Journal: Trinity Journal
Volume: TRINJ 10:2 (Fall 1989)
Article: Review Article Rationality, Objectivity, And Doing Theology: Review And Critique Of Wentzel Van Huysteen’s Theology And The Justification Of Faith
Author: John S. Feinberg

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TrinJ 10:2 (Fall 1989) p. 161

Review Article
Rationality, Objectivity, And Doing Theology:
Review And Critique Of
Wentzel Van Huysteen’s
Theology And The Justification Of Faith

John S. Feinberg

TRINITY EVANGELICAL DIVINITY SCHOOL
DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the views, Wentzel van Huysteen’s recent work Theology and the Justification of Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989 [$18.95]) is a most significant book. Theologians often claim that the enterprise of doctrinal formulation bears affinity to theory formation in science, but seldom has there been a concentrated and extended attempt to bring to bear the findings of epistemology and philosophy of science on the task of doing theology. Van Huysteen’s book does just that and much more.

Generally speaking, the question at issue in this book is whether and how it is possible to do any human conceptual enterprise (theology, exegesis, science, philosophy, history, e.g.) in an objective way (i.e., without so coloring the results by one’s predispositions that one can never really attain the truth but only work out the implications of his presuppositions), or whether all such undertakings must be so prone to subjectivity that decisions about who is ultimately right and wrong are impossible. More specifically, van Huysteen claims that before asking those questions (questions which themselves reflect a certain model of rationality, a model which is wrong), we must first ascertain what terms like “rationality,” “objectivity,” “subjectivity,” and “truth” even mean. Typically, science and other disciplines have understood them in one way, but van Huysteen intends to show that such a way (as well as other proposals) is wrong and must be replaced by another model of rationality. Van Huysteen defines a rationality model as “a conceptual framework adopted by a person or a group in order to ex-

TrinJ 10:2 (Fall 1989) p. 162

plain what criteria are needed to make a particular model of thought qualify as rational.”1

Though one might think van Huysteen intends to offer the right model for understanding all our data about God, that is not so. In fact, van Huysteen’s view entails that there is no such thing, at least no such thing that anyone currently possesses or is ever likely to possess. Instead, his goal is to work toward a model of rationality which will tell us how to construct and assess our models for understanding the data about God (i.e., how to assess our overall theologies). In so doing, he believes that the questions about whether theology (or any other conceptual enterprise) can be done objectively so that participant...

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