Download - Is Carl F. H. Henry a Modernist Theologian?
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CARL HENRYS GOD, REVELATION AND AUTHORITY:
MODERNIST, FOUNDATIONALIST
METHODOLOGY?
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A Paper
Presented to
Dr. Joseph Wooddell
Criswell College
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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for PHI 502
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by
Michael Metts
May 18, 2014
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................1
Modernity and Foundationalism ..................................................................................1
Ren Descartes ....................................................................................................2
John Locke ..........................................................................................................3
Foundationalism ..................................................................................................5
Carl Henry's Theological Method ...............................................................................6
Charges of Foundationalism ........................................................................................9
Postconservative Criticism ..................................................................................9
Postliberal Criticism ..........................................................................................12
Answering the Criticism ............................................................................................13
CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................16
BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................18
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CARL HENRYS GOD, REVELATION AND AUTHORITY:
MODERNIST, FOUNDATIONALIST
METHODOLOGY?
Whether a result of the rapid spread of postmodernism following the linguistic turn in
philosophy, or the growing influence of narrative theologians of the Yale school, evangelical
theologians are becoming increasingly favorable towards postmodern approaches to
understanding Christian doctrine. In this age of postmodern influence, the propositionalism
evidenced in former evangelical theologies has been criticized as modernist, foundationalist
philosophy by recent critics. Chiefly among those criticized is neo-evangelical Carl F. H. Henry
(1913-2003). This paper will examine Henrys theological method for evidences of modernist,
foundationalist philosophical influence, limited in scope to selections from the first and third
volume of his magnum opus, God, Revelation and Authority, and evaluate both postconservative
and postliberal criticisms of his work. The conclusion is that while Henry does display a weak
foundationalist influence, it is of an entirely different sort than the anthropocentric rationalism of
Enlightenment thinkers.
Modernity and Foundationalism
Beginning with the work of geometrician1 and founder of modern philosophy Ren
1On the importance of geometry for Descartes and his philosophy see Colin Brown, From the Ancient
World to the Age of Enlightenment, in Christianity and Western Thought: A History of Philosophers, Ideas and
Movements, vol 1, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1990; reprint 2010) 178-84. Descartess ideal and method
was modelled on mathematics (179). Brown quotes Descartes himself in his modernist and inestimably influential
work Discourse on Method: Those long chains composed of very simple and easy reasonings, which geometers
customarily use to arrive at their most difficult demonstrations, had given me occasion to suppose that all things
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Descartes (1596-1650), but also inclusive of the rationalist empiricist philosopher John Locke
(1632-1704), is a period in which an anthropocentric innate reason came to be seen as the chief
judge of truth; the pursuit of a truth by which all knowledge is to be grounded or founded in
certainty is called foundationalism.
Ren Descartes
Descartes, troubled by the conflicting claims which erupted in the Reformation,
discerned the need for a deeper foundation, a means of establishing certainty and authority that
could act as the proper and exclusive fulcrum of judgment concerning biblical interpretation and
varying traditions.2 It should be observed here that Descartes does not operate as an empiricist,
as does Locke, but solely as an innatist-rationalist. Since Descartes was a studied geometrician,
his philosophy was deeply influenced by the fine exactitude of geometrys developmentally
established theorems and proven axioms. Just as the axioms of geometry were built one upon
another, so would be Descartes method of establishing truth. All that remained was establishing
a point of origin for all subsequent truths, which Descartes found not in God, much to the
detriment of theology, but in his own anthropocentric reason cogito, ergo sum (I think,
therefore I am). That Descartes could doubt demonstrated that he existed indubitably.3 This was
which can fall under human knowledge are interconnected in the same way (179-80).
2W. P. Abraham, epistemology, religious, in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian
Thought, ed. Alister E. McGrath, et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) 156. Calvinist theologian and philosopher Gordon
Haddon Clark writes the following concerning Cartesian philosophy: if only a single point be found solid, then like
Archimedes we can move the universe. The meaning is that the beginning foundationalist point acts as authoritative
and certain for subsequent axioms within the system, all of which can be demonstrated as truthful. Clark, The Works
of Gordon Haddon Clark, Christian Philosophy, vol. 4 (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), 141.
