The Nature of Confession

Evangelicals & Postliberals in Conversation

Essays by

George Lindbeck

Alister McGrath

George Hunsinger

Gabriel Fackre

& others

Edited by Timothy R. Phillips & Dennis L. Okholm

InterVarsity Press

Downers Grove, Illinois

© 1996 by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship®, a student movement active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

ISBN 0-8308-1869-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The nature of confession: evangelicals & postliberals in conversation / edited by Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8308-1869-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Theology—Methodology. 2. Theology, Doctrinal—History—20th century. 3. Hermeneutics—Religious aspects—Christianity—History of doctrines—20th century. 4. Frei, Hans W. 5. Lindbeck, George A. 6. Liberalism (Religion)—Protestant churches. 7. Liberalism (Religion)—United States. 8. Evangelicalism. I. Phillips, Timothy R. (Timothy Ross), 1950– . II. Okholm, Dennis L.

BR118.N28 1996

230′.01—dc20 96-13028

CIP

This work is dedicated to
the multitude of lay Christians
who practice a “premodern hermeneutic”
—where the Bible is their primary world—
and to
George Lindbeck and the late Hans Frei
who uncovered and defended this strategy in the academy.
We pray that their efforts will help
invigorate the church
for the twenty-first century.

Part I Introduction

1 The Nature of Confession: Evangelicals & Postliberals/Timothy R. Phillips & Dennis L. Okholm

Part II Evangelical Overviews & Critiques

2 An Evangelical Evaluation of Postliberalism/Alister E. McGrath

3 Theology, Meaning & Power: A Conversation with George Lindbeck on Theology & the Nature of Christian Difference/Miroslav Volf

Part III Realism & Foundationalism

4 Are Postliberals Necessarily Antirealists? Reexamining the Metaphysics of Lindbeck’s Postliberal Theology/Jeffrey Hensley

5 How Firm a Foundation: Can Evangelicals Be Nonfoundationalists?/Rodney Clapp

6 The Alleged Incorrigibility of Postliberal Theology: Or, What Babe Ruth & George Lindbeck Have in Common/Philip D. Kenneson

7 Relativism, Fideism & the Promise of Postliberalism/David K. Clark

Part ...