right in noting that in the incarnation Jesus’ human nature was not divinized. God revealed Himself through creaturely veils that remain creaturely veils. So, the words God gave us are little ‘t’ truth and not capital ‘T’ truth (which is comprehensive). Therefore, we should embrace theological pluralism (not soteriological pluralism) realizing that there is no ultimate source of knowledge except for God Himself. Franke wanted to make it clear, however, that he does not deny we use foundations or that objective reality exists.
Moreland read a response to some things that troubled him in Franke’s writing. His main concerns have to do with our understanding reality and knowledge. Franke seems to imply that reality is a social construction. He may say that there is a reality, but we have no access to it- this makes reality useless. Thus, reality has no role in the task of theology. Franke says we cannot know God through natural human perception. Moreland gave knowing his wife as an example of attaining knowledge through direct access, and also that in knowing her he is not trying to control her (Franke thinks the quest for knowledge is motivation by a desire for control). We would also, then, not have direct access to scripture, so it becomes useless for theology. “In its place, we will have self-defeating reflective equilibrium that forever spirals in an unending circle in the dark.”
It doesn’t follow that because we do not have exhaustive knowledge that we cannot have accurate, exact knowledge. To say we can’t have such knowledge doesn’t lead to humility but to defeatism. Moreland believes there is vagueness and equivocation on whether there is such a thing as “simply seeing” or direct awareness. He proceeded to make a case for direct awareness. He also gave several examples of self-refuting claims Franke’s made. Moreland believes that Third World Christians will disregard the claims Franke’s made because they intuitively claim to have knowledge and their faith and deed reflect their knowledge. Under “Frankean-style influence” theology and religion in general will “become more marginalized from the broader intellectual conversation raging around us.”
Following the paper there was some short interaction between the authors and then Q & A time. Franke was asked about the accusation of self-refutation and so he went through a couple of the quotes and said he failed to see how they were self-refuting. Everyone I’ve talked to (yes, all non-emergent) said it seems obvious, and I agree. Since this is already a long post I’ll save discussion on that for another post next week. Franke made the point that non-foundationalism does not mean they don’t believe in foundations (I’d like him to elaborate on that), however, I think Moreland does make that assumption toward the beginning of his paper.
Note on the ETS series: I will be posting on another EC related paper early next week, and will hopefully be posting the paper itself. If any of the other papers on talk about from ETS become available online I’ll post a link. I’m only posting reflections on 5 out of the 11 or so papers I went.
Related posts:
- Frankes Self-Refutedness
- ETS 2007: How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What Can Be Done About It by J.P. Moreland
- Epistemology and the Emerging Church (EC BIOLA #6)
- ETS 2006 in Washington D.C.
- Interview with Scott Smith, Part II
- Interview with Scott Smith, Part III
Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Philosophy, Roger's Posts
content rss
November 19th, 2005 at 12:36 am
I would love to have been at that presentation. While I am obviously more sympathetic to Franke than you are, I would have been very interested to hear both of these in person, and in dialogue with each other… I assume there was dialogue, and not passing monologues.
November 19th, 2005 at 12:44 am
I'd like Franke to elaborate on how non-foundationalism doesn't mean he doesn't believe in foundations as well. Does that mean Franke is now a non-foundationalist foundationalist? What the heck is that? Is it like anti-war protestors who support the war? Atheists who believe in God? A city without a Starbucks? James Bond having blond hair? (Anyone else wanna jump in?)
November 19th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
Bill- yea, it was cool to be there. There was only a few mintues of dialogue before the Q & A, but through the Q & A they dialogued some more.
Timbo- I'd like some more explanation on that as well, however, I assume it's explained, at least t some degree, in the book Franke co-authored with Grenz- Beyond Foundationalism.
November 19th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Well, Franke seems to use the term (non-) foundationalism in reference to Cartesian certainty, not in reference to the idea that the structure of justification contains basic and non-basic beliefs. Thus, Franke uses foundationalism in a narrow sense and foundations in a broad sense. That he doesn't seem to understand how this creates confusion is very puzzling to me. To err is human and forgivable. To err again and again is quite bothersome.
November 20th, 2005 at 9:08 am
Franke does understand now that not everyone who claims to be a foundationalist is one in the Cartesian sense. He made that clear, and Moreland noted it and said we can move forward now away from such mischaracterizations. Still, Franke is critiquing strong foundationalism and ending up at non-foundationalism. I've yet to hear him offer any sort of critique of weak foundationalism (unless I missed it somehow).
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:07 am
Thanks for the synopsis. It wasworth linking to as I'm doing another series on embracing the wheat of emerging churches and not the chaff. Non-foundationalism doesn't fall into the wheat category in my opinion. In fact, I'm not sure why this is considered new stuff. He should become greek orthodox instead of telling the American Evangelical church at large to adopt Orthodox philosophy.
God is good
jpu
November 23rd, 2005 at 12:02 pm
What I'm not able to discern from this short synopsis (and a good one at that) is what statement has Franke made that is obviously self-refuting to non-emergents? And, even if someone does make a self-refuting statement, as a non-foundationalist, wouldn't that be okay? Would it be true that only a strict foundationalist requires all statements to be not self-refuting?
November 23rd, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Thanks DJ. I intentionally left out the self-refuting claims because I think they warrant an additional post. The only way a self-refuting claim would be acceptable for a non-foundationalist is if they're a relativist. Franke did not claim he wasn't concerned about being self-refuting, rather, he claimed his statements wern't self-refuting. To me, he sounds more like a coherentist (formally) than a relativist.
January 16th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
As an onlooker from the UK, can anyone tell me how much influence Franke, Grenz et al have had on the evangelical scene stateside?
April 6th, 2008 at 2:45 am
I just found this post on google… so obviously I'm very late…
Franke is making a case for mild-foundationalism versus strong-foundationalism. As he stated in Beyond Foundationalism, everyone must be a foundationalist of some sort in the Descartes cogito ergo sum sort of way.
Can incomplete knowledge be accurate and exact? Yes of course. It can be accurate and exact within a very very narrow scope. Unfortunately, strong foundationalists never limit their narrow scope far enough. Remember Franke's argument for a localized situated truth. For example (and a reason why Franke's theology is not self-refuting) Franke's theology can be true within the cultural and social limitations of the 21th century evangelical church, but may not be true for the next century.
April 6th, 2008 at 2:47 am
I think that's basically what he is, a weak or “mild” foundationalist.