Regardless though, I realize this is digressing from your original post, because foundationalism is an essentially epistemological theory. I only brought up CTT because of the questioning Cheapham was providing to Casey.

Regardless though, I realize this is digressing from your original post, because foundationalism is an essentially epistemological theory. I only brought up CTT because of the questioning Cheapham was providing to Casey.

Cheapham was asking of Casey some elucidation of his use of the term “truth,” not an elucidation of knowledge. To make the distinction between truth and knowledge clear, consider: P can be true without being believed, and P can be true without any epistemic subjects in the world whatsoever. However, worlds where there are knowledge statements require epistemic subjects, because knowledge statements entail belief statements. What is more though, true statements do not entail knowledge statements. (There is a problem with what I just sketched: Since God is a necessary being, he exists in every possible world, and moreover, God is necessarily an epistemic agent who has beliefs–given his omniscience. Strictly speaking then, there is no possible world where knowledge assertions do not exists. Simple solution: the knowledge I am speaking of in this post is strictly human knowledge, for that is all we are really concerned with.)

Thus, I am making no claim on what knowledge is, only truth. Your claims of contextualization, direct experiences, and the problem of human forms and language are all epistemological problems, not metaphysical. Thus, CTT is helpful for even the radical skeptic who claims we have knowledge whatsoever. You can be a skeptic and claim that there are certain necessary and sufficient conditions for truth, just that we can never come to know when a proposition meets those conditions.

Your last paragraph is my concern. For two reasons:

1. “a foundational framework actually belittles the whole of Christian theology and practice.”
The pragmatics of your PoMo doesn't seem to be different. Aren't you trying to frame, albeit different, your believe. Isn't all believes/philosophies, in part, a construction built on certain principles or values? Don't we have to start SOMEWHERE? I don't see how someone can teach PoMo without starting somewhere (but I know people try!). I don't think it is really about frameworks and foundational starting points–in my mind the most important aspect of apologetics is humility. A humble truth-seeker will lay his beliefs down when confronted with the better. I can see how someone can get frustrated with Wayne Grudem's thinking–but are you really far from him? (side note-systematic theology is still somewhat foreign to me. The schools that I have studied under purposely distanced themselves from systematic teaching. So I feel your frustration here).

2. I really, really liked your connection from Modernity to church practice of essentials/opinions, but I think your thinking is a little off. Maybe perhaps I don't fully understand where you are coming from. But I think Paul addresses many of your statements in his writings. Romans 12-14 addresses weaker brother/stronger brother issues. John writes about the so-called Gnostic teaching that is spreading and says “essentially” to believe this way and not that way.

Now if you are talking about how people have screwed up…fights have broken out…churches divided because of our “opinions” then I think that is more of a statement about our “hearts” then minds. Help me see what you are trying to convey maybe I am not reading you right.

Logic did not come from the Age of Reason or Modernity. People were reasoning their faith way before Luther/Hegel/and Locke.

Henry and Cheapham, you guys are probably sitting together on some couches laughing at me and my ill thinking!

First, Cheapham asks Casey, “What is this ‘truth’ you appeal to?” The notion of true and what makes a proposition true is an extremely thorny and difficult issue, but I would like to suggests this to Casey as a possible answer to Cheapham’s question. Many historical philosophers have held to what is called the correspondence theory of truth (henceforth CTT), and its origins are found in Aristotle and his famous phrase: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” We may define CTT as the following:

CTT: P is a true proposition if and only if P corresponds to the way things actually are—to the facts.

I take the notion of “fact” as primitive, and thus in no need of definition itself. The notion of “correspond” can have some difficulty to it, so there may be some objection there. Two things to note though: First, “truth” in this instance is not a matter of scientific truth. There is no verification needed in order for proposition to be true. Thus, truth is understood in this way as a necessarily external condition that is removed from our cognitive faculties or our scientific endeavors. Second, following from the first claim, CTT is not Modern conception of truth, so we should have no trepidation in that regard. Needless to say, I think CTT is a good starting point to answer Cheapham’s question. What do you all think?

