Book Review: Whatever Happened to Truth?

Date December 27, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

Comprised of four essays from the plenary sessions at the 2004 ETS convention, Whatever Happened to Truth? addresses truth from biblical, cultural, philosophical, and hermeneutical perspectives. Editor Andreas Köstenberger notes in the introduction that each contributor writes from “an evangelical, inerrantist perspective and in the conviction that there is truth, and that truth can be known, in God’s written word, the Bible, and in God’s incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (10)

 

Köstenberger begins the anthology with his essay “’What is Truth?’ Pilate’s Question in Its Johannine and Larger Biblical Context.” He gives a defense of the historicity of the Johannine account, and then examines the role of the characters involved in the trial (the Jewish leaders, Pilate, and Jesus). While being a well-written and intriguing essay, it felt out of place. The study and conclusions reached have more to do with the historical issues related to John 18:38 than they do with ‘truth’ as such.

 

The second essay, “What is Truth? Truth and Contemporary Culture,” was written by Albert Mohler. Mohler suggests that postmodernism supplies six challenges for Christians. I found the most interesting to be ‘the dominion of therapy.’ According to Mohler, “The critical epistemological questioned is shifted from ‘What is true?’ to ‘What makes me feel good?’” (61) As usual, Mohler provides insightful points regarding culture and challenges Christians to stand firm in light of them.

 

J.P. Moreland contributes the third essay, “Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn.” His paper caused the most reaction due to his claim that “postmodernism is an immoral and cowardly viewpoint.” (76) After defending the correspondence view of truth, he maintains that postmodernism (especially in its Christian manifestations) is confused on at least five points, primarily epistemological. Though a bit sensational, Moreland does a superb job of showing where postmodernism has gone wrong in regards to truth.

 

The final essay is “Lost in Interpretation? Truth, Scripture, and Hermeneutics,” authored by Kevin Vanhoozer. Vanhoozer makes many points, including: textual meaning cannot be reduced to propositions, inerrancy is not really a hermeneutic, and hermeneutics should be theodramatic. While he makes several good points, Vanhoozer’s contribution is mostly a rambling mesh of independent points having no direct relation to one another. He covers so many different areas that each of the summaries of his essay at the beginning and back of the book are at least twice as long as the other summaries.

 

Each author offers a unique contribution to the question, Whatever Happened to Truth? While some are stronger than others, it is a valuable book in that it engages truth on several fronts from diverse perspectives. 

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
  2. Book Review: Truth with Love by Bryan Follis
  3. Book Review: Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code by Bart Ehrman
  4. Book Review: Da Vinci Myth Versus the Gospel Truth
  5. Book Review: Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult
  6. Book Review: The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code

Category Posted in Apologetics, Book Reviews, Culture, Main Page, Philosophy, Roger's Posts

4 Responses to “Book Review: Whatever Happened to Truth?”

  1. Anonymous said:

    December 28th, 2005 at 7:25 pm

    Hey Roger, quick question: which parts of Moreland's essay did you find “sensational?”

  2. Anonymous said:

    December 28th, 2005 at 7:52 pm

    I found the repeated usage of “cowardly” in describing postmodernism a bit sensational, as well as the last bit where he charges it with playing backgammon during battle, the cure that kills the patient, etc. He had already made his point but continued to rail. Though I agree with his position, I'm not sure piling on so much rhetoric is really helpful.
    For those who haven't read, a version of Moreland's paper is available on STR's site:
    http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5682

  3. Anonymous said:

    March 13th, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    I appreciate your review of the book. You raise some good points, and of course every review is the personal opinion of the reviewer. I hope you don't mind if I subject your review to a review of my own, however.
    First, the phrase “rambling mesh,” in my view, is not worthy of a serious review. I would encourage you to treat the scholarly work of others with proper respect and with the care you would want extended to your own work.
    Also, the reason why the summaries of Vanhoozer's chapter are longer may be because his essay is longer than some of the others and because his argument is more complex, not because he is incoherent.
    You don't say anything about the introduction and the epilogue of the book. Since the book is a compilation of four essays of as many authors, it is in those sections that the essays are related. Any comments on these?
    And what about your passion for the truth of Christ being proclaimed in today's postmodern culture? Are you satisfied with being critical of the work of others or do you have constructive proposals of your own? I'm sure you do. What are they?

  4. Anonymous said:

    March 14th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    Dr. K

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