Here are all the posts in my Theology and Science series so they can be accessed more easily:

Prelude

I. Introduction

II. The Evangelical Love Affair with Modern Science

III. The Poetic Imagination of Objectivity

1. Michael Polanyi (Part 1)
2. Thomas Khun (Part 2)

IV. Theological Perspectives

1. Walter Brueggemann (Part 1)
2. Lesslie Newbigin (Part 2)
3. Stanley Grenz (Part 3)

Conclusion (In Progress)

3. Stanley Grenz: Science and Eschatological Realism

Stanley Grenz has done much in the way of exploring the resources of Christian theology to engage the concerns of the postmodern culture. One key issue that comes to the fore in this discussion is epistemology, particularly the question of epistemological realism. This question has doubtless been floating at some level in the mind of the reader throughout this essay. As Grenz points out, “Christian theology maintains a certain undeniable givenness to the universe.”[1] How then can Christian theology reckon with the postmodern recognition to the situatedness and intersubjectivity of all knowledge? Moreover given the fact that what the dominant rationality presents as objective is often a cloak for ideology as Brueggemann has pointed out, is there any true epistemic access into reality at all?

In answering this question Grenz makes the helpful suggestion that the givenness of the universe “is not that of a static actuality existing outside of, and co-temporally with, our socially and linguistically constructed reality. Rather, seen through the lenses of the gospel, the objectivity set forth in the biblical narrative is the objectivity of the world as God wills it.”[2] Thus the ultimate objectivity of the universe must not be seen in some form of naïve realism in which he have a God’s-eye view of the world as it is now, but “ultimately the ‘objectivity of the world’ about which we can truly speak is an objectivity of a future, eschatological world.”[3] Thus as Grenz argues, the biblical narrative “leads to what we might call an ‘eschatological realism.’”[4]

Viewed through Christian lenses, there is indeed a real universe “out there.” But this reality lies “before,” rather than “beneath” or “around” us. And it is discovered through anticipation, and not merely experimentation…Therefore, the only ultimately valid “objectivity of the world” is that of a future, eschatological world, the “actual” universe is the universe as it will one day be.[5]

Grenz’s proposal offers significant resources toward constructing a viable version of theological realism that deals both with the implications of postmodern thought and preserves the Christian theological emphasis on the givenenss of the universe. We do indeed “see in a mirror darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12) prior to the eschaton.

However, could not Grenz’s proposals be further augmented by a partially realized eschatology in which the age to come has broken into the present in Christ which thus gives us an ‘inaugurated eschatological realism’? Such an understanding of epistemological realism is able to take stock of the noetic effects of sin, creaturely situatedness and intersubjectivity while maintaining that world can indeed be known not only in the future, but also through the presence of the future wrought in the work of Christ and continually made present to the church through the Spirit. Thus an eschatological epistemology is always an ecclesial epistemology in which knowledge of God and the world takes place in the community of the Spirit, which is united with the Son, thereby coming to know the Father. And it is in this dynamic of being brought into the self-knowledge of the Triune God that the church comes to know the world “as it really is” in the Triune life which is its eschatological telos. Thus, in the ecclesial anticipation of the eschaton that is the church we are able, albeit incompletely and imperfectly to know God and the world, purely through the self-gift of the Father in Christ and the Spirit. Thus the social reality we actively receive through the Spirit does indeed allow us to truly know reality, but only as pure the pure gift of the Triune God.[6]

Thus, theologically it should be clear that the resources of biblical eschatology both in its inaugurated and future dimensions offers resources to safeguard a chastened and nuanced from of epistemological realism.[7] Such a paradigm should be sufficient to allay the fears of those that think the position sketched here requires relativism and subjectivism.

2. Conclusion: Theology and Science as Inter-Religious Dialogue?

At this point a final reflection should be sufficient to bring this essay to a close. I submit that dialogue between theology and science should more closely resemble inter-religious dialogue than anything else. Given that both disciplines consist of particular socially embodied traditions with particular ideological commitments, there is little reason to suppose that there should be a great degree of continuity and commensurability between the theological-scientific tradition embodied in the church and that embodied in the scientific community.[8] As Brueggemann has noted, science and theology cannot be dichotomized with one being objective and the other subjective. Rather both forms of discourse are poetic construals of the world that give their allegiance to a particular set of ideals and ideology. In the postmodern context where the poetic and rhetorical basis of all forms of human reasoning are becoming apparent, the poet will become more and more epistemologically basic.[9] While this will again almost certainly sound like rank relativism to modernists, both evangelical and liberal, perhaps this is more due to the fact that our theological articulation of the nature of the world has been so bound to the culture of modernity that what should have sounded like a poetic, imaginative counter-narration of the world based on the revelation of God in Christ, was instead nothing more than a domesticated legitimation of the status quo. That such has been the case will doubtless be denied by those holding to such positions, but that is the normal response of people whose perceived monopoly on rationality and power is called into question. Nevertheless, I maintain on the basis of the above argument that it is important for the church to give up on the modern scientific worldview and it’s conceptualities of objective truth, not because we do not believe our convictions are ultimately and absolutely true, but because such an understanding of truth as being that which any objective, rational person can apprehend has let us off the hook from having to be witnesses. For a Christian understanding of truth must always begin and end with the peculiarity and particularity of Jesus Christ who proclaims “I am the truth” (Jn. 14:6) and that we come to know the truth in and through discipleship that begins with the words, “Follow me” (Lk. 6:27) and ends with the cross. For it is on the cross that the dominant rationality rages against the Crucified. Nevertheless, for those of us who claim that the Crucified has been raised to resurrection life, the dominant rationality need no longer hold sway over our strivings after truth. “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5)

[1] Grenz, Renewing the Center
, 245.

[2] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 245-246.

[3] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[4] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[5] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[6] For a helpful supplement to Grenz’s eschatological realism, see Middleton and Walsh, Truth is Stranger, 141-171.

[7] Consider this in conversation with Brueggemann’s prophetic epistemology. The prophetic epistemology is again connected with eschatological realism in that in the Spirit’s revelation to the prophet the world to come is revealed to the prophet and breaks into the present in the form of a counter-‘as’ in Brueggemann’s terminology.

[8] For what is perhaps the most nuanced, if I think a bit overly optimistic attempt to engage in a critical interdisciplinary approach to theology and science, see Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Three Volumes, Nature, Reality, Theory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001-2003).

[9] See Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet for an exploration of this theme.