Second, Cheapham queries, “Why must what you ‘believe’ be ‘true’ in this regard (true to whom, by what standard?)?” If Casey were to accept CTT, how would this question be answered? The question “to whom is a proposition true” is a bit ambiguous. In one sense, we could say a proposition P is true to person S if and only P corresponds to reality and S believes that P, i.e. P is true given CTT and S believes P. In other sense, we could take a relative view of truth, which states that P is true for S if and only if S believes P. If we take your question to be understood in the latter since, it becomes a non sequitur given the acceptance of CTT. This also answers your question concerning what the standard of truth is, namely reality itself. Of course you could object to this by holding to some view of metaphysical anti-realism, but that would require a signification amount of corroboration.

Third, why would we want to have beliefs that correspond to actual reality? Prima facie, this strikes me as an odd question, for how could we not want this? Having true beliefs is simply a basic human endeavor. We all desire to have knowledge (however that may be defined), and knowledge entails true belief.

What do you all think?

Bout to moderate a discussion at the BSU, and my bat is at 15%, so this will be short. I'll agree that it might be truncated, but it is what I am concerning myself with. I might get to the other stuff, but I don't want to wander up a tower and forget what I am addressing. I'll certainly try to clairify what I wrote up off the top of my head before I went to bed a few nights ago. What else real quick…. there was something… Oh, something to keep in mind – a lot of this is a pop-culture critique, about how real people, not just 11 thinkers, are doing and thinking about things. Lastly, moving beyond definitional criticisms, what do you think about the larger picture?

“I worry about your formulation of foundationalism and the conclusions you draw from it. You define foundationalism as such:

“Foundationalism is a modernistic epistemological framework which attempts to build a solid foundation of undeniable and fully provable (often by the criteria listed above) truth propositions upon which all other forms of knowledge are built.”

Defining foundationalism this way is too simple and naive. Foundationalism is a complex and multifaceted epistemological theory that can take many forms and be explicated in different ways. Here are some points of contention:

1. Foundationalism is not a modernistic theory per se. Although many modern philosophers held to some form of foundationalism, the philosophical import given to foundationalism has its origins in Aristotle (cf. Posterior Analytics, Bk. l, chap. 2 & 3), and perhaps even Plato (cf. the Third Man argument from the Parmenides, and the discussion of the nature of virtue in the Meno). Moreover, epistemic foundationalism can also be found the works of such medieval greats as Augustine and Aquinas. Finally, there are many contemporary proponents of foundationalism who in no way can be characterized as followers of the early moderns with respect to their philosophical endeavors (e.g. Alvin Plantinga, Alvin Goldman, Michael Bergmann).
Your Venn diagram entails the claim “All foundationlists are modernists.” But this is false given the counterexamples from above. To provide a polemic against foundationalism is really not to argue against a specifically modern theory of which we must disabuse ourselves, but it is really to argue against a theory held by some of the giants of Western philosophy.

2. You claim that all fundamentalists are foundationalists, but foundationalists with respect to what? In order to critique foundationalism, you must be clear what sort of foundationalism you are critiquing, for some are foundationalists with respect to justification, some with respect to warrant, and others with respect to knowledge. Generally, the early moderns are characterized as foundationalists with respect to justification, which I assume is what you are critiquing. Yet you also say that foundationalists build a solid foundation upon which all other forms of knowledge are built (emphasis on “knowledge”). You also later claim, “Many, if not most, evangelical groups subscribe to a Foundationalist framework for building knowledge.” So it is unclear if you are concerned with foundationalism with respect to justification or with respect to knowledge/warrant.