3If we are deceived, we must be thinking; and if we think, we exist it is impossible to deny I am
thinking without thinking. Since doubting is a form of thought, I cannot doubt that I think without thinking the
doubt. I think, therefore, is an indubitable truth. Clark, The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark, 142.
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the first principle of his philosophy as he explains in his Discourse on Method:
But immediately I noticed that while I am trying thus to think everything false, it was
necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something. And observing that this truth I am
thinking, therefore I exist was so firm and sure that all the most suppositions of the
sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the
first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.4
The existence of God as a perfect being was Descartes second principle and the
effects of this subordination would become forcibly prescriptive for the discipline of theological
science until the present day.5 It was as a rationalist, therefore, that Descartes main argument
for the existence of God was a restatement of Anselms ontological argument.6 In the Age of
Reason, God came to be grounded in proofs established by the mind of man.
John Locke
Locke continued heavily in the rationalist tradition of Descartes. As a rationalist-
empiricist Locke also grounded the existence of God in the power of the human intellect to the
end that the truths of theism were seen according to reason, rather than revelation.7 To be fair,
Locke does allow room for divine revelation though to what degree is debated but reason
4Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment, 180; quoting Descartes, Discourse on
Method, Part 4.
5Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment, 181. Cf. also Abraham, epistemology,
religious, 156, reason becomes the foundation upon which the whole of Christian theology has to be erected
methodically.
6Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment, 182. Concerning Anselm, however,
Descartes failed to recognize that the intellectual feats of the Proslogion operated within the context of faith
seeking understanding. Cf. Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 6 vols. (Waco, TX: Word Books,
1976-83; reprint Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999) 1:300: the Anselmic tendency commended the ontological
argument to later modern philosophers aligned in revolt against special revelation.
7Abraham, epistemology, religious, 157. In John Locke we see how a deeply pious Christian and
philosopher works out a rational case for Christianity. The cosmological and teleological arguments prove the
existence of God; so the truth of theism is according to reason (157).
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must be judge and guide in everything.8 The order of operations, to put it in one sense, is
understanding seeking faith rather than the reverse which is the hallmark of any evangelical
theological tradition certainly the hallmark of a neo-evangelical heritage.
Like Descartes, Locke was also troubled by the many religious opinions of his day.
This existence of so many different and conflicting opinions was partly cause for his important
work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Noted philosopher Alvin Plantinga explains
Lockes influential work as follows:
The Essay was Lockes attempt to do what he could to put matters right. Book IV, Of
Knowledge and Probability, is the end of the book both in comprising the last three
hundred pages or so and in dealing with the question whose resolution is Lockes goal; and
even in book IV he spends another two hundred pages before explicitly addressing it. That
main question is: how should we regulate our opinions with respect to belief in general? In
particular, how should we regulate our opinion with respect to religious belief?9
Locke was further knowledgeable of Newtonian science which understood the
universe in a closed, mechanistic causal manner; and mindful of the implications of Newtonian
science concerning the possibility of miracles.10
Miracles such as resurrection were understood
by Locke to be above reason, meaning that the trustworthiness of their propositions could not
8Abraham, epistemology, religious, 157. Cf. also Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of
Enlightenment, 222: Locke rejected the rationalist idea that the mind had stamped on it from birth certain primary,
self-evident notions. He likewise repudiated the idea, found in Cicero by Calvin and his followers, that human
beings have a sense of the deity inscribed on their hearts. Brown quotes Locke, An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, 4.18.2: Reason is the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths, which
the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas, which it has got by the use of its natural faculties, viz. by
sensation or reflection.
9Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 74.
(Emphasis original.)
10Newtons laws of motion helped to establish the mechanical view of the universe which dominated
physics down to modern times. Newtons Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) gave an account
not only of the motion of bodies on the earth but throughout the universe. Newtons views raised big questions for
theology. Where did God fit into this mechanistic world? Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of
Enlightenment, 218.
