Who's Afraid of Relativism?: Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood

by James K. A. Smith

  • Year 2014
  • Type Book
  • Genre philosophy
  • Tradition Reformed
  • Original language English

For For students and church leaders who fear relativism and want a careful case for contingency; not for readers new to philosophy.

Should I read this?

For the general reader
2 of 5 worth a look
For the researcher
4 of 5 important
Difficulty
3 of 5 demanding

Wittgenstein, Rorty and Brandom introduced for Christians, arguing that 'it depends' honours our creatureliness rather than denying truth.

How it proceeds
  • Philosophic 4 of 5
  • Scriptural 1 of 5
  • Experiential 0 of 5
  • Sociological 3 of 5
  • Historical 1 of 5

Independent intensities, 0–5 — what the work is made of, not how good it is.

Published by Baker Academic in 2014 in The Church and Postmodern Culture series, this book follows Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? by introducing the philosophical sources behind postliberal theology: the pragmatism of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Rorty and Robert Brandom. Many Christians take relativism to be the opposite of truth and of the gospel. Smith argues that this reaction shows a deeper theological problem, an inability to honour the contingency and dependence of being a creature. Knowing as finite, created, social beings means acknowledging that knowledge depends on its conditions without sliding into arbitrariness; saying 'it depends', he argues, is not saying 'it is not true'. Pragmatism, on this account, helps Christians recover an older appreciation of creaturely contingency.

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Catalog IDW.NAYPBV.G

Edition details and descriptions on this page were compiled with the aid of AI research tools. Readers are encouraged to verify specifics (publisher, translator, edition year) against the originating source before purchase or citation.

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