3. Another claim that requires clarification: you say that foundationalism “attempts to build a solid foundation of undeniable and fully provable (often by the criteria listed above) truth propositions…”. However, not all forms of foundationalism require that knowledge/justification rest upon truth claims that are undeniable or fully provable. The specific form of foundationalism you are concerned with is classical (or Cartesian) foundationalism, which is a sub-genre of foundationalism simpliciter. Foundationalism in general (F) is defined as: there are justified/warranted beliefs that justified/warranted not in virtue of being inferred or based on other beliefs. A simpler way of defining F is the claim “there are properly basic beliefs” (i.e. beliefs that are non-inferentially justified/warranted). However, you seem to be only concerned with classical foundationalism, not foundationalism in general. Classical foundationalism (CF) is defined as: there are properly basic beliefs and a belief P is properly basic if and only if P is self-evident or indubitable. Ergo, Descartes claims that the only beliefs that are properly basic are beliefs like “I am having the appearance of red” “I am in pain” “I think”, for all such beliefs are true in virtue of being believed.
This is a serious problem though for how you sketch foundationalism. Your claims are really an attack on CF, but disguised as an attack on F. Many, if not all, of the contemporary philosophers who hold to F have come to reject CF. Consider, as an alternative to classical foundationalism, Reidian foundationalism (namesake of Thomas Reid), which allows for such beliefs as perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, beliefs in God, and even beliefs concerning the inerrancy of Scripture to be properly basic beliefs. Thus, for the fundamentalist Christians who holds to Reidian foundationalism (e.g. many Reformed Christians are Reidian foundationalists), your critique of foundationalism is seen as a gross non sequitur and irrelevant to their views.

4. Given this consideration of Reidian foundationalism, consider your claim: “[Evangelical foundationalists] assert the absolute truth of the Bible, but, because of their unnoticed acceptance of the modernist and foundationalist framework, they feel as though they must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the foundation that is the Bible.” But this claim is false for the adherents to more nuanced forms of foundationalism. In fact, the need to prove the Bible (whatever that means) is no longer necessary for the some foundationalists, since the inerrancy and truth of Scripture is taken as a properly basic claim that requires no substantiation. One can reasonably and justifiably accept the inerrancy of Scripture in the absence of defeaters, despite the fact one may not be able to provide evidence or a proof of that claim.

5. What follows from this then is that systematic theologies no longer must rest upon deductively proven, indubitable truth claims. Rather systematic theologies are not as rigid as you claim, for they can easily be constructed given such common sense beliefs as metaphysical realism, the perspicuity of Scripture, and the faculty of the Holy Ghost who aids and guides us through our discovery of God via his Word. Of course there is a human element to any interpretation of Scripture and our constructions of systematic theologies, but why is that a problem? There is a human element to all of our acquisitions to knowledge, but that doesn’t mean we must be skeptics. The point is that some forms of foundationalism can account for such non-rigid theologies that are continuously being refined and discussed as we learn more about God and His Word (cf. the Reformed creed of semper reformanda).

6. In sum, you conclude: “We need to move beyond Foundationalism, beyond Modernism,” and “The scary thing is that we have to leave modernism behind. Any such task is fought with fear because this necessarily means that we have to be postmodern.” First, I think my points have demonstrated that you have given us no reason to leave foundationalism simpliciter behind, but at best you have only shown the demerits of classical foundationalism. I am interested to see an argument against F, not CF. Second, you state that necessarily, if one rejects modernism, then one accepts post-modernism. However, I find that this claim is dubious, as if we fall under either a modernist and postmodernist paradigm. I think that this formulation of the debate is unfair, for there many examples of historic and contemporary Christian philosophers/theologians who neither modernists nor postmodernists. Even a cursory knowledge of such men as Herman Bavinck, Thomas Reid, and Pietro Vermigli will show this to be the case.”

Your rejoinder to my objections were as follow:

“Travis, you of all people should know the difference between popular descriptions and academic technical ones. I am speaking to a non-technical audience. Besides, your counterexamples only talk to CF, not F, so I am not sure what you were doing there.

In reality, I used Foundationalism to describe Hard Foundationalism, which you probably already knew, given they way I talked about it. And it does trace back to Descartes.