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be established by reason.11
Foundationalism
It is clear from the two aforementioned modernists that mans own innate reason is
both generative and formative for propositional beliefs, and that this rationalism should operate
under such conditions that any knowledge or belief claim made by a person must be
authoritatively founded so as to be indubitable to his or her modern mind. Due to the nature of
foundationalism, axioms of knowledge which form a part of any intellectual structure are only
upheld when the source of such knowledge is indubitably grounded. Descartes used the
metaphor of building knowledge on an absolute foundation, hoping to free us from tradition-
based knowledge.12
And according to Locke, a belief is acceptable only if it is either itself
certain with respect to propositions that are certain for me.13
The principle at work in the rationalist philosophy of both Descartes and Locke is
simply a critical concern to establish a proposition on the basis of another which is
unquestionably sound beyond criticism. However, evidenced within the foundationalism of
Descartes and Locke is a rationalist effort for founding knowledge within an anthropocentric
standard of universal reason; meaning that truthful propositions cannot be located externally
from mans own independent creaturely ability to rationalize.14
Rationalism is operative in
11Brown, From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment, 224. See also Clark, The Works of
Gordon Haddon Clark, 142, who writes: Lockes view of revelation may be a little too complicated, or possibly too
disguised, to describe accurately. Although he seems to have admitted the fact of revelation, some interpreters judge
it to be grudging admission.
12David K. Clark, To Know and Love God: Method for Theology, Foundations of Evangelical Theology
Series (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003) 153.
13Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 81.
14Cf. Alvin Plantinga, The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology, in Christian Scholars Review
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relation to the thinking subject and must be governed by the modern mind, and this, as noted
above, includes the truths of theistic beliefs. Revelation springs forth from mans reason
Carl Henrys Theological Method
No matter what starting point a reader may choose, it rapidly becomes apparent when
reading God, Revelation and Authority that Henry identifies any means of discerning truth which
does not posit at first divine revelation as fundamentally flawed. Before examining the structures
of his theological method, a few points concerning Henrys work will help reveal his reasons for
criticizing modernity and the compromises of its rationalistic and anthropocentric
foundationalism.
According to Henry, Descartes mistakenly proclaims mans own ego, or individual
intelligence, as the first certainty.15
The fundamental distinction between Henrys methodology
and any modernist one is identified by this claim more than anywhere else it is found here.
Henrys concern is not expressive of a disinterest in philosophy or philosophers, on the contrary
he understands both philosophy and theology to operate within the same plane of objective
reference;16
his concern is rather indicative of a proper Christian appreciation for an externalist
divine revelation standing sharply opposed to any anthropocentric innatism such as that found in
the foundationalism of Descartes.17
Whereas modernity posited mans own rational and
epistemic faculties as the grounds of authority and certainty, Henry grounds certainty in divine
11 no. 3 (1982): 187-198.
15Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:302.
16Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:200.
17Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:76, 301-8.
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revelation.18
The truths of God and therefore of his creation are divinely granted to the divinely
enabled knower. But this is not to deny that an atheist or agnostic might have true knowledge of
the natural, created world. A lengthier account of Enlightenment rationalism seen opposed to
revelation is given by Henry in volume three and may help to clarify the difference:
There was never a denial that the mind of man has the power, on which recent modern
knowledge-theory concentrates, of conceptually ordering phenomenal realities or sense
impressions in a creative way. But the human mind was not considered to be constructive of
the order of external reality. As the source of created existence, the Logos of God grounded
the meaning and purpose of man and the world, and objective reality was held to be
divinely structured by complex formal patterns. Endowed with more than animal
perception, gifted in fact with a mode of cognition not to be confused with sensation, man
was therefore able to intuit intelligible universals; as a divinely intended knower, he was
able to cognize, within limits, the nature and structure of the externally real world.19
So, against a modernist internalist grounding of truth, Henry propounds that God has
revealed himself. There are in fact ontic referents to the knowing individual since he is within
Gods created world; is himself a creature of this creation; and is in fact created in the image of
God. Henry writes, Reason is a divinely gifted instrument enabling man to recognize revelation
or truth. He can do this because by creation he bears the image of God (Gen. 1:26), and is
specially lighted by the divine Logos (John 1:9)20
This understanding of Henry's subsumes
the entire Enlightenment project within an anthropocentric logos (or reason), showing man to be
lost in his own efforts at rationalizing the natural world apart from divinely granted revelation.
