Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 155:618 (Apr 1998)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Anonymous

BSac 155:618 (Apr 98) p. 227

Periodical Reviews

By the Faculty and Library Staff of
Dallas Theological Seminary

Robert D. Ibach, Editor

“The Impact of Postmodern Thinking on Evangelical Hermeneutics,” J. Robertson McQuilkin and Bradford Mullen, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40 (March 1997): 69-82.

McQuilkin, president emeritus of Columbia International University, and Mullen, associate professor of theology at Columbia International University, articulate and evaluate a horrific and now an all-too-common statement among evangelicals: “We mortals could never be expected to get at the mind of God with accuracy through a written revelation. .. because of the limitations of human language, the blinding effect of preunderstanding, and the cultural encapsulation of the text” (p. 69).

After contrasting the historical evangelical position on the knowability of the objective Scriptures with that of relative degrees of probabilities, McQuilkin and Mullen discuss “Understanding the Book” and “Applying the Book.” In the first division they summarize postmodernism’s thinking about uncertainty, and then they defend the historical evangelical stance on the knowability of God’s revelation. After briefly postulating reasons for the development of postmodernism (pp. 69-70), they assert that postmodernism has resulted in “radical relativism” (p. 70). Postmodernism challenges traditional approaches to the Scriptures by asserting that unchanging, ultimate truth does not exist, that language cannot accurately communicate thought to another person’s mind, and that the controlling element in Bible interpretation is what one brings to the text, so that meaning is subjective. Existentialism may be responsible for manifestations of postmodernism. But whatever the sources, many evangelicals are apparently becoming “moderate relativists.”

Regarding evangelical responses to postmodernism, most evangelicals (a) reject postmodern concepts and embrace God’s existence and other “unchanging, ultimate truths about Him and His world,” (b) affirm that God is able to communicate what is in His mind in an understandable language, and (c) hold that subjective perception does not have to control meaning (p. 71).

McQuilkin and Mullen argue that many evangelicals are becoming “relative relativists” by becoming prey to unhealthy skepticism about biblical interpretation.

BSac 155:618 (Apr 98) p. 228

Historical evangelicals are not claiming they can always perceive and articulate every detail of correlation between a biblical word and its meaning. Nevertheless truth can be apprehended with precision. Several facts support this assertion. First, God’s n...