Some Reformed Epistemological, such as Plantinga (as you mention) and Wolterstorff critique Hard Foundationalism. But they really are moving in post-modern directions in that they acknowledge the inevitability of our being situated in a particular community and admit the loss of certitude involved in such a acknowledgment.

And I do define post-modernism as that which rejects major features of modernism. It is certainly too early to set out rigid criteria. I use a simplistic definition, but one that is helpful. And certainly postmodernism is not to be conflated with French poststructualists or remnants of modernism's cultural relativity.

I am referring to hard foundationalist systematic theologies such as Wayne Grundem's, which conflate the scientific inductions from the source material with the source material.”

To your rejoinder I gave the following counter-objections:

“Henry, let me consider your counter-objections in turn.

First, you are right in that I do know the difference between laymen descriptions and academic technical terms. I also know that such terms as “foundationalist,” “modernist,” “post-modernist,” “epistemological,” etc. are philosophical/academic terms, not popular terms. Of course you can take such terms and simplify them to the point of conflation and mischaracterization, but that is neither fair to your audience nor to the view that you wish to criticize. Rather, a discussion of foundationalism, its merits/demerits, and its historical misuse by Christian thinkers (whether they be theologians or laypersons) is by its very nature academic. A discussion of this kind requires rigorous analysis, clear definitions of terms, and distinction upon distinction between the nuances that might be involved within the position you are criticizing. If your audience fails to realize and understand what exactly you are trying to say, then you need to clarify all the more, define all the better. To do otherwise is especially dangerous for an audience who has never been introduced to these theories and views, for if you simplify to the point of mischaracterization, then they leave with misunderstandings and prejudices that are difficult to remove.

Secondly, my counterexamples were to neither CF nor to F, but only to your characterization of foundationalism as essentially modernistic. I remained agnostic in my post with respect to whether CF or F were true or false, but I only was trying to refute the claim “All foundationalists are modernists,” which is exactly what your Venn diagram claimed.

Thirdly, I think it would be a huge misnomer to characterize Reformed epistemology as post-modern. Of course this all depends on how you define postmodernism, which I will await for later. Nevertheless, postmodernism is generally understood as a wholly anti-epistemological thesis that completely denies the reality of objective knowledge. Yet both Plantinga and Wolterstorff are defenders of the possibility of such knowledge, and I think both would take issue to be characterized as postmodern. In fact, Plantinga objects to postmodernism as a defeater for Christianity in chapter 13 of Warranted Christian Belief, while also maintaining that postmodernism (as he understands it) is inconsistent with Christian belief.

Fourthly, if you simply define postmodernism as the rejection of modernism, then I think said theory becomes uninteresting. Since you are going to give a more rigid criteria for a definition for postmodernism later, too much should not be made of this. But at least say that as of right now, you are offering not a definition postmodernism, but simply one of many necessary conditions of post modernism.

Fifthly, you claim that most Christian groups historically have been hard foundationalists. I find that this is at least prima facie false. Classical foundationalism (or as you call it hard foundationalism) has it origins in Descartes, so that to call a thinker prior to the early modern era a classical foundationalist would be a revolutionary new insight into historical philosophy. Moreover, many of the Reformers were beyond the pale of classical foundationalism. Although many talked about the certitude of the core Christian creeds, they were not speaking of a Cartesian certainty that was ostensibly required for their basic beliefs. Thus, this claim you make is in need of some historical corroboration.”

After this post, the comments became rather uninteresting and irrelevant to the debate. So we can just pick up from here.

With regard to the last claim of my counter-objections to your rejoinder, I believe you said that you are were only speaking of hard foundaitonalism with respect to the last 100 years, which is a rather truncated view of the history of foundationalism and philosophical thought in general. If I am wrong about this though, please correct.

As for my other objections, none of been answered as of yet, especially concerning some of my comments about Reidian foundationalism. What are your thoughts?