Rightly understood, divine revelation for Christians is a philosophical a priori, and not a
subjective conclusion of human reasoning.21
18Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:213-224.
19Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 3:167.
20Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:228.
21Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:201: The Christian revelation is not to be confronted by
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The first three criteria of Henrys theological method are of primary importance for
understanding Henry: (1) God in his revelation is the first principle of Christian theology, from
which all the truths of revealed religion are derived; (2) Human reason is a divinely fashioned
instrument for recognizing truth; it is not a creative source of truth; and (3) The Bible is the
Christians principle of verification.22
These criteria do function, in a sense, foundationally for
Henry and his subsequent theses concerning theology, but there are critical distinctions between
the sort of modernist epistemologies observed beforehand and the grounding of knowledge that
Henry conceptualizes.
Henry sees himself standing within an evangelical theological tradition beginning with
Augustine followed by Anselm, Luther and Calvin.23
Each of these theologians enshrine a faith
seeking understanding approach, in one fashion or another, where the epistemic knower is
divinely gifted with reasoning faculties which by design include knowledge of the objective
created world, of God himself, and of others. Gods revelation is what is foundational if the
critic insists that Henry evidences such an epistemology and man by created design is able to
rationalize, not of his own innate potential, but as consequence of his operative creaturely
faculties gifted to him by the Creator. Authority is established, therefore, clearly by God and
revelation. Hopefully, then, the reader of Henry is able to understand the meaning of his projects
title: God, Revelation and Authority. More desirable would be for the reader to see Henry as
already prescribed philosophical conceptions to which its content must be conformed.
22Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:215, 1:225, and 1:229.
23Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:76-7, 183-4, 303-4, 288-300, 322, 323-43.
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establishing as part of evangelical Christian identity a theology clearly owing no debts to the
works targeted modernist opponents who champion a very obvious different rationality.
Charges of Foundationalism
There have been numerous objections to Henrys work categorizing him as a
rationalist, foundationalist, or propositionalist, each understood in the modernist sense or as
influenced by it; and this is so despite the incredible aforementioned labors of Henry to present
his work in the traditions of Augustine and the Reformers, and, more particularly, as a corrective
to the modernist innatism of Cartesian indebted speculative philosophies. Several critics are
presented here, all of which evidence a clear absence of a careful understanding of Henry in this
regard; the reader finds, rather, a readiness by critics to categorize Henry within an outdated fold
of theologians whose work is considered foundationalist philosophy, chiefly headed by the Old
Princetonian Charles Hodge. Critics of Henry, then, can be divided into one of two camps: (1)
The postconservative camp, including Henry H. Knight III, Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke,
and Roger E. Olson. And (2) the postliberal camp, including George A. Lindbeck and Hans W.
Frei.
Postconservative Criticism
Henry H. Knight III, a postconservative evangelical theologian, writes the following
of conservatives: The propositionalist approach, while seeking to be faithful to scripture, has
been led by its apologetic concern to embrace many of the presuppositions of the
Enlightenment.24
Knight continues his criticism by primarily targeting Henry as the crown
24Henry H. Knight III, A Future for Truth: Evangelical Theology in a Postmodern World (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1997) 90.
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thinker of such approaches and explicitly associates his theological method with Cartesianism.
