On Being a Christian in the Academy

On Being a Christian in the Academy offers a critical appraisal of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s account of faith and knowledge in the light of the philosophy of science, and an application of his thought to the practice of Christian scholarship. Andrew Sloane expounds Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s account of rationality and his understanding of the devising and weighing of theories. Wolterstorff steers a course between the modernist idea of the neutrality and universal power of reason, on the one hand, and the relativism of some postmodern philosophy, on the other. He presents a defensible person-specific but non-relativist criterion of theory choice. The role of control beliefs in scholarship and the place of Christian beliefs in the practice of Christian scholarship are also explored. The book concludes by exploring the implications of these findings for theological scholarship, in particular Old Testament exegesis. The author suggests that Wolterstorff’s notion of scholarly practice explains the practice of scholarship and is to be commended to Christian scholars as a cogent and challenging method of devising and appraising theories.