He states:
Such rationalism enshrines the Cartesian mind/body dualism within theology, and defines
revelation as the mind of God communicating information to the human mind. The essence
of the imago Dei and presumably of God is rationality, understood as a cognitive and
logical capacity.25
While the connection with Descartes is qualified more fairly than certain other critics, an
obviously absent distinction between the innatism of Cartesian philosophy and the externalist
and divinely gifted rationality in the understanding of Henry is confronting. The reader may also
be excused for wondering how critics like Knight make the connection between Henry and
Descartes to begin with, when the former has written extensively critical of the latter and is
solely concerned to correct his philosophical speculative influence. It seems that it is Henrys
propositional understanding of Scripture that incriminates him as a Cartesian:
If revelation is both rational and true, then Henry believes that it must also be in the
form of propositions. A proposition is a verbal statement that is either true or false; it is a
rational declaration capable of being either believed, doubted, or denied. () It is no
surprise, then, that Henry finds the Bible to be essentially composed of propositions 26
propositionalists often see themselves as the defenders of historic Christianity against the
corrosive forces of modernity. Certainly that is their intent. They are apt to see those who
question strict inerrancy as capitulating to modern relativism and abandoning objective
truth27
In their mutual criticism against foundationalism, postfoundationalists Stanley J.
Grenz and John R. Franke also identify Descartes foundationalism with late nineteenth and
25Knight, A Future for Truth, 91.
26Knight, A Future for Truth, 88; citing Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 3:456.
27Knight, A Future for Truth, 90.
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twentieth-century evangelical propositionalist theologies, connecting Henry with them.28
The
claim is made that such theology is buoyed by the assumptions of modernity.29
Also likening
Henrys method to that of Hodge, Grenz and Franke criticize:
conservative theologians also searched for a foundation for theology that could stand
firm when subjected to the canons of a supposedly universal human reason. Conservatives
came to conclude that this invulnerable foundation lay in an error-free Bible, which they
viewed as the storehouse for divine revelation. Hence, the great Princeton theologian,
Charles Hodge, asserted that the Bible is free from all error, whether of doctrine, fact, or
precept. This inerrant foundation, in turn, could endow with epistemological certitude, at
least in theory, the edifice the skilled theological craftsman constructed on it.30
A lengthy case is presented demonstrating conservative evangelical theology, wrongly thinking
itself as an heir of Reformation epistemology, is actually none other than a modernist
foundationalism indebted to the rationalist philosophy of Descartes.31
This is said to be the case
because an inerrant Scripture forms the foundation for Henrys theological truth claims, rather
than God and creaturely epistemic realities of reason. However, the error free Bible that Grenz
and Olson want to posit within Henrys foundationalism is rather the result of it, and developed
within the context of a greater, more foundational theological method. But in defense of their
own postfoundationalist theology, they write:
Above all, however, postmodern, chastened rationality entails the rejection of
epistemological foundationalism. In the modern era, the pursuit of knowledge was deeply
influenced by the thought forms of the Enlightenment, with foundationalism lying at its
heart. The goal of the foundationalist agenda is the discovery of an approach to knowledge
that will provide rational human being with absolute, incontestable certainty regarding the
truthfulness of their beliefs. According to foundationalists, the acquisition of knowledge
28Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern
Context (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) 3-54.
29Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 13.
30Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 34.
31Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 29-35.
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ought to proceed in a manner somewhat similar to the construction of a building.
Knowledge must be built on a sure foundation.32
Roger E. Olson is one more critic of foundationalism who shows sentiment for the
work of Grenz and Franke and their postfoundationalist criticism of Henry.33
As for his own
criticism, Olson somewhat equivocally writes,
Although Henry was not a classical rationalist in the Cartesian sense he did tend to
elevate reason to a special governing role in Christian theology and he regarded revelation
as primarily an intellectual phenomenon. According to Henry, Divine revelation is a
mental activity. For him, Gods self-revelation is an intelligible disclosure that possesses
propositional expressibility, which makes it amenable to rational systematization. He
eschewed any probabilistic approach to theology and sought for certainty for theologys
conclusions (doctrines) based on logical deduction from foundational axioms.34
Again, indebtedness to Descartes is posited of Henry indirectly through identifying
both thinkers with rationalist foundationalism, while also neglecting an explicit demonstration of
how such a connection is made other than to generalize about Henrys rationalist theological
method.
Postliberal Criticism
Probably more influential of the theological methodological mood in evangelical
theology than any sincere desire to move beyond an understood and operative modernist
rationalism is the book highly regarded within evangelical circles: The Nature of Doctrine.35
George A. Lindbecks own method, as more conservative critics have properly assailed, is in
32Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 23.
33Roger E. Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming: The Postconservative Approach to Evangelical
Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) 130-1.
34Olson, Reformed and Always Reforming, 130.
35George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, 25th
Anniversary ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2009).
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essence a sociological impression of religious community rules without much remaining for
attribution to divine revelation. Doctrines have propositional value only within believing
communities, or propositional values only in a strict functionalist sense.36
But attempting to
understand how objective truth might function within such a model clearly initiates confusion
when it is recognized that different communities believe different things.
Lindbecks work has had a far reaching impact in the discussion of both ecumenism
and theological method, even within evangelicalism as some pockets become increasingly
favorable of sociological and communal models of theological doctrine, e.g., Grenz and Franke,
against a divinely revealed, rationally intelligible model such as found in the work of Henry.
Why this is so continues to impress anyone who observes theology to include in any meaningful
way divine revelation. For, what is revealed becomes essential to doctrine as opposed to what a
religious community might value. But this is getting too far ahead.
With his colleague Lindbeck, Hans W. Frei also dismisses Henry, criticizing his
method as foundationalism. Writing of Henry, Frei states: the basic affirmation [is] that
theology must have a foundation that is articulated in terms of basic philosophical principles.37
Answering the Criticism
While critics are united in their association of Henry with foundationalist rationalism,
and perhaps they are correct to a degree, their criticisms seem to regard only the form of Henrys
method and not its specific content; content which might go a long way in providing clues as to
why Henry dismisses his so-called modernist philosophical parentage. Of course in philosophy
36Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 50-1.
37Hans W. Frei, Types of Christian Theology, ed. by George Hunsinger and William C. Placher (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) 24.
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one is always philosophizing, even when one thinks otherwise, and Henry is no exception. But
is it right to dismiss so readily as simply modernistic foundationalism a project as extensive as
God, Revelation and Authority simply because it bears some semblance in structure with
foundationalist philosophy, without looking more closely at the internal workings which might
explain such a similarity? Is such similarity only superficial?
For some critics who are so poorly read of Henry, the assumption is that the
foundation upon which he builds is the inerrancy of Scripture. Henry is camped with those who
espouse an unassailable and bulletproof textbook for scientific and propositional compilation,
devoid of any meaningful emotive aspects of religious authority. Again, it invites curiosity on the
part of the student, however, to question how such conclusions are reached, for they are not
reached certainly by reading God, Revelation and Authority. Gods general revelation of himself
to the rational conscience of every man is what is foundational for Henry, i.e., the imago Dei, not
the inerrant Scriptures. In the ordering of his volumes it is no mistake that the subject of
inerrancy in Henrys work does not arise for definite treatment until volume four, which is
certainly a delayed treatment for any theologian who might regard such doctrine as foundational
for all his subsequent theological theorems. Such ordering would be tantamount to placing
prolegomena after treating the dogmas of God and Scripture perhaps creation as well.
Henrys theological, philosophical structuralization of revealed biblical theism, as he
likes to refer to it, also follows no clear pattern of basing one proposition upon another in the
manner of the geometrist mind of Descartes or subsequent internalist speculative philosophies. It
may be granted, however, that to a certain degree such statements of Henry as follows do
evidence a very broad foundationalist structure:
Divine revelation is the source of all truth, the truth of Christianity included; reason is the
instrument for recognizing it; Scripture is its verifying principle; logical consistency is a
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negative test for truth and coherence a subordinate test. The task of Christian theology is
to exhibit the content of biblical revelation as an orderly whole.38
This is, according to Henry, his governing theological method in concentrated form.
While such methodology may evidence a degree of foundationalism, it could only be a very
weak form as opposed to the strong foundationalism resulting from the troubled conscience of
Descartes. But to this the critical mind beckons us: Do we all not, as Alvin Plantinga has written,
have a sort of noetic structure that believes some things on the basis of others? Is not
foundationalism to a certain extent part of common sensibilities, understood in no
philosophically distinguished way? Even in the carefully written work of Grenz and Franke one
finds language betraying weak foundationalist philosophical influence, such as their view that
the church functions, as in Lindbeck, as a basis in establishing doctrinal values. In fact, the
term basis appears numerous times throughout the postfoundationalist work of Grenz and
Franke, and frequently in the form of very telling interrogative sentences such as on what basis
something critically can be held. The term is also found in critical subheadings and in
conclusions to critical motifs. In their chapter on the community as an integrative motif, The
Basis of Theology is observed as a subheading; and again in the chapter on eschatology, The
Basis for an Eschatological Theology.39
38Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 1:215. (Emphasis original.)
39Grenz and Franke, Beyond Foundationalism, 232, 252. Additional mention of basis is found in the
following places: 90, Reading the Bible as one canon forms the basis of reading the texts of the Hebrews as
Christian scripture, and it suggests what constitutes the interpretive center for reading both Testaments together.;
160, But on what basis and in what sense can we speak of culture as the voice of the Spirit?; 253, We maintain,
therefore, that an eschatological theology is closely connected to the biblical narrative. But on what basis can we
make this claim?; 259, We have outlined as well the basis for the claim that the way toward an eschatological
theology leads through the biblical narrative, the story of Gods action in history, which cradles the Christian
community. There are at least twenty additional uses of the term in their work in the sense revealed here. Are we
really beyond foundations if we still need to base components of an evangelical theology?
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But all of this misses the point. Henry has labored to establish philosophical
categories for theological truth, a Christian philosophy of ontology, epistemology, axioms, etc.,
and not as a foundationalist but in accordance with long recognized truths, such as God as
Creator, man as made in his image, man as an intelligible, thinking, and reflective creature, and
revelation as cognitive, rational communication. The universal rationality of man and his clear
ability to think reflectively, critically and intelligibly, was the will of the Creator who gifted man
with such abilities. With critics nowhere showing appreciation for Henrys content and the
notion that it may be driving perceived foundationalism, rather than the reverse, one question in
particular becomes gravitational: Why have we dismissed his work? It presses the student to
wonder if postconservative evangelical critics are simply yielding to the critical pressures of the
university postmodern ethos by acquiescing to the hazardous path forward charted by
postliberals. For it is within the anti-authoritative ethos of postmodernism that the critique of
reason extends beyond the works of any source and applies directly to the point of origin for any
source; meaning, perhaps, Henry has been discredited, not because of any contradiction
discoverable within his work, but because the postmodernist critique circumnavigates the work
in question and applies itself directly to the thinking mind operative behind it. This is clearly
incompatible with Christianity which without question understands truth only with a capital t.
Conclusion
By dismissing it based on form without regard for its content, the work of Henry will
continue to haunt conservative evangelicals who have capitulated with the postmodernist ethos
and have no demonstrable or agreed means of progressing forward of their own making within
such an ethos; and no means by which divine revelation can function authoritatively within the
sphere of creation. As both a philosopher and a theologian Henry answers speculative modernist
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philosophies while providing structure for an evangelical mind that is biblical, defensible, and
incorporative of reason.
While he may be identified as a weak foundationalist, the student of Henry wonders if
his shallow dismissal by critics may somewhat mirror the early churchs dismissal of Aristotle,
before Augustine saw fit to plunder the Egyptians and retake all truth as Gods, thus saving
classicism in the process. Like Aristotles later renewal in medieval theology, the critics may
find that their dismissal of Henry will only result in his return at a later time to become
influentially formative again for future evangelical theologies.
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